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I quite like the current arrangement. The tickets are usually free after delay repay and it's easy to make plans because the delays are so predictable. I can imagine it would be frustrating for a regular commuter though.

Birmingham to Manchester is the most no-brainer candidate for electrification. The UK's 2nd and 3rd largest cities, with a string of large towns/cities between them. Unpleasantly crowded diesel trains. Constant discussion about the need to increase capacity. Oh, and someone seems to have fitted...

Is there a long-term future for DRS under the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority? AGR defuelling should be complete by the mid 2030s assuming no further life-extension, and all future reactors will use interim dry storage on site. The need for transport to a central disposal facility is many...

Well... It's nice to see we have some spare capacity, at least on an otherwise uneventful Sunday. Hopefully they learn from this. Perhaps worth reviewing the risks and benefits of operating these rather bulky vehicles on platforms. Paddington always seems to have a lot of them squeezing through...

The cart is apparently called Robert, if that is of any use...

A few simple things - paint the rails white, increase the stress-free temperature (winter minimums are up too), get better at cutting back flammable vegetation. Develop a hot weather timetable and try to announce it a couple of days in advance so people can make plans. Trying to run the best...

There's a large disused site near Totteridge and Whetstone that used to be a railway horse hospital. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/northern-line-upgrade-could-bring-a-new-train-depot-to-a-former-horse-hospital-86396/

How about building a new station in Birmingham with seven 400m long platforms for... 4tph?

Remember Crossrail 2 is/was planned to have a station at Tottenham court road, and would provide an express service relieving the Victoria line between Victoria and Euston/St Pancras and on to Tottenham Hale.

Sounds like you're noticing the difference between traditional 25kV OHLE and the newer 2x25kV autotransformer system. With 2x25kV there's a negative feeder out of phase with the catenary so power is transmitted at 50kV. Booster transformers aren't needed.

Building a 1.5 mile cut and cover tunnel through a disused airfield/industrial estate is an astonishing way to use public money. How did this happen?

HS2, so we can run slower trains with more slack in the timetable on existing lines and keep the fast, long distance trains running on infrastructure that can handle it. It should cost less, but it's the infrastructure we need (also for flooding etc.)

There's quite a lot of money, we just have a particular set of priorities. No guarantees adding £100bn per year to the government budget would lead to a meaningful increase in delivery of rail infrastructure. Even the transport budget is not at all small by international standards (per capita or...

I'm on a train heading south - diverted via West Midlands, through Rugby and they just announced were going via Northampton because of the OHLE...

No! But a third class carriage on national rail trains might be popular.

Not very familiar with rail rates but overall I'd guess that adds up to around 2000 person years.

Cities that build mass transit mostly have the ability to raise taxes and control land use. Anywhere dependent on handouts from the centre and stuck in the Westminster bureaucratic system will end up with the most expensive version of the least capable system.

The people of Enfield seem quite keen to prevent new development around the railway (which could be accommodated by running more of the trains that already exist on the railway that already exists).

In terms of passengers, Tottenham Court Road. More entries/exits for Elizabeth Line than Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly combined.

Yeah, the risk is that when the UK actually implements the clever, home-grown technology it's usually a half-baked, unreliable system that fails to deliver anything people really want. APT would have been another AGR/Concorde. It would have meant slightly faster intercity journeys at the cost of...