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Operations have got significantly worse since First took over. Almost from the first week! What are they doing so differently that would cause such a deterioration?

Even by the abysmal standards of London Overground’s Mildmay Line, this week’s service has been shocking. Dozens of cancellations every day blamed on a shortage of drivers. This evening there was almost no service at all. I don’t recall half term being a problem for LO before - does anyone have...

Ah, there we go. An earlier start for me, then! Thank you @Dstock7080

LO has pulled a few services from the Mildmay line timetable this week including the 0652 from Stratford to Richmond, leaving a long gap in the Richmond service in the morning peak. Anyone know why? The full service appears to be restored next week.

There is an 0630 departure from Liverpool Street that connects with the day sailing, and a 1936 departure for the night ferry. I’ve done the latter several times and it’s a very pleasant way to get to mainland Europe.

It looks like a complete horror show on Cross Country today. Ten services stopped short, 32 cancelled throughout, four short-formations, all blamed on shortage of drivers or crew. That surely suggests a rostering screw-up rather than just a few calling in “sick”? Passengers already frustrated?

Took the E11 from Banchory to Aberdeen Airport today. The £4.80 fare compared very favourably with the £55 that I’m usually fleeced for the taxi. Very impressed with the service. There was clear advance notice of a 20-min delay, due, I found out, to the driver not being able to locate the key...

And there's some interesting news from the Strathspey Railway today - an anonymous £1 million donation from an American benefactor. That's absolutely transformational for a heritage railway that went through a bit of internal turmoil in the last year or so. From Facebook:

The station is Broomhill, the eastern terminus of the Strathspey Railway, near Grantown-on-Spey in the Highlands. The Strathspey Railway has also been used for opening sequences in previous series of the non-celebrity version of The Traitors, and it's about 50 or so miles from the "castle" at...

Thus, I think, providing the first ever direct bus link between Deeside and Aberdeen airport?

I think the Telegraph piece is somewhat spun to imply that it's a government "decision" to delay the opening - the BBC writeup is more straightforward and says that Alexander will acknowledge there is "no reasonable way to deliver" the railway line on schedule and within budget – which seems the...

The switchover seems to have been pretty seamless on the Mildmay Line at least - station signage revealed, platform and on-train announcements altered. At Hackney Central, passengers were told to “change hear for Weaver Line and national rail services from Hackney Downs”. One observation is...

I wasn’t that wild about the names to begin with but they’re growing on me. Particularly given the nature of the fury against them, which is so objectively rooted in the deep-seated desire amongst a small but vocal section of British society not to be reminded of any kind of “difference” or...

Niche question but does anyone know the reason for the recent, idiosyncratic decision to send the 202 clockwise round the Woodside Road loop in Banchory, regardless of whether the service is running to or from Aberdeen, after nearly 40 years of a perfectly rational operating pattern in this part...

Thanks for that info! How do you think we managed to get going again? I notice we seemed to reverse briefly but I don’t know how that would have been achieved.

Yes - if we’d been only a few minutes earlier at Tring we would have slipped ahead of the stopping service and arrived on time! I agree - the stock has been sensitively restored to an extremely high standard. Great on-board service too, including a fully stocked buffet complete with retro...

A member of the on-train crew said he thought we were just being held at a red signal - which would make sense as we stopped just before the junction with the line to Congleton. Wouldn’t explain the brief loss of some power though.

It looks like Locomotive Services Ltd will be operating a crowdbuster service the day after the Eurovision final, on May 14, from Liverpool Lime Street to London Euston, departing 1203 with a call at Crewe at 1239. I've not seen any publicity about this. Does anyone know any more about it...

The north London line has been completely closed since around 5pm and will remain shut until the close of service due to “signaller sickness”. How is there such a lack of resilience that one person calling in sick can shut the entire line for the rest of the day? Where is the NLL signalled from?

Thanks again for the explanation! I knew this forum would have the answer. From the National Rail website: I love how they are describing this as a "turn up and go" service. It is, quite literally, the opposite of that.