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The fascinating thread on closed lines people have travelled on prompts me to ask how many have set themselves the task of doing the whole public network and how near they are to completion. I had managed this at one point, but then there were a few reopenings, three of which (Larkhall, Alloa...

Some years ago an American friend of mine was travelling from Holyhead to Southport. When she arrived at Chester she asked how to get to Southport and for some reason was told to board the then through train via Altrincham, Stockport and Manchester instead of using Merseyrail. As this was a...

I am currently objecting to an application to open a wine bar on the ground floor of our block, under my flat, and would be interested to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience. I am aware that there are 4 main grounds on which one can object, and that a reduction in the value or...

Can anyone tell me if a return ticket to New Mills would be available to travel out to one station and return from the other? Or would I be better advised to buy a day return to Parbold and a Greater Manchester Concessionary Wayfarer?

Yesterday's walk with the Ramblers took us past the Little Mill Inn in the village of Rowarth near Hayfield, Derbyshire. I saw that the preserved Brighton Belle car in the beer garden was swathed in plastic sheeting and no longer in use as a diner. This made me wonder what the current state of...

There have been several newspaper reports of HSBC and other banks closing accounts of voluntary groups or imposing burdensome conditions on them. Our walking club experienced delays and difficulties (from NatWest) in changing the authorised signatories when we changed treasurer. The local...

I will be taking a party of 40 members of our walking club for a South Downs walking holiday at Eastbourne from 18 to 22 April. One of the members wants to see Dungeness on the free day, Wednesday 20 April, and has asked for my advice. My internet searches show buses as far as Lydd and limited...

On Saturday afternoon I was waiting quite a while at Kirkby in Furness station for the 16:20 to Barrow (the 15:23 to Lancaster, which is the 13:07 from Carlisle, was cancelled) and noticed that from the footbridge I could glimpse the down trains on the other side of the Duddon estuary and hear...

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Ken Cordner's 2008 book Tunnel Vision, about the construction of HS1. It is an interesting read with excellent photographs, but surprisingly no gradient profile. I haven't seen one in any other publication on the Tunnel/CTRL either. Can anyone point me to a...

The reports that weekend travel has picked up significantly more than travel during the working week prompt me to ask what the current feeling in the Forum on 7-day a week timetables is. Will passenger loadings more evenly spread across the week make this more desirable or achievable? It was...

It's not hard to Google countries which have no railways. In some cases (e.g. Bhutan or East Timor) they never had any, but I have been wondering how many countries/territories which once had a railway have closed down their entire systems. I can only think of Cyprus and Trinidad among...

I took a Covid test this morning, since it is a requirement to visit my friend in his care home that I have a negative test the same day. I have done this about 6 times before and have always had the result within half an hour. I don't have a mobile phone, so the result is always emailed to me...

Today's Figaro has an interesting article which says that SNCF may cancel the proposed reconstruction of the Gare du Nord which was to be part of the preparations for the Paris Olympics in 2024. The reactions in Figaro from readers are uniformly very critical of the Gare du Nord. See...

The attached extract from the Mersey Railway's share prospectus of February 1884 shows that the company had plans to run freight at night. The mind boggles at the idea of steam-hauled loose-coupled trains attempting the gradients in the tunnel. The question is how would they have reached it...

I still possess DB and DR timetables for 1991-92, and was wondering if one of your German posters could answer my questions. Was this the last DR timetable? If so, how was the national timetable book, the Kursbuch, modified to take account of the unified systems? For example, some timetable...

The consultation about the ECML timetable proposals from 2022 has been widely reported in the railway press, and there seems to be disappointment about reductions in point to point service between local stations, in favour of more long distance trains from London, as well as curtailment of some...

I was at Preston station at 10 am today, intending to book a day return to Cark, before I decided not to bother after all, as the weather was too bad for my planned walk. While there I noticed an announcement that there was no service between Barrow and Carlisle all day. It added...

Barry Doe in the latest RAIL, which just arrived today, gives a link (www.fabdigital.uk/gbrtv1) to a new publication, digital only for now, which aims to provide a national rail timetable in a clearer format than NR's production. I have checked table 101, Manchester-Southport, and found it very...

Enjoying the first day of my NW Rover yesterday, I wondered how sales of rovers and rangers are treated when calculating national statistics for passenger journeys and passenger-kilometres. I presume each rover/ranger has an arbitrary average number of journeys and kilometres allocated to it...

I've just checked fares from Southport to Todmorden on brfares.com and was amused to note that a carnet fare of £9,998,00 is quoted for a carnet valid for any 8 days in 28, set by TPE. It is subject to a note saying "for test use". Can anyone throw a bit of light on this?