Recent content by TRIAR

Can anyone shed some light on why TV signallers have a penchant for pathing late running freight trains immediately in front of express passenger services that are running on time? My understanding was (i) an on-time class 1 should generally have priority over a class 4 and (ii) once you've lost...

Thanks for the insight - clearly a lot of thought goes into the timetabling process (Grayling take note). Would love to know what your models say about the following points that have always puzzled me: 1) Why is it such a bad idea to run some ex Didcot stoppers fast (i.e. on the UM) from TLH...

Wow, you really have swallowed the GWR marketing spin. Take a look at: - GWR Website (HST Seating diagram): It doesn't list coach F for obvious reasons, but assuming this is equal to the smallest STD class coach I get (76+84+72+84+84+72+24+47) = 543 seats. - 387 brochure on the Porterbrook...

To coin a phrase: "it's not all about length, but what you do with it" (I'm talking about seats). The longer 4-car EMU you refer to actually has fewer seats than the 3-car rumbling Turbo it is replacing. GWR issue is they are running too many services as 4-car EMUs, rather than 8 or 12. Hence...

So the big GWR relaunch is now upon us, we have wires to Didcot, new EMUs have been delivered and the GWR marketing machine is primed and ready to go. Trouble is, I can't see this relaunch having any significant impact on GWR's number one problem, which is lack of capacity. I accept that most...

Can someone explain why, in 2017, we have the situation where the fastest morning peak train London -> Norwich (~115 miles) takes 1hr and 44min (with 2 stops), whereas the the similar London -> Bristol Parkway (~112 miles - also 2 stops) is 25mins quicker? Both have 2 stops, both are HSTs...

Perhaps the penny has finally dropped that they're better off concentrating resources to complete the core routes, rather than the scatter-gun approach of old (i.e. wasting time on the B&H)? A good example is the work around Sonning Cutting & Reading station at present. They 'only' need to...

As it's Friday, what are the more amusing delay announcements you've either made of heard over the years? I'll start the ball rolling with two that stick in my mind from FGW days: This train has been delayed due to an owl This train is delayed because the train behind us has broken down...

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I don't think the recent electrification announcement makes that much difference to rolling stock requirements. My prediction is:- - the Oxford stoppers will become Didcot stoppers and still be served by 387s - everything that was originally going...

Thanks - although TBH that's confused me further given that the Hereford train departs P4 and goes down the main, whereas the Cholsey train departs P5 and goes down the relief. More to the point, why is it timetabled to sit at the platform at CHO for 7 minutes? I thought after DID that the...

Just curious why the weekday 07:05 departure from Didcot to London is timetabled to take 15mins to reach its first stop at Cholsey, which is a journey that only takes 5mins at any other point in the day. It's not like it's building up a buffer to allow for future delay, as it sits at CHO for...