Recent content by Julia

I wanted to take the sleeper Hamburg - Stockholm in July, and the superbly helpful Man In Seat 61 points me to book via SJ's website. However, all connections in June onwards, both daytime and sleeper, come up as "not available". There are some sleeper prices shown in April, but daytime again...

The GN peak extras, at least to Peterborough, have been 700/1s for a while. It's getting to the point where we need them half-hourly as per pre-COVID, as some of the morning peak Thameslink stoppers (9Jxx) are full to standing by Arlesey and crammed by Stevenage - but given the DfT, I know...

Last time it happened to me, there was a station manager grouping up people heading to similar places, and writing chits for the taxi company to reclaim the costs directly rather than getting the passengers to pay. Saved a lot of hassle.

Certainly the days when anything could go pretty much anywhere (because it was all based on a standard Mk 1 size), track layouts hadn't been rationalised to the bare minimum, almost anything could couple to almost anything else, are gone, taking a huge amount of flexibility away. While all this...

Sorry, corrected myself when I realised I couldn't count... :)

Is platform 4 at Grantham not wired? Wondering why 1E16 hasn't been shunted into the station. (Although I note it's a bimode 5-car + AC 5-car) Also 1A40 is a bimode, presumably can't shunt on to the joint line?

Can the 73TS even run on the other tube lines, due to car length? Makes little sense to have Picc-only engineering vehicles.

Possibly the first electrified closure, the Brighton & Rottingdean?

It's certainly not pointless - at busy times it's an important second route down to the platforms to avoid the scrum at the gates next to Leon (the much larger array across the front of the station invariably being exit-only).

Even if they take nothing, those personal details you provided can be sold on to even more shady characters for £100 or more - which gives you a guide to the average amount that gets stolen...

Does anything not electric powered routinely carry an adapter to couple to a 700 set? For much of the evening Thameslink control were telling passengers they would be reversing the 9Jxx services at St Neots to keep things moving, but none appeared to do so; two that made it north of Hitchin...

Was out late in London and noticed things not looking good at 9pm - multiple 9Jxx (Horsham - Peterborough) services showing as not having set off well after they should have done; cancellation notifications came through very late, so having got to Finsbury Park at 22.10 I was offered the option...

I would have though it's pretty unusual to see non-passenger stock left in platforms open to the public for any length of time, but a rail grinder - at least I assume it is one as it's fleet number appears to be simply "RDG" - has been parked up in Moorgate platform 4, a Circle bay, for the best...

Are they keeping a "screen" of units on the avoiding line to be sacrificed to the vandals, perhaps?

Took a wander up myself today, 4002 is gone as noted above, as is 4064, and 4037 is now where 4064 presumably was. The local "artists" have moved in fast. Still after 4003/14/25/49/59 plus stored 4070 - looking at the diagram numbers it appears there are only 56 cars scheduled to be in service...