EU rail liberalisation

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SatNav directs walkers on to the mainline!

This just in from transport hack and author Andy Roden...

A good friend of mine was given a whizzy satellite navigation system by his employers to help him find his way by road to the various bits of the rail network in Devon and Cornwall he has to work on (despite the fact that he knows the county’s rail network as well as everyone).

After a meeting in Bristol he thought he’d try this new box of tricks out on the train back to see what it could do.

Initially it was very confused, constantly trying to point him onto the nearest road, but around Par my mate decided to try its walking function and asked it to give him directions to Penzance from the railway station.

Lo and behold, it suggested he walk all the way down the Cornish Main Line as far as Hayle, where it finally opted to send him on the main road back to Penzance, presumably having dodged the HSTs, Voyagers and Sprinters along the way.

It’s a bit worrying though – after hearing about people driving down railway lines because they’ve had their brains surgically replaced by Satnavs, is the next thing a plague of hikers getting confused between country tracks and Country Tracks?

FGW and Arriva XC drivers beware!