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Ushuaia, Argentina, and Longyearbyen, Svalbard spring to mind - not sure how much further north or south you can get and still be in a commercial port. Ushuaia notable for its anti-British propaganda signs at the port gates to this day (this is where Clarkson got driven out of town by the...

Have a listen to "Ohio" by CSNY 56 years ago about the murders by the National Guard of 4 student protestors. Not so different days, and hopefully it will lead to a similar change in public attitudes

But hey, some good news for a change. Isle of Islay is tonight approaching the Italian coast on her delivery voyage from Turkey. Just the meerest chink of light at the end of a long dark tunnel !

Well as we're talking about Scandinavia to Germany links long gone, I crossed from Trelleborg to Sassnitz in 2012 on Stena's Trelleborg, route closed in 2020. Just checked the photos I took, to confirm my memories, it was a (freight) train service and we carried a rake of petrochem tanker...

Very interesting. But Viking Grace entered service 13 years ago with Flettners, so not that innovative, eh ? Last time I saw a Flettner-equipped vessel was near Bergen - it had rotor sails that could be folded down near-flush with the deck - good news if you're regularly running under bridges...

Harwich/Esbjerg wad lovely, did it a few times. Early evening departure, an hour on deck, a drink in the bar, a good meal and a big lie-in before getting on the road. I last did it 2 weeks before the route closed and the guitarist in the bar made no bones about his imminent unemployment...

Well I'm sure that a little extra delay can be accommodated, bearing in mind that the original 73TS replacement bid process first ran 16 years ago! Until of course PPP ended and Tube Lines rode off into the sunset and I suppose the bid documents are still gathering dust and cobwebs in the...

Funny enough, and at the risk of thread drift, Krokodil, my late mum was born in 1939 in the Czech-owned Sudetenland (conceived on the night of Hitler's annexation of same when all the ethnic Germans celebrated rather too wildly. Her WW2 ended up in deportation and a cattle truck on a train to...

Tetchytyke has it right. Menwith Hill, Croughton, Molesworth, the lot, gone, now. Oh and let Universal Studios know that their planning permission for Stewartby is revoked with immediate effect. The one big plus from this is that we now have absolute clarity that Trump is not our friend and...

Back in the early 90s when I was the programme sponsor for depot security (anti-graffiti measures) I arranged, after talking to the ELL Engineering Manager, for NX depot to be surrounded by high security fencing topped with razor wire. The depot team then lived in a portacabin at the south end...

And let's not forget the old London Transport clubs. For a decade I paid a monthly sub to the London Electric Railway Athletic Association, to get me into the social club above Camden Town tube station, primary attractions being the cheap beer, full size snooker tables and high pay-out slot...

I agree with you, Railguy, When I was a tube manager, brand protection and purity was rammed home to every one of us, and what's going on here would have been complete anathema. And quite right too. As you say, there's plenty of scope for advertising on stations and in trains without the need...

Well who remembers Surrey Docks on the ELL being renamed Surrey Quays back in the 80's to reflect a new commercial development ? There was an in joke at the time that the intended name was Sarah Quays (Keys), who was having a fling at the time with then Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson.

Just watching tonight's episode focusing on Yorkshire. OK as far as it goes, but I can't help feeling they're trying to replicate "The Architecture the railways built", but without the deep passion and knowledge of a Tim Dunn. A bit like having Sean bean narrate a nature programme. And the...

Being Bradford born, the contrasting fortunes of Bradford and Leeds drive me to tears. I never cease to be impressed at the towers of glass springing up in Leeds when I come through on the train whilst Bradford quietly rots in the hands of generations of uninspired civic leadership, beginning...

From the perspective of London Underground, definitely 1982. Annual ridership dipped below 500m for the first time as the infrastructure became increasingly decrepit. Shortly thereafter we had Red Ken in charge and he launched the Fares Fair initiative that effectively halved ticket prices...

A quarter of a century ago I had an evening SAS flight from Copenhagen to Vasteras for a business meeting the following morning. My colleague travelling up from Berlin was going to miss her connection into my flight so when I walked up the airbridge and spotted the grey-bearded Captain...

Well from the days when I was involved with the LUL anti-graffiti efforts, Loughton Sidings was certainly considered bandit country and I see from WTT70 that 10 trains are still offered for service from there every weekday. Given that the sidings are surrounded by woods which offer ample cover...

Last gig was folkies Flook at the Cambridge Junction a month ago. Terrific night. Two flutes, with the lead Brian Finnegan an absolute genius. Next up McCusker/McGoldrick/Doyle in March. McCusker was previously married to and played with Kate Rusby but between them the boys have toured with...

The Ouse Ferry near Howden just popped in to my head. Withdrawn in 1929 when the Boothferry Bridge opened. Still marked by the nearby Ferryboat Inn, itself closed a few years ago.