Recent content by Martin222002

Exactly that! People have been for too long fouled by Litchurch Lanes shear size that they did 'everything' there. No. It's just a Victorian scale assembly site, which is why they were able to pump out as many Aventra's as they did, by having 6 (if I'm remembering right) production lines going...

Worth saying this isn't the case as there's been a cab mock up at Etches Park for quite some time. Here is Modern Railways 'Pan Up' columnist Ian Walmsley sitting in the cab mock up in July 2021. Sadly the link the the article this is from is behind a subscriber paywall...

Indeed! Dare I say it, very Virgin Trains...

If you think the Treasury are going to approve that, you don’t understand the current political situation with the railways. Given franchising is long dead, ORCATS raiding ‘sort of’ (open access aside) died with it. All revenue goes to the Treasury no matter how it’s split up.

Pretty sure it's been said in the past that Hitachi are oddly very pernickety about what signage are added to the exterior and interior of their trains.

Given that I'm almost sure that HS2 platforms are speced to be 415m long for the 400m trains, and the diagram in question only says 400m, I'd take that 250m figure with a pinch of salt too.

It's worth noting that with the various 5 car 80Xs that only half of the blanked window at the passenger end is the kitchen, with the other having seats with no view. So it looks like the change to the window layout on the driving cars is a set in the right direction to not having any seats...

While it could well be that Shapps has his fingers in this, I very my doubt that officials within the DfT and Treasury will be happy about it.

Yeah, seems very odd when they've got a much more polished one on their press release via YouTube.

Meanwhile at EMR… https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/help-manage/about-us/news-press/emr-to-improve-wayfinding-signage-at-eight-stations-across-its

In a 'prefect' world yes, but we are very far from that currently aren't we. 'Nationalisation' wouldn't change that either given the current mindset of the Treasury. The Treasury reigns supreme, and if 'nationalisation' did happen the Treasury would make sure any potential savings would go...

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

This wasn’t specially about the 360s (as far as the Railway Gazette article says), but more of reference to the level of micro-management by the DfT on maintenance expenditure. The point I was making given this is the case somewhere then it’s not too bigger jump to imagine that DfT...

Well, after seeing this tweet the other day I can't help but think I smell the DfT / Treasury being unwilling to fund reliability improvements to get the 360s working reliably as they once did. https://twitter.com/RailBusinessUK/status/1455866367505321986 This however doesn't get EMR and...

Even if EMR could get a 12 car 360s in service they wouldn't be running in passenger service due to the RMT having instructed TMs not to work 12 car formations as part of their dispute with EMR.