Recent content by thedbdiboy

There are so many things that are different - not least the enormous reduction in fatalities and serious injuries on both the roads and on the railway compared to the past. It's all very well being nostalgic about the good old days when the philosophy was 'accidents will happen' and having...

Can you point to where it says that? It shouldn't; although we're talking edge cases, if you have to abandon your journey enroute due to failure of the train service, you do not have to prove you returned to your starting point. In this case, although it's a bit extreme, technically I suppose it...

GBR procurement and RDG are very different processes. RDG was (is) ATOC and managed/answerable to TOCs, whereas GBR is DfTO/DfT led. Obviously itself no guarantee of the outcome, I'm just pointing out that it's not the same thing.

They weren't withdrawn because of the Sex Discrimination Act, Photocards (introduced around 1983/4) made the need for the W stamp redundant. Unlike Ladies only compartments, there was no discrimination involved - same ticket, same price, valid only for the person to whom it was issued. It was...

The ticket office schemes for wheeelchair users and blind people predate everything else aimed at disabled passengers and those with assistance needs, back in the days when everything had to be bought at a ticket office and wheelchair users were normally placed in the guards van - no ramps, no...

Until the rebuilding of Blackfriars in the early 2000s, the most regular use of the spur was for ECS movements - it was used regularly Mon-Fri by the ECS movements for the Chatham line peak Cannon St workings which reversed via Blackfriars to access Grove Park sidings. Here's a grainy shot from...

The pernicious use of railway slang goes back many years. Back in the early 80s there was an incident that got picked up for internal briefing whereby trains were suspended for some reason on the Euston-Watford line (known in railway circles as the 'New Line' or the 'DC line'). This resulted in...

The future arrangements are indeed irrelevant to this case. The issues that caused it can be addressed in the future arrangements if there is proper alignment of the legal structure and the consumer offer. There is no principle in law that prevents terms and conditions of a product restricting...

Under GBR, the concept of TOCs disappears and the legal structure that underpins how TOCs operate will be superseded. So it won't be the same, but it takes time to change.

Hang on, I'm just trying to provide some observations/facts in respect to the specific situation. This doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with me! No TOC in their current structure is going to swerve closing a revenue protection loophole because it makes split ticketing harder in some cases...

Split ticketing is, and always has been the right to use combinations of tickets where they are available and are used in compliance with the NRCoT. There is no requirement to offer tickets or fares in specific formats for the sole purpose of enabling their use in split ticketing transactions.

It's not blocking all e-tickets, it's blocking flows (origin-destination pairs). To take a high profile example on another TOC, Vauxhall-Waterloo has Oyster/Contactless, so there is virtually no inconvenience to real customers by blocking e-tickets.

Whether something applies to the UK (which includes Northern Ireland) Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) or country specific will depend on the powers attached to the relevant legislation. Just because the DfT is based in Westminster it does not make it the 'UK Government' for transport...

Transport is a devolved matter and so that's a matter for Transport Scotland rather than DfT/Westminster.

One of the unwritten rules of being a TOC MD is the requirement to walk the plank when things go wrong. The position holds the accountability regardless of where the direct responsibility lies. It's priced into the job, so to speak.