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Is it a good idea, Yes Will it happen in even the remote foreseeable future, No I cant see any government over the next few political cycles actually putting boots on the ground to build 13 miles of new railway anywhere in England. (Scotland and Wales may have different outcomes)

I would add that proportionally, you are more likely to be heavily delayed or not be able complete your journey due to earlier delays if you are travelling in rural areas due to the earlier finish times of services, and in the more remote locations the sparse service to start with During the...

I think it would also depend upon how much pain and time I would have to spend post the event to recover what was owing. The last time this happened was pre-covid, and TPE were at fault. I ended up stranded in York very late having missed the last train back to Scarborough. The only people at...

My thinking here is: I have already been significantly delayed and have been forced to make alternative arrangements to complete my journey, and I am then involved in a load of admin (at the very least) to recover my expenses. My view is the ToC need make the arrangements and pay for them.

It might also be worth thinking about how delay repay came about. When it started fare box revenue went to the ToC and I assume delay repay ate into profits, so was a penalty to the ToC unless they could blame someone else, and then back charge them. Now I assume it all comes out of the same...

The problem as I see it: The underlying changes which caused the passenger service to be discontinued and then the loss of freight would still have happened even if they had made it into BR ownership. The preservation movement is probably the right home for these railways, as they will never be...

And that raises the bigger question about how much time, money and resource is wasted through 'competition' between the various ToCs when all the funding and fare box revenue is controlled by the DfT (Apart from open access operators) I think we should have a nationalised rail network, but the...

I have a hand crank diesel generator, with a Petter engine, and even with a hand crank and decompression lever, knack is not amongst the words I used when I had to start it in -5C during a power cut 2 years ago :lol: But to be fair once running pretty much unstoppable. I always understood that...

Carrying on from Sheffield to Leeds does not sound like a good idea, not sure when they stopped but back in the day a few St Pancras - Sheffield HST services used to carry on to Leeds, and on the one occassion when I used it was very quiet. I dont think passenger volumes would justify it today...

Whatever scientists say, I think the real answer is they do not know. The warming climate certainly seems to have become more obvious over the last 10 years or so. I think the bigger issue will be the increase in damaging wind storms, both in ultimate strength, and frequency. It will only take...

The reality, the line will get patched up again, and the can 'Dawlish avoider' will get kicked down the road yet again, after all it been kicked down the road for 90 years. The best we can hope for, re-opening beyond Okehampton will be partly justified as an alternative route, and when the...

And similar scenarios repeat themselves around the country day in day out about all sorts of things, not just rail releated. The disconnect between politicians and those in 'control' and their interactions with the general public seems greater than at any point in my nearly 70 years

As someone who fits the description of 'larger', 20st and 6ft. I am by no means near the extreme of 'width' but I do find I overhang, worse on some trains than others. If I am travelling with my wife she is also built for comfort, not fat, but wide enough that if we are sat side by side in 2nd...

There was on the news, just heard it, makes me laugh, with the time the electrification is taking they will probably still be wheeling that old chestnut out in 5 years time.

Its not funded No timescales After 'NPR', which is also unfunded with no timescales Political speak for "We need to try and do some positive spin as we have broken election promises, and introduced other measures which were not in our manifesto and are proving unpopular" (Thinking abandoning...

An interesting and informative reply. Thinking about your 3 'Low points' the first two were 'internal' railway problems which threatened the network, the third was an external event which impacted heavily.

Of the four undertakings that went into the make up of BR the Southern always seemed to be the most advanced, they had embraced electrification, and had WW2 not intervened would probably have electrified most of their major routes. It may also be that because they relied more heavily on...

Used this route regularly until I left London in 1980. I used to think they were rarer than hens teeth, for a London bus route quite a sparse service. The village I moved to had two buses per week and I then realised the 189 wasn't that bad.

I dont think 'encouraging' people back to the office will acheive anything positive. Who wants to spend maybe two hours a day and a wedge of money to do their job when it can be done remotely with no travel time or cost. Things have moved on and the genie wont go back in the bottle. Companies...

Not sure, it was around 1991. In any case the shenanigins surrounding the event meant it was quietly covered up, no one wanted any spotlight on it. I was an independant contractor brought in after the event to recover the system. As a measure of my faith in the people involved I insisted on...