Glorious NSE

Agreed - my point is solely that this is a bit of alignment that does have some future potential for use, unlike many other closed routes.

One reasonably likely future scenario is that all of the steadily increasing number of trains from Felixstowe headed to the Midlands and North West have to travel via the Leicester route, rather than many running via London as at present - due to pressure on paths in London both from passenger traffic growth and freight traffic from London Gateway and other Thamesside locations pushing it out - that would drastically increase the number of intermodals having to use the route. One scenario might be - At present, freight coming southbound on the WCML heading towards Leicester would seem to have to cross the Leicester-Birmingham track on the level, but there is no place to hold that train other than the slow line if it can't cross over immediately. A chord from the WCML to the old avoiding line would allow a place for a freight to stand clear of the WCML awaiting a path, and two points would allow it to also be used as an Eastbound goods loop (or even avoiding line, as the line speed may well be capable of faster running than the current rather tight S-curve and grade down to the platforms. If you added a third track over the WCML then that would allow you to get rid of all the wrong line running needed to access the connection to the WCML northbound. Yes, you'd need to build at least one new bridge, and yes that is a major investment, but I'd argue that level of capacity upgrade is not completely out of line with works already completed / underway / planned elsewhere on this axis.

I wouldn't put any money on that - given the location, the changes of the last few years and the potential for further change in the future....

Railstream has one free stream this week (to 8th Oct), Berea OH is another super busy location on CSX and NS. https://youtu.be/M5IH8b6X-zI

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but subscription service Railstream - https://railstream.net/ also has a youtube feed now - they put a different handful of their camera's up as ad-free previews every week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-bPJdfIq5zqIP_PQ7rUJaA Current free previews at the time of writing (till the 30th Nov): * Chesterton IN - very busy NS location just East of Chicago, this is one of the 'free' ones via the railstream site, but watching it via youtube you don't get the adverts breaking in. * Coal City IL - BNSF ex Santa Fe main line just West of Chicago * Rochelle IL - looking at the UP ex CNW with the BNSF ex CBQ in the background * Franklin Park IL - Suburban Chicago, yard leads to CP's Bensenville yard in the foreground - Metra too...good for freightcar watching! * Chicago IL - a short way East of Halsted St Metra and the Dan Ryan expressway, viewing the inner end of the BNSF 'Racetrack' hosting Metra and Amtrak, and the connections to NS and CN(IC). Chicago has just had it's first winter storm, and is looking reasonably pretty (from a warm room a few thousand miles away!) You can skim back through the last two hours of action at each site also which is handy.

There are several sites where you can look up the current owner of the code. But in the context of my post - none of those sites* will tell you when that code was first registered to help you date the usage of marks, and none of them will tell you what the company that registered that code called itself at the time the code was first registered, they will only show you the name of the current owner of the marks. The sites are logically there for somebody with a container to look up who owns it now, not for researching the history of the marks. For example - P&O/Nedlloyd used PONU - but if you search for that it says "Maersk Line A/S" just as the others do, as they were merged into the present day Maersk. *If anyone knows of a site that does do this - I'd love to know!

Nice to see some of the BLMA signals back, hope they can do the rest too.

Yep, the other thing is that older Maersk boxes like that were silver, not the modern grey. I've always presumed the grey was the SeaLand grey, anyone know for sure?

So far as I understand it, and i'm very open to more info here: MAEU were Maersk's old pre Sea-Land merger marks. MSKU I believe was used from the Maersk Sealand merger, with the marks still being used for a time after "Sealand" was dropped again - so my suspicion is that the MSKU box dates from the later part of the use of those marks (mid 00s). MRKU is a later mark again, I suspect these marks started from the P&O Nedlloyd merger (2005) - unscientific I know, but my oldest shot of any MRKU is of a very shiny new one in 2008 - there are no white borders on the current Maersk scheme either! I do believe that the Maersk ones are borderline for use on an FFA/FGA at best. (Web addresses reinforce this...) They are lovely container models, but unless you model the last couple of years of their use you'd be better off trading them to a modeller of a later period (who ought to rightly bite your hand off...!)

Shot you a PM - i'm happy to play round with different sizes if you like - 4x 3' boards might be easier to transport and would then fit (ish) the footprint of your existing Sullivan module. Not sure how that would affect functionality without playing with it a bit though!

I suspect you'd be talking to the likes of Siemens, Vossloh et al to deliver a variant of the many machines they already sell worldwide, rather than asking an unknown quantity to build you something from the drawing board... Definately good to see de-electrification being cancelled though.

