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There was a serious proposal from the A1LS to convert Mk3 suburban units to LHCS, but IDK what the current status of that idea is.

By and large, yes, there is substantial opposition to large road schemes, that's one of the reasons there have been relatively few big road projects since the protests in Hampshire in the early 1990s (Blair even promised not to build any more "major" road projects in, IIRC, 1997, though the...

Unless he's just rehashed his thinking from 2009, it might be that he's anticipating a desire to get freight off the WCML to create more paths for passenger services or allow speed enhancements. IIRC Graham H mentioned that story on London Reconnections, and he should know (I'm sure he...

Merging ScotRail back into the national brand would be preferable, but the political implications of a fight with Holyrood aren't worth it. The way I see that sort of thing working would be like SWT's red/blue/white stock, where the branding indicates the quality specified for the service in...

There's a good reason in theory, since with a collection of islands with fairly limited access routes it is much easier to rigorously inspect at the border and so avoid any internal controls such as residency registration, and that should be less intrusive, easier, cheaper (especially since you...

it does make it much more difficult to commute if your train has to double back to Calais-Fréthun (rather than collecting passengers along the classic network to Calais and using the direct connection there), tip everyone out, and wait for them to have their ID checked, because it added so much...

Regional UK services to France and beyond might be practical after the Brexit process: it was widely speculated that the reason UKBA categorically refused to perform on-train checks (even though the 373s had cells to lock upon illegal immigrants at their request) was mainly to prevent commuters...

Compartments would be nice, though most of the Mk1 SKs were 3 seats wide, matching SOs rather then a 2+2 TSOs. Still, a 4-seat SK as on the southern EMUs would be good, and wouldn't take much space compared to seating bays. Isn't that called Merddyn Emrys? Adding Porta's enchantements to a...

if all those regions were merged into Greater London, it would (at least once they adapted to London voting patterns) guarantee a huge Tory majority in the GLA for longer than anyone could hope to predict. Even including areas along the Thames Estuary which would become Labour wards (and...

While I support HS2 in general principle (though there's aspects that seem poorly considered in the later stages), the difference is that those small towns are mostly already hollowed out and functioning as commuter towns or suburbs of whichever city it is proposed to link them to (or just an...

For most of that 200 years they didn't have Delay Repay, passenger charters, or delay attribution costs, and it would probably be a net loss in terms of wasted money and bad publicity to try to make the estates of deceased persons pay for those costs, given the scale of the charges compared to...

From the selfish POV of the railways, if someone goes away and walks under a lorry that's a win, and even if they do it on the railways but at a quiet time, they're less disruptive (and so less expensive) than at busy times. However, the final act of suicide is often somewhat spontaneous, and...

They were originally associated with upmarket schools, but tended to be loosely specified (colour and style, but not specific items from specific off-the-peg suppliers). Even once ordinary schools had them, some grammar schools used expensive uniforms as a way of keeping out undesirables who...

1945? Subsequent governments were more socialist than Labour's last two manifestos, but that was the last time a government won election on the promise of increasing nationalisation and then did it. In 1997 Labour promised no new privatisation and to undo rail privatisation, but they lied, so...

The difference, AIUI from some marketdroid friends, is that millennials as a category generally prefer smaller amounts of nice stuff or experiences to lots of less nice stuff. In part that's driven by smaller homes and so on, and increased health-consciousness for foods (hence "millennials are...

I wonder how much of that £30k figure comes from the low usage: McAlpine made quite a bit of use of his private carriage , and there's the DB company train too. Even though the Royal Train Mk3s are heavier than standard the VTAC, a day's work by a driver and guard, and hire of a locomotive...

Something like a Swiss avalanche shelter would probably be preferable for the locals further along where NR want to move the line away from the cliff across the beach. Where the line runs along the foot of the cliffs, walling it in might be acceptable if the wall were decorated, especially with...

Many modern designs don't use separate ETH lines, they convert from the traction supply in each carriage, since they've got the power connection anyway. Making an auto coupler with compliant HV-DC bus connections would be tricky, which is a problem for most EMUs (though if it could be done, it...

HS2 is going to use tapered, baffled, tunnel mouth shrouds to reduce the piston effect, with some improvements over the versions used on other recent lines. The long noses on Shinkansen trains are needed because their tunnels lack those mouth structures and it would be difficult in many cases to...

Another fun comparison is that to provide almost the same capacity as HS2 assumed would be run in at least one round of financial plans (those current in 2018, IIRC) you'd need a dedicated pair of runways in London with all-economy A380s flying at their minimum spacing.