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Hadn’t thought about the Leyland archives, thanks. It’s my neck of the woods too. I’ll drop them a line. Ta.

Thanks. I saw a load of Olympian kits in a model shop in Leeds, I think, twenty something years ago. I wish I’d bought a few now, seeing as they were only about £3. Not that I had many spare £3 pound back then. The scale is out though for purposes, as I’m going for something 12th or 24th...

Hi Can anyone recommend a good source of information for modelling buses. In particular the Leyland Dab bendy buses used by SYT in the eighties, and the short wheel base Leyland Olympian double decker used by Yorkshire Traction? I’m rediscovering my love of scratch building, but in a larger...

Oh yeah. Transport Solutions for Lancaster and Morecambe, those guys. I see they kept their word and formed a new pressure group to hold LCC to account and deliver an array of comprehensive public transport improvements across the district, thus proving that they weren’t just a self serving...

That’s true, there seems to be a spot of land next to the railway and across from Middleton golf course. I may have imagined it, but I thought I’d read something about the electrical tunnel under the bay using the railway for construction traffic too.

I hadn’t thought about that, it does mke since to park by the motor and car share down the M6.

I’ve not seen any figures for the park and ride, but I’ve never seen more than a handful of cars in the car park, and buses trundle to and from town with never more than a couple of passengers. The trouble with the park and ride was that it was meant to alleviate traffic in to Lancaster by...

It just occurred to me, if visitor numbers did balloon, park and ride could be run from Heysham. There is plenty of space to south east of the village, at the end of the Heysham bypass. A short platform and a parry people mover is all it would need. Re-lay the second track if a second shuttle is...

Regular Morecambe to Barrow would be nice, or a hovercraft straight across the bay, and if the crossing volumes take off, Bay Bridge! This would be a good thing for Morecambe, and would help attract more investment and justify further enhancements to the rail service. I’d always imagined they...

From my experience, regular passengers don’t register the appearance of trains, they see a wall, with doors, that will take them where they are going. They are far more concerned with questions like ‘is this my train’ and ‘will I get a seat’ and ‘will I get there on time?’ Shabbiness is noticed...

It’s right that scrutiny is given to this project. I’ve followed it from the beginning out of personal curiosity but never understood why it was necessary. What didn’t they know that a trial was necessary to establish? That rail vehicles could meet the safety and technical standards of heavy...

Another call for the Hull and Barnsley. The Line between Barnsley and Doncaster, through Wath and Mexbrough. Woodhead Glasson Dock to Lancaster Morecambe - Greenayre - ingleton After that I'd move on to light railways and tramways Dearne Light Railway Morecambe Promenade tramway Lancaster...

4472 Flying Scotsman We're one of those bonkers families that rushes over to Wennington or wherever on a damp dark evening to catch a glimpse (and whiff) of the damn thing. Why? Dunno. I spent many formative years in damp dark places watching, by myself, utterly ordinary smelly diesels lug...

Preston Platform Ticket checks. That takes me back. I was a frequent traveller for a while between Lancaster and Leyland, and having to stop and present a ticket in the middle of a tight connection, with all my excessive mobile worker gubbins, really got my goat. Why can't they just monitor...

No idea. But as an occasional casual traveller, that's the first significant difference I noticed, and it was a considerable improvement on what had been there before.

Ew. I Remember reading somewhere about that fine spray you sometimes felt when an express train whizzed through the station. I'd hoped that practice was long long gone.

Mine was the Blue Grey 125. But it came with a bunch of random wagons, a breakvan, the Lima motor rail car transporter, extra track and a box full of my dad's old triang stuff, Princess Elizabeth, a coal truck that opened at the bottom, and a damaged green southern emu. Good stuff.

Toilet leavings in the track. I think retention tanks put an end to that grimness.

As an occasional casual passenger, the first thing I noticed to come out of privatisation, aside from repainted trains and what I read in RAIL, was Manchester Piccadilly refurb. Went from the grot of greasy platforms and soot darkened canopies to immaculate marble platforms, bright light and...

So many fond railway memories. I think being a train obsessed small child around 1980 trying to glimpse any hint of a train from the bus window as it snaked through the industrial decay of the Dearne and Don Valleys. Long rows of coal trucks on weedy tracks at Wath, yellow NCB shunters crossing...