phil-b259

Given the insane crush seen on many services that call at Gatwick there are very good reasons to maximise the number of services via the airport! Not that long ago I had to attend some training in Croydon and the incoming Thameslink was already well filled at Three Bridges and turned into a Tube train crush at Gatwick as large numbers of air travellers squeezed themselves on board.

I did indeed initially confuse which ex PTE area you were talking about but that doesn’t really matter. Under and Thatcher's bus de-regulation legislation of the mid 1980s the bulk of what you you talk about was illegal for at least 3 decades! Its only in the past couple of years that authorities like TfWM have been able to carry out the actions you describe. Hence 2 or so years against a backdrop of deregulation being in place for 30+ doesn’t sit well with the phrase ‘some time’

It depends how you define 'some time'..... Do not confuse the ability for regional transport bodies to subside routes or enter agreements with commercial bus companies to provide multi-mode / multi operator based ticketing schemes within their areas with the ability completely organise all aspects of bus operation as has long been the case in the Capital. The legal powers needed to do the latter and effectively copy the London / TfL setup were only granted in 2023 IIRC which is not exactly a long time ago.

No - but that was true of a number of models released around the same time! The 'super detailed' West Country / Battle of Britain locos (in original condition had this setup as did the Black 5 IIRC) and it was intended that you screw one of these R8099s* to the aforementioned 'lump' (which was actually specifically designed to receive it) People need to remember that this is 20 year old tooling (although defiantly not the same as the late 1980s tooling which preceded it) and as such is not up to current standards in many areas, including NEM provision *https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hornby-R8099-Assemblies-Couplings-Accessory/dp/B001IYOR2O/ref=asc_df_B001IYOR2O&mcid=e673d5c49bb639e4b895b3d75c858663?tag=bingshoppinga-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80264405731093&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583863981501401&psc=1

Point of order - Marylebone station only EVER had 4 platforms to start with! Yes the GCR, LNER and BR only ever had 4 platforms to play with. Up until the 1990s Chiltern line modernisation by British Rail the span covering what is now platforms 2 & 3 merely covered the cab road (which is why platforms 2 & 3 line up with the large archway at the front of the station building). As such the 1990s changes did NOT reduce station capacity - though obviously what they did do by getting rid of the cab Road and demolishing the 3rd bay of the train shed was restrict any easy expansion (although the decision to install carriage sidings on part of the land formerly occupied by the removed train shed did at least give Chiltern the option of building 2 new platforms a couple of decades later).

But given it’s obvious the Tories have pretty much given up looking after their ex-red wall seats and are more concerned about shoring up support in their traditional heartlands do you honestly thing anyone in Government will care?

Cambridge does, as far as I know; have a good park and ride service plus a good train service (including a direct service from where I live which negates the need to use the multi lane car park that is the M25).

And what happens when the DfT come demanding cuts and that ‘someone knowledgeable’ no longer exists in house or NR are no longer able to afford to pay for external help. You forget that the whole reason why tree growth was allowed to happen in the first place was the ability to slash staff numbers once steam had finished rather than any deliberate policy to let them grow!

The Wonderlabs target audience is CHILDREN - and is tied in with promoting STEM* learning at school with the aim of increasing the number of young people considering related industries as career paths Adults may well enjoy some of its content (much like adults used to enjoy playing with the stuff in the ‘Launch Pad’ facility at London Science museum), but that is not the target audience for the facility or why it exists. * Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths

It considerably complicated things like welding - in case you aren’t aware not only is exposure to it without protective PPE likely to blind you / give you arc eye but there are stringent rules about fume extraction following concerns about the carcinogenic nature of the fumes. Now yes I agree that these things can be mitigate things with a hermetically sealed viewing gallery from which the public are excluded every time someone wants to use a Oxyacetylene torch, but the bottom line is such things get in the way of running a profitable and efficient enterprise - which is what any workshop facility at York would have to be.

Yes - which is going more less exclusively towards paying for new Piccadilly line trains. It is most emphatically not going towards TfL general expenditure - and moreover given the cost of new trains it’s not as though the money currently allocated to the Overground re-branding would buy many trains anyway.

Tea and Toys makes money for the museum - the workshop didn’t! As I have pointed out many, many times before with Government funded museums unable to charge an entrance fee but not given funding which keeps up with inflation it is critical that said museum seeks to boost its revenue stream by other means. Simply the selling of souvenirs and refreshments to visitors is not enough these days and as such ventures like the ‘Wonderlab’ where an entrance fee can be charged are increasingly being restarted to. There is also the practical consideration that in these increasingly safety conscious times there are many workshop activities which cannot be undertaken with the public present or where allowing the public to view the process slows everything down and thus affects the earning potential of such a facility.

