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  1. bigfoote

    Ticket acceptance in times of disruption

    Have had this situation once from Hartlepool - Kings Cross Was advised by GC twitter team that I had to wait for the next GC in 4 hours. I advised them of PRO and asking for acceptance to re-route. Got the same. Spoke to station staff (Northern), told "officially" they couldn't go over GC's...
  2. bigfoote

    Sittingbourne to Bournemouth on Sunday

    BBC article about the strikes. There's an image with full info about all TfL services all weekend. Was unable to embed image directly
  3. bigfoote

    Rovers and Rangers you’d like to see exist or changed

    I echo the earlier suggestion to make the Southern DaySave available on the day, and as an extension to that, perhaps split it into a zonal product - West Coastway (Chichester [or Portsmouth if they can agree something with SWR] to Brighton), East Coastway (Brighton to Hastings), and suburban...
  4. bigfoote

    Train movements in through stations with bi directional platforms

    Not in regular timetabled use (to my best knowledge), but during disruption or engineering, Havant does see this sort of use since the avoiding road was removed and both platforms made bi-di.
  5. bigfoote

    Derby Platform 7 - Why isn't it used? (and other unused platforms)

    This is probably cheating, but I'm going to say it anyway. Plat. 2 at Portsmouth Harbour, fenced off and track lifted now. Due I believe to structural concerns about the underlying pier, was taken out of use a fair number of years back now.
  6. bigfoote

    Railway Slang

    A couple I remember from my time as a contractor (3rd rail land). "popped mushroom" = broken insulator. Arnie for a teminating train/terminator. Not so much slang as local jokes, was BBQ, for example, trains suspended between x and y due to shopping trolley contacting 3rd rail - "BBQed trolley"...
  7. bigfoote

    How Often Does a Driver Forget to Stop at a Station and What Are the Consequences?

    Not on a train I was on, but when I worked gateline for South Central 20 odd years ago. Following disruption, a lot of Vic - Pompey fasts were given extra stations to replace cancelled service. A lot of SSOs meant it was almost bound to happen. I can imagine for drivers, having a diagram and a...
  8. bigfoote

    Train announcements with a sense of humour

    "ladies and gentlemen, the next station stop is Portsmouth Harbour. This train will terminate. If it doesn't, lifejackets are under your seats" Station announcement following trespass incident: [insert train company] would like to apologise for the severe delays to your journey this evening due...
  9. bigfoote

    Should railways be doing more to improve delivery of announcements by visual methods?

    I would say, as others have, that in 2019, the NRE app could and should be much more "live". In this era of instant news/social media/always-on, to have the ability to enter your service in the app and have it notify you of any changes en route (disruption etc) needs to be a priority. As for...
  10. bigfoote

    Trivia: Unusual, bizarre or oddly specific causes of delay

    Across my years, I've heard the gamut of various animals and inanimate objects on the line. Two come immediately to mind. Tent on the line (minus occupants) and back in the days of local signalling, pigeon in the signal box at a level crossing. Yet to experience a llama lineside.
  11. bigfoote

    Trivia: Place names that you're not sure how to pronounce

    Bell-Veer? Some have already been covered, for a Portsmouth local, Cosham (cosh-ham) and Bosham (bozz-em) are the normal ones, rarely Rowlands Castle pronounced as the argument Row-lands, although on a trip the other day I did overhear a couple call Swanwick; Swaan-wick (long a, emphasised W in...
  12. bigfoote

    Trivia: Short distance Advance fares

    I have no personal additions to this thread, but an observation that maybe we could see this more commonly going forward as a way to spread the load at peak times. If the information becomes available that some trains will be less busy, can short-notice advances be made available for those...
  13. bigfoote

    Ticket 'deactivated': what happened?

    I had a similar situation with an Advance single m-ticket from Waterloo to Havant. Scanned at the gateline, didn't work, waved through and thought no more of it. Conductor scanned it, showed as deactivated and cancelled, but given the time of night, and my genuine disbelief, he endorsed me for...
  14. bigfoote

    Advance tickets release dates, Virgin Trains

    It's usually the case that advances are released around 3 months before, so would reasonable expect them to be available around the middle of September. This of course, as with all things rail, subject to change.
  15. bigfoote

    Number of Services Per Station Stats

    Ford has a lot of scheduled stops, I believe, to prevent congestion with the Bognor shuttle. Preferable to have a scheduled stop rather than to hold it at signals closer to Barnham.
  16. bigfoote

    Engineering Train Derailment at London Victoria (09/07)

    Update I've seen says plats 9 - 13 blocked at Victoria. "Slow line" through Clapham out of use. Any insight as to what the possession was, reading the line may be out of use for at least a day due to repairs being necessary. As a layman, could it be inferred the train has gone across the points...
  17. bigfoote

    London Zones as a destination on advances

    Looking for clarification/advice mainly, but interested in the wider picture also. Will be travelling from the North (Newcastle area, usually Hartlepool for train purpose) to the South Coast in August and looking at advance pricing in general to prep for when the booking horizon comes closer. I...
  18. bigfoote

    SWR install barriers at Portsmouth Harbour despite Wightlink protests

    I have no idea as to the plan, but thinking laterally, perhaps it would be to the advantage of Revenue Protection to leave it unbarriered as potential evidence of avoidance in the case of certain people.
  19. bigfoote

    Do Southern have a policy allowing earlier travel on Advance ticket to/from London if going further?

    From personal experience (YMMV), the only train you are tied to is the main service. Connections are not timed, instead from memory "reasonable connections are permitted". Example, last time I travelled from the Brighton area to Newcastle, my only tied train was from Kings Cross, as such I got...
  20. bigfoote

    Weirdest Oddities Still on the UK Network?

    One from Friday for me, London Victoria, platform 19 and the soothing clacking of the NSE clock. Tucked away from all the fancy monitors and screens. Picture is not mine (taken from NSERS.org)

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