Ron Ron Ron

Use hydrogen to produce the electricity that is used to produce hydrogen...and so on and so on. Hey! I've just invented perpetual motion. .

Are you sure it wasn't a politically motivated stunt? There's a small army of activists out there, carrying out a growing number of all sorts of politically motivated activities, from bombarding and trolling online forums and social media, to more direct forms of action. .

Thanks for that. I got the March 2018 date from Stagecoach Group's own website. Regards Ron .

21 and a half years. From Feb 1996 to Aug 2017. .

GWR timetable B8 (note T = continues to Taunton) and then timetable B4. Bristol to Avonmouth and Severn Beach (The Severn Beach line) timetable Bristol to Weston-super-Mare and Taunton timetable .

Being curious and having a nosey at RTT, it shows for today.... 2C71 - 10:24 from Bristol Temple Meads to Taunton. Arrives Nailsea & Backwell at 10:37 This train starts from BRI, having arrived there a few minutes earlier as ECS from St. Philips marsh depot as the 5C71. It's actually live on Live Departure Boards and RTT as I type this. http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/V80378/2018/02/11/advanced http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C50387/2018/02/11/advanced Again, according to RTT, last Sunday, the same train service (2C71) started from Severn Beach, calling at Sea Mills (showing leaving 1 min late but still given as OT) http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C50387/2018/02/04/advanced It appears to be listed on RTT as running from Severn Beach every Sunday from next week until at least the end of March. The service is also listed in the GWR timetable. Could it be the case that the service was amended today only? .

Just an idle off the wall thought. How about obtaining a Fleischmann branded MultiMaus handset, which is grey in colour, as opposed to Roco's red and using that as the "master"? The colour difference might serve as a reminder that's it's the one not to be unplugged.

I rather thought it was the ROSCO's and financial backers who would find it hard to invest in new DMU's; given that the long term future and therefore economic life of (solely) diesel powered MU's is rather uncertain. It was that uncertainty and lack of willingness by the industry to order new DMU's in the nought'ties, that lead to the DfT's 202 New DMU's programme, which ran in parallel with the Intercity Express Programme, until new electrification plans resulted in the DMU programme being scrapped. .

First group have been involved in the post privatisation Great Western since the beginning, 22 years ago this month. Originally as a 24.5% shareholder and then 2 years later, from March 1998, as the 100% owners of the franchise operator. So, First have had the GW for 20 years and been involved with it for 22 years. Ron

Business Traveller Magazine says.... Railway Gazette says..... Which suggests that the Eurostar trains will return from AMS to BRU as additional Thalys services, until through services can be operated. .

We get him on our local southern news, wide eyed and enthusiastically reporting on various transport issues. Always giving the distinct impression that he doesn't know what his talking about (even if you don't know about the subject or detail yourself). It nearly always results in some inaccurate twist or spin on the story, which I'm sure is totally unintentional on his part. .

That article is more accurate. The report should have stated that these were the first Italian built 802's. Not the first 802's, as the first ones have come direct from Japan. .

The press keeps talking of Frankfurt, beyond Koln. Primarily because of the banking sector and now because the post-Brexit scenario. However, with a 5 hr train journey time, which means total journey times are going to be 6 and a half to 7 hrs, I can't see this being attractive when you can fly with a city to city, door to door time of around 3 hrs. Note that London City Airport is undergoing an expansion scheme that will increase its capacity by quite a bit. There are already 9 flights a day between LCY and FRA and this particular route is expected to see more flights when the work is completed. (p.s. There are also 19 or 20 flights per day between LHR and FRA) .

The Eurostar waiting area (I hesitate to call it a departure lounge) at Brussels Midi, is a dark, badly lit and depressing dungeon. It's horrible. The last couple of times we've come through there, the train has been delayed by some technical issue or other. The last time was a broken window (apparently) and a replacement train had to be brought in, resulting in well over an hours delay. . .

It was the first time we've used Ebbsfleet. We only went from there because of the parking facilities and we were joining friends travelling from their home in north east Kent. I thought the station was nicely laid out and the nearest car parks only a short stroll away, although the location is in a god forsaken part of the country and can be windswept. The only issue was the long queue for border control and the security scanner. We may have been unlucky, as there was a large number of people boarding our train to Brussels, but they seemed unprepared to handle that number of passengers through the aforementioned checks. Unlike at an airport, you are carrying your own hold size luggage with you and it all has to be scanned. There was a lot of luggage with most of the passengers going out on tour trips. On top of that, although the train arrived on time from St. Pancras, it took so long to board everyone joining at Ebbsfleet, that it left 10 minutes late for Brussels. .