Because some people cannot accept he is the democratically elected Mayor of London who has the right to Govern how he wishes and so resort to name calling because it satisfies their inner prejudices. It’s a fact that for centuries the naming of things in the U.K. has generally followed the pattern of honouring rich white men and I for one welcome names that upset the status quo.

I'm guessing that as TfL trains are deliberately timetabled / run as all station stoppers there is relativity little point reeling off all the station stop en-route any more than it would be to go through the lists of all stations a train stops at on the Underground. Besides splitting the lump that is the Overground into separate and distinctive service groups will make it easier for folk to use maps and signage to work out where a train is going to call at anyway.

If it’s any consolation the funding for the re-branding is being provided by TfL from its own funds! In other words NOBODY who lives outside theGLA area is spending any money on it and moreover many of those who live inside the GLA area have actually been requesting the various Overgound lines to be seperated out as it makes it a lot easier to understand which bits are open and which bits are shut during incidents or closures for engineering works.

A ‘very old model’ - certainly NOT! An ‘old model’ (as something that was freshly tooled up from scratch during the 2000-2010 time period like this incarnation of the 8F - Yes. Only Hornby can tell you why the latest release has seemingly used the smoke box door from the 1980s model (which subsequently was released as a ‘railroad’ model) but it could be something as simple as a factory error. Its also the case that only Horny can tell you why it’s so highly priced - and on the face of it the RRP for what is now dated toolings does seem excessive.

IIRC the issue was more that because it was incredibly difficult to path the service over lots of intensively used lines it ended up running at odd times and stuck behind other traffic which meant that journey times were lengthy. Although there are some passengers who appreciate direct trains its rare that they will be enough to make a train service in itself viable - Thameslink trains may well go from Bedford to Brighton but well over three quarters of customers do not actually pass through to the other side of London.

Don’t pedal lies! Both the 8F and the Fowler 4P got completely new tooling for both bodies and their chassis (at the same time I hasten to add) between the years 2000 and 2010 They owe NOTHING to their 1980s predessors! At the time of release they were a world away from the 1980s versions they replaced and stod up well to other models being produced at the time. Naturally 15-20 years on they are showing their age as manufacturers have increased detail and features during that time - much like a Ford Focus from 2005 is pretty dated by todays standards yet was the bees knees when first released.

That might be because if your chosen era / location requires an 8F, it doesn’t matter how much cheaper / better detailed an Acurascale manor is the Hornby product is what you are going to buy. Its a concept which a certain internet reviewer completely fails to comprehend when he reviews stuff - though to be fair he doesn’t really care about accuracy and just wants stuff that looks pretty / fun as he runs them round his floor. However as a model it cannot be denied that Hornby 8F tooling is dated by todays standards and as such the model is definitely overpriced. But if you need an 8F then it’s what you have to pay….

As ever it depends where you are going…. There is no way on earth I will drive within Grater London for example and more locally to home I wouldn’t drive into the centre of Brighton however expensive the trains get - its simply a far too stressful experience. The same would be true with respect to visiting the centres of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester or Leeds…

HM Treasury (and the DfT) have always lived in a parallel universe when it comes to rail reopening despite plenty of evidence from the devolved administrations… To their mindset any rail expansion is bad because even a line / station is very successful then it’s not going to generate enough revenue to compensate for the extra subsidy they will have to shell out. As such it is far better from a financial perspective to sit there saying “the computer says no” (I.e. poor BCR ratios using conservative ridership figures) and pat themselves on the back for the taxpayers money they haven’t spent….

To be fair given the awful state of many of our trunk roads I don’t think they are in that better position. What both suffer from is an over abundance of management drones churning out pretty brochures and webpages or buying fancy IT kit thinking it is a good substitute for proper maintenance. Of course that suits HM Treasury just fine…

The link was fully funded in the early days of the EWR project - but was one of the things that got dropped / sacrificed as the price to be paid for HM Treasury letting the project itself continue as costs rose. The pandemic didn’t help matters as the masive decline I ridership was eagerly siezed on by said Whitehall mandarins who insist that a Aylesbury service would never attract decent patronage….

If you thought it was bad back then - let me tell you its many many times worse now. But as the bean counters in Whitehall keep telling us the railway costs the taxpayers too much so cuts, cuts and more cuts to staff are essential to deliver tax cuts.... ahem, I mean 'value for the taxpayer'....

Effectively yes. Basically the interior of the tank was glass lined so as to keep the milk free from metallic corrosion / contamination.