Thursday 6th November 2025 Taking day trips by train north from London always brings home the huge inconsistency of rail ticket pricing, especially if you want to leave the capital around 09:00 to make the most of your day and enjoy reasonably priced fares. One of the worst culprits for setting unreasonable fares is East... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st November 2025 Runcorn's two stations have very different pedigrees and present quite a contrast. The town's long standing main station, called Runcorn, opened way back in April 1869 whereas its youthful compatriot, Runcorn East, is a much more contemporary addition to the network, opening as recently as October 1983. The town of Rucorn... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th May 2025 Secretary of State for Transport Heidi Alexander reckons tomorrow’s high profile ownership change of South Western Railway from First Group/MTR Corporation over to DfT Operator Limited (DFTO) is “a watershed moment” marking the start of the much heralded re-nationalisation of Britain’s Railways. Expect an overdose of hype as the first train... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th February 2025 Wigan’s two stations are both located on Wallgate just 100 metres apart. Tessa Sanderson could easily throw a javelin from one entrance to the other (assuming no pedestrians were about for obvious Health & Safety issues). Wigan North Western came first, opening in 1838 as plain Wigan with a renaming to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 12th December 2024 1. Another connecting bus that doesn't connect Residents in the village of Downe just inside the Greater London boundary with Kent have had their usual seamless bus journey into Bromley disrupted these past few weeks due to Southern Gas Networks closing Rockery Road; the main access road from Keston, used by... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th September 2024 I left you in Thursday's blog departing Machynlleth on the 08:52 Transport for Wales train up the Cambrian Coast line to Pwllheli on day 2 of a tour of the scenic rail lines in Wales. The Cambrian coast timetable has eight return trains a day roughly every two hours between Machynlleth... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14th September 2023 I’ve been in Manchester over the last couple of days attending the Public Transport in the North of England conference organised by Modern Railways and Buses magazines both part of Key Publishing and before that, Ian Allan. I’ll write about the conference itself on Saturday but for now I just want... Continue Reading →
Saturday 14th January 2023 Welcome to another year of A to Z fortnightly blogposts which for 2023 are featuring bus and train companies. I’m beginning with the ironically named Avanti West Coast .... bearing in mind recent history, ‘Avanti’ is Italian for ‘Forward’ “reflecting a mission to deliver an innovative railway service that is ready... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th September 2022 An annual ride on the wonderful West Highland Line is a personal must in my book so having missed a full blown Glasgow to Mallaig journey during the pandemic (I managed one trip as far as Tyndrum) it was good to be back on board on Monday last week. It was... Continue Reading →
Saturday 27th August 2022 Yesterday afternoon saw the second outing of an interloper’s new weekly appearance competing on the West Coast Main Line. The rail tour company Locomotive Services Ltd (trading as InterCity) has started running a southbound journey between Crewe and Euston followed by a return back to Manchester leaving London in the busy... Continue Reading →
Sunday 14th August 2022 I wrote about the lovely two new trains for Southend Pier after my visit back in May when unfortunately teething problems meant they weren’t out on the tracks so was pleased to be able to fit in time to take a ride on my recent trip to Foulness Island when one... Continue Reading →
Saturday 13th August 2022 Let’s take stock. The battle for TfL is ominously sliding towards a possible nuclear option of bankruptcy and Government "taking back control"…… Rail strikes are continuing with more trains in the sidings than on the tracks today with ASLEF drivers’ turn to stop work and RMT and TSSA members out again... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 5th July 2022 I’m still trying to get the hang of Avanti West Coast’s Standard Premium class. It’s the ‘declassified’ first class coach H on a nine coach Pendolino that gives you first class comforts but without the complimentary refreshments. On 11 coach trains two coaches (G and H) are normally set aside for... Continue Reading →
Sunday 5th June 2022 Over the last few weeks I’ve been keeping notes of the state of catering for passengers travelling first class on trains. Here’s my report complete with a complimentary coffee, biscuits and packet of sea salt flavoured crisps. It’s only long distance ‘inter-city’ train operators who get involved in on board catering... Continue Reading →
Thursday 19th May 2022 Last week was Rail Sale travel week for me. I’d bagged a couple of bargain priced tickets when they went on sale last month for two day trips - one to Cornwall and one to Scotland - as you do. Monday morning last week saw me roll up at Paddington for... Continue Reading →
26th April 2022 An £82 million face lift to transform Coventry's railway station has just been completed. It certainly looked eye catching from the media coverage I’d seen so I paid a couple of visits last week to take a look for myself. £40 million of the funding came from West Midlands Combined Authority’s Devolution... Continue Reading →
Sunday 13th February 2022 Having explored a couple of southern towns to kick off this year's A to Z of public transport provision in small to mid sized English towns last month I thought I’d better level up and select this month’s two contenders in the north. And what’s more they’re both cities rather than... Continue Reading →
Monday 24th May 2021 Avanti West Coast’s latest wheeze to squeeze a bit more money from passengers is their new “Standard Premium” Class pitched between Standard Class and First Class. I'm guessing it ticked the box marked ‘innovations to be introduced if successful’ in the franchise bid; and from last week it became a reality.... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th December 2020 Have you heard of ‘Seatfrog’? It’s been LNER’s way of offering upgrades from standard class to first class on its trains since 2017. More recently it's begun doing the same for Avanti West Coast and GWR . Although it’s been around for three years I only gave it a try for... Continue Reading →
BusAndTrainUser 