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Why? Building new rail infrastructure is very expensive and especially so if it is designed for high speed trains. The UK is in a parlous economic situation with massive debt, whose servicing alone consumes vast portions of tax revenue. Therefore, new rail lines should only be built if they...

The comment was in relation to splitting services that currently run via Northampton at that station, to create separate services from Manchester to Northampton via Birmingham (which could be operated by class 350/2 trains) and from Northampton to London Euston. This would keep the London...

Spending in excess of £12 billion (at 2023 prices) to build a high speed rail route from Manchester to Crewe, requiring a long tunnel between Manchester and Ringway, just to serve 3tph, and save only about 20 minutes off the Manchester to London journey time, would be criminally profligate...

The original Leeds electric tram network began as early as 1891 with the initial route to Roundhay Park, which survived until early 1959. The core network was largely intact up to 1953, although long extra-urban extensions into neighbouring local authority areas had been closed, as well as some...

The potential capacity problem is between Handsacre and Crewe. It isn't worth building a new extremely expensive high speed line from Crewe to Manchester just for a couple of trains per hour from Euston to Manchester. If there is congestion at Stockport, expresses from London to Manchester via...

Just 2tph from Euston to Manchester would use the new line that ypu have proposed into Manchester. That isn't worth the horrendous cost of building it. The Manchester to Birmingham setvice only merits 2tph via rhe current route and stopping pattern, but providing 8 coach electric trains...

I disagree. The potential capacity problem is between Handsacre and Crewe, not north of Crewe where the line from the south forks into essentially 4 directions, none of which merit bypassing with an extremely expensive new line.

There are enough spare class 350/2 emus to take over the whole of the XC services on the Manchester to Birmingham section using 8 coach trains, and if appropriate run them through to Coventry/Northampton, taking over some local services as well.

I would run this service as 1tph with 2x 4 coach Voyagers and extend it to Leeds, and withdraw the existing Reading to York/Newcastle service.

The continuing overcrowding on XC suggests to me that the best use for the redundant 350/2s would be to replace the Voyagers on the fully electrified sections of the XC network. This would release Voyagers to lengthen trains on non-electrified parts of this network. I am thinking particularly...

Why bother using rail for this convoluted journey that is likely to take about 2 hours with several changes, when using bus services, with 1 change in Warrington, won't take longer and will be much cheaper? Alternatively, there is a direct rail service from Runcorn East to Warrington Bank Quay...

My recollection was that a small 'x' was used as a suffix, rather than a capital 'X', by Manchester Corporation Transport. The main use was for extra journeys that did not run the full route, often rush hour/works/schools extras. I have a particular memory of catching a route 41x bus regularly...

One cannot generalise, as it depends on the operator and the depot allocation. In Eastern Cheshire, nearly all buses are single deck, particularly since D&G took over most scheduled services. Previously, Arriva did have a few double deck buses, but one came to grief at a low bridge close to...

Orbital passenger flows in Greater Manchester are unlikely to generate traffic demand exceeding a double-deck bus service running 5 tph, so the case for building Metrolink lines on such routes is dubious. There are still heavy rail routes into central Manchester ripe for Metrolink conversion...

The current proposed scheme's rationale seems dubious, and at least partly based on the feeling that West Yorkshire ought to have a light rail system as most other metropolitan areas in Britain already have one. Other than providing a rail service to St James's Hospital, the proposed network...

Ludlow to Knighton (738/740) is already in the list under Wales, although most of the route is in England. Craven Arms to Llandrindod (X48) is a relatively new bus route that was started to fill gaps in the infrequent rail service on the parallel Central Wales line.

Establishing canteens at major termini makes sense, to minimise dead time between finishing journeys and taking a meal break. Historically, Southern Cemetery was a major tram and later bus terminus. Until shortly before the demise of the first generation tramways, many of the Wythenshawe buses...

The services also didn't run on Friday afternoons after 1400 as well, i.e. just before the Sabbath eve. The number 613 has particular significance in Judaism - it is the total number of commandments. I note that the services didn't last very long, presumably as the distances covered were very...

@tbtc Thank you for these detailed, well thought out and pragmatic suggestions, with which I largely agree. The nonsense of 1tph from Southport to the Castlefield line and similar disruptive routes need to be removed to have any realistic prospect of improving the services via Castlefield.