GordonC

Or any time saved from Curzon St is lost in a transfer from New Street

I suspect they might be reopening plans for an alternative loop through Wythenshawe to the airport. There was plans for that before they were dropped to stick with the current route

You're assuming work will start soon. Until there's money paid out I'll believe it when I see it

I'd wonder whether 4 tracks could be replaced through Patricroft and Eccles to reach Manchester city centre, but it might be tight in some places with development and the M602 since they were there before. Victoria would probably offer more space on approach but be restricted in the station area. I would have thought that route through would have been more likely than tunnelling 6 miles or whatever they had planned before for HS2. Either way I cant help thinking its all talk and wont happen

I'm curious what is planned for Liverpool to Manchester spending £12bn if its not going to be High Speed rail and whether thats going through Warrington or avoiding it. If its going via Chat Moss then higher speeds would have to affect the Port Salford container development access to the WCML

Its all very well if it does actually result in announced improvements, but I doubt very much it will. Its just more hot air from politicians. I knew whenever HS2 was announced with the plan of tunnelling from Manchester Airport to the city centre that it'd never reach there.

is that just counting the already underway smart motorway improvements ... again? and presumably claiming cash spent on that as coming from the HS2 budget?

I think a difficultly of diverting HS2 onto Elizabeth line would be dwell time for arriving passengers. How quickly could a fully laiden HS2 train be unloaded even at several stations spread across London quickly before the next service needs past

there's a CV option to control direction, off the top of my head I cant remember which one it is

Old Oak isn't intended to be a terminal station where full trainloads get on and off though is it? (Unless they do cancel the Euston portion)

If HS2 is about capacity on the south end of the WCML, why is quite so much construction work required at Euston? Is it 10 entirely new platforms that are being built and if so, what will happen to the existing platforms when so many of the services will switch over to HS2?

But how many people are bothered about a 20 minute reduction on trains to London for the cost of HS2 - On extremely rare occasions when I travel to London I couldn't care less whether it takes 2 hours or 2 hours 20 mins. But I'd certainly prefer more investment in local services and could easily save more than 20 minutes in journeys if the service was more frequent than largely once an hour. HS2 only seems to serve city centre to city centre so any time saving could easily be lost in having to get to a station where it stops first.

One thing that stands out with HS2 is how few station stops there are and how its all very well to blast between London and Birmingham as fast as it can, but how useful is that going to be for anyone travelling to somewhere along the route - Birmingham International, Coventry, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Watford - all places that you'd expect would generate reasonable levels of passengers on existing WCML services, but wont on HS2. I was on the fence between whether HS2 was worthwhile or not, but if it doesn't go north of Birmingham then it's completely pointless and a waste of money. As ever, money is spent in the south and the north gets crumbs

Was there any difference in how Intercity Executive and Swallow were applied to motorail GUVs? They were never lettered with INTERCITY like the passenger carrying coaches

I was wondering if they might announce Class 25/0s or 25/1s bearing in mind its meant to be a special event. But with the other 25s so close, they could really do with getting those sent out before announcing more unless they're in the same container(s)

The yellow things look to be in the middle of the panel rather than on the outside for locking. The whole panel doesn't look like it has any hinges but a definite line around it separating it from the rest of the bodywork. Can that whole panel be slid out possibly and thats handles or lifting points if whats on the other side is weighty?

You're right, I hadn't noticed that on that model before. It also has the MW jumpers and cable that I would have expected 86402 needed

I suspect they wont be able to do the TDM recepticles in the correct position because its moulded on the tooling rather than a separate part. I always think the tail lights look too large on the Heljan tooling

new year for delivery?

Was the Semi-fast role not filled by Class 310s anyway?

47125 apparently missed out on being ETH fitted and converted to a Class 47/4 twice - as well as its conversion to 47548 being cancelled it was also pencilled in to be 47666 before the ETH conversions ceased with 47665.

I've sold the Hornby ones I have cause I'm certain there will be a better one coming along sooner or later. I'm sick of Hornby taking the mickey with sloppy products, poor colour accuracy and steep prices so wouldn't be buying any more of theirs. Hornby have been producing the HST for years and they've only had a single production run of Intercity Executive with the dodgy silver lettering rather than white. Is that really not a livery that would sell multiple variations of? The HST has to be up there with Class 37s and 47s as being able to support competing products from different manufacturers with nearly 200 power cars seen all over the country for 40+ years.

I'm also surprised the 153 hasn't led to a Class 155 already too so think that would be very worthwhile in 00 gauge

Its not when you start them, its when you finish them ... 😉

..... but they dont have the working marker lights