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I would imagine most managers would stay with the franchise initially, but it depends on what DfT's plan would be - particularly for Northern and TPE if OLR are recommending a major changes to the management. LNER was a well run operation, with VTEC getting the maths wrong during the bid, so...

It would be quite a challenge for OLR to operate SWR, GA, Northern and TPE - alongside their existing commitment with LNER. Though I imagine GA/SWR being slightly easier to take over as (despite the rolling stock problems with the former, and the staffing dispute with the latter) the timetable...

The lack of interoperability is the biggest gripe about ITSO for me, particularly around London where not only can you not use PAYG as would on Oyster but most Oyster-supporting TVMs don't support ITSO cards. Interoperability is improving somewhat, with EMR now supporting other ITSO cards -...

Will be interesting to see if this is a Virgin-only brand now, or if the partnership with Stagecoach is still involved. I imagine they’re looking at a rival to Trainline with things like automatic delay repay, etc. Will be interesting to see! Am a bit surprised there is no link whatsoever to...

One would hope they would also move the reservation system! Hopefully installing the traffic light system as exists on the class 80xs. All staff will exclusively wear morning dress, and facial expressions will be strictly limited.

Once war is declared on Eurasia, our membership will be revoked. I mean...we have always been at war with Eurasia.

If we are looking at a 2-year extension, I would hope that would include improvements to the Key system - like automatic delay repay, flexible tickets, PAYG, etc. and improvements to station staffing time while the DfT begins tendering for new rolling stock to replace the Networkers. 2 years...

It may be the case that they put the logos at each end to begin with, and paint a fuller livery when the Pendolinos go for their full refurbishment?

If only there was a word generally (but not exclusively) used to describe England, Wales and Scotland as a single entity, combined with a common shortening of 'railway'... But I do really like the livery here - reminds me a little bit of CrossCountry, but distinctive (maybe a slight lack of...

Of course, even DOR East Coast was profitable - much more goes back to HMT now than before (although slightly less than VTEC promised).

Feel like there may have been some who had hoped that LNER wouldn't be responsible for the high premiums paid by VTEC (which put the advance prices up in the first place!), but this isn't the case. The EMT advances were an absolute life-saver, and included journeys on HS1 - would often cost...

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but relatively recently (in the last couple of weeks) the ticket collection machines at St Pancras and Leicester have been purpled-up - previously they'd just been debranded. Not sure if the extra ticket machines at Leicester university and the halls of...

They do! (Or did, at least) - an episode of the television programme at Paddington spent quite a while explaining the gory details!

From what other members of the forum have said before, the DfT owns the copyrights to most (if not all) historical railway brands (I.e. Southern, InterCity, GWR), and this should include LMS. Therefore if First Trenitalia wanted to use it for the WCP then they would be able to do so.

Government press release: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-independent-review-into-hs2-programme

Most likely on a break, but they were probably taking it at a time when they were waiting on some other cog to arrive (i.e. the problem has been identified, but requires X parts which are still 15 miles away). I understand it's frustrating to see people at work 'slacking', particularly when...

Not great, not terrible. Very different from what we have now, so would be interesting to see.

This has probably been covered elsewhere in the thread, but why can’t they introduce some of the retired HSTs from GWR/LNER? May not be PRM compliant but good enough as a stop gap?

A full judicial review isn't likely to be completed in time for Abellio to take over the franchise, so I imagine DfT will be either booting up OLR 2 (intriguingly, 'DFT OLR3 Limited' was registered as 'EM Trains' until March this year) or negotiating an extension with Stagecoach? Although the...

The Twitter guy at XC clearly wasn't impressed with the whole thing!