Recent content by najaB

To me, it speaks more to their incompetence than anything else.

Note, however, this wasn't the original plan. Under the original plan there would have been cruise ships moored in several ports, but the Government failed to negotiate the berth space before acquiring the ships...

Noise is quite subjective, but when Scotrail used them for a while on the Fife Circle trains, you could feel (not just hear) them over Princes Street traffic at the top of the Waverley Steps when they were at Platforms 19/20 (so about 75m away).

It would, almost certainly, be cheaper overall to simply process applications faster - no need to find housing for ever-increasing numbers of people and those whose applications are successful can be economically active, those who are denied status can be deported.

The contract is expected to cost over £1B. Not sure how pragmatic that is.

That's one of the fundamental principles of the labour movement: management moves that are detrimental to any role will be resisted by all roles.

If it's top-n-tail then they've doubled their fuel bill, for one thing.

But the current structure isn't set up to make that easy (ROSCOs, leases, etc.) Again, that's structure. No, I meant all of it. Because if change has to be funded through fares or subsidies that is a whole other discussion as there are many who aren't in your position.

Of course we can expect better, but are you able to pay for it? At the end of the day that's what it all comes down to: good, bad or indifferent the railway we've got is probably the best we're going to get with the money and structures that we have. If you want improvements then either: more...

Yup. There are a bunch of YouTube videos demonstrating the process, for example:

Looks like a joint in continuous welded rail, but no doubt someone with more knowledge will be along soon to correct me. As to why it's painted white, it's to try and reduce thermal expansion.

Technically, ULA rather than NASA. And yes, I know ULA is a Boeing joint venture, but their management style is definitely more old-school, engineering-lead than BCA. I don't recall them ever having a launch vehicle failure.

I believe from people speaking at cross purposes, and making the assumption that a train blocking the line for five hours means that there were passengers on board for five hours.

Related but not quite the same. As I'm using the terms, reliable refers to how the service operates in the absence of disruption and how useful it is. Can I rely on the railway to transport me where I need to go, more or less when I want to go there? Resilience refers to how much perturbation...

All that comes at a price. Reliable, resilient, cheap: pick two.