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Shinkansen are fixed pricing but are only fully reservation-only on the fastest trains during peak holiday season, though even outside of that most trains have the majority of carriages reserved for those with seat reservations and those without are crammed into a couple of carriages. Seat...

One complaint I hear a lot in online non-enthusiast spaces is the claim that ROSCOs are the cause of high ticket prices.

I think it is relatively easy to understand. Firstly, they argue that France's adoption of SPVs has led to increased costs. They then argue that using consultants is not inherently negative, the problem is using them too early in the process; using them for the "last 70-90% of design" is fine...

I have received a response to your post, which is quite long and spanned multiple comments: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2026/01/13/british-construction-costs-and-centralization/#comment-166520

I found this article written a few months ago advocating for passing loops on the Elizabeth line to allow trains to overtake interesting. I have tried to trim the article down for my quote, but I had to keep a fair bit of it to not omit important information...

I put your post to the person writing the study referenced my first post and got this in response: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2026/01/13/british-construction-costs-and-centralization/#comment-166514

It certainly came earlier than that for things like summary tables - a very quick check shows the summary tables for the 1950 ER timetable have it.

People advocating for building from Manchester south have never argued that it was the best option in terms of improving capacity, increasing travel speed, etc. - they have argued that it was the best option politically because an extension to London would in theory be less easy to cancel than...

Hmmm. On the other hand, keeping the scope limited is a good way to make sure it actually gets done instead of being cut down or cancelled because it got too expensive.

Surely larger loading gauge trains cross the American and Russian borders?

At what frequency?

For clarity, what precisely do you mean by this? Which services would be returning to this pattern?

Does this explain the UK seeing construction costs become much more expensive than other European countries from the late 90s onwards, though? Does the UK see higher costs of materials and higher labour costs than other European countries?

When you say "construction costs have gone up significantly for all types of construction", is that comparing costs internationally or is it just comparing costs in different fields in the UK? I should also note that they are mainly not discussing BR and are mainly focussed on the...

I'd say there's definitely a case to be made for increasing LNWR/WMT frequency along the London-Birmingham corridor - many stations only receive 2tph. Squeezing in an extra 2tph to get all stations to a turn-up-and-go frequency would be very beneficial when it comes to raising ridership and...

Alon Levy of the Transit Costs Project recently posted a blog post where they primarily argued against the idea that centralisation is the cause of high construction costs in the UK. Instead they argue that according to a forthcoming report by the Transit Costs Project, the primary cause is the...

I have to say that I really don't think it will look like this to the public. I don't see anyone on social media talking about "what the rail industry wants", or seeing the cancellation of HS2 Phase 2 as a good thing for the North.

Bus routes can be changed even more easily, yet they're numbered.

This is something Gourvish emphasises, along with the fact that steam ran on domestically produced coal while diesel required imported oil. Therefore Gourvish does not fault BR for not going full-throttle for dieselisation, but he does fault them for a) the Western Region's construction of...

But the NVR has the large collection of foreign rolling stock, which I think the general public will notice and be interested in far more than something like the GCR's double track.