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Broken & Late Ltd: Britain's Railways

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    I can vouch that the Edinburgh bus system is great. Used it pretty much every day when we went on holiday earlier this year.

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      This thread needs to be modernised, before the buses take over completely.

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        Ha ha.

        Here's the latest London Reconnections on Holborn. Haven't read it but I've never known it be less than excellent.

        https://www.londonreconnections.com/...nt-not-option/

        Doing this is also a good metaphor for Londoncentricity.

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          Like a different world. The Dublin Metro North/DART Underground remain Firm Intentions from the Govt but nothing more than paper plans (rail is definitely at the back of More Roads when it comes to Irish Transport policy), and poor old Glasgow Subway has to be happy with reclad station interiors and new trains imminently. Somehow the new Glasgow Queen St rebuild won’t touch the 2 low level feel like you’re in an Equalizer episode and Mr Woodward himself is behind a pillar platforms. Sure only commuters see or smell down there, it’s not a Gateway Into The City like the upper level 7.

          I guess Brexit will only widen the gap in (English at least) infrastructure, if there’s limited to no funds Network Rail will only want to back Sure Things.
          Last edited by Lang Spoon; 04-12-2017, 01:13.

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            The proposed Network Rail budget for the first post-Brexit period (2019-24) is supposed to be £47bn. I suppose you knock off the non-appearing part of Stagecoach's contracted premium for the ECML, a spectacular fuck up.

            As things stand, I agree it seems to be circular- build something in (mainly) London, that goes well, so we need something else to relieve that.

            I still can't believe that slow Middlebrough route, and I'm sure there's plenty more like that. There's room for somebody to say "Fuck this, we need step change. New rail bridge over the river estuary, 100 miles an hour.

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              The east coast line from Dundee to Aberdeen is still single track around Montrose Basin. Any works there will be mad expensive I’d imagine, what with the little estuary/lagoon being a nature reserve. Pre Beeching there was another route from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, but like the direct Edinburgh-Perth route, something like that can probably never be rebuilt when the passenger numbers would be so low.

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                Hurrah for Chris Grayling!

                No trains between Wales and Bristol in the next franchise round -


                http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wa...-rail-13988140

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                  That's the Wales and the Border franchise, which doesn't have any Wales trains to Bristol in at the moment. They're in the Great Western franchise.

                  This is the Welsh Government and Westminster arguing about who overseas cross-border trains.

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                    So I see the cheapest advance tickets for my commute are going up by 27% from January. Ho hum.

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                      ...and they've recategorised a bunch of formerly off-peak trains to peak, so there is now no off-peak train on that route until 10.30am. Fuckers.

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                        Is this the thing you were talking about with BB&F before? Sounds very harsh.

                        This tweet's had a bit of attention. All part of Adonis' "iconoclastic" new image. Take that, complacent rail people with your freight trains!

                        Andrew Adonis‏Verified account
                        @Andrew_Adonis
                        Follow Follow @Andrew_Adonis
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                        15 mins late into Liverpool, stuck behind freight train. Freight on rail during day is hugely disruptive of passenger traffic and also eats up passenger capacity. Big issue!
                        3:33 am - 22 Nov 2017
                        The delay wasn't caused by a freight train.

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                          Fussbudget, in full on Brent style, there's good rail news as well.

                          London Bridge will be finished by the New Year.

                          http://www.railtechnologymagazine.co...k-is-completed

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                            Ha. Compare and contrast: Middlesbrough station's main entrance has been closed "for repair", meaning a detour of a few minutes from the town to the side or back entrance, for the last FOUR YEARS, during most of which there has been absolutely no work going on.

                            But the thing that really gets me is that the main departure screen at the station (the one that you see when you get in from the side and now de facto main entrance) has been broken for the best part of a year. Now there is no way that Transpennine don't have the hundred quid or 20 minutes or whatever it would take to fix it. They just don't give a shit.

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                              Fussbudget, in full on Brent style, there's good rail news as well.

                              London Bridge will be finished by the New Year.
                              On the other hand...

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                                Hadn't seen that, but lots of people have said the service is too intensive.

                                Good London Reconnections article on the report into Southern.

                                https://www.londonreconnections.com/...k-gibb-report/

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                                  Hadn't seen that, but lots of people have said the service is too intensive.
                                  Like fuck it is. It's absolutely rammed at peak time. Way more than Thameslink. And that's before the dozens of massive towers going up around Deptford/Lewisham/Greenwich are completed. It was maybe too intensive pre-untangling, as in practice it just sat outside London Bridge for 10-15 minutes every day, but the whole point of the untangling was to stop that.

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                                    I wasn't suggesting a load of empty trains at rush hour. I was saying that people have said it's too difficult to run that timetable consistently in practice, and that this causes big problems.

                                    Some interesting figures on BR fare rises. Apparently sourced from Terry Gourvish, so will be right.

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                                      It's all going to rat-shit on the Branson-line...

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                                        Dog ate my rat shit.

                                        A spokesman for Virgin Trains on the east coast route said: "This was an isolated incident which we believe was caused by a supplier.

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                                          They're doing business with rats?

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                                            Sunderland station currently has problems, one platform seems to be out of use as there is raw sewage leaking onto the platform from the ceiling above. Full stools and everything.

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                                              Between this and the City of Culture thread, I’m pretty much resolved never to go to Sunderland.

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                                                London Midland franchise ends tomorrow. West Midland Trains franchise starts on Sunday.

                                                If both weren't multi-user collaborations of multinational corporations, I'd feel some emotion about the change. But they are, and I don't. I guess the paintwork might change colour.

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                                                  South Western who have just taken over from South West Trains, have rebranded. and started cutting, services

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                                                    Services as in trains? The DfT decide what trains run.

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