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Exactly. Derby has had enough difficulty producing its own Aventra platform, never mind producing a completely alien Alstom one.

They'll tie planks of wood to the seats to make them fit in better with the current GN stock ;)

Indeed, Margate for example has transformed its image from a depressing dump to a cool place in recent years. Not the only reason, but HS1 has definitely helped.

It's more the rise of Ryanair and Easyjet. Eurostar is dominant for journeys between London and Brussels, but cheap flights have killed major expansion to elsewhere in Europe (and from the UK regions to Europe via Eurostar) even before Brexit made things more complicated.

The original HS1 route (before it was called HS1) would have been very different and far more destructive, coming up through south London to an underground Kings Cross station. This was changed in the 90s to its current East London route which passes by far fewer people and then goes through...

Metro-Cammell for example, before its closure, stopped making trains from scratch from the late 80s.

Alstom/Derby aren't competing for tube trains now, having lost the first NTfL order. And Goole with plenty of Underground work removes them as a potential competitor for future "UK assembled" National Rail stock. Derby has future work on HS2 anyway, it just needs something to tie it over.

I wouldn't be surprised if the order was place before the next General Election, to get some positive headlines for the Conservatives giving work to the Goole factory. But not until after the Mayoral election, so Sadiq doesn't get the electoral benefit. ;)

It does feel very inconsistent though, a the other operators into London have far more colour in their liveries, even with new liveries like Avanti and SWR.

455s are red, 701s are blue. From Derby it sped, To a siding it drew. Several years later, finally a debut...

A nonsense proposal. The only way to actually bring all the buses under TfL ownership would be for TfL to buy all the existing garages and drivers. Unless he's planning to build new garages all over London, and poach staff, as even one East Thames Buses type garage will be irrelevant to most of...

The expression "good service" slightly irritates me as well, as it sounds like patting yourself on the back for delivering what should be normal anyway...

Indeed! They make engines there as well, and a battery plant is being built next door, it's a major manufacturing site, much more so than Alstom Derby.

While the Borismaster design was flawed (though I really liked the open platform when in use), it never concerned me that they wouldn't have a second life once they finished life in London. 14 years is a decent life, and the extra cost of a bespoke bus wasn't massive when compared to the cost of...

The 700 seating is poor for anything other than short journeys, but at least it's very durable. They look as good as new still, whereas the IET seats aren't just uncomfortable, they aren't durable enough, with the metal bar poking through after a short time in service, so a double failing.

I find the Chiltern 168s very comfortable. The SE 375s are decent too. The IC70 was also too low for taller people. FGW then went the other way with the tombstone seats on their refurbished HSTs!

Camden Town station was closed this evening (around 22:30ish), due to a lack of staff according to the driver. Bit of a weird one, it's one thing a sleepy station not being open, but not a busy destination and interchange one.

Is this because of the current OHLE upgrade work, or has the Sunday timetable always assumed just two tracks are available?

The MML is very much the poor relation of the Inter-City routes. It's even a second class citizen in its own London terminus, having lost much of it to Eurostar, leaving it with a limited number of platforms, shunted into a corner. The loss of the HS2 connection to the East Midlands is a...

Been pretty chaotic with the total closure of the Northern Line between Golders Green and Edgware this week https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/24236571.northern-line-station-closure-bus-replacement-chaos/