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Archive 1

Gauge

Could somebody please ad an explanation of "standard gauge"; perhaps with reference to the guage wars and to narow guage? Andy Mabbett 20:13, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Rather out of scope here, I think. Standard gauge should just link to the article about that; maybe we need an in-depth thing at gauge wars or something like that. As to narrow gauge, the narrow gauge railway article should help; since that article is international, possible future scope for a seperate article on the British narrow gauge movement, its conception, development and failure.
It is a mistake, I think, to make this page try and cover everything. It should give an overview and defer to other articles for the depth. --Morven 01:28, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Artcile talks about Gauge already ("the replacement of 177 miles of broad gauge rail with standard gauge in a single weekend"), but with no prior context setting.Andy Mabbett 01:45, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Then I'll be thinking about a better way to include a brief mention of the issue & referring to more complete articles. This article is rather a mess right now. --Morven 05:40, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Any chance of someone doing this, please? Andy Mabbett 13:39, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Colour clashes

The table at the bottom of the section "Freight services" looks terrible - colours clashing all over the place, making most of the entries in it illegible. --Zaphod Beeblebrox 11:49, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

- I've changed the Britishfreightoperators template to alleviate the problem

Heritage railways

There are a a number of articles which begin "(blah) is a heritage railway in...". As far as I can tell, the only appropriate link for someone who wants to know more (like "a heritage railway? What's that?") is List of British heritage and private railways. Even the heading in this main article on the overall subject of railways in GB doesn't explain what they are. But nor does the article containing the list. Is there an article I haven't found yet which does explain precisely what is a heritage railway? If not, would it be appropriate to add a note of explanation in the subsection on this page before mentioning the list?

--Telsa 09:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There is also Heritage railway, though it needs some work. Susvolans ⇔ 10:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Urr, so there is. I blame Wikipedia's search engine. Thanks! I have stuck a link in from this page as I think the article (which someone is obviously working on) is more explanatory than the list for newcomers. Telsa 09:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Railway lines in the United Kingdom

I've just noticed that the titles of some of the railway line articles are at best ambiguous and at worst positively misleading.

The article West of England Main Line describes the ex-LSWR line between Waterloo and Exeter and not, as I'd always assumed, the ex-GWR line from Paddington to Penzance. Certainly the latter is how I've always used that name, and I've even linked several station and place articles to this article over the months on that assumption without noticing my error. I've googled on "West of England Main Line" and most of the first 40 matches seem to refer to the ex-GWR line, although to be fair there are also references to the ex-LSWR name and even to the ex-LMS Birminghan-Bristol line.

I would have called the ex-LSWR line the "South West Main Line" or "South Western Main Line", and a google search on those does seem to confirm that name is in common usage for that line (even in a House of Commons report), although there are other usages (one in Australia, one a steam locomotive operator). We don't currently have an article South West Main Line, but we do have one called South Western Main Line which describes the route from Waterloo to Weymouth.

I'm not sure what I'd call the Wweymouth line, but it is fairly clear that the LSWR always thought of the Salisbury/Exeter/North Devon/Plymouth line as 'its' main line, not the Weymouth line.

My initial recation is to propose that we:

However I appreciate this is quite a radical step, so what do people think. -- Chris j wood 11:31, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In response to the above:

  • As far as I was concerned the West of England Main Line was the London Waterloo-Exeter route. Indeed the Network SouthEast sector used the "West of England" brandname for this route (follow this link for a map). So I would favour keeping the existing name.
  • The ex-GWR Paddington-Penzance route is convered under the Great Western Main Line article, with the Plymouth-Penzance section probably best described as the Cornish Main Line.
  • As for the Waterloo-Weymouth line (currently the South Western Main Line article) I am not sure what its official title is (if indeed it has one), but I have only ever heard it called the South Western Main Line. I would again favour using the existing title, but if this is not to be retained, perhaps Solent Main Line may be another alternative?

Our Phellap 23:47, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I can only think that South West Trains consider the Waterloo-Weymouth link as their "main line" since the map here (PDF) shows it as exactly that: the absolutely straight line from which all other routes are thrown off. The same timetables call the Exeter line the "West of England" Line, missing out the word "Main", and surely they ought to know?. Why not change it to that - if change there has to be?

I should NOT like the term Solent Main Line for the SWML: it has no historical basis whatever, and in all its 168 miles the line never touches the Solent; no, it is the main line of the South West Trains, so what else can it be called? It admittedly doesn't have a title in the aforesaid timetables - it is simply called London Waterloo to Weymouth!

Appropos this naming business: there is an interesting list of Named railway lines put out by National Rail here. It is interesting in that it doesn't show any of the ones we have been discussing - make of that what you will Peter Shearan 06:19, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reading this SRA / Network rail document entitled the "South West main line" it is fundamentally referring to SWT. It also defines the SWML and WofE line. See [1] (PDF) Pickle 18:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Track Access Charges

Could somebody add a section on Track Access Charges, I would really like to learn about how much First Transpennine pays, there is plenty of info on the Statistics website available from the DfT website however it is really confusing --wozza 16:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Rail Crashes and their effect

In the history section, I've taken out Great Heck as being attributable to privatisation - this was an accident caused by a member of the public driving onto the track. However, I've added Southall in its place - see what you think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RapidAssistant (talk • contribs)

To assign any of the accidents to privatisation is POV. The long-term downward trend in accidents and deaths has continued since 1995. There is a case of course that Railtrack's mismanagement contributed to one or more of the accidents but the whole nationalisation-privatisation argument is so politically charged that we have to be careful.

