Oakydoke

CAF will be making a decent profit from this contract. With the Scottish government footing 40% of the purchase cost (€80) and heavily subsidising the sleeper service operation until 2029, I agree with Joseph that the money could have been better spent elsewhere.

I don't believe it does Martyn.

I don't think the technical support includes actual maintenance or maintenance facilities. It's only spares and technical support.

The latest stats give the level of ownership of Smartphones in the UK as between 65% and 72% of the population! depending on which research you believe. I think the equivalent figures for the USA are something like 52% to 65%. That's for the latter end of 2014, with continuing rapid growth expected this year. It's not very helpful to suggest the cost of a phone should be factored in to the cost of adopting any smart device based control system, or smart device DCC throttle. The sale or availability of these options is based on the user already having the ownership or use of an appropriate device. If the local filling station are advertising that a litre of unleaded is now down to £1.05, I don't expect someone to complain that they haven't added the cost of buying a car onto the price of buying the fuel, for someone without a car. The assumption is that if you are buying fuel, it's because you have a car.

https://mobile.twitter.com/NoelDolphin/status/558563209838608384/photo/1

I only hope no one else gives him another job covering football. He must be universally disliked in that role and how on earth can they pay him that sort of money when he's hardly a must have personality to be fought over by rival TV companies.

Well done Cambridge for their heroics. No shots on goal though, despite their header just over the bar in the first half. Only 25% possession overall and worst in the 2nd half (20% although it was 17% until the 80th minute). A minor miracle, or just rewards for their endeavour? For Utd, the same problem that's bugged them for 3 seasons. Lack of drive, grit and power in their central midfield and slow ponderous build ups in their attack. Chief culprit, Captain Slow (Carrick) didn't wake up until half way through the 2nd half, when he finally started playing well. Fellaini was absolutely awful and should have been hooked at half time, not nearly midway through the second half. With that pair, is it any wonder the forwards were struggling? Also I question the wisdom of playing a young lightweight 18 year old rooky up front, when he is clearly not ready for the first team. 75% overall possession (80% in the second half) and no goals! Not good. Still, a great story for Cambridge and their coffers will be swelled with a well earned trip to Old Trafford, to add to a well earned payday at home tonight. Who said that the romance of the FA Cup was dead?

I was there that night. Palace set out with a plan to rough up Utd, probably because they had no chance in trying to match them playing football. A few Utd players were getting a kicking and Cantona was on the end of a number of really rough tackles, including a potential leg breaker from, if I remember correctly Chris Colman, just before the Kung Foo incident. He was clearly getting more and more riled as the Ref was doing nothing about it.Those sort of tackles and fouls would be drawing instant yellow and red cards today. When he retaliated to yet another tackle by kicking out. The Ref then showed him the red card. In no way am I excusing him, but anything might have set off what was a very short fuse by that stage; another player's actions for instance. It just so happened it was that foul mouthed racist idiot in the crowd.

The requirement to have the capability of being extended to 12 cars, is future proofing. If or when the trains are extended (to 10, 11 or even 12 cars long), platform lengths and other infrastructure issues will have to be dealt with at the time. Just as is happening currently in preparation for the initial introduction of the Class 800/801's.

The original specification was for 5 and 10 car trains and that's what Hitachi provided with their winning bid. The 10 car trains were shortened to 9 cars long following the government revue into the programme, both to reduce costs and under the pretext that because of the recession, estimates of future passenger numbers would be lower at the time of the introduction of the trains. Also, as mentioned, the capacity of a 9 car train won't be much different from a 2x5 car combination. The programme allows for the trains to be extended in due course, up to 12 cars long.

Back in the early/mid 1960's, everyday our school bus passed what we all knew as "the Train Station". Living in outer west London in the 1970's, I recall the phrase "Train Station" being a common description for the local and other stations. I don't think it's a recent trend at all. "Train Station" isn't an incorrect term, it's more an issue of differing common usage.

The reader's comments are hysterical.

Agnes Obel - Aventine

On the subject of supporting your local team. As a Manchester United supporter, born (in Manchester) and bred (great Grandfather supported Newton Heath and Grandfather and Father were both Utd season ticket holders), I have been supporting the club for as long as I can remember. I was taken to my first match at Old Trafford at the age of 5 years old. I left home and the north when aged 19 and have lived in various parts of the south of England for over 40 years. My son, born in Berkshire, has lived here on the south coast, where we moved to when he was a toddler, for nearly 20 years and has been a Man Utd supporter all his life, obviously indoctrinated by me and his Grandad. He's been to Old Trafford only a dozen or so times and has seen them play at Wembley. Clearly he wasn't born in or near Manchester and has never lived there. Should he not support his team? As Father and Son, we have also supported Southampton as our adopted 2nd team, ever since they moved to St. Mary's stadium. Even going to Cardiff in 2003 to support them in their FA Cup loss to Arsenal. Is that not allowed? After all neither of us were born here. A mate hales from the West Midlands, leaving there 40 years ago, aged 18. His team is Walsall. His 3 sons were born in Reading and now as adults live in various parts of southern England. They support Walsall too, one of them being an avid supporter and has attended many Walsall matches, home and away. Is that not allowed, because he doesn't support his local club, wherever that's supposed to be? Another friend hales from Sunderland and is an avid fan of Sunderland. He goes up there for at least half the home games each season and gets to as many away games down south, as he can. His sons were born in the south too. Both avid Sunderland fans. Apparently one of them got his best friend interested in and supporting Sunderland when they were kids at school. Can that lad (probably in his mid 20's now) not be allowed to support a team from the other end of the country? I could list several other examples, including a former work colleague who was an English born Green Bay Packers fan and has made a couple of trips over the Atlantic to see them. Mostly he just watches them on TV and follows their progress from half way across the world. Where do you draw the line on who is supposed to support who? I don't think you can and neither should anyone try to.

