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I was rushing to catch a train at Marylebone; it was 17.27. Platform staff ushered me aboard the last carriage of a 17.25 departure which hadn't left yet. The last carriage turned out to be a first-generation 'bubble car' unit. It was thoroughly modernised inside, with comfortable seats in...

If money is no object, rather than replicate something from the past why not create a modern steam loco building on the work of Dante Porta or the American Coal Enterprises project of the 1980s?

Wirral Line has lifts though, most LU stations don't.

I think the 08's top speed is 20mph and the 09 is 27mph. Also, the 312s came in two variants; the West Midlands ones were 75mph and the Eastern Region ones 90mph.

If the loco is not containerisable, it should be possible to move it on the specialised ro ro ships used to carry vehicles, large cranes and other outsize loads, using a trailer that is towed onto the deck of the ship - I'd guess the likes of Wallenius Wilhelmsen (www.2wglobal.com) would be able...

If that's the case, maybe it goes some way towards explaining why train fares are so expensive! It suggests that part of my fare is being used to subsidise a service that I neither want nor use.

A record in the sense of how quickly a train has been got between those stations. I shouldn't think recovery time, pathing allowances etc mean much to the average punter.

Sounds a lot pleasanter than the travelling conditions most commuters are used to in this country. Of course, the Russian railways go to places that roads don't especially in remote areas, which is where I'd imagine most of their prisons are.

I took a heavily delayed train, nominally non-stop from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston, one Saturday in about April/May 2010 following a lineside fire. I think the journey time was just a small fraction under two hours - 1hr 56min with one signal stop in the Widnes area - and the driver came on...

Presumably the on-board catering staff "pay for themselves" through the onboard sales they make, though?

But in some respects coach operators' costs could be higher than rail costs. On my journey to Newcastle, we needed a total of four drivers to get a maximum of 53 passengers to destination. Compare that with 2-3 onboard staff for a train with, say, 200-300 passengers. If there is congestion...

I once came across some religious do-gooding types that had taken it upon themselves to set up a traveller's helpdesk on the concourse at East Croydon station. One of the women involved with it proudly told me how they'd paid for a taxi out of their own funds to get someone to their destination...

Oh yes, it would have been quite common until reliable road motor transport became available. There have been no other way of doing it in the 19th century and early 20th.

Going back to the Porridge theme, wasn't one of the other uses of cab roads to transfer prisoners direct between train and black maria?

Newcastle is 268 miles. Euston to Penrith is the nearest comparison on the West Coast Main Line and its fares are quite a bit lower. CL

I've just come back from a return visit from London to Newcastle to see family, which I ended up doing by coach as the train fares were off the scale. On the train, the so-called super-off peak return was about £135. (The off-peak return is, wait for it, £238!) I've also just done a bit of...

Just done a trial run and, yes, you're right. Seems very counterintuitive for a transpennine operator to be selling tickets from Purley to Weymouth, but the rail industry always likes to baffle its customers. Transpennine also seems to have the advantage that they don't seem to charge...

There is one very useful facility on Red Spotted Hanky, namely the ability to reserve a cycle space at the same time as making a seat reservation. Don't think the Trainline offers that and the alternative - going down to the local ticket office and trying to get the guys there to do it - is just...

The Channel Tunnel; my mood not enhanced by the thought of being dragged round the shopping centre in Calais for hours later on that afternoon.

Don't forget that electric power is only cheaper than petrol/diesel because there is no excise duty and only a reduced rate of VAT on electricity. If the government ever cottons on to the idea of taxing electricity used for charging battery cars, it will be just as expensive for the consumer.