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Presuming you're using HS2 only to commute; wasn't there a statistic a few pages back which pointed out that 57% of long distance journeys are for leisure purposes. Certainly all the times I've gone to London recently have been to visit the theatre, etc.

Yep, I reckon the company was trying it on. Surely provision of drinks, at least, should come under 'Staff Welfare'. Except in the places where there was an outside trolley service,or vending machine, I didn't have to pay for tea, coffee, or anything. I nearly always provided my own lunch, though!

First paragraph: by "these days", I actually meant the last forty or fifty years, since environmentalism really took off. While that has had some positive benefits, it's awakened in some people the idea that all development, whether it improves our lives or not, is wrong and must be opposed, rather than that the alternative might be even worse

I read somewhere that CTRL phase 2 came in on time and on budget. I don't know whether this was on revised dates, costs, etc., but I'll leave it there. Why is there this hostility these days in the UK, to any infrastructure project, no matter if it would actually have benefits all round?

It's funny that, all over the former industrial heartlands of England, you get people complaining about their town, that "It's a dump these days", or "The town isn't the same as it was when I were a lad", and heaping all the blame on the council. In my particular borough, you get residents of one town berating the council for favouring one of the others over theirs (SHMD might know were I'm talking about) Some of the problems these towns face are touched on in the blog above; the loss of the industries and the reasonably well - paid jobs which sustained them; the gutting of high streets because of the "retail revolution"; and one which was not fully explored; the tendency of cities to suck in jobs, etc., from the local towns. Nobody in these towns seems to be asking "What is our town for? What is its role in the future?"

The gangway connections on LMS and LNE carriages were incompatible, in that the first used British Standard Gangways, and the other used Pullman gangways; so their gangwayed stock wasn't normally coupled together in the same train.

Is it not more like "If the government wants us to run these services, this is what the government will have to pay to ensure the services can run, given the unforeseen problems over the last 16 months"? It's only a bailout because the initial funding was inadequate.

Could it be that they are responding to misinterpreting GDPR rules in the same way that many public and private bodies do the same to H & S laws?

I think that Corneliuslundie was referring to the Spanish high speed system

I suppose that once there is some idea of how the cracks develop over time, the repair could be factored into the normal maintenance cycle, though.

To be fair, the only bendy four track bit was that down the Colne Valley, from Standedge Tunnel to Heaton Lodge Junction; taking the slow lines out, and resignalling, allowed the line speed to 85m.p.h; the line speed up the Tame Valley was only increased to 75mph comparatively recently. It's difficult to see where any further increases would come from.

Back to caps and shorts; wasn't that a "Grammar School" thing? ISTR, secondary moderns didn't seem so fussed about uniforms

Passengers from the North and Scotland won't be doing that, though. When HS2 is complete, Brum will in effect be on a branch from the junction near Lichfield; trains from further north, unless routed into Brum, carry on straight down HS2 into London

The difference is that Ms. Abbott was off the cuff in an interview; Ms Patel had the figures on a sheet of paper in front of her, and still misread them.

She went with Priti Patel! Just for balance, mind!

Or perhaps HS1 when being constructed, and now. I remember seeing such comparison photos in an edition of Rail magazine

The North Westward Ho, in Pomona Docks?

Isn't this the third time that these upgrades have been announced? I seem to recall that we were going to get a railway fully electrified between Liverpool and York by the start of the December 2019 timetable; then there was the £590 million allocation announced by Shapps a couple of years ago, and on which physical work has, in some places, already started? Not counting the road bridge work in Ashton-under-Lyne after the first announcement?

March East, I think. Many, many years ago, nearly 50, I went in that box. My recollection is that the boxes were, in order from Ely to PBO, South, North, East, West. The first two still exist.

I think the Picc-Vic vehicle is now at the bus museum on Queens Road

Nothing to do with communism. I would submit that what went on in the Soviet Union wasn't communism, any more than that the Nazis were socialists. Ever heard of The Rochdale Pioneers? Their model was reasonably successful for about 120 years. And not all building societies de - mutualised , of course. The one I had my mortgage with didn't.

Depends on the organisation structure, surely. I wonder if a mutual body might work

Why?

All the spectacles are still in place. I think it had something to do with the reception/departure roads for Dewsnap Yard,