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There was a viable commercial case for keeping a small cottage industry type coal mining operation in Wales open for the heritage rail sector (many locos work best with Welsh coal), but that was kiboshed by the Welsh government for political reasons, AIUI. Hence those railways will now have to...

AIUI it usually isn’t covered by Ts and Cs because it occurs so rarely, and is so bespoke, that it makes sense to reach fleet specific training agreements. You then need ASLEF members to instruct and deliver the training, ASLEF reps to agree the arrangements for them to be released etc. I...

It’s a separate system, albeit alloyed with AWS.

It’s possible that the training agreements for those fleets were signed at an earlier stage? I’m speculating, and as you say it would need someone on the inside who is willing and able to share the information to say for sure.

Reading between the lines, they probably need a resolution to the ASLEF dispute before anything can move forward. 1713358479 Interesting - thanks!

Possibly. On the other hand, depending on how you read it, your suggestion seems no better than the phrasing they’ve chosen. A perfectly clear announcement would be longer, and you’d then no doubt complain that it was too verbose. In any case, given that you’ve yourself acknowledged that seats...

This will be irrelevant, and in any case the number will be very low. The first two are so unlikely that they can be discounted immediately. The third is a distinct possibility, and that’s what the OP will need to manage. Speak to the union for the strategy is the best advice, but it is down...

Absolutely not. That’s for emergency situations where the train driver is uncontactable, and is very much not something signallers would do regularly. I’ve never known it to happen, nor heard of it happening. It’s not something they would realistically have time to do, given that one signaller...

Another issue can be agreements between operators varying over time, or simply being misunderstood, as seems to have happened in the OP’s case. For example my operator has an agreement with Thameslink for residential travel, but not for leisure travel, and an agreement with LNER which permits...

Out of interest, how did they collar you? Were you in uniform and specifically targeted, or was it part of a general revenue check? Speak to the union as above. In the TOC world it’s quite likely to lead to a withdrawal of travel privileges for a period, worst case it can lead to a gross...

I wonder how on earth that works - then again perhaps it’s better not to know!

Interesting article, much of which I agree with. The Euston concourse is a hostile, claustrophobic, menacing space. Which I suspect adds to the issues - operational matters aside. It’s a truly ghastly station.

They’re built for, and are incredibly good at, clearing crowded platforms and transporting huge numbers of people on shortish (circa 20 minute IIRC) average TL journeys. They aren’t great for journeys of an hour or so, for sure, but that’s a minority use case. They’re a little like tube trains...

Presumably in this case the set swap was part of the reason for the late announcement? Clearly it’s far from ideal, and I don’t think anyone has suggested what the issue is at Euston causing this to happen so often? It would be interesting to hear from any knowledgeable insiders.

Thanks. That puts the concerns around empty cycle panniers (discussed on another thread) into perspective.

This doesn’t reflect my (very frequent) observations of the EMR gateline at all. It’s generally well controlled, given the limited space, and I’ve certainly never witnessed any “scrumming” of the type described on here. I’ve also always found the Kings + gateline well staffed (a couple of them...

You’re allowed to leave bikes secured on the platforms?! I must say that sounds highly unlikely. EDIT: apologies, I’ve just seen there are authorised shelters provided - I was envisaging them being locked to benches/station signs etc. :D.

Presumably the intention is that much of the new road traffic will come off the M1 and straight into the car park, rather than clogging up the local road network.

Sadly not. It looks more like something a man of @baz962‘s exquisite taste would buy. :D

Yes indeed. You can certainly imagine people flying into Luton Airport and connecting by train. It’s likely to impact Thameslink more than EMR, though, unless (God forbid) they end up stopping 360s additionally at the new station.