Further information now provided at the wiki page: https://www.reddit.com/r/uktrains/wiki/railway-staff-verification/

The colour scheme of TPE makes them look more futuristic than the other ones XD

I forgot to record a timelapse video for Nova 1, but for Nova 2 and 185 they're available here: https://youtu.be/VuWt4vXuPWk

A lovely sight to behold this morning on Platform 7!

hi, after months of training, i recently qualified as a train driver. i thought the hardest part was behind me, but god, no. as a trainee, i found driving easy. there was always a more experienced colleague approving my decisions and helping out when i got confused. now i'm the one in charge and have the final say. the second guessing and overthinking really get to me. whenever there's an issue and i deal with it, i always overthink everything i did afterwards. i worry that someone will analyse my decisions, find a fault somewhere, and that i might get into serious trouble. i'm also still not fully confident when speaking with the dispatch/signaller. everything usually works out in the end, even if it takes a bit resistance, but stress and the toll on my self confidence are huge. there are also colleagues who gossip about every awkward move i make.

does it get better? what advice would you give me?

cheers

I love travelling with trains and I actually am a train driver in Germany for deutsche bahn. I will be travelling the uk by Train in a couple of days and I was wondering if you guys have any tipps for me on train lines I can not miss. So, what are the most beautiful train lines in the uk that I should absolutely check out?

I submitted a Delay Repay claim for the 15:36 York to Edinburgh train on Monday 20 July.

The train was due at 18:10 but actually arrived at 18:40 (30 minutes late). I checked Real Time Trains before submitting my claim, and it shows 18:40.

My claim was rejected because they calculated the arrival as 18:39 (29 minutes late), which is obviously the difference between receiving compensation and not.

To make things worse, I'd already spent £165 on this ticket because my original 15:19 train was cancelled. Obviously not their problem but sting for me.

Has anyone successfully challenged a decision like this?

See screenshot of "real time tickets data"

My issue is the heavy use of the Union Flag colours. To me, it comes across as a much more patriotic style of branding than we’ve traditionally seen on Britain’s railways.

In my opinion, the livery seems to draw its identity from the nation rather than from the railway. Current operators have their own distinct brands and colour schemes which is amazing! The new GBR livery is built around the colours of the Union Flag, so the first thing I associate it with is Britain itself rather than the railway.

When I first saw it, it reminded me of the way the USA often puts its national flag and colours into public branding. Quite nationalist if you ask me.

Many national railways in Europe have their own visual identities. For example, France’s SNCF and Spain’s Renfe are clearly national railway companies, but their branding isn’t built around the colours of their national flags in the same way. Personally, I prefer that approach because it gives the railway its own distinctive identity.

One of the things I’ve always liked about Britain’s railway is seeing different liveries and operator identities. If everything gradually becomes the same white, blue and red design, I think the network will lose a lot of its character.

I’d much rather see a common GBR design language with regional colour schemes, for example, GBR Anglia, GBR Southern and GBR Western each having their own colours. That would create a unified railway while still giving each region its own identity.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Travelling for work, I've so far been on board trains for CrossCountry, Transport for Wales, Great Western Railway and East Midlands Railway. Monday started in the East Midlands, Tuesday started in Cardiff, today started in London and tomorrow will be starting in the East Midlands again.

Below is a short commentary comparing the experiences.

CrossCountry

Not as bad as you'd believe from the comments here. After a 2½ hour journey, my train arrived into my transfer stop only a few mins late. Admittedly, this lateness was caused by us adding an additional stop due to "service disruption" but it didn't make much of a difference. WiFi was freely available and was actually pretty good.

I had upgraded to first class with SeatFrog, paying £12. The seats were comfy enough, and I was offered refreshments; although this only happened once on the journey (I'm used to it happening 2-4 times on a journey this length) and the staff were really friendly. Even passing through Brum, the train never got busy busy.

