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  1. tbtc

    Should the GBR Livery be Neutral Colours?

    Dark blue? That's a bold colour Maybe with a red band to break it up? No protests about migrants? You've not been seeing the news from Glasgow in the past week then? Obviously there's no "small boats" sailing up the Clyde, so it's a less pressing issue (out of sight, out of mind etc), but...
  2. tbtc

    Getting the most out of the new Alstom units for TPE?

    On the one hand, these seem a reasonable modern successor to the 170 (five coaches and 110mph replacing three coaches and 100mph... Electric/battery with low floor replacing pure diesels), I could see them becoming commonplace across the UK On the other hand, we seem to have a lot of people...
  3. tbtc

    £2 fare cap comes to Scotland:

    1. If the Strathclyde scheme is being introduced regardless of the Highlands/Islands "trial" then it seems odd to me. Either use the place that wanted to introduce it regardless as the "trial" or we accept that the decision has already been taken - the idea of a "trial" seems pretty redundant...
  4. tbtc

    Why doesn't Ripon have a train line towards Harrogate or York?

    It is a perfectly acceptable question to ask, and the answer is that it's a long way to serve a small place, especially given that any station would be on the fringes of Ripon due to quarrels with landowners decades before even The Good Doctor was born You don't even have the "regeneration"...
  5. tbtc

    Why doesn't Ripon have a train line towards Harrogate or York?

    Another question could be "how many thousands of new houses will the people of quaint little Ripon accept as the price to pay for a train station?" The existing population of fourteen thousand is nowhere near enough enough to justify a long extension from Harrogate, but maybe the Government...
  6. tbtc

    Trivia - Do any operators serve places with the same or similar names?

    The current Stagecoach Yorkshire 86 serves Hutcliffe Wood Road, and Archer Road, then passes the bottom of Woodseats Road on its route through southern Sheffield, all around half a mile from the suburb of Woodseats, (where Torville and Dean's skates were made for their Winter Olympic bolero)...
  7. tbtc

    What does the term "no brainer" mean in the context of ideas for reopenings etc?

    Agreed It's the equivalent of the Pub bore/ terminally online commentator who peppers their conversation with phrases like "stands to reason... Common sense...simples... How hard can it be" (often applied to issues like constitutional politics) On here it's probably the poor cousin of the...
  8. tbtc

    Getting passengers to spread out along the platform

    Those is a good point, one that designers could consider Passenger spread tends to be better at Leeds, which has well used bridges at both ends of the through platforms than in York/ Doncaster/ Sheffield (where a central footbridge/ underpass means people mingle in one main area) Other points...
  9. tbtc

    Are there any other options for DMUs for TfW and other operators other than CAF?

    Option A. More 197s - pure diesel, poor reliability, but assembled in Newport Option B. FLIRTs - bi-mode, working very well on Anglia's varied routes, but not Welsh Which one the Plaid-run public sector choose may tell us a lot. Is the passenger experience more or less important than...
  10. tbtc

    The failure of Northern Connect

    Agreed (other than I'd upgrade it to incredibly dramatic!) Most of these services exist in one form or another and are run with 195s, the only difference is that they don't say "Connect" on their branding I have many reasons to be critical of the state run Northern (mainly due to the cuts to...
  11. tbtc

    Wales plan to take over 10% of UK rail network

    With climate related problems affecting rural routes, I think I'd be very careful if I was arguing for transferring the maintenance responsibilities/costs to my budget so that I would have to find the money every time the fragile Conwy Valley line needed a few more million pounds throwing at it...
  12. tbtc

    The cost of living agenda - how should the railway contribute ?

    I do enjoy the tradition of threads that are essentially "<<thing in today's headlines>> justifies that thing I've been obsessing about for decades", I'm sure it won't be long until we see the same "solutions" (massive fare cuts, nationwide rail cards for everyone, copying whichever European...
  13. tbtc

    Class 810 - The Right Fit For EMR?

    The main benefit of lengthening would be if we accept that some diagrams will effectively be double sets all day long, and decide that having one train that length would be better However, from what I've seen of 800/801/802/807/809, I understand that those Hitachi units can only run in odd...
  14. tbtc

    What would a dream future cross-country train be like?

    Obviously nobody is going to argue with cost-free statements like "comfortable seats and excellent window alignment"... Sure, nobody is going to argue against those in principle (only when they come up against other costs/benefits). However i really don't understand why, if you're trying to...
  15. tbtc

    National Express Coaches Discussion

    In fairness, they may not keep their South Yorkshire operations much longer, given franchising, and I don't know whether "non People's Network" stuff can be run from SYPN owned depots It might be a case of get out now, with this on the horizon (Unless National Express services are run from...
  16. tbtc

    Conwy Valley Line - Time to say good bye?

    I read Roger Ford's very interesting article about the bus to Tilbury Riveside: https://busandtrainuser.com/2026/03/10/every-route-99-4-of-24/#more-87341 A decision was taken in the early nineties that (since BR wanted to close the branch, on the grounds that it was a railway built to serve a...
  17. tbtc

    Borders Railway - 10 years on

    We've only mentioned the passenger numbers being above expectation (even though they are now broadly in line with expectation, after an initial surge, partly due to the line opening later than expected, meaning people had more time to adjust, house builders had longer to anticipate demand, the...
  18. tbtc

    Government announces "New mass transit taskforce"

    In hindsight, after the (high floor) Manchester and (lose floor) Sheffield networks opened in the early nineties, we should have used them as the template for further projects Instead, Nottingham/ West Midlands/ Croydon/ Edinburgh etc all designed and built bespoke networks, so there's no...
  19. tbtc

    Sadiq Khan says future of Heathrow Express should be ‘reconsidered’ due to Elizabeth line success

    I've never flown from Heathrow, never used Heathrow Express, but would absolutely keep it Whilst we have many threads on here with people taking about just how critically necessary some rural branch line is despite trivially low passenger numbers, Heathrow Express has ten million passengers a...
  20. tbtc

    Peaks and Dales line - feasibility study submitted

    Some people might think this a weak cause, given the fairly obvious problems with it, e.g. . You'd need to spend huge money on any reopening but the infrastructure budget here would be massive, given all of the bridges/ tunnels etc . It's a long line through fairly empty countryside, where the...

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