The DB ICE train PR visit to London was in 2010. They talked about a service starting in late 2013 and later pushed this back to say 2014, then 2016. In 2014 DB announced they were postponing the plan to operate to London, indefinitely. Last March there were UK press reports that DB had revived their plan, with a provisional start date of 2020. However, DB made a public statement to say the press reports were incorrect and that they had no plans to start the service. As before, they've left the door open by saying it remains a medium to long term ambition. London - Koln is already serviced with through tickets, with a connection in Brussels. If connecting onto the fast ICE service, it's a pretty quick connection eastbound, with a longer connection eastbound, to allow for the border control and security checks at Brussels. .

It depends on where you fly to and from etc. I can fly to Amsterdam from my local airport. There are several flights a day. Nearly everybody checks-in online these days so there's no airport check-in. If you have hold luggage, the bag drop closes 40 mins before departure time for international flights (30 mins for domestic). Security takes 5 minutes (10 minutes at worst if there's a queue) to clear and the gates are then all of one minute away. The security check is only a minor hassle, even I'm pulled up for a "pat down" and rescan. As such you can walk into the terminal with 30 or 35 mins to go, if you have cabin baggage only and still be in good time. It's obviously wise to allow another 10 or 15 minutes onto this though. At a busy airport like Heathrow, the security check can involve a queue and a frustrating hold up. We mostly use T5 and the security operation is very well sorted and efficient there and the whole process is relatively speedy. In contrast, we recently boarded a Eurostar train at Ebbsfleet and the long single line queue for the solitary passport check point and one working baggage scanner was very frustrating, taking about 20 minutes to complete. Much worst than at any airport we've experienced recently. . .

Nice to know your TV licence fee has paid for this semi-clueless bloke and a TV crew to be flown out to Italy, to spout such rubbish. Money well spent...not! .

Technically speaking, if they hadn't been awarded the extension, then Virgin Trains (West Coast) would have stopped operating next month (March) as the previous contract runs out then. That would have meant no ICWC train service until another operator could be appointed or a lengthy franchise bidding process had been gone through and another TOC awarded the franchise. The DafT have firstly put off and subsequently, haven't been able to re-run the competition for this (ICWC) franchise. Basically, the DafT are so far behind that several franchise renewals have been missed and extensions and contract awards are being used to keep the services operating on the relevant franchises. Similarly the East Midlands franchise, which should have originally ended three years ago (March 2015), but has been extended to March this year (next month). As the process to relet this franchise is running late, EMT have also been given another extension. .

Building programmes in Italy ???? IEP is a programme. These trains being built in Italy are not being supplied as part of the IEP. There were more than a few "half-truths" in Paul Clifton's report. He was wrong on a couple of points. For example, he stated that the UK government were buying the trains being assembled in the UK. No they're not. The UK government are not buying any trains as a result of the IEP order. Also, no mention of the other orders for 802's, which I understand will be built at Newton Aycliffe after the 800 and 801 order is complete. .

The first 802 arrived in the UK last summer. 802001 began mainline testing in August. 802001 & 802002 have now been on test for months. Here's 802001 at Swindon last year..... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/2017-08-19_GWR_802001_Test_Unit_-_Swindon.jpg/1200px-2017-08-19_GWR_802001_Test_Unit_-_Swindon.jpg .

It's only a temporary arrangement and should be sorted out by the end of next year. In the meantime, there's no issue in the other direction, LON - AMS, as checks will have been carried out at St. Pancras International prior to boarding. The eastbound service is scheduled to stop at Brussels Midi for only 4 minutes. .

Might have been this one? http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/L10043/2018/02/07/advanced I guess they've been extending the Brussels runs to Amsterdam for driver training? .

It's only a rumour as far as I can tell, but Eurostar say they'll be operating 2x trains per day from AMS to BRU to supplement the Thayls timetable, which might mean that Eurostar passengers will use the Eurostar train from AMS to BRU, not the Thalys. .

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infrastructure/single-view/view/rotterdam-centraal-station-to-be-modified-for-eurostar-services.html