Recent content by RLBH

Very likely that you'd have no issues at all. Gleneagles - Perth - Edinburgh is a permitted route; it's not normally convenient, but sometimes the journey planner will suggest it if the connections at Stirling are bad. Even if you've got an Advance ticket that doesn't allow stopping short...

The way the road transport industry approaches safety in general is decades behind the air, maritime and rail industries. Investigations, where carried out at all, are performed by the police with a view to potential prosecution. The findings of those investigations are not made publicly...

I don't think a lack of insurance is the problem for leisure trips. Many don't want the money back for their cancelled trip to the theatre. They want the night out with their friends. If the railway is saying 'Do Not Travel', but the theatre is open, and the roads are open, they're more than...

I noted this when the Met Office started naming winter storms back in 2016 or so. The job I did at the time was significantly impacted by weather, and people completely lost their minds about Storm Anna (or whatever it was). The weather the previous weekend, which was just before the cutoff date...

It's also how sleepers in the UK used to work - and, apparently, how the Night Rivera still works. It isn't actually that long since you could buy a sleeper supplement for the Caledonian Sleeper, either!

In other words, charge all passengers a rail fare for the journey, and a supplement for use of the sleeping cars... where have I heard that one before?

Given that the S&D was Midland-owned, it would certainly be absuorbed under such a scheme. Presumably so would the Midland & South Western Junction. Joining the L&SWR with the Midland under such a situation would make a lot of sense - perhaps more than joining it into the Southern group. Some...

Some years ago, someone suggested the GWR/GCR grouping, and keeping the Midland separate from the London and North Western, and a few other changes: https://web.archive.org/web/20180415085029/http://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/AlternativeGrouping/AltGroup.html Putting the Cambrian in with the...

It is a DfT requirement for motorway service areas to provide toilets 24 hours a day free of charge - including showers for HGV drivers - which means that charging isn't an option. The costs of providing that (plus the other stuff they're required to provide) are part of why they're notoriously...

This is probably less of an issue for intercity-type services than commuter services, since the number of passengers likely to be affected is small and dwell times long enough to change ends if required. Though in a fixed formation train you could just remove the problem by having doors both...

Plenty of Scotrail passengers complain about having the doors in the middle of the saloon. Especially when stopped at Carrbridge in February, when there's three inches of snow on the platform, still falling, with wind carrying it along the aisle and up passengers' legs. You also get plenty of...

Although a Class 20 has similar power at the rail to the lower-powered Class 2s, and a heck of a lot more than a Class 15/16/17. It's actually got a little more than a Class 23! Oh, and Class 20s were built for 75mph. Type 1s were 60mph, Type 2s 75mph. What they didn't have was a steam heat...

This reopening was proposed in 2008 as a follow-on to the extension of Argyle Line services to Larkhall but seems to have disappeared off the map and the feasibility study not published. Looking at Altnabreac's criteria for successful reopening, it seems to do fairly well. Population of 10,000+...

Trialling a new non-stop service from Waterloo to Shanklin, perhaps?

Fair enough if that's the plan. I'd hope that this goes along with a change to Queen Street's practice of withholding platform information until a few minutes before departure, though. I know quite a few people who wait inside the barrier not to get a head start, but to avoid the scrum around...