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I fear you're right. We English are all too good at hanging on to traditions well past their sell-by date and then arguing that they're an essential part of our great and distinctive cultural heritage.

So there we have it. Vast expenditure proposed to deliver something no better in time terms than the existing, largely unmodernised, system can deliver. What an utter waste of money!

The 3-post thread on this topic in "Infrastructure & Stations" starts with a reference to 20 minutes between Liverpool and Manchester. Given three intermediate stops and the poor alignment of the old LNW Low Level line at Widnes and especially through Warrington is this even a remote...

If money's no object I'd do Dore by restoring the four tracks down to Sheffield (compulsory purchase of a fairly small portion of Tesco) and clearing out the dive-under there to get the non-conflict. And then add to that sort Manchester out, though that's far more than just a simple flyover...

In both cases their populations voted for them in large numbers. The trouble is, we all have to live with the consequences. But if anyone asked who in the long term would turn out to be the shrewder political-chess player, the USA of China, I wouldn't put money on the USA.

Though speeds don't have to be lower. The majority of the Calder Valley line is very well aligned — a typical early railway. But the problem is that it misses Leeds, and I can't imagine anyone is ever going to want to run Liverpool - Manchester - York - Newcastle (and nowhere else). And if you...

Do you think that day will ever come? It seems to have been a tenet of faith for the entire British political class ever since Churchill in WW2 that there has been this "special relationship", that it is survivung well, and that it is worth preserving almost at all cots s (to us). In this it has...

Won't this sort of further massive investment in London & South East infrastructure just help to grow the difference between the L&SE region and all the rest of the country. I know the arguments for "invest in success", but if we have governments that only do that, then what hope is there (other...

My PC is an Intel NUC Hades Canyon 8iHNK (16 Gb RAM) which came with Windows 10 Pro. It upgraded with no problems at all to Windows 11 Pro and then to update 23H2. Last autumn the Windows checker shewed that it was fit for update 24H2. However, a first try with 24H2 in November brought about a...

What if the capacity just isn't there to give? There's only so much you can fit onto a mixed-traffic two-track railway with intermediate stations.

There's a clear system in Switzerland (Netherlands too, and, I think, to a greater or lesser extent in a number of other places). Step 1 is decide on the service-pattern you want to run and see what changes to infrastructure might be needed to run it reliably. Step 2 is to build any necessary...

Absolutely! Which takes us straight back to how one should interpret election results (including our EU referendum and our last general election). Do you say that those who either chose not to vote or simply didn't bother to vote just don't matter and the only ones who should count are those who...

But haven't the majority of the USA people got exactly what they voted for? They can scarcely now be surprised.

I meant the South Junction line proper, the original project without the Altrincham branch (even though that was added in at the planning stage, authorised by the same Act, and opened first (by a few days)). Yes, a major portion of the branch was quadrupled. Were there any cross-city lines in...

Both the South Junction line and the northern junction line passed through built-up areas from the start. It would certainly have been cheaper to have four tracks back in the 1840s in terms of the costs and difficulties of land acquisition, but it may well not have been easy. Widening would have...

If a bridge is properly signed (and the measurements are correct), can the driver ever NOT be at fault?

“Herapath’s Railway Journal” — you’ll find a long run in the British Newspaper Archive, though unfortunately not the early years. An important and very useful source to have access to. There’s also a good long run of the “Railway News”.

I think it's only in quite recent years that Local Acts have been available on line, and neither of the two big free-access collections that I know of is anything like complete yet (the Parliamentary Archives, and legislation.gov.uk). By far the best site that I know of, both in terms of the...

Agreed. Is it just my ageing imagination, or has the railway become a much more customer-unfriendly environment over the last 30 years. As for the specific point of the yellow lines etc, why is it necessary for quite such a ferocious approach to that sort of thing to be taken in some contexts...

Instead of (or as well as) doing that, why not put the old fast lines back along with a better junction in Wigan and create a fast route from Manchester to the north, something that neither Manchester nor Liverpool has and would not get under the HS2 proposals. (It's true that Birmingham's...