That was originally supposed to be a joke, but the biggest joke is that stupid idiots actually believe that intimidation or even bribery has occurred. For the record, Howard Webb was one of the worst refs for giving decisions against Utd, not for. That's a fact. The majority of Utd fans always disliked him because of it. This now popular idea that he was biased towards Utd is ridiculous in the extreme, but the more it's repeated, it seems the gullible and stupid actually believe it! Any suggestion that FA referees at the highest level are susceptible to intimidation is a something the FA would take very seriously. There was a period of time, when a certain faction amongst the senior officials at the FA Referees Association, who for political reasons involving their relationship with the FA and that organisations fear of the press, took their own politically defensive stance by singling out SAF, due to the weight the press gave to his comments, no matter how controversial or not. At that time, when it came to officiating at matches involving Man Utd, referees were put under a degree of pressure from the FA Referees Association to avoid being inadvertently accused of any favouritism. The result was certain refs seeming to go out of their way, not to give any benefit of doubt in favour of Man Utd, when making refereeing decisions. The most notable of those referees was Howard Webb, who consistently gave Utd no benefit of doubt at all, booked their players at the slightest opportunity and always appeared to give their opponents the rub of the green. He was so bad in this regard, many Utd fans accused him of being biased against Utd. Despite that, Man Utd kept on winning because they were consistently the best team at the time, just like Arsenal were for a couple of seasons a decade ago and Man City have been in the last couple of years. It's plain silly to suggest otherwise.

Sorry Southernman, that's garbage. The EPL is much tougher now, with the oil money put into Man City and Chelsea. The supporting cast is not that shabby either. Man Utd will be back up there when the rebuilding is progressed further on, but it will still be very tough for any one team to dominate for the forseeable future. After today's battle, against West Ham, Utd are just 2 points off 4th place. Had they continued there early rampage against Leicester last week and not caved in and lost, they'd be in 3rd or 4th place in the league after today's results. Early days.

It's a rebuilding situation, against the background of a terrible injury list (10 first team players out) and the loss of experienced defenders during the closed season. LVG arrived too late from World Cup duties to get all departments sorted out before the season got underway and the transfer window was closed. With further injuries to defenders and the youngster Blackett being suspended, the problems have just got worst, but give it time and things will turn around dramatically. Once key new defenders can be brought in to help rebuild the back line and another new defensive midfielder can be found, this will be a team to be reckoned with. LVG's problem will be getting the team through the next few months and into a more respectable position in the PL table. It will not be a smooth ride and there will be some defeats on the way, but with the resources already to hand, all the evidence points to MU coming out of this dark period in a very strong condition.

Navas already plays in La Liga, for Levante (the other Valencia team) and before that for another La Liga team, Albacete. On TV they said he's already highly rated in Spain.

Michael Bradley needlessly losing the ball in midfield, directly leading to Ronaldo' s run up the wing and the equalising goal, with seconds to go, had a horrible sense of déjà vu about it. A Gerrard moment!

Against top opposition, a team's fortunes rest on the quality of its central midfield. If it's weak, it doesn't matter how good the defence is, as the pressure put on them and lack of protection will eventually open up cracks. A weak CM will also seriously blunt the forward line's potency and ability to get into the box. England's CM has been absolutely atrocious. Gerrard and Henderson must be the worst CM England have ever put out on the pitch. Although not a dazzling performance, Rooney was by far our best player last night again putting in a decent shift, but again he had to drop deeper and deeper to make up for the woeful and absent CM players and was having to double up as a midfield creative player as well as being a forward. Perversely, that had echoes of last season at Man Utd. Gerard's nod on to Suarez was just the icing on the cake for an awful performance from him. Hiding from the ball, losing tackles, giving the ball away, being caught in possession and a total lack in leadership and drive barely sums it up. It's nothing new though, he' s been poor for England for years and yet is one of the first names on the team sheet. Thankfully this will be the last we'll see of him at a major tournament. The trouble is, who else is there with the EPL's top CM's almost all being foreign players?

.....I've never heard of them! Leicester City you say.....?

No it didn't. There was only a mathematical chance that Liverpool could have been champions if City had lost and that wasn't likely. There was a chance that Chelsea could have finished in 2nd place if Liverpool had lost, but who was getting excited over 2nd place? At the bottom, the relegation places were already taken and apart from final finishing positions for the bottom half of the table, everyone else was in their final league position set last weekend. At least in previous years there was always a desperate last minute scramble at the bottom of the table and we didn't get that this time around. All in all the least "exciting" last day of the season in the Premiership for years; unless of course you are a City fan.

I was under the impression that a condemnation of the quality of coaching was also a key part of this inquiry?

The problem is that what were once reserve teams are now restricted to the under-21 competition. There are talented young English players who progress through the club youth ranks and as they get older get stuck in the under-21 team, unable to break through into the first team, where they would gain much more experience. This largely due to the amount of foreign talent present at various levels within the club, especially in the first team. Not all of them would make it if given the chance, but the result is that many who might have made it are denied the opportunity and the national team ends up with a shrinking pool of first team experienced talent. The B team idea is that the top clubs are able to field a team of their top reserve and youth players and have them playing and gaining experienced at a more competitive level and against older players. However this pans out, something radical has to be done to reverse the downward trend of the number of English players turning out for the top clubs, therefore damaging the national team's future prospects.

Of course it's true they've got more fans abroad than in Manchester. They've also got more fans throughout the British Isles than in Manchester and they've got more fans in Manchester than any any other club in Britain, including their local rival. It's no secret that Utd have one of the biggest fan bases in the world. Everyone knows that. The population of Greater Manchester is only 2 million plus. Utd's fan base is massively bigger than local support alone.