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Seats in the 745s/755s are perfectly fine, I've done a few longer trips on them without issue. Seats in the 170s that GA used to operate were also comfortable. I actually prefer the 700s seating to that of the "Southern spec" 387s also found on the Kings Cross runs, though. 700s may be firm but...

Giving you the benefit of the doubt here but I understand "Orientals" can be seen as a rather outdated term. Indeed I was told when working in the USA earlier this year that it can be considered racist abuse when applied to a person...definitely better names out there for the CAF fleet!

Not quite the be all and end all - you keep mentioning that "reliability will be better" but don't really explain how. Nationalised or not, buses will still break down, drivers will be ill, etc. And of course they'll still get stuck in traffic and run late if improvements aren't made to...

Whippet never had a depot in Huntingdon, being based at Hilton and then at Fenstanton before moving to Swavesey (Stagecoach bought the old Fenstanton depot to operate Busway routes from) You are likely thinking of Huntingdon & District / Cavalier Contracts who operated out of the old United...

However still far more of them in relative terms - and modifying a modern vehicle so it doesn't need control electronics (will it run clean and smoothly? no, but it'll run and drive) isn't necessarily that difficult. In the same relative terms, far more people know how to operate a road vehicle...

He has suggested GWR, Chiltern, Northern, Scotrail and EMR at least, multiple times. Perhaps the solution here is to club together and buy him a 175 all of his own?

Any fleet regardless of type will have teething problems for a short while, given these are the first electrics that have been operated in Norwich its not a surprise. Similar electric 'deckers operate happily in London, Cambridge and elsewhere so I don't think Norwich is a special case.

Maybe I'm interpreting you wrongly here, but that reads to me like saying a rail service carries "reasonable" passenger numbers - could mean anything. They're definitely outnumbered by anyone with the skills to work on internal combustion engines.

I did the X1 Lowestoft - Peterborough end to end on the same E400 before the route was split in two (at Norwich I think). Thankfully the E400 was new and had rather nice seats. Done the X5 Cambridge - Oxford many times, once again before the route was split. Longest coach trip was on school...

That'll be for the Woking extension! Station to be built under the world's most memorable Pizza Express

They're all generic stuff although #1 and #7 appear to be much older designs. Everything else looks to be late 90s / early-mid 2000s and I'd be surprised if it's still made. Another moquette manufacturer used to be Camira Holdsworth changed their name to Camira around 10 years ago...

Don't forget the ones on Volvo B9TL chassis either (and the one-off B7TL that got the body).

Who is paying for the increase in cost that would result from having to run newer vehicles on school contracts? Councils definitely aren't interested in paying any more than they currently do (and indeed rates from some authorities haven't gone up for years). I can't see where you justify a...

I don't understand your logic here, but any operator with half an idea of how to operate services would either run a 'decker worked "crowd buster" duplicate as far as required, or have busier duties in the timetable run with double decks (as much as is reasonably practical). As for running...

Turkey Twizzler Street, by Bernard Matthews. Angel Slices by Mr Kipling (Tagline "An exceedingly good station") Ovaltine.

It was always a running joke that BMW stood for "Broke My Wallet" :D

I can't help but be curious who you're comparing Vectare to - especially given the criticism you've metered out to many other operators on this forum, say D&G and so forth. Part of me is curious as to what your industry experience is. Are they perfect? No. The Cambridge area operations are a...

Never used catering on any train and to be honest it's inconsistent at the best of times, so I'd never bother with it and just stock up before travelling - same as travelling by air. Get rid of it and save the money to improve other onboard facilities that everyone can benefit from. Likewise do...

Any thoughts on this, @London Trains ?

Weights on the locomotive axles as I understand. This leads to restrictions on where the loco (and stock) can go, and at what speed it can progress. For example on the Fenland lines around East Anglia there are large speed differences between Sprinters / Sprinter equivalents (755,s 170s etc) and...