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Funny how people think money grows on trees in Wales. TfW has been very fortunate in being able to replace virtually its entire fleet in the last few years, and has picked up extra funding which probably should have gone to other sectors (notably health and education). I haven't seen much of...

And the TBM positions have been updated for August 7 (9 days since July 29): Madelaine has 5112m to go, Karen has 5575m. So the progress is +175m (19m/day) for Madelaine and +38m (4m/day) for Karen. Karen must have slowed for a reason, maybe TBM maintenance.

The map doesn't even show the Cambridge-Hitchin-King's Cross route, as an "other operator". TSGN is also a GBR operator. The opportunity to replace the "c2c" branding has been missed.

It's ironic the Ansaldo stuff is being replaced after only 25 years, while the more-than-a-century-old stuff adjacent soldiers on! The "Stockport 5" AB boxes have been modernised more than once though, and I think the lineside kit is fully modern. I also think Manchester South was at one time...

But Manchester ROC controls multiple sections of the north west. As new sections are resignalled, control is transferred to Manchester ROC. That now includes routes out of Liverpool Lime St, Blackpool North, North Manchester, some lines at Crewe, Macclesfield etc. The plan is eventually all of...

Manchester ROC has taken over control of the Independent lines at Crewe, with the closure of the manual boxes in the area. This may well have affected freight trains in the area, with knock-on to the main lines, particularly the slows.

It is, but the signalling there is local from Deansgate Jn Box, not the ROC in Ardwick.

Manchester ROC covers routes out of Liverpool Lime St too - are they affected? The main WCML should be OK though. PS I can see delays of up to 2 hours on services into Lime St on RTT, and many cancellations. Liverpool might be reachable via Chester, and onwards via Merseyrail. Similarly...

There's potential for the GBR setup to worsen our level of interavailability, much as Merseyrail manages to do today. Devolution can work against integration. Even the Deutschlandticket discriminates between local and IC services, even if they are all government-run.

The Manchester Airport one died with the Castlefield capacity issues. Not sure why the Liverpool never happened, especially as the second Chat Moss stopper also never appeared. The Chester is well used though, and gives 2tph Chester-Manchester via Warrington and a faster service at that (omits 3...

Yes, but major components will come from outside the UK (eg electrics, bogies, power packs and probably batteries). The supply chain is global these days, just like for cars.

CAF, Hitachi and Alstom trains are "British built" (ie assembled here) but largely designed overseas. Siemens can build you a German-designed train in Goole. Stadler hasn't (yet) got a UK assembly site. Hitachi class 80x trains for the UK have been assembled in Japan and Italy as well as the...

Yes you're right, I've copied those wrongly from BRFares. There are a huge number of fares for this flow, if you add things like carnets and group fares.

For a partial extension of electric working south/west of Church Fenton there will have to be switching points (APCO) installed. So it depends if this is included in the Christmas 2026 work. It's the start of the next big Huddersfield shutdown too, extending through January 2027.

Chester-Manchester return will be a popular fare (wholly in England). TfW sets the Any Permitted fares and has the Off Peak Return SVR/8A at 20.30, and an Anytime Day Return (SDR) at 20.20. But you can get cheaper fares on Northern Only (SDR 19.70, CDR/B3 16.70), or Avanti Only (change at...

Many TfW Off Peak Day Returns have already gone, being replaced by the more expensive (Anytime) Off Peak Return (restriction 8A, but no time restriction and no break of journey). Presumably these are staying. The time restrictions (morning and afternoon) on CDRs made them largely unusable...

You can't blame the government for the shambles Network Rail made of the CP5 electrification programme, that caused wiring plans to be truncated, paused or abandoned in 2015. There's a long list of NR mega-projects that went massively late/overspent, causing money intended for electrification to...

So we'll have three major rail control centres within 30 miles of each other in the West Midlands. Washwood Heath is less than 2 miles from Birmingham ROC at Saltley - which controls virtually all of the WM regional network, and with Rugby ROC (controlling essentially the whole of the classic...

There are still some ex-Avanti 5-car Voyagers sitting idle. The constraint is DfT not wanting to increase TOC budgets to lease them.

The Greatest Gathering at Derby last year was a heritage event led by Alstom with the cooperation of the Roscos and TOCs of the day. The Paddington event looks similar, with First Group providing the rolling stock (from Avanti and GWR resources). It didn't seem to be a DfT, DFTO or GBR event...