Recent content by 43074

Related question, does anyone know what is currently on 5Q78 Hornsey to Worksop, is this just 47749 returning to Worksop or is there a pair of 379s as well? (As I understand it they will be put in further storage after acceptance by GTR until fit for service and driver training commences later...

I think my general point still stands though; @JonathanH was writing about EMR having a complete fleet of 170s as if it was good, well intentioned rolling stock strategy when in reality it happened by accident after it was apparent the cascade of 16 or however many 171s from Southern was never...

It doesn't work like that either though - how do you explain the 755s in East Anglia and the large numbers of new units at Transport for Wales? As that would imply the Bleanau Ffestiniog brach justifies new stock but local services in/out of Leicester or Nottingham do not, which is ludicrous...

Doesn't tend to help that Network Rail planning don't "get" the concept of a repeating standard pattern timetable; when they check each train in the timetable works with one another, the process is done on a train by train basis, in doing so losing sight of the bigger picture and causing...

For now ;) but it is undeniably a mismatch of trains and services to have 700s on Kings Lynn fasts and 379s on Letchworth stoppers.

379s run on Linux and 387s on Windows so very much "computer says no"! Not sure if mechanically they would couple, depends if the coupler alignment is the same on both types I guess but they wouldn't be able to couple in service. The problem with dropping them into current diagrams is that half...

That will become clear when unit and traincrew plans have been worked out. But I would expect it will be 30 379+some 387s and a handful of extra RLU diagrams.

It's only one path - if you look at Digswell or Woolmer Green on Real Time Trains the trains from the slow line which call at Welwyn North can follow 1.5 mins behind a non-stop on the fasts so it's timetabled as efficiently as possible. Hence why I pointed out if you need connectivity Welwyn...

Closing Welwyn North achieves nothing because there's still a need for connectivity between the likes of Hatfield/Welwyn and Stevenage/Hitchin etc as they are important places in their own right, running a half hourly service between them doesn't seem unreasonable. If there's a need for a...

ESG - Event Steering Group. Network Rail jargon for the group who (attempt to) write the timetable. Eureka - the name of the project which planned the May 2011 timetable change which was the last East Coast rewrite on this scale

Very crudely over the Welwyn viaduct there are: 2 x Cambridge fast 2 x Cambridge stopper 4 x fast line paths from the TL core (2 each to Cambridge/Peterborough) 10 x fast line paths - however it would be impossible to use all 10 for long distance paths because stopping patterns on the two...

Thanks! Context is in relation to the Transport Minister stating that the Hope Valley capacity enhancement has been made possible by HS2 funding, hence the first sentence about Huw Merriman's statement.

Gareth Dennis on Twitter (I know...) is saying it has now been deferred, apologies I can't quote directly as I'm on mobile: https://twitter.com/GarethDennis/status/1778080907036873214?t=BsYmcKITtNszIWjqi-W48Q&s=19 Despite the source I believe this to be correct, the decision was confirmed...

Given it's fundamentally the same timetable - bar some changes to stopping patterns north of York - that the industry tried to implement in December 2022 first time around, deferring it for a third time with all the issues it has seems nonsensical. Frankly it needs to go back to square 1 as the...

Highly unlikely - the ECML is 115mph max south of Woolmer Green and even if GN services were to exceed 100mph it would save a minute at best. Between Woolmer Green and Hitchin/Peterborough the distance GN services run on the fast lines is insufficient to save any meaningful amount of time and...