A woman did attempt to travel first class without the right ticket and she was duly removed by the ticket inspector. The woman had tried to claim that there were no seats in standard clas, but the inspector had just come from there and informed her that there were plenty, so back she needs to go.

Transport for Wales

Taking the train on the Aberdare line, I was impressed at how clean and fancy the trains were. There were clear bilingual information announcements and staff again were friendly. I was less impressed at the train travelling at roughly the speed of an asthmatic snail in hayfever season.

Great Western Railway

Travelling standard class this time. The train departed on time, but was held up by a re-routing and then becoming stuck behind a slower-moving train. Refreshments were on offer, but you'd need to remortgage your house to afford them. WiFi may as well not have existed, as it was entirely unusable speed-wise for the majority of the route, and there were no seat reservations due to a software problem.

Whilst there were problems on this train, the manager kept everyone very informed; to a degree much higher than I'm used to. That helped alleviate some of the anxiety around timings.

East Midlands Railway

Where to begin...

We all know that St Pancras can be chaotic on the upstairs platforms even when things are running smoothly. We also know that things aren't currently running smoothly for EMR.

Travelling standard class, the train that I had booked in the middle of the day (to ensure it was quiet) was rammed to the rafters like a cattle truck. It was so busy that I was struggling to get my travel bag stowed as the racks were overflowing. I dread to think what rush hour trains are currently like.

One of the doors between the vestibule and the seats refused to open, manually or with the push button, and the only accessible toilet was in a filthy condition.

Refreshments were offered at seat, and these were actually reasonably priced. The staff that I saw were friendly, but also very much overworked and not looking like they were living the dream.

Conclusion

CrossCountry were better than expected, GWR isn't bad but has some work to do, EMR's senior team need to get their excrement together. It was possible to do some work on CC, but not the other TOCs due to connectivity problems.

TfW are a good example of what can be done with the right approach, but don't expect to get where you're going quickly.

hello!! i'm traveling on the holyhead-manchester airport line this weekend, and i know it's a busy line on the weekend anyway, but i'm just wondering as a solo, female traveler - will it be overwhelmingly busy? and are there any delays? tia ☺️

Previous post detailling my journey: https://www.reddit.com/r/uktrains/s/7F3rf0NfNY

Tldr of post: my journey is Eastleigh -> Guildford -> London. I bought a Eastleigh <-> London ticket and Woking <-> Guildford which covers this journey. In order to arrive successfully before 5 p.m. at my destination, it was vital that I take the 16:15 (edit: meant 16:19 fast) train today.

Through my own fault, I arrived at Guildford somewhat delayed (16:04). This, I think, shouldn't affect anything, but I'm putting it here just in case. I consulted maps and discovered that my intended train had been canceled, and promptly utilized the nearest help point, where a staff member advised me to take the 16:20 (edit: slow) train to waterloo instead. I am currently on that train, and it is projected that I will arrive at waterloo at 17:50 ish.

There was also a 16:30 train (delayed to 16:40) which would ostensibly have gotten me to waterloo at 17:20, but the staff member advised against it due to some reason or the other (something about it likely being a bad idea owing to the same reasons the 16:15 was canceled -- the help point's speaker was quite poor in quality).

I've gone on the delay repay page just to see what I'm going to have to do, but I'm not sure what to put in. It says I should "include all legs and connections" -- do I include the woking <-> guildford leg? If not, how do I explain being at guildford at 16:15?

P.s. according to Google I need proof of travel; are the attached images enough? Is there anything more I can do to obtain proof of travel?

Edit: I am now realizing this train may not pass through woking...oops

Edit² : nevermind, google says it does. No clue how I missed it.

I was a moron and left my jacket and wallet on a train last Thursday (Liv Street to Cambridge). I was tired, it was hot - only realised when I was halfway home from the station.

I submitted a lost property claim the same day but they haven’t found my things in their lost property database yet and it’s almost been a week.

Does anyone have experience with this? Can it take a while or do you think I need to accept my things are lost forever?

