Ah, I see Vivarail are now marketing their Unpredictable Ablaze Traction feature as an optional extra.

"No, we said passengers may alight here. Not 'the train should set itself alight'..."

Looks very much like "Swindon's bus company" is the new name, a la Buses of Somerset, and that "Thamesdown" is being gently phased out.

So I wasn't imagining things! On my travels this weekend I thought I heard an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) announced as "This train has 9 carriages"; saw it pass; counted them up; there were indeed nine...

Slightly surprised that the lowering isn't automated when a certain point is passed.

Blimey. 13/15. Which is surprising as at least 9 of those 15 were guesswork!

I'm not convinced that's always true.

Getting the 180s back wasn't in FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s franchise agreement at the time. Ordering a bunch of 170s wasn't in Central Trains' franchise agreement. And so on.

Shortages of available rolling stock are one thing, but when stock is available - and it sometimes is, as per Chiltern nabbing the 170s from TPE^▸ (Trans Pennine Express) - franchises can and do take on extras, as long as (AIUI^▸ (as I understand it)) the franchise-holder can convince the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) that there will be no impact on the subsidy profile.

Yes, it does appear to be a Photoshop job* by someone on RailUK Forums.

* well, more likely Illustrator or equivalent...

Agreed - it's a cracking pub. We've stopped there a couple of times when boating through Wolverhampton.

I do wonder - without any supporting evidence at all - whether this is just a ruse to reduce the leasing cost on the 707s, and that it'll be announced in two months' time that SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) will be taking them after all. The DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s animus towards the ROSCOs^» (Rolling Stock Owning Company - about) is well known, after all.

Fast from Reading to Wokingham, not from Waterloo to Wokingham!

Yes, early 2000s I think (when I was commuting to Wokingham).

Good. Now let's see that on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) too, over and above the few available in Devon & Cornwall.

There's a lot of end-to-end cycle carriage on ScotRail, not least people returning from Land's End-John O'Groats rides.

Very worried if it's really only going to be two bike spaces on the five-coach GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) though. As stuving says, the plans back in 2012 showed four (=2 'bike and bulk rooms').

Well, yes...

The Worcestershire contingent wants sub-2 hour trains from Worcester to London. It also wants a new stop to be inserted into existing schedules (i.e. Worcestershire Parkway). And it wants service levels to be maintained or improved at Honeybourne and Pershore.

Those three don't go together. The way to get 2-hr Worcester-London timings on the Cotswold Line is by missing stops, yet one is being added. And a cursory look at station usage figures shows that if any stops are to be dropped, the first two to go will be Honeybourne and Pershore.

In the very long term, I suspect the answer for the Worcestershire stations is a Birmingham/Stratford/Worcester circular via a reopened Long Marston line and redoubled Evesham-Norton. But that's a long time in the future. For now, Worcestershire probably needs to realise it can't have it all.

Ahem. Melodeons. This is morris dancing country, you know...