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Hi, I want to travel from manchester-croydon tomorrow and was planning on purchasing an open return with railcard discount (~£50). I also want to attend the anti-cuts march (nearest tube embankment). The ticket obviously allows "any route permitted" but i'd be breaking my journey in central...

The thing is journeys like Manchester-London are already quicker than flying centre-to-centre and a lot quicker than driving. Wouldn't it be better to invest the billions in: a) quicker intercity routes like Bristol-Exeter and Manchester-Leeds (current avg. speed = 42mph) b) reconnecting...

What about her other point "We want strong city regions with highly integrated transport systems...stretching for at least 50km around all our major cities. We want excellent inter-city links between places like Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle and Exeter, Bristol, Birmingham." ? I...

Common sense from a politician on the HS2 proposals? She wants 100% electrification of the network instead. Personally, I agree with many of her points. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/04/hs2-high-speed-rail (The article is by Caroline Lucas - a Green Party MP for those who...

Saw this news article today http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317727/Mum-defeats-yobs-standing-track-stop-train-foul-mouthed-football-mob-traps-family--rail-staff-refuse-police.html Any thoughts? Did the driver/conductor do their jobs properly?

Both Liverpool and Fulham will be on the train today to get to matches without flying! see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/liverpool/7610795/Liverpool-travel-to-Madrid-live.html The question is could Liverpool get to Madrid any quicker by taking a train all the...

What about Alstom's 4th gen "New Pendolino" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETR_600) which can reach 155mph. The Italians run these on classic mixed traffic lines (Frecciargento), and have separate 186mph high speed trains (Frecciarossa) for their HS lines. Will we ever see this introduced on...

Just wondered if we could steer this thread back to the WCML itself :) Imagine the following scenario: HS2 is cancelled/takes 20 yrs to build, the best possible signalling is installed on the existing WCML (in-cab etc.), we obtain rolling stock capable of >200mph service speeds, extremely long...

The title of this thread is "WCML Pendolino does 130mph? [question mark]". This is the peak of what my GPS recorded. My intent was to discuss a) the accuracies of my data b) the current speed bottlenecks on the WCML From the discussion here it seems that speeds of 125-128 mph are commonplace...

What a ridiculous thing to say. Firstly, I only mentioned the time of the service I was recording, not the day. And I have seen this happen on several prior services at various times/days of the week. Secondly, it is perfectly legal to own and use a GPS recording device in this country. The...

see this link for info on the top speed of the Javelins http://leytr.blogspot.com/2010/04/at-sharp-end-part-2.html I've noticed Pendolinos arriving early, and recorded them nudging above 125mph on many occasions on the Man-Eus route since last year. If all drivers are doing this then I'm...

This may be true but the severity of this effect e.g. is it +/-1mph or +/-5mph etc. will depend on the instrument (mine does take into account elevation as well). The fact is that any type of cruise-control cannot respond instantly. On the HS1 Javelins the limiter is set at +7kph, with up to...

Pendolinos use Alstom Onix traction drive: they can do 0-60mph in 60 seconds, and have acceleration of 0.43m/s2. So they could easily accelerate 125-129mph in 15s. Oops! No. If it stops at 3 stations I guess that adds around 15mins incl. waiting time so the "best" classic time would be around...

My GPS is based on SiRFstar-III (2004) and signal quality was strong except for in tunnels. In case anyone is interested the train slows from 125mph at the following places: 1) Stone Junction - branch to Stone (75mph) 2) Colwich Junction - where the WCML splits to Manchester and Crewe (drops...

The graph only looks "spiky" as data for 184 miles is compressed into a small window. The train appears to accelerate from 125-129/130mph and then decelerate back to 125mph over intervals of about 1/2 mile. This is consistent with the limiter kicking in at 129mph (mentioned earlier). Anyway...

This document on alternatives to HS2 makes for an interesting read: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedrail/alternativestudy/pdf/railintervention.pdf Apparently the best Man-Eus timing that can be achieved is 1 hr 57 min using the existing WCML. Maybe HS2 is the best solution...

The track distance from Manchester-London is 184 miles, and current average speed is ~90mph. If all the bottlenecks were removed then theoretically you could do a (non-stop) journey in as little as 1hr30min @125mph. I thought ERTMS level 2 was only needed for >125mph?

Maybe my GPS is wrong, but I'm guessing the cruise control can't react instantly to overspeeding. Anyway - my main question was whether it would be possible to regularly run trains at <2hrs with minor track upgrades?

I recently took the 1.35pm Virgin Pendolino from Manchester to Euston on the WCML. It was timetabled at 2 hrs 7 mins calling at Stockport, Macc., and Stoke. But it actually pulled into Euston in 2 hrs, i.e. 7 mins early. I have noticed this happening a few times this year. This got me thinking...