Recent content by philosopher

To me, it felt like the producers had cherry picked a journey that they suspected would have a high chance of going wrong, hence making the railway industry look bad. First potential issue is the first leg involved a CrossCountry service from Bristol to Birmingham, a route that is known to have...

The Evening Standard is reporting that these strikes have now been cancelled. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tube-strike-called-off-london-underground-aslef-drivers-b1149403.html In my experience, tube strikes tend to get cancelled after negotiations.

My guess would be the Stansted Express as it is the only rail transport option to Stansted Airport and I suspect a high proportion, if not most passengers using the service are travelling from London to Stansted airport, so are paying the higher Stansted airport fare.

Personally I think there would be quite a demand for supersonic flight, but mostly from very wealthy leisure passengers who want to experience supersonic travel.

Thanks, in did in the end book first class.

I am thinking of visiting Hull on a Sunday from London. Their first class advance ticket for the return on the day and time I am looking at is only £15 more than the standard class ticket. What food offering do Hull Trains give on first class on Sunday? Their website suggests it is a sandwich...

HS2 does look like it is a more a direct route than the WCML, so that has to be a factor as well. I am not sure of the exact comparison in distance though.

This Saturday does look like a better Saturday than last Saturday, “only” 23 cancellations and 24 other service updates (mostly part cancellations) at 08:00 this morning according to Avanti JourneyCheck. Of course, if you are have booked one of those cancelled trains, this will be of no...

My guess woulld be five and half hours, which is roughly what it is now with a change in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.

I was on a rail replacement bus from Dover to Deal a few years ago in which a double decker urban bus was used and I definitely recall the bus struggled to access some of the railway stations due to the narrow lanes. Rural stations in many cases would be better served by mini buses which are...

The issue with single carriage rural roads is that they vary from National Highways truck A roads which are largely straight with 3.5 metre lanes to winding country lanes with hedgerows on both sides that are too narrow for two cars to pass. It has always amazed the latter typically has a 60 mph...

The champagne corks must be popping in the Tory party HQ today!

With the West Midlands having a poor recovery, I do get the impression that it is largely due to the operators that have cut services the most, such as CrossCountry, West Midlands Trains and Chiltern being the ones that serve the West Midlands. For example key routes in the West Midlands such as...

I seem to recall the former Berlin Tegel airport and current Singapore airport having a set up like this, at least for some of the gates.

This post shows that there has been a somewhat uneven recovery in passengers numbers since Covid, ranging from 94% in the North East to 69% in the West Midlands. This includes both journeys within regions and between regions. What are the explanations for such an uneven recovery between...