Recent content by waverley47

Chance would be a fine thing. Approximately six months after the line reopened, I had a lovely meeting with an MP, rather rudely asking me exactly why the line hadn't made it to his town. Two years previously, I'd sat in a meeting with the same gentleman explaining to him that as the...

Unfortunately one of the reasons this one is taking so long is that a lot of the technology is proprietary, and very new. This order will be the largest single order of BEMUs to date anywhere on the planet, as far as I'm aware. There has been an order for the DART across the Irish Sea, with...

I think I'm limited by what I can say on that one, unfortunately. I can say though, it's not an unexpected number

I can confirm that the relevant bidders have been informed. I am not at liberty to disclose the list, but there is a draft public statement sitting there should the bidders and the government consent to it being made public.

The number of 197s has been updated, but I'm not going to be keeping track of the various refurbishments unfortunately; there's just too many sporadic changes happening to reasonably keep track of. I entered the 175s being cycled through Wolverton as an exception, as that's an integral part of...

Updated July 2026 to reflect 350s to Northern, and updated numbers of introduced units. Let it not be said that I am omniscient, I am rarely down south of the Thames and I've been busy with consultation work for things going on north of the border. I can only keep track and update the list...

Honestly, the Scottish government doesn't have any interest in connecting the areas on the 'English' side of the hills, that being Newcastleton, Langholm and down the areas down the Esk and Liddel valleys, with England, using a railway line that they pay for. The population of the entire...

There was never going to be a turning facility at Tweedbank. Running double headed would also incur severe (<10mph) speed penalities down the Gala valley. It is also correct that it was specified with 2tph in each direction, and running a charter midweek would mean cancelling a service train...

Indeed. It's commercially sensitive, and the methodology, which I have talked through and explained in some ways on here previously, is all proprietary. I wouldn't expect any such study to outline projected ridership numbers in the public domain, although given my position now, I am able to...

Bald Rick is right, but this is also right. Pax numbers from Brunstane were never that high to begin with, number from Eskbank and Newtongrange are a bit lower than predicted, mainly due to competition with the ever expanding empire of Lothian Buses, and numbers from Stow and further out are...

Yes that is the case. The diversionary route is there, but you're hobbling the entire local service for half the Fife circle for up to a year. Those are some very important commuter flows, and it's not immediately clear that such commuters wouldn't be lost to bus permanently after such a long...

It's in a decent condition, but adding the weight of conductor rail, which is reasonably heavy itself, and masts to the already quite strict weight limits over the high girders might put too much weight down through the columns for the structures team to be comfortable with, hence necessitating...

Kinghorn Tunnel would take the best part of a couple of years on its own. The tunnel reboring took seven months, but that was after close to two years of ground investigations and preparations, and that was with a second tunnel to operate a single line working system. For the duration of the...

The problem.of course being that it's unreasonable to expect a piece of kit to function with the same performance and reliability in all possible conditions. When contacts are let, or infrastructure built, the actual documentation will usually specify a given reliability in "normal expected...

The ECML works were a preemptive measure, and the ECML carries the majority of cross-border traffic, and carried a not insignificant amount of freight at the time. The Alloa - Dunfermline line carries no regular traffic, and hasn't since the reopening of the line to Alloa meant coal trains to...