Reading a test report.... someone has beautiful pen work. Highlight of my morning.

You are winning when you arrive within 30mins of timetable... one broken down train at Radlet to scoot around (and subsequent 2 trains cancelled) a quiet evening.

Swindon - Gloucester - Birmingham - Derby - Nottingham... upside I have avoided EMR 👍. Downside I had to use CrossCountry 👎.

At Network Rail's Swindon Electrification Training School - prepping for RailEI's Practical Electrification Challenge in the Autumn. @25kv.bsky.social officially opening our course storage container.. (taken a while... so still need to update the name).

Heading to Swindon to the Network Rail electrification training school... lovely day for it

Popped out yesterday evening to look a new timber frame office building being built locally. The use of modern timber tech is really quite fascinating... though I must say my kids just found it embarrassing me taking photos of a building site.

I remember taking Indian Railways to Swindon electrification training centre - 10 years ago.... in 10 years they have boshed out the whole country. A genuinely great achievement. infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railway...

Indian Railways is now world's second-most electrified large rail network: Vaishnaw

Indian Railways Electrification: So far, about 99.6 per cent of Broad Gauge (BG) network has been electrified, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Railway Minister, said in a reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com

Visit to Kelvedon former nuclear bunker... feels like not much has changed at the DfT from this desk.

It pleases me immensely when looking at old drawings and find someone had super nice handwriting.

On the week that Burnham takes up his post, here is a map of electrification on the English and Welsh railway. Non-electric in black. Spot a pattern? (and yes lots of branch and local lines missing) #ElectrifyBritainsRailway @noeldolphin.bsky.social @garethdennis.uk @crisortunity.bsky.social

I won the lottery going out and lost coming back.... had to leave work early just to make sure I could get home at a sensible hour after my train was cancelled (I did at least get advanced warning).

Noel Dolphin @noeldolphin.bsky.social · 2w ago

Today's lottery begins - will I win and an EMR train will be there?

Today's lottery begins - will I win and an EMR train will be there?

The Government (or last Gov 🤷‍♀️) announced they're working to make a WWII wreck safe. Seems a good news story. But, I think it's an example of why everything the Gov does costs a fortune & why we can’t have nice things. Sorry it's long (1/14). www.gov.uk/government/n...

Safe removal of masts from historic WWII shipwreck carrying wartime explosives begins

The operation involves constructing an underwater platform to allow specialist maritime engineers to safely cut the 3 masts of the shipwreck.

gov.uk

Athletics today at the Olympic Park. 60k people, over 90% of whom use public transport, is as always an astounding achievement.

Thought I might as well add on some work to the sightseeing

Visit to Newcastle requires an early morning tour to look at the new Stadler 555s on the QEII bridge.

Had a Swiss team over in Nottingham last week... showing Swiss people rail electrification equipment, always feels like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, when Swiss railways are 99% electrified.

Yes you delayed me by 3 hours yesterday..... but EMR you may have just made up for it.

All trains to Nottingham are cancelled - the one critical piece of information passengers need to know is.... this station operates a penalty fare scheme. This must be unusual for a UK station... to make this the priority when massive disruption occurs. 🤷‍♂️

My fact of the week from last week's Light Rail Conference in a Nottingham - Coventry tram was the UKs first tram system electrified with span wires (wires between two masts that support the tram wire - which is now fairly bog standard in trams).

The Campaign to Electrify Britain’s railway is back on. We’ve launched our new analysis of the diesel premium British passenger operators have paid and will pay, hitting passengers and the public purse as we renationalise.

West Yorkshire "Metro-Train" and the July 1990 "Railplan 2" showing an acquired ex-Network South East British Rail Class 307 EMU doing the honours on the Leeds-Doncaster route prior to the delivery of the Class 321 sets. #railways @noeldolphin.bsky.social @railnatter.uk flic.kr/p/2smS2ef

Recording this afternoon for Green Signals with @crisortunity.bsky.social, interviewed by Richard Bowker - on what I am now dubbing #RailDieselGate and the new CEBR report. Will be on next week's show. www.electrification-campaign.org/diesel-report/

To quote Lord Hendy, "There are some pretty strong headwinds in the economy at the moment" - so let's do sod all about it. ihttps://news.railbusinessdaily.com/train-diesel-spend-hits-ten-year-high/

Train diesel spend hits ten-year high | RailBusinessDaily

Spending on diesel by British train companies has hit a ten-year high, according to new analysis. Train operating companies are set to spend close to 40 Spending on diesel by British train companies h...

news.railbusinessdaily.com

RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION AT INDUSTRIAL FREQUENCY (1960)

I might need to rethink my marketing budget.

The Sheffield Unit team - had another great year at the IMechE railway challenge on the weekend coming 2nd (...or reframe the No.1 UK team). The auto-stop challenge looked really impressive. Another great event from all the IMechE volunteers.

First trip on Midland Mainline in 2 weeks. A lot of people have done a lot of work in the heat to get this running again - well done to everyone who was out on track last week

The GBR bill is an opportunity to implement a rolling programme of infrastructure investment. In every asset the UK could lower costs, improve resilience & people's lived experience - with rolling programmes. Electrification is just one stark example: www.railmagazine.com/news/train-o...

Train operators' annual diesel spend nears £475m amid electrification call

Campaign to Electrify Britain's Railway produced study showing how diesel costs are increasing.

railmagazine.com

Today the Campaign to Electrify Britain’s Railway has published our report on how our failure to electrify the railway is now showing up directly in operating costs (1/5) - link to the report is here: electrification-campaign.org/diesel-report/

Diesel ReportDiesel Report

CEBR's Report into the cost of diesel and the economic impact from lack of rail electrification.

electrification-campaign.org