Edwin_m

Not a presumption, I'd say it was more of a fear.

That could be precisely the problem with it. If driving is easy and access by bus/train is difficult then everyone will drive there and there will be more congestion, pollution etc. There is also I think a more subtle consequence, that it is easy for affluent people to drive there and go to London (taking money out of the local economy) but more difficult for people from London to get quickly to all the local communities (bringing money in!). To my mind Meadowhall gets the balance about right but Toton will need a lot more work on local rail services, and a station at Ilkeston could be part of that. [Personal opinions etc as per previous post]

The Nottingham tram would have (IIRC) 16 stops between Toton and Midland Station so although it would be useful for the western suburbs it's not an option for visitors to the centre. I agree a good connecting rail service is essential for this to be a genuine benefit to Nottingham rather than just a means for the affluent to park there and go to London. There also needs to be a rail connection to Derby - buses on the A52 would be slow at busy times. It would be difficult to justify an extra service simply for HS2 connecting passengers so there would have to be a lot of rearrangement of regional services to make this work. For example Cross Country could run via Toton between Derby and Sheffield, since HS2 will provide quicker options for longer distance journeys. The idea is also floated of a connection to Network Rail just south of Toton, and a service between Leeds and Leicester for example. This might open up other possibilities such as a fast link between Birmingham and Nottingham Midland. From the point of view of rail connections East Midlands Parkway would be better, but this seems to have been ruled out on grounds of cost and because local development would not be permitted in green belt (though I would have thought the power station would have gone by then leaving a a brownfield site). [i am currently involved in the HS2 project but the above are my personal views only and based only on information publically available.]

All will no doubt be revealed within the next few days. For what it's worth I lost my own bet with myself about what route into Manchester would be chosen!

Trouble is the Midland line goes off into the Peak District where building a high speed line would cost a lot more and probably upset more people too.

Interesting that a burrowing junction at Reading is mentioned, now under construction as part of the Reading remodelling.

Yes I remembered and found Evesham Road crossing, and having checked the photos it is one of the variants that sits on a brick base.

There was one just to the south of Stratford-on-Avon - there's a pic on here somewhere but as the name of the box escapes me I can't search for it!

The BBC shots looked superb. Congrats to all concerned for showing that something like this can be done on one of the country's busiest sections of railway. I suspect it will be more difficult bordering on the impossible come the 200th, or even the 160th, when the new signalling is in use. So probably a case of "last chance to see".

There are more new stations than you might think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Railway_stations_opened_by_Network_Rail I guess it would be difficult for Keswick trains to go anywhere further than Penrith, which is unfortunate as the change would act as a bit of a disincentive.

A lot of people in the north see HS2 as extremely important for connecting them into the relative prosperity of the South East. When the proposed routes to Manchester and Leeds are announced next week, I wouldn't be too suprised if a lot of the objections are of the PIMBY (Please In My Back Yard) rather than NIMBY variety. There are likely to be places that lose of from HS2 due to lack of access to stations, and/or slower or less frequent classic service as the fastest services on the classic network are transferred onto HS2. I also think the accessibility of stations is important in another way. A site that is most easily accessible by car will mainly allow the more affluent local residents more easy access to London and therefore probably suck life out of local economies. However a station that has good links on the classic rail network to those places it doesn't serve directly ought to distribute the benefits more evenly by allowing Londoners and other visitors to access the regional centres more readily. When we see the routes there are likely to be examples of both.

That means they can just use the one from Crewe Heritage Centre, rather than dipping into the strategic reserve...

There's a website for the project here. If you believe that video they have some "interesting" ideas on what rolling stock they will use!

No Forth or Tay road bridges either, so the railway ought to have had a good edge over the road on this journey despite the speed restrictions through places like Kinghorn.

Possibly easier to start from new than try to modify an existing one - it's just a question of some wire, LEDs, resistors and fibre optics.

When thinking about making the black window surround as an insert, remember this is just a livery feature. Depending on the deliberations of m'lud they could be appearing in a totally different livery in six months time, and it would be a shame if this remained like the famous moulding line that separated the shades of green on the blue Hornby 47! How about painting the whole side to represent window as suggested by Jim, then applying a vinyl?

Looks like set 324 must have been driven into the siding with tail lights front, possibly even from the rear cab. Tut tut, wouldn't be allowed these days. My recollection is that the East Coast HST power cars were randomly assigned, with no reference to set number, almost from the start.

Definitely no bay by September 1978 when I moved there for three years, sorry no photos though. I also have many memories of sitting behind the driver on those 101s. Found something somewhere on the web about the Invertiel-Seafield link being part of a harbour project, presumably to take out the coal from the Cowdenbeath area, but the harbour was never completed due to storm damage.

Unless you count the Alstom special as a different livery, the second one depends on the deliberations of M'lud! The problem with a Hornby APT type tilt mechanism is that it was designed for trainset curves and I doubt it would tilt at all on "realistic" ones. I don't think you could use the same principle on gentle curves as the wedges would become so steep that they would stop the bogie turning instead of lifting the body.

Looks very impressive. Have you started from an official drawing or is it deduced from photos etc? As the Pendolino side is pretty smooth, I wonder if the clear plastic plus vinyl technique might be the best way of doing the windows. Being a total ignoramus on 3D printing I don't even know if it's possible in clear plastic...

Does this also mean you have to run both yellow wires back to the control panel? An alternative design would have allowed for commoning of the switches/buttons with one wire per signal plus a common.

At a guess, it's to help the signalman observe the crossing. Possibly when standing at the wheel the corner post of the box might have been blocking the view - notice the wooden column is replaced by a metal rod.

Either a largely-buried HS2 or no HS2 at all.

I don't think that's been mentioned on here before. According to the review in NGS Journal the mechanism would protrude slightly below a 2x1 frame (depending also on thickness of the top). This could also lead to damage if used with a non-permanent layout having similar frames.

That's another very good question to which we have no answer.