It says "a" colleague rather than your colleague. So it's an instruction to contact any person who's employed by a company with at least two members of staff.

Please keep your posts in English!

I was reminded how difficult it is for newcomers to discussions on rail subjects to pick up whst's being said if the text is full of abbreviations when I saw this (From http://www.bloodandcustard.org/hdl2011rochester01.html) the other day:


And there has been comment here that some members are dropping rather deeply into abbreviations - to the extent that they are making their posts hard to read.  Please remember our guidelines:


Five years old (so many new members will have missed it), but still looks good to me.  Not only do clear posts help people reading you - they also help you enhance your standing here!

Clearly enough for it to be worthwhile to put the prices up by 9% 

Agreed - if it's the right product for you.

People forget one round of fare rises when the next round comes along ... and I've forgotten whether any fares rose in September of last year (anyone?).   I know that a fare I had bought a number of times rose by a mouth-drying amount in December, and then rose again in January; that resulted in correspondence telling me that the January rise was in line with the various regulated figures that were being bandied around at the time.  And now rovers and rangers are rising in considerable excess of both annual inflation, and indeed in excess of RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) plus even 3%.

If fares are going to rise multiple times in a year, it seems misleading to describe one set of the rises as "annual" ones, and it seems doubly misleading to quote the percentage rise at that time of year as the "annual percentage".  I would have no objection to fares being revised twice a year; it would reduce the stampede for annual seasons for example, but if annual figures are to be quoted they should include both rises.   Three or four price changes in an upwards direction during the year is getting excessive.

Yes, it is ... and it's also pointing out the irony of potentially different rules / guidelines for essentially the same crossing, depending on whether they turn left or go straight ahead the the Cumberland Basin.

Looking at some pictures of the Manchester tram extensions, it strikes me that there are lots of new road / rail level crossings. What makes them acceptable when a very low speed (as I understand it) at Portishead would not be?  Would Portishead be better served by tram / light rail vehicles which reached Temple Meads from the Cumberland Road area via the south side of the Floating Harbour and Redcliffe Way - or even Welsh Back and Victoria Street?

Researching Dungeness lead me to Lydd which lead me to the Hastings demu site ....


http://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/railtours/

Goodness ....

It's a fascinating piece of history ... a slightly narrow gauge line, and horse drawn into the 1960s. 

The  original article was entitled "Rise in parking charges could see station axed".   I guess I felt that was a bit over the top / unlikely due to the cost of closure procedures, etc and that it would be better to look at other places that services have been cut to bare bones as a comparison point, such as the one I used, or Brigg, Denton, Teeside Airport or Pilning.

6 - Dungeness??

Where I live in Wiltshire, there are many parishes from Bedwyn in the east through to Melksham Without (where I live) in the west where there's more places available than candidates in the current elections.  Meaning that anyone who wants to can get on.   Many / most are good and well intentioned, but there's almost a desparation at times from existing members to seek and persuade new people who may not have an appropriate wideranging depth of knowledge, patience or time to do a good job.  And if strange suggestions / poor decisions are made, then perhaps it falls to the community as a whole (and those people who would have been good candidates, but actually do nothing for their communities) to look at themselves and say "I have only myself to blame if I don't like the decisions taken, as I chose not to get involved".

I would love to be able to vote for a local (Parish) councillor on 2nd May;  I rejoice that I will be able to help select my unitary councillor.  I know two of the candidates better than most, and have a great respect for both of them.

But wasn't there just one bus to train connection available anyway at the Harbour?  As I recall trains were twice a day - lunchtime / early afternoon, and in the middle of the night.  You're saying that buses still go down to the ferry and connect with the daytime train there, so I'm not sure I can see that anything has been lost - or are you simply commenting that it could have been done more / differently with the interchange point of choice between road and rail being at the pre-exisiting station rather than the new one?

May that be the ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) (Empty Coaching Stock) for the 06:07 Frome to Paddington?

You have major safety issues with electricity and volunteers, etc ... there's heritage electric stock in Coventry and East Kent, but I don't think the stock runs in either place.   I suspect that little of it is actually runnable in Coventry anyway.

There's open (ex railway yard) land to the South West of Brockenhurst station, and perhaps that would make an ideal spot for a preserved electric train depot.  The  Brockenhust to Lymington line would make an excellent stamping ground, bringing tourist to the area, and providing a service which could be run isolated from the main network when running heritage units, with commercial units (there are some class 508s in store at Eastleigh) running the rest of the service.   There's a bit of a precendent here as heritage electric units used to run on - err - the Lymington branch!

Welcome, RedSquirrel - there seems a logic in running daily services on some of the preserved lines - especially those which would be included in a list of lines that really should not have been closed in the 1960s / 1970s. But ... there are issues.

If you're going to look at year-round commuter services, you'll need national rail / franchise style reliability figures to encourage your users - and that's probably a paid staff rather than volunteers.  And you'll need a certain size of town / line catchment to bring in the people.  Also note that a commuter-only service, if it provides one "up" in the morning and "down" in the evening will provide for just 50% of possible commuter traffic even if optimally timed, and that such timings will require different crews at each end of the day, which when you add holiday cover too probably brings you up to 3 drivers and 3 train managers.  Most if not all of the preserved lines in our area have a predominant directionallity - one way in the a.m., back in the p.m., with connectionallity at one end only, and so even if you see a full private train, it's likely to be for a tiny part of the day and not matched by the corresponding reverse working half an hour earlier / later, as there's no-one actually on that train to see it almost empty.   Then you have the 25 mph speed limit; there's no need to run an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) at full speed, but 25 mph is wy too slow IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).

I've added a list of the standard gauge preserved / relaid lines that I'm aware of in our wider area, and their connectional status.  Very few of them would provide complete commuter journeys without ongoing national rail connections or through running.    There ain't much work at Bodmin Road, Cholsey or Smallbrook. 

Group 1 - Own Platform at interchange
Bodmin
Kingswear
Wallingford
Parkhead
Newport IOW
Alresford
Buckfastleigh

Group 2 - Running on NR^» (Network Rail - home page) tracks
Swanage
Minehead
Okehampton

Group 3 - No rail connection
Helston
Cricklade
Bitton
Plym Valley

Not sure about some other's current connection status
Chinnor
Shepton Mallet

I'm able to provide background / some guestimate figures / referenced to the above; they make fairly depressing thoughts.  Some of the issues could be overcome, but with the heavy importance and cost of blame attribution for delays, the need for access for all, and safety issues which require rail to be much safer than other transport systems mile for mile, costs are likely to be so high.  And with any new service along these lines, users need to be certain they can rely on it for the foreseen length of their job, and to be persuaded to move across to the service.   That's why seed funding or guarantee is needed, and why the inclusion within a mainframe franchise or equivalent - at least of a minimum spec service that fulfills travel needs - is paramount.