That's it, still reckon the gentler curves would look fab.

Ambitious, but cool. Have you gone back towards the 90deg version from the 45deg version?

Are you sure it's yellow? I think they have a green stripe for one seating bay on one end car, which I suspect will denote the wheelchair space? https://www.russellwykes-photography.com/p428207483#hb72a6bf7 The 745s will have more than one car of 1st class, and the stripe on them looks to be an obvious yellow compared to that green based on the livery renders. I can't find any shots of 755s with a yellow stripe.

That bit of the ECML will lose the trains that don't stop, and ought to be taking passengers off the trains that do. I'd suggest worst case is the 'ors' in your example become 'ands'. I'd doubt somewhere like Newark will get a fundamentally worse service. There is I believe a 'wishlist' of projects for improving the route north of Northallerton, including some deviations - York to Northallerton is arrow straight and 4 tracked already.

If you take somewhere like York for example, the present half hourly Edinburghs (one of which is non stop from York already) will transfer to HS2, LNER already do an every other hour 'stopper' that starts from York, (Doncaster, Retford, Newark, Grantham, Peterborough, Stevenage) which takes maybe 25mins longer than the fastest trains. They aren't likely to make it slower than that timing, as it'll still need to be a competitive service to and from the intermediate points. The only way they could force you not to use it as a through service would involve something like a Kings Cross to Doncaster service and York to Stevenage service, which seems unlikely as it would seem to be very wasteful of stock, line capacity, crews...

As I said, I disagree with your take on fares, if it was substantially more expensive then folk would use the cheaper legacy routes and there would be no capacity advantages - therefore to achieve the capacity advantages intended it cannot be substantially more expensive.

"Work and Pensions" is fairly obviously not transport, and it seems she was just repeating a figure by an "expert" not involved in this project. The 100m claim being made was specifically denied by the minister actually responsible for transport, so, i'm sorry, it is still a lie if you claim that these are official figures from HS2, which is what you did. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-40629219/grayling-hs2-100bn-price-tag-nonsense

Official government press release? Statement from HS2 Ltd? News item covering the official announcement?

If you can prove that you are not lying, by finding us the announcement by HS2 or the DfT that the costs will definitely be over 100bn, as you state, then I'll be happy to apologise. Otherwise, you are making up a number - lying, or repeating somebody else's lie.

You are categorically stating that it will be. You claim to have actual info from HS2 to show this. Please provide the actual info from HS2 showing this.

At present, the costs are not "set to rise over 100bn", those figures are NOT from HS2 ltd as you state, and they have been officially denied by the government. Lying about things does not help your cause. Maybe they are building a railway? There's 109 pages of real reasons up-thread, we understand you are capable of either ignoring or rejecting all of them, but nevertheless they are real reasons.

Sorry bud, your maths is still suspect. Euston-Newcastle will be at least 35 mins faster travelling time than Kings Cross-Newcastle with essentially a similar tube connection - saving 35 mins. So Old Oak-Newcastle ought to be about 40 mins faster than Kings Cross-Newcastle travelling time, plus Pad to OOC will only be about 4 mins versus 12 on the tube, so that's 48 mins faster than Pad-Kings Cross-Newcastle. A direct Old Oak connection saving one physical change plus travel time ought to be a minimum of an hour faster. Whichever route you have the possibility of a wait for the next main line connection. Whichever way you cut it, none of those are 'it's no saving'. I disagree with your take on the pricing, but we'll see.

Fares start at £38.40 (Direct) and £49.50 (Via London) The challenge is that direct cheap fares are severely limited by lack of capacity on Cross Country at present... Why is it unlikely? Connecting in Birmingham is going to be sub-optimal (involving leaving the network and taking a walk or tram ride between two stations) if you're coming up from the South West. I suspect doing that is probably still technically *quicker*, but it's a faff. Exeter to Newcastle via London is an entirely conventional routing (it's actually 5mins faster than the direct trains even with the Underground connection!) When HS2 is built, going to London then taking the tube across and picking up the slower route to Newcastle via the ECML would feel an odd choice. I reckon going via OOC will take more than half an hour off if you go via Paddington as I think the timings quoted above are a little out, if the inbound trains also called at OOC then i'd suggest you'll knock at least a whole hour off.

Possibly not, but you might go from Exeter to Old Oak to go to Leeds, or Newcastle...