Dave McCormick

Consultant @WSP_UK, lapsed mathematician, transport connoisseur. Been on almost every UK rail line. Knows too much about postcodes. All opinions my own. He/him.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

Berney Arms! ✅
(with @xcooler123 @notmuchgubbins @theTomKell @omari_antony @FelixJ20k @ETWriteHome @DaxonPQS )

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@StagecoachCNL Hi there, I'm waiting for the 10:50 508 from Penrith to Windermere but it's still not shown up, and the bus location doesn't seem to be tracking. Is this bus running?

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@thomasforth Yeah, this is why Belgium seceded from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830 - Belgium was/is predominantly Catholic, while the Netherlands was/is predominantly Protestant.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@madmetroguy It's alright, Southern once misspelled it on their own on-train map 😂

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@SouthernRailUK Your new map on the 377s has 2 glaring errors: the line from London Road should point towards Brighton, not Preston Pk (1/2)

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@gceccles @holdmch @VernonBaseley From an outsider's perspective I can see how it's poor PR, and they could definitely do better.

But as someone who's lived in Brighton for a while now, I saw the sign in the station and just thought "fine, same as usual" - it's familiar by now, at least to me.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@holdmch @VernonBaseley Whether you agree with that or not is another matter, but Sussex Police and the Bonfire Societies had been looking to reduce numbers for years - they wanted it to be a local event but it was increasingly deluged by visitors, especially from Brighton.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@holdmch @VernonBaseley In a nutshell, Bonfire Night 2016 saw an RMT strike and therefore a reduced service, so they decided not to stop any trains at Lewes for fears of overcrowding / stranding people in Lewes. It worked so well at keeping numbers in Lewes down that it's happened every year since.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@SimonZev @matthew_hutton1 @AmlexW Or they might have run a reduced formation because of the engineering works, as they do if they have to use Kings Cross (max 329m in P0) instead of Euston. Either way, no platform at Glasgow Central can accommodate the full 377m sleeper formation.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@John_in_Rutland @SimonZev @pacer142 Yes, that sounds about right - but even if you did remodel the trackwork, P4 would only be the same length as P3, ie about 360m, not the full 400m.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@pacer142 @matthew_hutton1 @SimonZev That doesn't really work if the plan is to split and join HS2 trains at Carlisle or Carstairs (so 400m train London to Carlisle / Carstairs, split, 200m to Glasgow, 200m to Edinburgh).

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@matthew_hutton1 @AmlexW @SimonZev As for Liverpool Lime Street... good luck widening that cutting to fit the longer platforms in!

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@matthew_hutton1 @AmlexW @SimonZev So 400m from the buffers, the width of the formation is just the six tracks. Fitting in any 400m platforms would probably mean closing all but 4 of the 12 platforms in the main shed.

Even now only 4 platforms (P5-8) can accommodate an 11-car Pendolino (which is 253m long).

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@John_in_Rutland @SimonZev @pacer142 It appears to be shorter because the up direction starter signal is placed clear of the pointwork to P5 - the toe of those points is basically at the south end of P4. So P4 is max 285m while still being able to use P5, basically.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@matthew_hutton1 @SimonZev @pacer142 Selective door opening, with the train overhanging the pointwork during the dwell time - and the dwell time is longer because the whole train can't be platformed. That's acceptable when it's only one or two trains a day, in the dead of night, but not routinely through the day.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@PilningStation @Minion_Josh_ Correction - I miscounted (by missing someone in the big group photo!), turns out there were 30 on the platform so I think that's 32 :-)

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@PilningStation @Minion_Josh_ From looking at photos we took, I count a total of 29 people on the platform getting the train :-)

[Railmaps @railmaps]

"Ad-wrap on bus windows is transparent" they say.

Tell that to a camera.

"But who'd ever want to take a photo through a bus window?"

People who travel on buses.
And trams.
And trains.

[Dave McCormick @railwaydave]

@NjFunky @ETWriteHome @AndrewAndrewA16 It's basically alphabetical - displays 1-5 are roughly A-L, then there's the tube to the right of that, and then displays 6-10 are M-Z.

I think the end of display 10 has any new stations that have opened since they first started it, to avoid having to shuffle everything down 😂