":::Jerry::::" wrote | > Yes, they're so much better. Cleaner, more frequent, trains, | > new stations and lines being opened, | Sorry, but would you care to name a 'new station' or line, | apart from those involved with the CTRL's...
I don't know what a CTRL is, but Camelon and Edinburgh Park stations have both opened on the Edinburgh-Dunblane line. In Hampshire, Chandler's Ford station has re-opened. The Stirling-Alloa railway line will reopen, the Scottish Borders line will probably re-open.
| Time tables are either the same or have been cut back, other than | on lines that have had recent (state) investment.
Birmingham-Aberystwyth services now run on Sundays; previously there were NO Sunday trains at all. Edinburgh-Glasgow shuttle services now run every 15 minutes.
| But incompetence at higher levels are even worse, in BR times trains | were held so that connections were kept, now a train could run empty | because otherwise someone is fined - what's the point of running an | empty train on time and leaving 'customers' stranded ? Yes it's the | extreme end of the argument but so is yours.
I don't see how a train would run completely empty because of a delayed incoming service, unless there is *no* local custom, and with services on most parts of the network being hourly or half hourly a missed connection should not cause too great inconvenience. The answer is to run more trains on time, which is generally happening. Holding a train back for an incoming connection means that people on the held train are delayed instead, and means that trains cannot keep to their timetabled paths on the network, cascading problems.
| > Scottish customers pay more for their water and sewerage from the | > nationalised Scottish Water than customers of the private sector | > down south. | Just because it's still in state ownership or because the service | costs more to run ?
No incentive in the public sector to meet customer needs or operate competitively. Tesco can deliver as much shopping as I want within a two-hour time slot of my choice for half the price the local council charge to come and collect non-bin rubbish.
Owain