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I do sympathise. As a frequent commuter by TfW, rail journeys are generally the most unpleasant part of my day. But as a thought experiment, let's assume that TfW somehow magically got an incentive to improve reliability. What realistically could they do to improve things?

I've never claimed. I know it's irrational, but I can't shake off the idea that claiming Delay Repay is scrounging.

Knighton? The nearest station is in Shropshire.

Switching this round, I'm not sure that the railway could cope if many of these drivers switched from road to rail. Can you imagine another million passenger journeys on Cross Country? It would be carnage.

Or you could forget the railway and drive instead. Cheaper, faster, more flexible and you don't have to put up with other passengers who haven't washed or will not shut up. It's what most people do, after all.

Looking at my January 1984 WMPTE booklet, it looks like the 9 (Birmingham-Stourbridge) has hardly changed in route or frequency since before deregulation. Route - A slight rejigging in Birmingham city centre: it used to operate along New Street and Victoria Square, which of course it can no...

Controversial opinion: the current trend to blame everything on DfT micromanagement is a convenient and comforting excuse. The railway lacks strategic leadership, and has done so for decades.

My controversial opinion is that there are lots of internet edgelords posting on this forum. Meanwhile in the real world, great swathes of the population don't use a train from one year to the next, and the public perceives rail travel to be slow, unreliable and horribly expensive.

Yes, quite a bit of furtive vaping going on at Liverpool Central yesterday, on crowded underground platforms at 7pm on a Saturday.

Is this type of excuse made to customers in any other industry? The Royal Welsh Show has been happening in the same place and same time of year for decades. Welsh railways run with a skeleton staff and an insufficient number of vehicles. This is a deliberate policy, not some fact of nature.

Why should a customer care about operational trivia like that?

Railways were a junior school 'topic' for one term. Reading books about trains, using timetables for sums, that sort of thing. I'm sure I read something about the APT, billed as the exciting new train of the future. This all culminated in a school trip to New Street station, by train from...

Why can't these events be held in the daytime?

Playing devil's advocate for the moment, what is the logic behind charging lower fares to children? After all they are both a revenue drain and eat up limited passenger capacity.

A few power lines will make very little difference to the HOWL. It's still 4 hours of mud and sheep. The scruffy environs of Broome and Knighton stations are more of an eyesore IMO. Craven Arms is hardly picturesque - the back of Tuffins, the tip. And I don't believe Llanelli bears much...

Lord alone knows what politicians or senior civil servants dealing with policy across the board and a wide range of organisations make of the railway. I wouldn't blame them if, on the basis of decades of performance, they assumed that every railway staff member was incompetent. In the last...

Possibly because the railways don't help themselves? To an outsider, the railways seem to be both a bottomless money-pit and a perpetual source of bad news stories.

One Friday evening a couple of weeks ago a badly co-ordinated set swap meant that the Shrewsbury-Aberystwyth portion departed 15 minutes before the heavily delayed Birmingham-Shrewsbury portion arrived, leaving through passengers with a 90 minute wait for the next train. I understand that...

Quite an interesting event in Shrewsbury this evening. There is often a set swap on the TfW Birmingham to Aberystwyth service, although it is advertised as a through service. Tonight the onward portion of IJ23 departed Shrewsbury 15 minutes before the (delayed) portion from Birmingham arrived...

I'm not sure it does have much tourist potential, just endless miles of rain, mud and sheep.