Behold Frightliner's behemoth!
Presumably its front end will be redesigned before it graces our shores?
UPDATE: This from our International Correspondent...
Size may not be everything, but FL's "behemoth" looks both a bit challenged in the nose end design but also very squat next to the Union Pacific 15ft 9in locos.
I don't remember Flying Scotsman looking quite so inadequate when it was in the US.
Sad news for Chester's devotees of the Railway Garden.
Shiny Shoes reports that the Chester has been zapped with weedkiller.
Eye salutes Network Rail for addressing this part of Iain's arboreal empire.
This from the Suffolk Evening Star...
National Express confirmed today that it was now discussing “certain aspects” of the consortium's bid, with a further announcement following “as appropriate”.
If the Cosmen/CVC deal goes ahead the group will be broken up, with rival Stagecoach having reached agreement with the consortium to takeover National Express's UK rail and bus businesses.
National Express - about to make travel even simpler...
What better evidence do you need that the Department for Transport is an obstacle to better operation of the railway?
This from the Evening Standard...
Commuters will have to wait until 2014 before the former Eurostar platforms at Waterloo station are adapted for suburban trains, it emerged today.
What a scandalous waste of capability on the already vastly overcrowded and congested South Western.
UPDATE: This from a Mr Dixon...
Interesting post about Waterloo.
Less than a week ago, the ORR set Network Rail a deadline for making Waterloo International Terminal operational by the 2011 timetable change
See 15.01 on page 4 of this document.
Which relates to page 57 of this.
Interesting to say the least.
UPDATE: This from Driver Potter...
Now, now FC. Play nicely.
I have been told, and this is something that you are in a position to confirm or deny, that should the International side be brought back into service, the signalling arrangements do not conform to current standards.
According to this source, if the platforms were to be brought back into use then the whole Waterloo to Vauxhall stretch would have to be resignalled.
So it might not just be down to DaFT....
Benefit of the doubt and all that.
Now lets see what your vast pool of railway brains has to say.
UPDATE: This from Dreadnought...
I would agree that the signalling in and around the international platforms at Waterloo does not conform to current standards but then neither does the rest of the station.
Requiring resignalling is just plain daft (or perhaps that should be DaFT) when the rest of the station (and numerous other places) operates with signalling designed to the same standards.
What a way to run a railway
PS I understand that at least one empty train has been into the international station in recent weeks so perhaps technically it is not out of use at all?
Sadly it was a VSOE train, so doesn't count.
As revealed by the Eye the Noble Lord has been in China.
With a bowler tip to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Nice tie!
UPDATE: This from Charles Yerkes...
How come the Tannoy sounds just as intelligible 5,000 miles away as it does here in Swindon?
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