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I agree regarding gov being a bull in a china shop re: these negotiations, in fact the analogy could fairly reasonably be extended to a lot of the railways. Like you say, on many TOCs, guards are a key part of revenue protection, in a way they less need to be on the intensive SE commuter...

Well, I'd argue replacing the power packs wouldn't have been a bad idea either circa ~2010. Probably also gone some of the way to making them a bit quieter, or at least accelerate faster! If we're going to run DMUs for 35-40 years, then a comprehensive mid life refurb seems good. New seats and...

There are other counties where we see old trains, also built on a low budget, looking in much better nick. Imo, most issues with 150/156 could have been resolved in the 2000/2010s with a proper mid life overhaul, including addition of AC, new seating, PRM accessible bathrooms, etc. However...

As someone who grew up and for some time commuted to college on the Matlock line, I developed a reasonable hatred for the 156. Thank god we have 170s now - they have their problems, but they are a pretty drastic improvement imo. This ^ not enough is talked about how horrifically noisy a lot...

Oh dear, it's a little sad at this point! Fingers crossed it gets fixed quickly, although rumour has it trams are to be out of action tomorrow too.

Makes sense. NET need to start fining/claiming insurance of people who damage their infrastructure, or get stuck on that bridge towards NG2 and need help to get their vehicles lifted off...if they aren't already of course!

Yikes! Can't catch a break can they? Wonder if a tall vehicle caused the issues.

My bad! I assumed they were the same units as Metrolink - I got a bit confused 1692657965 https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/neighbours-struggle-sleep-due-noisy-8693301 Some reports of noise issues on the tram route due to ongoing works, as they are working overnight too. To be...

Wow! I had a feeling this was the case, but that probably does explain some of the reliability issues. We do see this issue on the UK mainline network too - fully expecting EMRs new fleet to have short forming issues in around 10 years time.

The bus replacement sure does show the benefit the trams bring in journey times, but yeah it's basically unusable as is for my purposes. I'll just be paying extra to use the NCT buses to get into town until the works end. I'll message them tomorrow to ask if they do ticket acceptance on yellow...

NET have released a statement on their social media accounts regarding the issues yesterday: Unfortunately these sorts of centralised IT systems are somewhat failure prone. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a single server that managed to bring down the radio system - from what I've seen of...

Yikes, probably going to be another walk to work for me tomorrow. I do wonder how they are going to move trams to the other side of the planned maintenance works starting tonight so they can run services on the other routes during the works? Edit (Answered my own question):

Wasn't expecting the issues to drag through the day! Looks like I'll be walking home too... Their twitter is okay, but honestly I think people would be little more patient if they opened up a little more about what's going on. I've found the national rail network has become better generally...

Just one day before a large portion of the network is to be offline for scheduled maintenance, the whole tram network has had a communications failure that means no trams are running. This failure is almost certainly an IT issue, rather than a more typical maintenance task, but it has followed...

I made a thread a little while ago about the merits of vending machines on trains - in leau of a buffet section (which is rarely open on EMR services these days), I think a couple of vending machines would be a nice touch - possible to do hot, cold food and drink from modern units. Beer might be...

This seems kind of unexpected, but I guess the sheer age of the 15X units will force their hands at some point... Whilst the 195s were a welcome refresh, they didn't even have enough capacity for today, nevermind a 'growing' railway. 331 order seemed actually adequate, which was unexpected...

I agree with the sentiment of the article being a little melodramatic, but 2hrs on that train does that to one's Psyche. Plus, would we all be talking about it quite this much if not for a bit of dramatic flare? It's brutally frustrating. I have often had to use these short formed Cross...

You're probably right - track redesigns don't come cheap! The northern section is nearing 20 years old and a fair few assets seem to be struggling a bit now. The southern section seems to be constructed to a much better standard generally, not as many tight curves/S&C, so fingers crossed less...

Yet again NET wait until I have a week of annual leave to schedule disruptive work, which is going to make getting to the station a pain! Work at The Forest scheduled between 18th-31st of August, presumably for track renewal. One hopes they don't opt to simply do an 'as like' replacement for...

Long overdue! Hopefully expanding electrification will improve this as well. My only concern is capacity, but I'm sure a future add on is always possible with Hitachi being active for a number of years to come. Plenty of 158s and 170s knocking around if we need more of them!