KingEdwardII

At least now, the line is in rude health. Indeed, there is a need to redouble some of the sections of track to ensure a smoother operation of the current timetable. Yours, Mike.

Yes, but that would be from Winchester (or Soton Parkway). Problems there: o using the car to get there would mean a seriously hefty parking charge (for a week's stay) o using the bus to get to Winchester means a long wait on the outward journey, the return journey or both, plus a walk of 1/2 mile to get the bus - not fun with luggage o taxi to/from Winchester = somewhat expensive o train from local station via Southampton is possible, but adds more time Plus, depending on the train, a long wait at Birmingham, e.g 59 mins for the 10:09 from Alnmouth, although thankfully they are not all like that. The "quickest" journeys are of course all through London - but as I have said before, London is more like an obstacle course than a transport connection for folk with luggage. The local station at Romsey on the Portsmouth-Cardiff route works out better than Winchester apart from the unfortunately long layovers at Bristol. Yours, Mike.

I'm not so sure about that. Some of the timetables I've read from the 1930s and 1950s are unfathomably random. I wonder how much of that factored into declining usage that led to Beeching. There is a lot to be said in favour of the interval timing common in the modern timetables, although in some cases better thought could be applied to the timing of connections. It's not much fun sitting cooling your heels for 50 minutes. Connections like that put me off the Hampshire to Northumberland route via Bristol Temple Meads - we go by car. Yours, Mike.

My son and his partner are an example of one target market for train travel: they are young city-dwelling professionals who don't own a car. In cities like London, owning a car can be a burden more than a means of transport, plus travel within the city by public transport is often easy and relatively cheap. They do take a reasonable number of leisure trips each year - sometimes to see us in Hampshire, others for UK vacations. They took the train to Cornwall for a recent vacation in St Ives and Bodmin, although they did rent a car for some of the time they were there since there are places they wanted to visit that are not so easy to reach with public transport. They often take the train to visit us in Hampshire, but on the most recent visit over a weekend, they hired a car since there was engineering work on the line for the return journey on a Sunday. They have a flexible approach to the means of transport they use and will turn to any means that works for them. In this regard, the current ongoing strikes and weekend engineering works play very badly and are teaching them all about the other means of transport that are available. It's not only price that is a factor - speed and reliability are right up there as considerations. Leisure travel is a very different market from commuting and the railways will have to behave differently in order to be attractive. Yours, Mike

I was being specific that ignoring seniors, as stated in your previous post, was very much the wrong idea. They are a big part of the population these days. As I said in my previous post, I have no problem with actions to encourage families with children to use trains. Yours, Mike.

That's not the right thinking. There are more seniors than ever and their numbers are increasing. They have a lot more time for travel and have more disposable income than you might think, since their everyday expenses are typically lower than working age folk. I'm not against encouraging families to travel by train, but that is only part of the picture. Yours, Mike.

By contrast, we did our jaunt from Hampshire to Exmouth in June for £29 return all-in for the two of us - using senior railcards. The fuel for the car would have cost more. Yours, Mike.

Well, us retired folks used the train to go from home to and from Exmouth earlier this last summer, staying in a classic seaside location right on the prom with a view of the beach from our bedroom window. The journey worked a treat from our local station with 3 trains each way, changing at Salisbury and Exeter. Points to note about the journey: o We travelled midweek both ways. Being retired, we don't need to plan around weekends. o We travelled out mid morning and back mid afternoon, nowhere near any rush hours. o We used Advance tickets which gave us a very good price. o We travelled with cabin-bag sized luggage and there was always space in the overhead luggage racks. o The seating on the Salisbury - Exeter leg is excellent and well upholstered perfect for a long journey. o Exmouth is blessed with a very frequent service, once every 30mins during the day o The railway at Exmouth provides a good means of getting around the local area while you're on holiday (Exeter, Dawlish, Newton Abbott, Torquay & Paignton are all an easy journey) We have looked at similar holidays in the south west by train - Dartmouth, Dawlish, Barnstaple are some other examples. Yours, Mike.

The problem with a connection from Wisbech to March is that the trains from March to Cambridge don't look like they are set up for commuting. The service is 1 per hour, with no extra rush hour trains - and they only stop at the main Cambridge station, not Cambridge North (Cambridge South does not exist yet). They take 33 mins between Cambridge and March, which is good, but the number of folk using the train to commute currently cannot be that large given the limited availability of trains. Wisbech is larger than March (~30K vs ~20K poulations), but you'd probably need a direct Wisbech - March - Ely - Cambridge North - Cambridge - Cambridge South service in the rush hours to make it appealing to commuters from Wisbech. It would make sense from the perspective of relieving housing pressure on the immediate vicinity of Cambridge. Yours, Mike.

...is that rail operators are taking a Ryanair view that luggage is damned inconvenient and should be discouraged at every opportunity. The contrast between UK trains and Eurostar is instructive - the Eurostar coaches have a substantial area at each end of every coach dedicated to storage space for large items of luggage, with plenty of luggage rack space above the seats for smaller items. Tourist traffic simply demands space for luggage - you can't stay overnight or longer without it. Yours, Mike.

