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Tried to buy a South Pennines Day Ranger ticket yesterday morning from a staffed railway station ticket office, but unusually the ticket office was closed, presumably due to staff illness. There are a couple of ticket machines adjacent to the closed ticket office so I tried to buy my ticket...

I have used the Northern operated Nottingham-Leeds service many times before Covid and on numerous occasions in the past couple of months. The new Class 195 units seem to be the mainstay of the service these days and from my observations travelling at peak times, off peak daytime and late...

I have been a big critic of Northern in recent years, but my recent experiences with then have been excellent! In the past month I must have caught 30+ Northern trains, peak, off peak and late at night, all on time or close enough and no cancellations. My journeys have been across the network...

A real bug bear of mine is the lack of a clock face timetable on relatively frequent trunk bus routes. Arriva have excelled themselves again with the introduction of yet another revised timetable for what was once a premium Sapphire branded route, the 12 between Rhyl and Llandudno. When...

I have often wondered which is the least busy signal box or manned level crossing in Britain. There are two ways this could be measured: 1. The fewest number of trains passing the box in a 24 hour period? 2. The fewest number of trains passing the box during a signallers shift? What got me...

What is the earliest last weekday train on a regular route? Need to exclude parliamentary type services but surely 1617 from Llandudno to Blaenau Ffestiniog must be one of the earliest in the country. The next/last train is normally around 3 hours later but hasn‘t operated since the covid...

I attended a cricket match in Worcester recently and whilst at Worcester Foregate Street I spotted that there were through trains from Worcester to Brighton and Weymouth. I presume that these trains originated from Birmingham? What other unlikely destinations are served by through trains that...

Driving through Derbyshire this lunchtime and I had to a double take, there was a huge French steam loco being transported on a low loader along the A619 between Chesterfield and Baslow. Does anyone know anything about it and where it was coming from and going to?

This is not a Commodore’s song! Is it acceptable for passengers having to be crammed in like sardines on a Sunday morning when there is a depot full of trains sitting there doing nothing, or indeed, the frequency is so poor that all intending passengers have to cram onto one train because the...

There are rumours that there is going to be a new 1BWS Day Rover ticket about to be launched in north and parts of mid Wales next week, valid on ALL operators. Anyone seen any publicity for it…?

Which towns have impressive, or smart and tidy stations… but the town (or area surrounding the station) itself served by the station is somewhat less than impressive…? Stoke on Trent Rhyl Crewe

Enjoyable walk yesterday on the scenic Macclesfield canal with some pals and used two of the stations on the route, Kidsgrove and Congleton to access the canal. Kidsgrove station is a quite a large grotty station, with four platforms and a run down, rusty footbridge to access three of the...

With England progressing to the quarterfinals and their next match v Ukraine kicking off at 8pm on Saturday evening is it wise to attempt any kind of rail journey this Saturday evening? Which operators are heavily reliant on rest day working for Saturday afternoon/evening shifts, and should...

Arriva are launching a Duo Day Saver ticket for two adults travelling together. From what I cam make out it will be available until the end of August. Not sure how enticing it will be looking at the not so generous discount offered. Existing Wales and north West Day Saver £6 New Duo Day Saver...

Travelled on Northern’s 1117 service from Nottingham to Leeds yesterday on one of the 2 car CAF units. On arrival at Dronfield the trains engines cut out and the driver was unable to restart the unit blocking the main line between Chesterfield and Sheffield. The guard was extremely informative...

Promising to hear that 3rd Rail Infill is going to be actively considered according to the Shapps/Williams report to reduce diesel islands, which sections of the existing network are likely to be electrified first? Is there any point in extending Merseyrail electrification as the the new units...

Caught the new later fast train from Piccadilly last night on its first day of operation, encouragingly for the first day a very quiet pandemic Monday evening it carried around 20 passengers. But the train although leaving Piccadilly on time ended up 30 minutes late into Sheffield because...

To try and standardise Penalty Fare penalties and reduce ticketless travel should every station in the country have a ticket machine? In fact to go a stage further should every platform, or maybe every entrance to the station have a ticket machine, so that every passenger has to walk past one...

High Peak buses are launching a new service on Sundays from the end of May. The X99 will operate between Buxton and Alton Towers, but in fact it is a through journey from Manchester Airport and Stockport as an extension to the 199 Skyline service. Someone more techy than me may be able to post...

According to the new PDF timetables on the TfW website a covid reduced timetable will still be operating this summer (May-Sept) on the north Wales Coast line. There are some large gaps in the timetable, which could well lead to severe overcrowding on certain trains, unless trains of 6+ coaches...