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On a slight tangent, I remember being told of a study by a Picc Line Duty Train Manager 30 years ago ago that explored correlations between driver sickness absence and the proportion of time spent driving underground. He discovered that that there was significantly greater absence associated...

Another day of rubbish headlines from the Middle East so I've cheered myself up with.... Stevie Van Zandt - Camouflage of Righteousness Jackson Browne - Lives in the Balance The latter live in Chile (1990) is on Youtube and is breathtaking. And the former was written in 1999 and is still just...

I spent a few years deep down in the detail of the London Underground PPP performance payment framework. The PPP contractors were penalised for each train delay on a sliding scale reflecting location and time of day. The measurement unit was the Lost Customer Hour and there was a set of...

Given this week's moonshot, two I've had on this weekend, completely different.... I'll meet you at the moon - Imelda May Lunar Sea - Camel - from Moon Madness - a monster prog rock classic

Back in the early 90s on MML we had a stout, bearded train manager who was a right character. His final announcement running into St P was usually " Please ensure you leave the train with all your possessions and any travelling companions with whom you may have been travelling". And he...

Well, Isle of Islay got the job done today with her first revenue trip from Islay to Kennacraig (spotted thanks to Baypaul's tip-off in another place). Watched her arrival on the Kennacraig webcam and it all looked very low key - clearly not a good time to hang out the bunting right now !

37 days to the Scottish Parliament elections. Funny that. Right now they need a good transport story !

Jeepers, not good. Begs the question, why would anyone in their right mind book a Spring trip to the Western Isles this year, it'd be an almighty gamble. How have Western Ferries performed today ? I'm reminded of a bumper sticker I saw on a car waiting for the BC Ferries service to Vancouver...

I see it's 40 years since the most amazing match I ever attended, with my German cousin. European Cup Winners Cup quarter final 2nd leg, Bayer Uerdingen v Dynamo Dresden, West v East, in Krefeld. Dresden won the first leg 2-0 and were 3-1 up on the night at half time. In the second half...

Hi Banbury. In simple terms CBTC/TBTC is a computer based train control system. The train knows its position by various means, like fixed lineside position beacons, wheel rotation counters, counting signal cable loop crossovers in the track, and send this back to a central computer that...

What I WOULD say is that HMPO appears to be blindingly efficient when compared with the slow collapse of most public services. Applied for a replacement for my expired passport on line 6 days ago and it's apparently printed and in the post already. Not bad at all, methinks !

Still, throw in solar (27% of generation right now) and nuclear (12%) and that's 90% of our generation carbon free. Not bad. Different story tomorrow when the winds abate though !

At the risk of repeating myself on this thread, you need to look at outstabling sidings like Woodford to see where real damage gets done. You don't need a key fob to get in, the culprits will simply break through the lineside fencing if not properly specified and sufficiently remote, or even...

Been going on for years, though, hasn't it ? In my 20s I lived in Wandsworth and the Youngs Ram Brewery was very much a part of the local fabric - even recall the dray horses pulling the beer carts down Garrett Lane until it was deemed unsafe. Then the brewery closed, production moved to a...

The run up onto Blakey Ridge from Kirbymoorside, up past the Lion Inn (great for a pub lunch)then back down the other side of the valley into Rosedale. Simply stunning on a good day. Took my dad up there 3 weeks before he died. We parked up for ten minutes at the head of the dale and he simply...

And who remembers Roger Freeman (then a Transport Minister, as I recall) touting the benefits of open access. He proposed that we could have first class trains for the likes of, er, Roger Freeman, and second class trains for the Secretaries. Not sure it was well received by the teeming masses...

When you get your first individually addressed funeral plan mailshot. I doubt I'll see the week out......

Jackson Browne. Lives in the Balance. Never more relevant than in this dreadful week and a classic protest song.

Waterboo, I know that LUL were looking at obstacle detection in stations about a decade ago, but that was in the context of thinking about driverless trains. I helped them translate a German technical standard describing just such a system, using multiple IR beams crossing the 4-foot as I...

Thanks EY, I did skim read all previous posts but may have missed it. Re-watching it this afternoon, it was fun to see them departing an unelectrified St Pancras but then the aerial train shots clearly showed an electrified WCML. Internal carriage scenes were of a Mk 2, but external shots...