Exile 21:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Timeline of rail transport

A timeline of rail transport series of documents has been created, currently with little content. Please help out (not least since all but 3 "events" are US based). You know the drill: births & deaths, dates of key bits of infrastructure & acts / openings / amalgamations / closures / accidents &c. --Tagishsimon (talk)

The root category is now Category:Rail transport timelines. Slambo (Speak) 18:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

A move

It now strikes me as this being historical as well. I just thought i would put this here anyway. I have put a requested move for the London to Ashford to Dover Line to the South Eastern Main Line. Simply south 20:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Tilting Pendolino.jpg

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Would it be insightful to have a concise list of significant towns which lack a rail service (Corby, Dudley, Gosport, etc)? 82.10.108.49 14:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It already exists. See List of British towns with no railway station. Simply south 16:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistency of units

The second paragraph in the "Passenger services" section refers to both passenger miles and passenger kilometres. Loganberry (Talk) 03:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Fact Query

"Blackpool has the one remaining traditional tram system." After the replacement of all track, removal of stops and introduction of 2nd generation trams is this still true. A definition question. 83.104.138.141 (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Wording could be better / does not make much sense. It differs from the others in having continuous operational use since its ancient inception; and having old rolling stock including trolley pole models. I'm guessing that all the more recently introduced systems are pantograph machines, and presumably are re-introductions of trams after many years of absence.
I think we could do with a little more history in the paragraph, if only a sentence or two stating that light rail used to be commonplace a century ago, was shut down, and very few cities have reintroduced it ... blackpool, however, has had it since way back without interruption. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:04, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
It was more that the networks currently closed for complete conversion to a 2nd gen tram network, including discontinuing the old traditional vehicles apart from on special occasions. WatcherZero (talk) 23:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible if-you-mean

Based on the ROSCO redirect here, people might come here looking for ROSCA, the Rotating Savings and Credit Association. I doubt it's likely enough to go on the main page, but it seemed worth mentioning here. JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

ROSCO redirects to a section of this article, while there is a separate article Rolling Stock Operating Company: I suggest that this needs to be rationalised, but I'm not sure in which way. PamD (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Under the wires?

Could this be written in English that's understandable to the layman?
"This is operated by a Class 180 diesel unit running "under the wires" on this east coast route. However, this is actually matched by several Leeds - London Class 91-operated East Coast trains if their 2 minute recovery allowance for this section was excluded from the public timetable."
What is "under the wires" for a diesel locomotive? What is a "recovery allowance? "Francis Hannaway (talk) 19:39, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

"Under the wires" simply means a diesel-powered train running on an electrified route. Back in the 1970s, when locomotive-hauled trains were still the norm for expresses, a train which ran for part of its distance over the electrified portions of the West Coast Main Line would have its locomotive changed at a convenient point. Spare electric locomotives, and also spare diesel locomotives, would be parked in sidings at strategic points like Coventry, Birmingham New Street, Wolverhampton, Crewe, Preston, etc. A train running from e.g. Bournemouth to Manchester would change engines at Coventry, in order to be more efficient on the electrified routes. This practice was eliminated in the leadup to privatisation, which saved about ten minutes for each change so eliminated. It also led to redundancies among the shunting staff.
"Recovery allowance" is where there is an intentional discrepancy between the public timetable (PTT) and the working timetable (WTT). The times that the drivers are supposed to keep are shown in the WTT, and the arrival times in that are often earlier than the arrival times in the PTT. However, a train is only considered to be "late" if it arrives after the time shown in the PTT. Hence, if the WTT shows that a train from A to C is given 10 minutes to cover the stretch from B to C, but the public timetable shows 15 minutes for the same stretch, this indicates a recovery allowance of 5 minutes. If this train is then 5 minutes late arriving at B, it can still run at normal speed over the B-C stretch and, going by the PTT, can arrive at C on time. Rail operators performance (and therefore penalties) is judged against the PTT, so a recovery allowance is there so that the TOCs don't underperform. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Redrose64 for you kind answer; very nicely explained, too! The information you have given is genuinely fascinating, but the article needs at least some brief mention of these points to make it accessible to the average layperson. Perhaps there is the possibility of linking to a wikipage to show an explanation. Francis Hannaway (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
What about Glossary of United Kingdom railway terms? Lamberhurst (talk) 20:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

