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Mrs Shrop and I had a lovely day in Llandudno last week, taking the train from Shropshire but once again leaving me with a question. As we stopped in Llandudno Junction at 10.53 I was aware that there was a train from London just a few minutes behind us, due in at 10.59. We duly departed before...

Some comments suggest that rail staff aren’t all that keen on the Class 67 sets which presently run every other hour on the Cardiff-Manchester route, however passengers seem to love them. What do people on this forum think of them?

Yesterday I dropped Mrs Shrop at Whitchurch to catch a train to see her daughter, and I returned there today to pick her up – here are my observations, it seems wrong to be able to find so much at fault. There is free parking at the station but the car park was almost completely full. A small...

Yesterday evening (18th February 2025) at 6.50pm a pickup truck crashed on to the level crossing at Onibury in South Shropshire, completely blocking the railway. It was only by good fortune that trains were able to be stopped, as a train hitting this at line speed could well have been derailed...

Today's 1W55 train, the 08.54 from Cardiff to Manchester made an impressive run after starting out 29 minutes late, to arrive almost on time, and without any lengthy dwell times en route to assist. All credit to the train crew :D

Presently sitting at Manchester Victoria and 10 minutes late, so far. Train ready, driver ready, train manager ready, signal ready, the only reason we can't go is because there is no train dispatcher. Hmm ...

While out walking today near to a good rail viewing vantage point just south of Yorton (Shropshire), I noticed on Realtimetrains (RTT) that a loco-hauled train was due shortly, so I waited. This was the 1331 (passing time, using the detailed search) MAN-CDF, which had just passed Whitchurch one...

A recent discussion between friends about train punctuality in the UK raised various points, and I offered to ask the question among people who may know more than we did. It was discussed that the Japanese manage to run their trains almost always on time, a lot more so than we do in the UK, and...

Double deck trains have been discussed on this forum several times, but I can't see any answers to my question, which is simply to ask whether any routes have actually been costed for providing double deck trains? People on this forum (unlike some journalists and many members of the public)...

While out walking today I passed Yorton station and noted that the northbound platform is temporarily closed, which made me wonder what is being done to assist passengers during the closure period. By way of background, Yorton is a lightly used station in Shropshire, sufficiently so that all...

The local social media in the Shrewsbury today is awash with stories about there being no TfW trains to Birmingham. This is misleading people into believing that trains aren't running when in fact most or all are, so far as I can see from RTT, albeit with non TfW rolling stock. My question is...

A few days ago I travelled from Oxford to Southampton. At Winchester, two RP officers entered our carriage and began inspecting tickets, one from each end. We were only going slowly to S. Airport Parkway, but by Eastleigh they had only checked about six rows in total, of our half full carriage...

When I worked on the South Coast I used to travel frequently from the Midlands, but I could never understand why there were no through trains from Reading. Portsmouth has a population of 250,000 and is only 66 miles from Reading, yet to this day there are still no through trains. Is there any...

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes. A trip from Euston to Crewe last week brought to mind the incredible inconsistencies of ticket inspections on trains that I've seen many times in the past. No-one expects every staff member or TOC to operate in an identical...

Credit to Network Rail where its due, it seems the line was indeed re-opened in time for the first of the four Caledonian Sleepers to pass through, ie the Glasgow/Edinburgh southbound shortly before 2.00am, followed by the northbound Aberdeen/inverness/Fort William soon after. But what about...

These days I don’t travel as much as I’d like to by train, but I have just had a return trip from London to Inverness on the Caledonian Sleeper (with two excellent full days of seeing the mountains of Northwest Scotland in between – once the clouds parted!). Our short holiday started in...

Just thinking about train punctuality and looked at my local station of Shrewsbury at 21.00 hours this evening out of interest. The NRE website shows the 20.53 to Manchester (from Cardiff) as running 16 minutes late, with the reason given as “This train has been delayed by this train being late...

A friend tells me he was travelling from Bridgend to Church Stretton on Saturday 10th August, and despite being 80 years old he had to stand all the way for this long journey. When he arrived in Church Stretton he left the packed train (the 11.38 arrival), but there were a good many more people...

Almost 20 years ago, in 2005, consideration was being given to high speed rail developments in the UK and in China. In both countries one of the proposals was Maglev, the Chinese were pleased with the success of their 430kph link from Shanghai to Pudong airport and gave much consideration to...

From 12 September trains will be replaced by coaches from Machynlleth to Pwllheli. Looking at the timetable there is clearly an attempt to provide a fast and a slow service as far as Harlech, with the fast service stopping only at Tywyn and Barmouth, and the slow service leaving at the same time...