I have been working on this for while and this is my latest work I've done.

I've included the big 3 but each having its own sub brand/division, Plus I've made the livery that fits for the 21st century with some new brand names of my own.

Intercity: A long distance premium express service as we know today

East Coast

West Coast

Midlands

Great Western

Cross Country

Anglia

Economical

* Intercity Economical is a low cost version, Similar to TGV's Ouigo low cost brand, slot within the IC service for example, IC East Coast 10:00 to Edinburgh, ICEC 10:30 Edinburgh, IC Economical 11:00 Edinburgh, ICEC 11:30 Edinburgh etc etc without the need for extra pathing, Similar to what TGV currently does.

Like lumo its a 2+2 standard class only but unlike Lumo it has 'standard plus' which can be in either 2+2 or 2+1 seating layout with more legroom, bigger tables, quiet zone, Ideal for business/studant travellers, It can either have a trolley service or a couple of Vending machine similar to Italo, Another low cost brand in Italy.

Network Railway:

Basically Network Southeast 2.0, A Commuter serving within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated SE area.

Network NorthEastern (West Anglia ands Great Northern)

Network NorthWestern (WCML)

Network Midlands (Corby)

Network SouthCentral

Network SouthWestern

Network SouthEastern

Network Chiltern

Network ThamesValley

Network Thameslink

Network East Anglia (Great Eastern / C2C)

Network Isle or Wight

Network Mainline (A sub brand within some NR division):

This is a faster, long distance version that sits between Network Railway and Intercity, For service from London to Weymouth, Exeter (from Waterloo), Crewe, Birmingham Moor St, etc, It comes with first class as standard and most with at seat catering service.

Regional Railway:

A commuter, Metro, urban, rural service thats not serving London, Just like the original with just four division

East of England

West of England

North of England

Central England

* The green Wessex metro livery is for the long proposed Bristol Metro should it ever exist, Could also be used for Devon and Cornwall metro.

It is a standard class only service with some comes with a at seat trolley service for longer distance routes such as Leeds - Carlisle.

Regional Express:

Again this is a fast / long distance version of RR for service such as Norwich - Liverpool, Cardiff - Exeter, Nottingham - Cardiff etc plus potential new services like Cambridge - Bristol via East-West line or whatever.

It would focus more on east - west routes, leaving IC on North - South routes, It comes with First class, Trolley/buffet as standard and trains being no less than 5 carriages long.

Transpennine Express:

The same as Regional Express but across the Transpennine.

For freights, If I had my way I would have brought DB outright and rebrand them as BRF (British Rail Freight) It would be in a yellow front end in light/dark shade of color similar to how DRS/ROG have done theirs with a large double arrow symbol.

The main color would be

Green for Intermodal

Grey for Oil, Biomass, Steel

Blood Orange for Heavy Hauls

Royal blue for all other duties including charters

I would also simply order class 93 and 99s as well as a fully diesel Co-Co version of the 99 to replace most older locos.

Obvious theres still alot of more work and resarch I need to work on and try make it even more simpler but this is my latest so far and helps me find ways to make it better overall, Hope you find this interesting.

After the Cross Country gods gave me 3 refurbished units to photograph in a 10 minute period at Leeds, I’m becoming to grow for it.

It’s really striking, but I won’t say it’s perfect - the red and grey coach combination could be smoothed out a bit, maybe with a transition of some sort, akin to the 170s, which do it really well in my eyes - and I’m not going to sugar coat the fact that they’re still putting 4 coach services on Edinburgh to Penzance services… yeahhh, that’s not great…

Either way, it’s good that these units are becoming much more presentable and have a new fresh look, but it really should be the priority to either aim for new units or make some form of semi-permanent sets on services that don’t divide. Oh well… hopefully GBR tidies some stuff up, or am I being too hopeful

in my opinion the old livery looks okay but some stuff i dont like and i've made my version of it still trying to match the vibe but making it look better (bottom is my version)