New companies

New rail transport companies seem to be springing up all the time and Wikipedia is not keeping pace with them. UK Rail Leasing Ltd. (company no. 08704791, registered 25 Sep 2013) has bought some British Rail Class 56 locos but I can find very little information about it on the internet. There is also company no. 07418254. It was registered as Zweig Ltd on 25 Oct 2010 and changed its name to MDW Rail Freight Ltd on 1 May 2013. Again, I can find little information about it. Does anyone have more information? Biscuittin (talk) 18:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I've found a reference: Railways Illustrated; Oct 2013, Vol. 11 Issue 10, p18 [2]. Biscuittin (talk) 19:02, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Mark David Winter is a director of MDW Rail Freight and Edward Jeremy Stevenson is a director of UK Rail Leasing. Biscuittin (talk) 19:06, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
It's not clear to me whether you are suggesting an improvement to this article (if so, all well and good) or are suggesting that articles for these new companies be created. If the latter, WT:UKRAIL is probably a better place to discuss. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:03, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. I have put a message at WT:UKRAIL. Biscuittin (talk) 22:09, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

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On Great Britain

This article should be called "Rail transport on Great Britain" as Great Britain is an Island not a political entity.--Kitchen Knife (talk) 18:49, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the fact that it is an island means that it should be "on Great Britain" rather than "in", could you explain? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 19:06, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
you are always on an island not in one. You are in a county not on a country.Kitchen Knife (talk) 19:29, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Your first sentence is true, but that doesn't mean that it should be "on Great Britain". e.g. it would still be Rail Transport in the North of England even though that is not a country Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 20:12, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Well Great Britain is an Island, it is not anything else. What do you think it is?--Kitchen Knife (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm not disagreeing that it is an island, merely that that fact doesn't mean that it should be "on" rather than in. For example Transport in Jersey, Transport in Guernsey Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 20:20, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
I think they are also wrong.Kitchen Knife (talk) 20:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

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Nationalisation

"From the start of 1948, the "big four" were nationalised to form British Railways (latterly "British Rail") under the control of the British Transport Commission." The railways were actually vested in the BTC and run, on behalf of the BTC, by the Railway Executive from 1948 to 1953. (The Railway Executive in this context is not to be confused with the body that ran the railways in World War II.) The official title of British Railways remained as "British Railways" throughout its existence, the name "British Rail" was a trading brand name. Re the profitability of the railways 1948-55, this is disputed by Terry Gourvish in British Railways 1948-73, a Business History, who produces a strong argument that the figures do not properly allow for depreciation. Tanya Jackson; author, British Rail: The Nation's Railway. TJ (talk) 18:53, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

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Passenger Numbers

I thought it would be worth noting that the ORR (Office of Rail and Road) no longer report passenger numbers, only passenger journeys. There are currently passenger statistics here, and I thought I'd leave them for now, but they will eventually become too outdated, and will probably have to go at some point C1c51 (talk) 22:01, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Diesel Trains Ltd. merge

The 2-year-old "merge" of Diesel Trains Ltd into this article Hopldoele was reverted this week by NemesisAT on the grounds that no attempt was made to merge content beyond blanking and redirecting the article. That does appear to have been the case, but now we're confronted with the problem that there really isn't a good place to add any merge content to this article, and even more specific articles such as History of rail transport in Great Britain don't really seem to have a DUE place for the content to be added. Someone with much more extensive knowledge of British rail transport than me may be able to add additional information that would make it DUE, but unless someone can take on such work, I think that restoring the BLAR may in fact be the best option. signed, Rosguill talk 21:40, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Hey Rosigull, thanks for raising this. I've now replied to a suggestion at Talk:Diesel Trains Ltd with a possible more specific article to merge to. I had never heard of this "Diesel Trains Ltd" project before either but it does feel like an interesting bit of history that should be preserved somewhere. NemesisAT (talk) 21:54, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Given that Rail transport in the United Kingdom is essentially an extended disambig page, and would duplicate this page and Rail transport in Ireland if it were to be extended, I would propose that it should be merged into these two pages, becoming just a normal disambig page. This has been previously discussed but with no effect 15 years ago, so I feel it should be brought up again. Thoughts? Pintodog (talk) 22:59, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Proposed smerge

Good evening. After the discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2023 February 17, I have a copy of a deleted list in my userspace (at User:S Marshall/List of largest towns in England without a railway station). I would like to propose that I edit the section called Proposed line re-openings to selectively merge ("smerge") some of the content from the deleted list. How would page watchers feel about this?—S Marshall T/C 23:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

  • There were no objections, so I have boldly enacted a near-full merge of this content. I intend to trim it down in future, as it currently takes up a disproportionate amount of the article. I invite your comments about how much should be removed.—S Marshall T/C 09:50, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
    Good job. Although someone needs to go through the two tables with a common-sense filter on. I have, for example, removed West Bridgford from the list. Trent Bridge stadium is a short 1-mile walk from Nottingham's central railway station (map). That means West Bridgford is better served by railway than 90% of the city of Nottingham. 10mmsocket (talk) 10:47, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Rail transport in Wales draft

Rail transport in Wales has been created by another editor (now draftified from the mainspace), editors involved in this page may be of interest of this draft, and any assistance is welcomed. Although I do wonder if Railways in Wales is more suited to the scope, as per Talk:Rail transport in the United Kingdom/Alternate naming schemes this was considered but not acted on since 2004. DankJae 19:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

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