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As a local (Newton-le-Willows), I felt Golbourne was a bit of a silly place to 'terminate' HS2. I always thought it made more sense to either have it join south of Warrington (which is frankly more prosperous than Wigan) or to bypass Wigan and join near where the line becomes 4 track south of...

I think realistically, the only way to really speed up the Lancaster-Carlisle section is some sort of base tunnel from Kendal to somewhere just North of Penrith.

New York with Grand Central and Penn Station Whilst not international, Manchester also comes to mind with both Piccadilly and Victoria, and Bradford with Interchange and Foster Square.

Perhaps the Salisbury-Romsey figure of 6 route? It's electrified from Redbridge to Eastleigh, and I imagine if you stuck a fast charger in at Romsey, you could cover the whole lot on a combination of the 3rd Rail and Battery.

I think there is a reasonable argument for slowing down the Rugby-New Street Corridor, but only once HS2 is open, as it effectively quad-tracks much of the section. Likewise with the Birmingham-Stafford section if HS2 Phase 2a (at least!) is built. My gut is that in a post-HS2 world, Cross...

Would there realistically be much demand for a through service? I'm all for electrifying the line, though (as the electric spine envisaged!).

That's completely fair, without going completely off topic, I do think the 755s would also be worthy units to work that line. Albeit ideally a variant with through corridors or a fixed config of more coaches to match at least a pair of 159s.

Looks good, I imagine a 750V version might be appealing to South Western Railway to run the West of England Line. Waterloo-Basingstoke at 750V then BEMU and some discontinuous electrification in a couple of key places on route down to Exeter. Looking at the Open Infrastructure Map, there is an...

If that is true, that is a pretty decent compromise. I am pretty happy to accept that my non-stop USA destinations from Manchester may be limited, but easy changing via Dublin would give a decent alternative to Heathrow (or to a lesser extent Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Charles-De-Gaulle.

I've flown across the pond, starting in Manchester a few times, and will be again twice this year, from memory, my direct flights were: MAN - EWR (United 757) then returning EWR - IAD - MAN (United Express then 757) MAN - SFO (Thomas Cook A330) then returning LAS - MAN (Thomas Cook A330) Then...

In the case of Manchester, I wonder if it is in part to allow for greater operational flexibility in the core, where a tram could be rerouted almost anywhere. If you give trams a recognizable name rather than an eventual destination, it could get confusing if a change were made.

I wonder if it might be more cost-effective and offer better long-term value to modify the infrastructure rather than the trains so the WHL can use rolling stock more abundant in other parts of the network. Whilst 170s might make sense now, in 30 years we might be looking at CAF Civity variant...

Regarding the 91s you are correct on both counts at least according to Wikipedia. With Mk3 sets, my understanding was that many weren't PRM compliant, but the Mk4s are? In that case, it may even make sense for some rail tour operators to have them (again, assuming they can be modified to work...

I suspect the 91s will be scrapped, though I would like to think the National Rail Museum might keep one for preservation. Assuming the MK4s are in reasonable condition, I would have thought they could be used to replace some of the MK3s still rolling around the network.

I wish them genuinely good luck. I thought Jon Worth's (who has been on Green Signals) talk and report on the topic were very interesting. https://crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/projects/crosschannelrail/crosschannelrail-report/ I also really like his map...

Whilst that would be lovely, I wonder if there is sufficient juice on the 3rd rail side to supply additional trains (this may also be a challenge on the 25Kv side, but I imagine less so). A lot of the power infrastructure in the area had to be upgraded for the Desiros (in part because of their...

H&S is an interesting one. I do think, though, that with the number of Costa Express vending machines you see popping up, you would think that sticking one on a train wouldn't be too much of a challenge. Or else I would suggest just cold food and drinks if people really want their coffee or tea...

I was more thinking for a 9/11 car pendolino.

I think I also heard that Avanti had quite a lot of former Virgin Atlantic cabin crew as train managers. Possibly from back when Virgin was the operator with a 'group' transfer.

Yeah quite, pretty sure a vending machine was the option on the Paris-Nice sleeper when I used it 10 years ago.