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I know that there's all sorts of fancy software nowadays and free diagrams online etc... ...but my generation grew up with a catalogue of Track Plans from Hornby every few years which (in my case at least) meant each layout got daydreamed about a little, rather than the disposable modern...

A recent thread saw a lot of criticism for Lothian Buses because their vehicles don't yet allow contactless payments to be made by bank cards. Whilst it's obviously desirable technology, it felt a little unfair since the vast majority of buses elsewhere in the UK don't yet provide that...

The recent discussion about the 707s - which may be moving away from the South West Trains franchise after only three years got me thinking about other new stock that didn't last on specific routes. The 350/4s will last a little longer with TPE before they are replaced (by 397s). 460s...

Why is HS2 treated so differently by some Enthusiasts (compared to conventional infrastructure schemes)? On the recent “NHS or HS2” thread, I’ve seen a few interesting comments about HS2. We don’t need it because passenger numbers are reaching their peak (so no additional capacity...

A generation ago, Sheffield had the half hourly Stagecoach Express 909 to Doncaster and Grimsby or Hull. There was the Stagecoach Express X2 every hour from Meadowhall/ Sheffield to Chesterfield/ Mansfield/ Nottingham. The X2 became the 747, with the 757 from Nottingham/ Mansfield to...

The Berney Arms thread saw mention of the idea of a private company subsidising a railway service (albeit only the hypothetical idea of a future pub owner having an incentive to pay for more trains to stop at every railway hipster's favourite niche station)... ...and it got me thinking. Some...

Just a bit of fun... but admiring a model railway recently, I realised how common it is in such layouts to have the line going under a road then go over a road a very short distance afterwards. So, using UK heavy rail, what is the shortest distance between a road bridge over a railway and a...

NOTE: Not a "Pro"/"Against" DCO/ DOO thread. Some recent orders for stock have specified DCO/ DOO compatibility, though the trains will initially be operating on lines that are not DCO/ DOO. Responses have been along the lines of "this is to future-proof them", which makes sense. Much...

Rather than de-rail the thread about the new XC franchise with hypotheticals, I thought I'd start a new thread. One of the biggest complaints from enthusiasts about XC is the poor use of the HSTs and the general "crowding" of many other services through Birmingham (a word I have to be careful...

Has anyone heard anything about/ does anyone have any opinions about bus routes in central London once Crossrail is open? Over the last few years, the disruption/ diversions caused by this massive infrastructure project have been justification for some of the gradual cuts by TfL (e.g. fewer...

Are they becoming more common, or is just confirmation bias because I view Forums such as this one (and therefore hear about every potential dispute, even if many/most grievances don't actually see staff walking out or taking other action/ inaction)? This isn't a thread about the rights and...

Today saw service "revisions" on various Stagecoach services in Sunderland (e.g. the 12/13 through Silksworth downgraded from every five minutes to every ten minutes - with the 12 running through to Town End Farm to maintain the ten minute frequency north of the river too). As well as fewer...

The map of the 360A/360C (on the recent thread about its demise) showed it passing three different Tescos around Coventry. That got me thinking - how many bus* routes pass at least three different stores of the same shop? Locally, the outbound First SY 95 passes four Sainsburys in under...

The idea of a service from Nottingham to Glasgow via the Settle & Carlisle (S&C) has been suggested on the “Northern” thread and the “TPE” thread. It gets suggested regularly on a variety of threads. Not as bad as the “My solution for future uses for 442s/ HSTs/ 91s” threads, but pretty...

Whenever there's a thread about "most frequent" routes, the same services keep cropping up (mainly in London and Manchester). But these are generally routes with just numbers - no prefixes or suffixes. So, to try to do something different, what are the most frequent services that involve letters...

Discussing the bus service at Woodhouse station in Sheffield on a thread tonight got me thinking that it has roughly twenty four buses departing per hour (eight Stagecoach to Woodhouse Village, eight Stagecoach to Hillsborough via Sheffield City Centre, eight First to Hillsborough via Sheffield...

Growing up in Scotland in the 1980s, the Class 50s seemed exotic, being confined to seemingly exotic parts of the country at the time... ...and they had such glorious names to inspire a schoolboy... ...Fearless... ...Thunderer... ...Conqueror... ...Monarch... ...Revenge...

Which is your favourite fictional railway/ public transport? Rather than the usual transport debates (why an as yet unbuilt train won’t be as good as the ones I grew up with, why my local area gets underinvested in, why one corporate group is always the hero/villain etc), here’s something...

At the moment there are a few "microfleets" (a token number of units that doesn't seem to have economies of scale), generally seen as A Bad Thing. We quite often see arguments against certain schemes since they'd end up with a microfleet (which is seen as inefficient - more spares needed...

There were a couple of comments in the "Labour could be planning to allow public sector to bid for franchises" thread, but they've got drowned out in the nationalisation/ Beeching/ party politics arguments... ...so, to keep this separate, does anyone know how the subsidy position for railways...