Search results

It seems to be a commonly accepted fact that Stratford International was intended to be the sole London stop for doomed north-of-London Eurostars and that St Pancras would be bypassed by any such services. However, looking at the layout of the chord linking HS1 and the east coast mainline (just...

The Mechelen rail bypass is a Belgian line meant to relieve line 25 between Brussels and Antwerp. It was intended for high-speed (and other) trains like the Eurostar and Thalys to be able to travel 160km/h (still not that fast, but an improvement on 100km/h) past Mechelen and bypass a...

Does anybody know exactly how much freedom TOCs have to set non-regulated fares? If they chose to do so, would it be possible to price an anytime return lower than the regulated off-peak return? You might ask why they would want to do this... and the examples are of course limited. But with a...

OK guys, I'm getting the crayons out. What would you think, in principle, of a south coast high speed line? The aim of the line would be to: 1) Speed up journeys between London and major cities along the south coast 2) Speed up journeys between major cities on the south coast. There is some...

The question is in the title, really: the Elizabeth Line is a great way to get across London. Thameslink also is, to an extent - the frequency is excellent. But in the core, and also parts of south London it can also feel very slow for a mainline railway, with services running at 30mph and even...

Which cities could do with having their suburban and metro rail networks connected up with a central tunnel, creating a sort of an S-Bahn service for their metro regions? Where would you build them, what lines would they take, what intermediate stations would be on the tunnel, etc? Picc-Vicc...

The idea of a rail tunnel between Kent and Essex sometimes crops up here and elsewhere. It makes some sense - it can take something like two hours to get between the two counties by rail when a lot of journeys could be 15 minutes without doing anything special. Obviously, there are other...

According to Open Rail Map the the Gospel Oak to Barking line used to have two chords – one connecting it to the North London Line and one to the Midland Mainline. Currently the service is a simple shuttle back and forth. Is there perhaps a case for reinstating one or both of these chords for...

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/tpe-class-397-nova-2-construction-and-updates.144812/ I have a question about these trains - why did TPE go for them instead of a Class 80x EMU (probably 801)? Given TPE has ordered Class 802s it seems like an interesting choice...

This could have implications for British travellers going to Vienna as well – what routes could it open up? https://www.politico.eu/article/night-trains-set-for-return-to-brussels/?fbclid=IwAR1_b3QON0v7ha9issWJo9cUAf6plU97BtTg_SIQkWebTsZZBJHXeren5zQ

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/welsh-government-twenty-year-plan.192660/ They're not going to be able to achieve these without building some kind of high-speed track from Swansea to London are they? Either a new line or by-passes, and probably a new Severn crossing?

Thameslink, Crossrail, and Crossrail 2 all take a similar approach of connecting up two suburban lines on opposite sides of London that would run into termini, and linking them through a tunnel with some intermediate stations. So for Crossrail that's the slow GWML lines that would have...

I couldn't find a thread on Rail Baltica, so I thought I'd start one to track its progress For anyone unaware, it's a 249km/h high-speed line connecting Tallinn in Estonia to Riga in Latvia, to Kaunas in Lithuania, with a spur to Vilnius, Lithuania's capital. It'll have through services to...

One quite striking thing about German high-speed rail development compared with HS2, or France LGVs, is a lot of their high-speed lines are much shorter, and built strategically to fill gaps in their network. So for instance, the Mannheim–Stuttgart high-speed line line is just 61 miles long...

This is interesting - what do people make of it? https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/exclusive-alternative-hs2-route-tabled-for-the-north/10042256.article

Are there really the slots on the GWML to go fast to Bristol Parkway hourly and get to Cardiff in 1h45? I would have thought GWR would already be doing this were it possible, but perhaps not https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/main-line/london-cardiff-service-proposed/

According to Open Rail Map the maximum line on Thameslink between Elephant and Castle and St Pancras is 30mph - it certainly feels very slow when you're on the train. Is there a particular reason for this? Obviously there are a lot of stopping services in a densely built up area, but 30mph...

The loading gauge on GB railways is obviously more restrictive than the one used on the continent, with the exception of HS1 that was built to a higher spec. But are there any examples of lines or extended stretches of lines in GB that, because or a lack of tunnels or other features, would just...

There's an interesting bit in this article about new open access services in Greece https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/main-line/obb-subsidiary-plans-greek-passenger-services/ A joint venture between a subsidiary of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and Greek transport and logistics firm...

What railway services have their announcements and information in the most languages? The obvious one to me is the Brussels to Aachen DB ICE, where everything is repeated over the tannoy in German, French, Dutch, and English - so four. Are there any other trains that equal or beat that?