Recent content by stuu

The problem with a "standard" type is that by the time it exists everywhere the oldest ones will need replacing. Do you keep to the standard or do you upgrade to something incorporating the newest standards? The Southern Region was still building slam-door stock decades after automatic doors...

I can understand why the average unscientific person might think it's a better idea - being able to fill up and drive away in a couple of minutes is appealing. But for anyone who understands the physics and the energy efficiency issues to still think it is a good idea is a bit baffling

Oops, always get those two confused

They are planning a turnback siding at Custom House... initially/off peak they will run trains every 8 minutes to both Beckton and Thamesmead, to Stratford/Tower Gateway. In the peaks and once demand increases they will turn some trains at Custom House. Although I wouldn't be surprised if...

51 years without being resurfaced is definitely elderly To answer the original question, I wouldn't be surprised if a combination of limited investment and putting off doing really disruptive sections is now coming home to roost

When I used to commute via Euston on the suburban services, they just used to leave them unlocked between services, with the boards showing immediately the next departure. No staff were on the trains or the platforms. Obviously that changed at some point since but I wonder what made that...

That's not remotely the same thing

Can you give any examples of very rural railways reopened in France in the last decade?

"Easily' is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Have you seen how much it costs to build roads across open fields in this country?

DId they ever consider using the existing line and only running at 200 km/h or whatever could have been achieved without much in the way of rebuilding the route? After all it was a double track main line historically

Quite a bit of hyperbole there. Seeing as the government have said they are going to fund the next phase of East-West Rail, and they are talking about Liverpool-Manchester etc The last tunnel under the Thames opened 55 years ago, it's not something that happens every day

Is the Chiltern tunnel designed for 400 km/h? I thought that was only north of Wendover but I might be wrong. Japan needed to do that because the earlier tunnels were built as narrow as possible. Newer tunnels are wider - the most recent extension to Kanazawa has lots of tunnels but uses...

I'm really puzzled by lots of the decisions. The tunnels are 0.5m wider than the Guadarrama tunnels in Spain, which don't have any bizarre portals or restrictions, so why do we do we need them here? The trains aren't going to be any bigger or faster

It may have changed but I'm pretty sure they stop all other traffic some time ahead to ensure a clear run for the Sapsan, which has a big impact on the capacity for everything else

A new railway is very unlikely to be built close enough to anything that 0.5m height makes much difference, they aren't going to thread it through any urban areas