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It actually gets you to London, & there's space for lots of trains to terminate.

One HR I know of uses concrete sleepers, CWR, & has visits from tampers. They are also replacing expired wooden sleepers with concrete. Safe track, with reduced maintenance needs, is more important than how 'heritage correct' it is.

Not about it being anyone's turn. That 30 years covers multiple governments, who have all shown zero interest in it, & now there's new DMUs for it, that's another 10-20years of not doing it. Is that just politicians of all parties being useless, or is there something inherently rotten at the...

But XC can't use the wires to Bromsgrove, as its only the Cross City tracks that are wired up from Kings Norton to Longbridge, & there's no wires on the Camp Hill line, which XC also use.

Also, that would only be Lichfield passengers heading north-east. Who could easily do Lichfield TV to Tamworth & change. I also don't see Cross City services getting extended to Burton, its too far away with not enough population on the way. BNS to Lichfield TV is 19miles, Redditch is 16...

Is 15 miles a 'major electrification project'? Cross City is ~34 miles

Andy is Mayor for the WMCA. Although Worcester, & Worcestershire aren't members, they are neighbours & WMR run a lot of trains to/through Worcester. If you're pushing a project to wire Stratford/Leamington to Kidderminster, then Worcester isn't much to add on. Chiltern is too far out of the...

USB C ports are more robust than the A ports, as they don't have the 'tongue' in the middle, which is what breaks.

Which isn't helped by XC missing out random letters when they organise carriages. Had one last week that was ACDF.

Can't extend the Cross-City without extra stock. If you extend an existing Bromsgrove service, then you reduce frequency on the rest of the Cross-City, & you block the line at WParkway whilst doing the turnaround. It's at least 8minutes each way, + a 4minute turnaround. So that would need an...

Local taxation like the Business Rates levy on corporate HQs of national companies, & government offices. The GLA collects a precept on Council Tax, paid by those MPs with second homes there (which they then expense), & London based civil servants (the highest paid ones are in London) So, some...

The NT will only, & have done for some time, take on big properties if there's funds or an endowment to go with them. Now I don't expect locos & carriages would ever have endowments to go with them. Carriage owners, where there's not much asset value, might start giving a railway shares in...

Where is it stated that the 'discussion is for services coming off the mainline'? Getting to a mainline station would allow transfer between services. Cheltenham Festival this year was 14-17 March, when there were no other services running on GWSR, apart from 2 steam transfers per day from...

What matters with speed, & affects the visit time / length of line decisions, is the average speed for a typical visitor trip. If a typical visitor is willing to spend 1/2hr each way, having got off & looked around station B, then you can work out what might be an ideal line length. Average...

Properly restored 1st gen DMUs are a popular ride, especially with families because the kids can sit behind the driver & see them & out the front.