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Just come back from a 2 week trip to Budapest, staying in Budapest, Tokaj, Eger (the main part of our stay) and Vecses. It was superb, especially as my wife has just turned 65 so now we are both eligible for free travel on all public transport! However, on IC (intercity) trains a seat...

I was in Keswick last week travelling to Kendal and there is a departure on service 555 at 09:30 but I wasn't sure whether the pass is only valid AFTER 09:30 and maybe I should have got on at the next stop but I didn't know the route out of Keswick. Anyway the driver let me board and sit down at...

One of my work colleagues is eligible to purchase a disabled person's railcard as he wears a hearing aid. Now he's not VERY disabled, he's very competent, travels to meetings alone and often chairs them. But if he buys such a railcard it would allow a work colleague to get a discount as well if...

I don't live near a station and have not needed to make a journey to a large city for the past three years, therefore I haven't used a train, so I get a bit out of touch however it seems to me that over this period we have seen more above-inflation fare rises coupled with poorer service and more...

Just returned from a two-week stay in Hungary and I can definitely confirm that all public transport across the country is FREE for over-65s of any nationality, just need photo ID. I used my driving license rather than carry my passport around and it was accepted unquestioned both in Budapest...

Recently we flew from Manchester to Chennai (India) and return. To minimise long airport transfers we flew out via Doha with Qatar and back with BA via Heathrow. What a mistake that was! The Qatar flight was excellent, although the connecting plane to Chennai was considered a short-haul and...

Thinking of staying in Grosmont and of course visiting the NYMR and Whitby. Am put off by the only pub in the village (Station Tavern) having the worst reviews on TripAdvisor I have ever seen for a pub anywhere and am very loth to visit here now. Any comments from locals/enthusiasts/hikers?

Anybody ever used this? I don't see many tourists on the trains when I've been. It's a great meander around the hillsides of Buda, last time I had my ticket "gripped" by a pair of schoolgirls in short socks, although being Hungary it's still really cheap for a novelty railway. A bonus is that...

Discussing with a colleague this morning who said it was a travesty that train drivers are paid over twice what bus drivers are paid -bus drivers have to manoevre their vehicle in conflicting traffic whereas train drivers just have to know when and how to start and stop. I couldn't contradict...

If you buy a ticket in Hungary, is it only valid for a specific train? Am thinking of breaking a journey at a junction station for some lunch and the app doesn't envisage that if buying a through ticket, bizarrely the cost for every journey varies by a few forints.

Just been back to Leeds for a few days and did a few local bus journeys, mostly with First. Generally the buses seemed to be of good quality and a definite improvement was the electronic display of the next stop which was very useful for anyone travelling to a major destination. A First Leeds...

Consider this situation in Cumbria: I go for a day out from Kendal to Keswick with my wife; I am an ENCTS pass holder, but she is not yet eligible. We get on the Stagecoach bus service 555. I show my pass to the driver, he prints out a single zero-fare ticket from Kendal to Keswick and I sit...

At the weekend I went to Cheshire to stay with my son's family, and on Sunday we were going to Manchester to eat out. We took the children aged 9 and 11 in our car. We drove to Sale Water Park and used the Metrolink as the girls had never been on a tram. Finding fare options is however a...

I remember seeing a pair of class 27 diesels on Holbeck shed in Leeds in around 1969. They were Scottish region locos which had been to Derby works to have push-pull equipment fitted, I think. These locos were not allocated to Holbeck so how did they get back to Scotland? Would a class-27...

In a local discussion group, someone reminisced of their grandmother dying in Tebay and her body being put on the train to Shap in order for the funeral and burial to take place (this was in 1947). This sounds extraordinary but I suppose in those days the railways were designated a common...

Our once-a-week bus was suspended during the pandemic, and only reappeared with reduced seating capacity in August. Initially I was reluctant to use it as I have regular access to a car and feared that I might be depriving someone with no alternative from a seat, but that proved groundless as...

I just read some Covid-19 recommendations such that dedicated schools and college services should not be taking any other passengers. Right on cue, two of my local bus services which provided useful links into Kendal during college term-time have changed hands and are now being run by a coach...

Was anybody a member of a railfans club in the 1970s? I'm not talking about "Rail Riders" but groups of individuals who went on prolonged weekend shed bashes by coach. They used to advertise things like "27 depots in East Anglia" when there were only two or three, as they were prepared to turn...

Visiting Crewe Works in the early 1970s there were always one or two class 76 from the Woodhead route in for maintenance. Question is, when they had been through works, was there a short section of 1500dc track within the workd on which they could be tested, or were they simply towed back to...

Bus operators are still running, usually to something approximating a Sunday service, and timetables are enforcing the idea that these services are for essential workers only. OK, but given that lots of elderly people are entitled to free travel with the ENCTS scheme, is anything being done to...