Recent content by shinkansen1966

I may be making a long distance LNER train journey from London to Yorkshire. I shall be visiting family under the designated lockdown bubble scheme. I shall bring my passport and wear a face mask. What have been other people's experience of long distance train travel? Are you stopped by the...

Transport for London use 9 concentric zones to determine their fares. Zones 1-6, mostly correspond with the Greater London Authority area. There are exceptions and the eastern branch of the Central line springs to mind. So why exactly do TfL go to the trouble of putting Watford Junction and...

Elsewhere in Europe, many railway stations have lower platform heights than in the UK. I know the EU has issued some standards on platform heights. From personal experience, UK style platform are seen in Germany and the Netherlands. I was wondering why platform heights are lower in many...

This what I was thinking. So if I go into a ticket office, is there are charge for changing a £16.90 off peak return to a £16.30 anytime day return ? Edit: here's what the Virgin East Coast web site says: "Why do you want to change your Off-Peak ticket? If you would simply like to change...

I have used Virgin East Coast to book train tickets online. I still use them for the Nectar points. I have the bought the following tickets: Thursday 20 October Banbury to Birmingham International, off peak return, £16.90. This ticket is not valid before 09:57 departure from Banbury to...

Phase 2 of the LGV Est open on 3 April 2016. Draft timetable of new service is show here: http://istockfile.prsmedia.fr/uploads/20150930081653_dfe18708c57bf6604a58618401606324.pdf

Interesting FGW publicity material, especially when it comes to the Cheltenham Spa Express. In 1932, this train covered the 77.25 miles from London to Swindon in 65 minutes. It was first train to average over 70 mph. A cursory glance at current schedules show timings between London and Swindon...

At the moment, we lack a national brand. Remember the days of INTERCITY ? Privatisation has given us multiple identikit rail brands, all pretending to be different. They all have similar web sites and all capable offering most UK rail tickets. But there are sufficient pointless variations, so...

For 27 August, Virgin East Coast are offering a one way advance purchase fare of £67.60 from Inverkeithing to London Kings Cross. There are reductions on this fare, if you have a senior or young person railcard. For 1 September, Virgin East Coast offer a one way advance purchase of £104.50...

Been to Japan three times. That's why they call me "shinkansen". A trip on the shinkansen will be a highlight. On a clear day, you'll see Mount Fuji while taking the Tokaido shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka. Other personal favourites include Aomri through the Seikan tunnel to Hokkaido and a...

Can you give me the links, please ? I want to get up to speed on this. I dislike being out of the railway loop.

BBC Radio 4's File on Four recently investigated the state of Network Rail's projects including Birmingham New Street, London Bridge and the Great Western electrification. Listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zvnd Among the ongoing problems are the new Hitachi electric trains. DfT...

When travelling on buses outside London, I'm invariably surprised by the time it takes to board passengers. Watching passenger actually get money out and pay for their fare, one-by-one. It's time consuming. Can we have a national Oyster card please ?

Me too. On my iPhone and iPad, it's the text notification sound. Great when you are in France and you get a text. Drrring - ding - ding.

Yarm (minimum post is 5 letters. Yarm is 4)