Not just working people. I'm old enough to have a bus pass and there is a bus service from near our village to Winchester which enables us to catch the train to London. However, we have only used this once in recent times and instead much prefer to use our car to get to the station, even though this involves a hefty parking charge. The buses are simply not that covenient and when we did use the bus on that one occasion, we ended up sitting twiddling our thumbs for nearly an hour at Winchester station waiting for the next bus. Yours, Mike.

There were 7 of them in the real-life S&D Priory Road station at Wells in the 1930s, all controlled from the signal box, with associated ground signals. Together, they represented about 1/3 of the levers in the box at that time. Yours, Mike.

Wells made much more complex by the fact that while it was a terminus for the S&D, it also had a GWR line running right through it on the branch from Yatton to Witham. GWR trains used to run right through the S&D station on the single road past the platform at Priory Road - although the GWR had its own Wells station at Tucker Street. The GWR line to the west cut right across the S&D goods yard. The S&D loop actually straddled the junction of the S&D and GWR lines. A measure of the complexity here can be gained from this signal diagram from the 1930s: http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/images/sb-diag/wells-a-30.jpg Yours, Mike

Friday afternoon job, I think...

Indeed - the current draw of the MP1 is pretty small, so thin wire is just fine. Voltage drop is not going to be an issue. Yours, Mike.

Those telegraph poles look rather unconvincing - no wires running from the insulators on the cross bars.

We have never been in Schengen, even when we were in the EU. There have always been passport checks when travelling between UK and EU - they have just got a bit more stringent when entering the EU since Brexit. Yours, Mike.

I just use small 3 core flex (0.5mm2 or less) from the DR4018 to the MP1. Simple and straightforward. I'd consider doing a common more complex and more of a faff, especially if you get a failure anywhere. Yours, Mike.

Interesting - our local Aldi has self-service and checkouts, with checkouts for the larger shops - ie. folk with trolleys are not supposed to use the self-service tills. The local Waitrose has no such restriction and you can use self-service for any size of shopping. Other (larger) places even have separate self-service tills for baskets and for trolleys - like the local Asda. I'm sure that facilities are partly down to the size and layout of the supermarket. Which is perhaps the same idea for stations - many are too small for anything other than a machine - and some of those have nothing, with passengers expected to buy on-train if they don't have pre-purchase/electronic tickets. Yours, Mike.

Well, that would put me off, if I were a customer. I've got used to the speed and convenience of self-service checkouts - those using hand scanners are even better. Most supermarkets offer both self-service and manned checkouts and I think that's a good idea. Yours, Mike.

Well, to be fair, the National Rail website and app both lay out all the fares pretty clearly. The NR website shows a list of the available trains including connections (if you wish) and you can display all the available fares for each train, including Travelcards. You can easily decide for yourself to go for the cheapest fare or the most convenient train which fits your budget. The main thing to remember is that typically you need to plan ahead to get the lowest fares - and also sacrifice flexibility since Advance tickets tie you to particular services. Having said that, I have been offered an Advance fare on day of travel - presumably there were few bookings for the trains concerned - but this is a rare experience. Yours, Mike.

The fares are much the same from Winchester to Surbiton as they are to Waterloo - both for Advance and for the Travelcard. There is one twist - there are a set of really low priced Advance tickets that work out at £28.90 to Waterloo, which are not available to the other stations on the line, like Surbiton, Clapham Junction, etc, where the lowest fare is £30.00. Yours, Mike.

Unfortunately, for as long as the railways get a large subsidy from the government, significant decisions relating to money are going to be decided in Whitehall. Those are the rules of the game. Yours, Mike.

The value of a Travelcard puzzles me, compared with using Oyster/Contactless card. The extra cost currently for a travelcard compared with a return ticket is between £8.20 and £10.80 (from Winchester), with the extra cost falling as the price of the return increases. However, these fares totally exclude the cheapest advance fares - £30.00 (or as low as £27.80 for a few trains) advance compared with £46.10 off peak return. Advance fares are pairs of singles and there is no travelcard option. Oyster/Contactless have a current day limit £8.10 (Z 1-2); £11.70 (Z 1-4); £14.90 (Z 1-6). So Travelcard looks a poor choice compared with Advance tickets and only really an advantage for turn-up-and-go Off-Peak returns if you're going to travel out to Zone 4 or beyond. For Anytime returns, you're already paying a fortune and the Travelcard makes sense. Perhaps things are different for other rail routes. Yours, Mike.

From what I see amongst my friends and neighbours, smartphones are used pretty heavily amongst the older generation. Smartphone apps are definitely easier to use than websites in general and folk seem more comfortable with them. I book all my rail tickets on my smartphone these days and prefer having my tickets held electronically. It is a very long time since I used a ticket office. Yours, Mike.