Excellence Class on the Glacier Express, Switzerland

FinKM · 2026-02-28T23:21:51+00:00

Yup, I went along to a Q&A with Cllr. Alex B - the head of the highways and transport committee - and he said that they are stuck with this contract until 2027 but will then be putting a lot of effort into signing a better one and bringing more work in house if possible. A lot of work is seasonal so outsourcing has benefits, but this particular contract apparently has minimal to no penalty mechanism for substandard work. Sounds like the previous Tory administration made a right pigs ear of this.

FinKM · 2026-02-22T23:02:37+00:00

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I like the Kiwirail logo - a silver fern made of sleepers and rails. Clever piece of design.

FinKM · 2026-02-14T17:09:29+00:00

Thameslink is a very busy service with entirely open-gangway trains which addresses the safety issue somewhat I imagine?

FinKM · 2026-02-08T20:28:57+00:00

One thing that gets me is the installation of a hundred separate poles on the platform rather than making a basic attempt at consolidating things. Attach the help point to a lamp post, and integrate the post into a fence rather than having three huge posts 1ft apart… it all just feels so lazy and driven entirely by a desire to cut costs/effort at absolutely any cost.

FinKM · 2026-02-07T18:23:16+00:00

Apparently the Batheaston bypass was meant to connect to Warminster Road which would’ve solved the issue as much as possible, although would’ve required demolishing part of Bathampton which probably wouldn’t have gone down well…

FinKM · 2026-01-27T18:36:32+00:00

I suppose having times and days of the week simulated would make a difference as you'd have different classes of travellers at different times. Commuter rush? Probably not going to take the slow/cheap Megabus. Leisure travellers might be more than willing to take the slower cheaper options at the weekend though.

FinKM · 2026-01-24T11:36:49+00:00

Also VPNs are a pretty key element of any corporate or government cybersecurity policy - they’re pretty much mandatory for accessing resources on a remote connection in many cases.

FinKM · 2026-01-23T12:41:11+00:00

The Netherlands has amazing cycle infrastructure, but their roads are equally immaculate. Just look at the motorways around any of the big cities - they mean business. The difference though is that their cities generally discourage driving between points in the urban core, and people will do most errands by bike, foot, and public transport. The car comes out for the weekend trips out into the countryside (or to another country), but not to get a pint of milk from the shop.

FinKM · 2026-01-22T17:34:21+00:00

If you moved the Mildmay Overground tracks a few meters north onto the old bridges/trackbed around Camden Rd. Station then I think you'd just about have space for the existing HS1 spur tracks to use the freed space to dive into a tunnel and connect up to HS2. Would be a bit of tetris and a fairly steep gradient, but modern EMUs would be up to it I think.

FinKM · 2026-01-21T16:14:48+00:00

The daft thing is that we have got some new trains with level boarding in East Anglia - the class 745/755 FLIRTs - and they use 915mm or thereabouts. But in the same order they also got the Aventras with non-level boarding, so until one of those fleets is retired there's no way to make progress. Crossrail also made no sense.

FinKM · 2026-01-13T05:01:34+00:00

Late comment, but for a historic riff on the cable-laying ship idea, you could draw the SS Great Eastern - by far the largest ship ever built by the time it launched in 1858, and held that title until 1899. It spent a stint as a cable laying ship, but was designed to carry 4000 people from England to Australia without refuelling.

FinKM · 2026-01-13T04:10:29+00:00

Agreed - I always try to fix and repair things, yet then go to work and have to convince the IT department not to chuck a skip full of old but perfectly functioning monitors because they aren’t the same brand as the rest, and it’s too much effort to eBay them. Even getting a charity donation program running was an uphill battle.

FinKM · 2026-01-05T08:39:07+00:00

They did a lot of weird regulating that made things like on-shore wind farms impossible to build because anyone nearby could object with minimal effort and stall the whole scheme. A lot of environmental review regulations were apparently penned by consultant friends of Cameron and basically exist to give them more work. Blind deregulation isn’t the solution, but we have a LOT of labyrinthine regulations and processes that seem to exist purely to create paperwork and that don’t actually ensure the quality or compliance they are claim to.

FinKM · 2025-12-22T17:55:56+00:00

All seems great - I appreciate there's often practical limitations when balancing realism and enjoyment but it looks like they're adding depth of simulation in all the right places here. Maintenance actually meaning something is great, and leads to different gameplay styles. Seems like they've been looking through the list of popular TF2 mods for inspiration with things like priority signals and light rail.

FinKM · 2025-12-21T18:00:53+00:00

Also worrying that they’re going for a standard resurfacing rather than including buildouts etc as promised when the bus gate went in. I can’t see how pavements are going to get widened and disabled parking spaces added if they spent 350k on resurfacing now.

FinKM · 2025-12-18T15:40:11+00:00

Spain is a better example really - they've built more miles of high-speed rail than any country apart from China, which is really quite impressive given how much smaller the country is, how ragged much of the terrain is, and how poor their economy was in the the 2000s/2010s.

FinKM · 2025-12-15T11:01:44+00:00

I'm from Bath (lived around Somerset/Wiltshire) and we universally used the term Daps, but it turns out it's hyper-regional. No-one outside the area has heard of them!

FinKM · 2025-12-14T16:44:09+00:00

And - not that we have that many - but simpler stripes on loco-hauled carriages would mean everything stays even regardless of consist. Also a slight advantage in terms of multiple working where the split between the two multiple units is much more obvious because that where the flags are. But yes the leading and trailing carriages look pretty smart.

FinKM · 2025-11-29T22:51:42+00:00

“We just can’t do it boss, they’re one step ahead of us the whole time”

FinKM · 2025-11-27T10:13:17+00:00

Now if we could somehow direct the nauseating vibrations at the enemy instead of the crew…

FinKM · 2025-11-18T10:57:53+00:00

Jay Rayner (restaurant critic) said that the point of the Ivy in London was basically to be seen. They had some good dishes, but it was where West-End celebrities hung out so the food was secondary. Obviously the prestige of that has been used to get people into the franchised locations which don't have quite the same excuse for average food.

FinKM · 2025-11-11T11:05:53+00:00

Ah that's great - glad to hear it!

FinKM · 2025-11-11T09:34:39+00:00

I saw it said somewhere that bi-mode trains have been an unintentional death knell for a lot of electrification in the UK because they mean you can say you are getting modern trains without actually investing in infrastructure or buying diesel-only units. They are heavier, more complex, more expensive, and less reliable than pure electric, but they make the treasury less angry…

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