Recent content by ainsworth74

Trainline are probably the biggest supplier of TOC booking sites. But not all use them. LNER and GTR both, for instance, use different providers. There may well be others but those are the two that came to mind.

Eh? Do voters in Germany not trust in their system? Voters in Ireland? Or New Zealand? To name but a few? As for "sane" a system which gives a party a majority of 66 seats on the basis of 35.2% of the popular vote (Labour in 2005) cannot in any way, in my opinion, be considered "sane". A system...

Yeah there's also Draken who operate out of Teesside as well providing training for the RAF. Ironically it's probably more successful for these side gigs than it is at being a passenger airport! Yes good points, along with those of @Blindtraveler, regarding Loganair's own internal strife...

Yes, but if we applied that attitude to everything then we'd never actually change anything ever again which seems equally unwise! :lol:

This is also telling I think regarding Open Access: If it's the ORR that are still making the decisions then Open Access still has a role to play even in the brave new world as it won't be up to GBR who would, understandably, be inclined to say "Not on your life my friend!" but the devil would...

I'm surprised no-one else appears to have mentioned what seems quite a significant shake up in the passenger rights side of things! We appear to be getting a new organisation, the Passenger Standards Authority, which will take on the roles of Transport Focus, the Rail Ombudsman and some of the...

Yeah that's pretty much what I was driving at and I quite agree there would be a lot of details to be worked out! But it intuitively feels to me like a more logical starting point to try and come up with a resolution to the small boats issue than Rwanda. It may prove impossible to find an...

Not especially no, see my criticism of the LNER trial! But I'd also rather not instantly box ourselves into a specific position either. If one of the goals of reform is, speaking broadly, to "make fare more affordable" then that's fine and I have no objection to that in principle. But to me...

Time to make her an offer she can't refuse! Wonder if she fancies being Deputy First Minister :lol:

That is certainly true! It still feels unwise to insist on quite a chunky fixed outcome when considering any reform however such as "there must be off-peak fares".

But you've already baked in the existing system by saying we must keep fares regulation and keep off-peak tickets. That instantly closes down a wide range of options! That's less a matter of fares regulation and government policy as to the level of support provided in subsidy. There will be...

I accept your point of order and apologise that I had missed that there was actually a planned home for them go to! Agreed, a lot of spinning plates that are currently either crashing or in danger of doing so have been dislodged by that downturn in traffic and, perhaps more importantly...

Whilst you're not wrong I do think that BR did a far better job, by the 70s/80s anyway, of having a more unified fleet than we've had since. It was by no means perfect but it wasn't a million miles away. BR had its fleet of fairly standardised DMUs from 142 through 159 which could all operate...

See I'm not convinced that what's necessarily a "good move" is to continue to have the existing fares structure fixed in aspic as it has been for the last thirty years. I find it hard to believe, for instance, that DB and SNCF have the same fares structure in 2024 that they did in 1994...

It's more about structure and interfaces than it is about funding exactly. There is, in my view, a strong argument that the current structure introduces inefficiencies and often perverse incentives not aligned with what's actually good for the industry and its passengers nor staff leading to...