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As someone who worked frontline customer service on the railway for a good few years I absolutely agree that it’s not exclusive to a particular demographic or culture. Ignorant people are everywhere. I always used to make a dynamic risk assessment before challenging anti-social behaviour. We...

Looks like it was a track circuit showing occupied on the single line.

Quite impressed that has been on Wikipedia since 2021. I did get worried it was an official production at first but it turns out the actual XC network map is much more representative...

Chalfont and Latimer is also a location where LU and National Rail trains share tracks

Class 345 to Slough

Yes! I was struggling to think of examples I disagreed with but thank you. Of course you can sound the horn as you see necessary - and I’ve been told by my manager he considers it a matter for us to decide, if we feel a warning board requires a two tone, we should do it. ASLEF also disagrees...

I have to disagree with this one. It gives an early indicator of brake performance which can vary between units. I do mine in set locations, compliant with our PDP, so it is noticeable if a unit has a softer brake and I can account for it at the next stop. It’s also useful for checking the...

Couldn’t agree more with this. It’s a terrible design and too small. The insufficient layover space is just ridiculous. I have to come off Pelham Bridge to get to work and frequently get stuck behind buses unable to turn into the station as there are multiple vehicles trying to reverse and exit...

If you walk via Warren Street it’s a bit of an incline but not the worst. Brings you out by the town walls. It will depend on where OPs accommodation is as to how many hills they’ll have to traverse!

The castles at Pembroke, Manobeir and Carew are worth a visit. Laugharne is accessible by bus but you’d have to do the 351 up to Pendine and change there for (I think) the 222. Both are operated by Taf Valley as far as I’m aware. Saundersfoot is lovely and well worth a visit. Easier done by...

The compliment seems about right for a depot with 3/4 turns. It allows for spare coverage as well. There’s also the potential for part time drivers on job shares or similar.

TW wasn’t officially in the one man band camp, as he did employ another driver at times but the concept of a one man band operator is a rare thing now. I can think of Fareline in East Anglia as an example, owner and driver the same person and a single vehicle.

I had similar at Peterborough more recently. They were already fighting prior to getting on the train. I spoke with the officers and advised them that if the behaviour continued I’d be refusing to take the train out and they’d have to have them back. We ended up with officers riding and had no...

Yes, I’ve known people do it including informing the local officers of the byelaws.

Then there’s the issue of local police bringing drunk individuals to the railway station to get rid of them, expecting us to deal with them as the easy option.

It also concerns me that if they were asking you for a free ride they’re also not working for your TOC. In that case they have absolutely no business interfering with your train. I’ve offered assistance off duty before, but the key thing is offering not just taking it upon yourself to get involved.

I’ve worked trains as a guard with frequent stops and high passenger volume. You can’t always get everyone, but I used to see it as matter of personal pride to try. My TOC took over a route from another and on my first trip I did revenue between two stations only 2 minutes apart - 3 had boarded...

There’s a lot of very good officers in the BTP. I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with plenty of them during my career and had excellent support. As with policing as a whole there’s also bad apples. The cuts to BTP numbers, station closures and further proposed reductions reduce their...

Picking up on the comments about the loss of the calls at Grimsby Docks and New Clee from the Barton service, I was sceptical about the benefits but it had to be said the 10-13 minute turnarounds at Cleethorpes are a game changer for the Barton route. It has stopped it just accumulating delays...

As a former conductor on regional routes, it’s not something I ever really felt the need to do. Rather like LowLevel, I took the approach of wearing a name badge and that was enough. As a driver I don’t even have one of those, as the only one I was issued had my job title as ‘Trainee Driver’ and...