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It's not a meaningful solution for the UK because it's the distance from the rail to the platform edge that matters here. Most countries have loading gauges which don't narrow below platform level, so they can have platforms at any level without it affecting the passage of trains.

There is a possibility that a Leven reopening might need to wait for the Inverkeithing-Halbeath bypass line to open. Without it, it might well not be possible to provide a good enough service on the branch to justify reopening it. This is the sort of thing we can expect to fall out of the sort...

IIRC there was an accident decades ago in London where it was found that the crush loading actually prevented injuries. In an empty train you have plenty of space for a large velocity differential to build up in an accident, meaning you impact the hard surfaces of the interior. If it's crush...

The 35 needed a new fleet of buses at the same time as the 200 needed double deckers. I don't think it's unreasonable that the fare will be going up. Airports are one of the few places a bus company can charge extra for without it being unfair and damaging. Airport buses are used by two types...

The Council are acutely aware that the road network won't be able to handle the increase in buses necessary with all of the population increases planned for the city. The only way forward is to invest in a higher-capacity transport system, and that means a street running light metro. Edinburgh...

Obviously it's good that another manufacturer is showing interest in the UK market, but Talgo is for all intents and purposes a one-trick-pony manufacturer. They have one basic design that they have used for all of their trains, but that basic design really doesn't seem suited to any current or...

You aren't wrong. Part of the justification for the Borders Railway was though that it would make the region more viable for commuters. You only need a few hundred well-heeled commuters in and around Galashiels to help keep the economy chugging.

You can build a new route limited to 230km/h. You won't see any real benefit of increasing speeds beyond that. Look at HS1 and see how a 230km/h max speed between St Pancras and Ebbsfleet has basically no impact on the journey times for both Eurostar and Southeastern Highspeed services. A...

But, then you're causing chaos in Manchester for not a lot of gain. Because the branch has a max speed of 230km/h, and that can decrease as you get closer to the buffers, it's possible to build the city centre station parallel to and on the same level as the existing platforms at Piccadilly. If...

HS2 tracks are designed around the planned service pattern, which is then planned around how many passenger journeys there would be to London. On a simplistic level, HS2 was originally designed as one core railway from London to just before Birmingham Interchange, and then a large number of...

It is necessary, as the platform extensions required for 8 car operation mean the front of the station would need to be heavily reconfigured. Presumably the design process found out that there wasn't an acceptable intermediate where 8 car operation was available with minimal change to the...

The truth is that the days of mass employment being necessary for the economy to keep chugging along are nearing their end. That's why people's living conditions don't seem to match up with overall economic growth across the developed world. Ultimately, the economy could really just consist of...

No. That basic route configuration was rejected back in 2010 in favour of the Y network. Running Newcastle-London trains via Manchester means that everyone gets a worse service for no good reason. HS3/NPR needs different decisions made to make it as useful as possible.

It's very easy to come out with statements which have a very, very loose connection to reality. Transport Scotland did not order the HSTs. It put in the ScotRail ITT that it wanted high-quality InterCity stock, and the various bidders each came up with their own solution. Abellio won, and their...

Why is the limit so low through Burton? A reduction like that has a massive impact on journey times.

It was reported at the time that National Express actually were cheaper. Abellio were a close second, but they had the highest quality score of any bidder. Because the franchise ITT had explained how quality would be taken into account when scoring, it was totally acceptable for Transport...

Why though? Regional railways had its nadir too and its comeback is driven by very similar reasons. Regional train services have got faster and more frequent and connect smaller towns to larger urban areas which have services which can't be sustained in smaller urban areas. People in Hebden...

The tram was never designed to get people out to Toton quickly. It was designed, quite reasonably for the time, as a standard suburban and park-and-ride route into the city centre and employment areas like NG2. It will not be the premier way of getting out to the East Midlands Hub from the city...

I don't think it'll happen that way. Remember that the growth the railway has seen since the nadir in the 80s has been down to a focus on things that private motoring can't do so well. Autonomous vehicles won't be able to get people from King's Lynn into King's Cross every day in anything like...

It would be somewhat usual for the 'seven cities' service not to call at one of those seven cities. When the 385s will be in service it shouldn't be that hard to provide enough capacity, surely?