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You fell into a trap there! Cockfosters (Mornington in 17)

I think that a crossrail from Marylebone is a solution looking for a problem. There's 6 platforms, which is about right for a two track railway, which is about right for the demand from the areas it goes through. Lengthen trains, electrify, improve signalling so trains can run closer, build a...

If you want rail to contribute to a regeneration of Plymouth, there are a lot of better options than connecting to Okehampton. Opening a station in Plympton, and running a 30 min frequency commuter service to there and Ivybridge would be relatively cheap, and could easily get cars off the...

I read that as 'it would be worth losing the current bay platform facing the wrong direction in order to get through platforms' - as in worth the loss of a bay platform. That seems beyond a doubt. Whether its worth the money is, as you say, quite another thing. I wonder if a cheaper solution...

And with trains every 3 minutes, and with it being quite simple to set up a cross platform interchange, the wait for another train at OOC is hardly all that much. I'm all for robust infrastructure, but this scenario is for an occasional very late running train, with the very unlikely case that...

Could a spare unit not be on permanent standby at OOC instead if one were required. 6 platforms there (as I recall) seems very generous. Also, by definition, these imported delays would be known about long before the train gets anywhere near Euston (it would presumably be obvious when the...

It would be great if a saving here helped HS2 to come in slightly under budget, it would give a lot more credibility to mega projects in the future. It does seem like the 11th platform was to a certain extent gold plating, and if construction can all happen in a single phase, that sounds like a...

The slam-door trains on the West Coastway. I think most of them must have been 4-Cigs, with just 3 doors on each side of the carriage, where you had to lean out of the drop light to open them. Occasionally you would get one with doors to every row, and overhead luggage racks as well (4VEP?)...

Do the services have to go straight across London, or would L shape do? Something like Southend to Cambridge (reversing at Liverpool Street) or Southampton to Margate (via the Arun Valley, reversing at London Bridge) sound quite possible, although I can't imagine there being much of a market for...

Birmingham Snow Hill to Southend via Baker Street and Barking anyone? Using a class 230 with a pantograph added. OK, a few minor rail links would be needed to join NR and LUL tracks together, but it sounds very plausible to me, and gives another seaside link to Birmingham! 1611645974 Very...

I've wondered a few times about a 'South Bank Crossrail' - building a chord through Waterloo station (I believe this existed up to 1911), connecting the SWR lines (probably the Windsor Lines) with the SE lines through Waterloo East. Although it would be hugely expensive, I suspect that it would...

I suspect that the old Southern 'trigger's broom' method of replacing trains has probably partly caused this issue, and the similar situation with the 442s. In both cases the trains weren't completely new when built, with reused mechanical parts but a new body. Unsurprisingly, the traction...

Lots of wasteful things have happened recently, I'd suggest things like PRM modifying trains that were planned to go out of service in a few years and transfer of LNER HSTs to EMR are two more obvious wastes. Strangely, both of those were apparently DfT led, so were part of a national strategy...

Yes, as mentioned above, they don't meet requirements for various capacity, timing and door requirements.

You could argue that it is a major benefit of privatisation that the roscos take the risk on this, meaning that there is no need for a TOC to keep expensive old trains if the market conditions mean that cheaper new ones are available. Not perhaps so relevant for the 455s, but for the 350/2s,379s...

As I understand it, the DfT effectively mandated their replacement in the franchise process as, although not life expired, the SWR network needed the capacity boost of new trains with bigger doors, better acceleration, more standing room and a consistent speed profile.

I agree, no way would the final logo include 'Ltd', surely!

A little bit off topic, but it seems amazing that a lift and platform extension hasn't been provided to P1. On Google Earth It doesn't look to be impossible, or even particularly expensive in railway terms to extend up to around 40m to the West, to where the viaduct narrows (even if it meant...

Looking at option C, as someone who doesn't visit Manchester very option, one of the nice things about it is that it lends itself well to producing a tube-map style diagram - almost all of the routes through central Manchester run every 30 minutes, normally with similar routes combining into a...

That's an issue that can be partly solved with a battery buffer in the terminal charger, that trickle charges it all day, but I agree it won't work everywhere. Personally I hope that the gas network is switched off and we move to electric for domestic heating and cooking rather than go down the...