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This did actually happen to me earlier this month. 1827 from Exeter St Davids to Leeds on Saturday 6 December, formed of 2 X 220s. Front 4 coaches G - L locked out, rear 4 coaches A - F in use. Never seen it before, but as I was waiting at the northern end of platform 5 for the G - L portion...

This discussion comes up every few months and the general consensus is that it won't work for a number of reasons: Intercity services carry large numbers of local passengers e.g. Swindon - Bristol, Wolverhampton or Coventry - Birmingham, Stoke - Manchester. It isn't realistic to expect all...

It would be hard to criticise the closure of the Chesterfield to Lincoln line given the condition of Bolsover Tunnel. It was so bad that infilling efforts in the 1960s were abandoned for safety reasons. One line that even the most rose tinted nostalgist would probably accept is never coming...

First priority for me is definitely doubling as much of the Salisbury - Exeter route as possible. Given that NR have (fairly accurately) concluded the current infrastructure isn't suitable for a resilient hourly timetable, you'd probably need more than one 3 mile dynamic loop to run an...

Gunnislake was very much retained due to the impossibility of providing a reasonable bus alternative, and no other reason. Aside from the Bere peninsula being extremely difficult to serv by rail, Calstock and Gunnislake aren't a great deal better. The hilly nature of the terrain is such that...

The 159s / 158s are now over 30 years old and short-forming was a regular issue through the summer. They need to be prioritised on Waterloo - Salisbury - Exeter services, given they're the only trains which run on this route. Trowbridge has 3tph, whereas stations west of Salisbury have 1tph...

Indeed - it's now nearly 4 years since Devon had a railway reopening and that was a good 20 miles closer to London. In fairness it did help that the track was already there. It's much more of a Conservative stronghold - the Lib Dems tend to do much better in Cornwall and North Devon than the...

As an ex-local, incredibly unlikely. The 'main line' connection was at Maiden Newton, a small village with a 2 hourly service to Weymouth and Bristol. It has been a good 60 years since anyone saw that route as a main line. The village is also on the A356 Dorchester - Crewkerne road. Crewkerne is...

The lines for which there is the strongest case these days are those where there is a clear travel demand which can't be served by road transport. Generally these will involve connecting a large town or city with a nearby town with a congested road between them. Boring, but obvious. Portishead -...

You could get from Birmingham to Bath via a massively convoluted route featuring only short tunnels: Birmingham Moor Street to Banbury on Chiltern Banbury to Oxford on XC Oxford to Didcot on GWR Didcot to Chippenham on GWR Chippenham to Trowbridge on GWR Trowbridge to Bath on GWR The only...

If anyone thinks octogenarians can't be involved in criminal activity, it's worth looking up the activities of Leo Sharp, on whose activities the 2018 film The Mule is based. In fairness the unlikelihood of an octogenarian being involved in drug running seems to have helped him avoid detection...

American sports also tend to be divided into western and eastern sections, partly due to geography, but also partly so you can have a winner takes all championship game to end the season. The Football League actually tends to put middle distance away games on Tuesday nights rather than the...

The train was from Wigan to Leeds in the evening though, so going in the wrong direction. Any Wigan fans who went to the game would have been going Leeds - Wigan at that time of day. I can't see any fixtures today where a significant number of fans would have been likely to use a Wigan - Leeds...

9 coach Voyagers are nowhere near capacity in my experience. What however does frequently happen is that if the A - F section of the train is nearer the entrance at major stations, that section will become wedged as that is a) a shorter walk b) where the reservations are. G - L will however be...

It's fairly easy if on Thursday the weather forecast is promising, to decide to go to a nearby UK seaside resort for the day on the Saturday. Slightly trickier flying to the Costa del Sol for a few hours. Places such as Skegness, Whitby or Weymouth (Heart of Wessex line rather than the route...

The 2.2 km Abernant Tunnel on the long-closed line between Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare was built for two tracks at the west portal and for approximately 200m into the tunnel. For cost and speed, the rest of the tunnel was excavated for a single track only, so the west portal is much wider than...

I am 99% certain that if trains are passing at Honiton, the Exeter bound train must use platform 1. Platform 1 is bi-directional as it's the through line, whereas platform 2 is the loop line and so I think it's only signalled for London-bound trains. I think there is some limited step-free...

At this time of the year, a lot of travel on the West of England route is discretionary leisure travel. A lot of travellers will either go to Taunton / Castle Cary / Dorchester, or simply will wait until the line has returned to (what passes these days for) normal. September will be trickier...

Frustrating as this is, at least there are two silver linings. Firstly, hopefully the revised timetable will actually be resilient and trains can run to time. I've been on a few journeys from Axminster to Bristol via Exeter where the westbound train has been more than 10 minutes late at Honiton...

Axminster is the busiest intermediate station on the line followed by Honiton and then Gillingham. All are significantly busier than Yeovil Junction which seems to be more important operationally than anything else. Axminster is also one of the few stations which usually has a sizeable number of...