Recent content by nickswift99

I believe there are a number of international treaties, including at least one Geneva convention, that would prohibit such a sentence on the grounds of it being either inhumane or torture (or both). Sadly, those rules only apply when a state does something to an individual, as opposed to a TOC.

A hobby exists involving members of the public writing down numbers of vehicles on the railway. This is clearly an attempt to frustrate them collecting all the instances of this class.

But you wouldn't know where the passenger was going so couldn't display a price (unlike Uber). You could possibly display a charging band (peak/off-peak) but even that would be complex for passengers to understand as they'd need to know what the different fares were. Then you have the problem of...

When NR approve TOCs timetables, does anyone actually stop to think about infrastructure impact, or do they just focus on whether a timetable will "work"?

Ah, so the reverse of the air cooling that was originally installed on the 165s which never worked and used to provide excessive hot air into the carriages?

The Sleep Guarantee might be an issue though. All those unhappy customers demanding a refund.

More likely that you have to walk the entire length of the train to find a working toilet

Many hotels have a kettle and a selection of tea/coffee/hot chocolate sachets available in the room, included as part of the room rate. The minimum expectation that the AA have for any hotel they rate (1* and upwards) is: I'd suggest that the Sleeper offering is generally worse than a hotel if...

At the moment, there are no London-bound services from Brussels that are set down at Lille, so this isn't an issue.

Border Force do not perform exit checks routinely at St Pancras. Under a bi-lateral treaty, passport control is enforced by the French (usually the Police aux Frontieres), while border controls at Paris and Brussels are enforced by UK Border Force (notwithstanding those travelling from Brussels...

What is the alternative then? Reducing the number of services on the PAD-RDG section?

Given that line closures are happening on an almost daily basis and have a massive impact over extended periods of times, until the infrastructure becomes more resilient, I don't see how GWR can run a reliable service without thinning out or planning extended dwells to provide better regulation...

That's why there's a long dwell at Reading for the ex Newbury and Didcot services. GWR should consider doing the same for some of the longer distance services to regulate the flow better. Won't be popular in terms of extending journey times but given how much more intensive the lines are being...

There have also been changes to the Trent over time. Used to be lots of power stations abstracting water for cooling. Only one left now...

That might be the intent but a passenger can't rely on this where the service is not delayed but is permanently retimed. The acid test has to be what is written in the published restrictions of the ticket. This works both ways though, so a ticket restriction that only lists barred trains would...