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Don't think many Birmingham trains ever stopped at Rugby. Again in 1972.... apart from a couple of morning Manchester and Liverpool services, Rugby is mainly served (and with some gaps) hourly by the XX05, Barrow, Carlisle, Holyhead and Blackpool trains.. There was an hourly EMU from Rugby to...

Quick look at the down service in the 1972 LMR timetable - It shows an hourly service from Euston to the West Midlands leaving at XX15 and extended to Liverpool or Manchester in alternative hours. Extra XX45 trains ran in some hours - notably between 1545 and 1845. Taking the standard stops...

Isn't there legislation under consideration at the moment that may put the right to work at home into the employee's hands - at least for some - ?

Perhaps that happened in practice, but IIRC in the initial period from 1960 (and even a while after 1966) all the AL1-6 locomotives formed a common pool. Again IIRC, an AL4 hauled the first ever AC electric service from Manchester Piccadilly didn't it ? Be interesting to know how much work...

Friend of mine, working as part of a call centre for a major UK airline, has done exactly that for the past year or so. Now has no desire to go back to the office. Obviously just one example, everyone is different of course - but it is certainly out there as a trend.

That is true. You can imagine that along side a general fall in the numbers, the demographic of people commuting in the current "peak" hours will continue to move away from the wealthier middle class commuter towards people in manual and service jobs. House prices in London may fall in time...

100% Agree. And, if the bacon rolls don't work, do you think we could see the end of peak (anytime) tickets in some places eventually. Plenty of precedents in other countries and it would make fare review a lot easier ? Or is it one step too far ?

That is true. But surely the funding gap itself has always been there in some form or other since the 1950s hasn't it ? The level of the funding gap and how exactly it is decided is the political hot potato. Edited to add - Are there not two separate government decisions here, they related...

Notwithstanding much-needed reform of fares.... A well executed loyalty scheme across the whole rail network could have significant impact. You only have to look at something like the British Airways Executive Club / Avios - to see an example in transport. Possibly something like that, in...

Yes, the advert has both the English Electric and AEI logos prominently displayed and then in very small letters - "English Electric-AEI Traction Ltd" - A subsidiary of GEC power engineering limited. Seems like they weren't pushing the GEC image at that stage. Also, the locomotive is...

That makes sense. Photographs dated from 1974 and 1975 featuring the WCML electrics all seem to have Class 81-86 showing correct headcodes alongside Class 87s showing none. Seems odd but does make sense.

Interestingly, the April 1971 cover of Modern Railways has this artists impression of an "87" as part of an English Electric / AEI advert.

As that wonderful picture shows, the "AL6 Blue" was certainly darker than the AL1-5 "electric blue". But do we know for certain that it was exactly rail blue as applied later? Logic says it must have been rail blue because that colour had been launched in January 1965, but then so had the...

Really fantastic job. Well done. I thought I knew a lot about this subject already, but I learnt more reading this. A lot of photos on here I have not seen before too. I look forward to #5.

Okay - that makes sense then. I grew up there in the 70s and I remember the Illuminations ending always just before bonfire night. So the Great Harwood loop closure date on the same day could be just a coincidence then ?

I always thought Blackpool Central closed at the end of the "summer" season which the illuminations would have extended towards late October. That may be a myth though.

Makes perfect sense. My LMR timetable (only London to Carlisle shown in the main part) has that train as arriving at Carlisle at 05.17, so lots of time to load the trays. Somewhere there might even be a photograph of a breakfast tray !

What cooking / heating equipment would the old pantry on the Mk1 have had then ? They must have been able to have been able to do hot drinks, what about toast, did they have a toaster? My guess for Breakfast tray would be more grapefruit, toast, jam, cornflakes in a small indivdual packet...

I remember getting custard creams just before arriving from Kings Cross at Edinburgh one morning back in the early 80s. My 1966 LMR timetable mentions "breakfast trays" (wonder what that was?) on some of the sleepers, plus a full restaurant car to Crewe and from Perth for Inverness on the Royal...

I have now done a bit of "research" by flicking through the pages of Modern Railways (all issues between January 1968 and December 1975) and looking at the photographs and noting the dates they were taken - not an entirely unpleasant exercise :) The results surprised me. I may have missed...