http://www.railrider.co.uk News and comment for the UK commuter Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:16:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Just as France is rolling out the AGV, British enthusiasts are set to put steam back on track as they complete an 18-year project to build Britain's first new steam train for half a century. Based on a model that last ran in 1966, the Peppercorn class A1 Pacific locomotive should ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/trains/steam-returns-to-british-rails/ French train manufacturing giant Alstom has unveiled what it's calling the successor to the TGV. The AGV (Automotrice Grande Vitesse / high-speed railcar) does away with conventional engines at either end, instead moving the driving force to each and every wheel, allowing the AGV to travel faster and seat more ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/trains/why-agv-is-better-than-tgv/ My poor season ticket. It runs out at the end of the year, and as today is my last day at work I've been holding off getting a free replacement. This happens every year. The cardboard tickets they dole out don't have the stamina to be taken out of a wallet ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/tickets/season-tickets/ 'Best station in the world' is an accolade that would cheer any network, but when that station is British and the compliment came from the head of France's SNCF, it's high praise indeed. SNCF is considered by many to run the best railway service on the planet. The station in question ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/stations/possibly-the-best-station-in-the-world/ Think of the Tube, and the first image that enters your mind is the red and blue circle and bar roundel. It's used everywhere on the trains, the maps, the tickets, the walls... But that's just the start of it. Dig around the Transport for London web site and you'll come ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/stations/transport-for-london-style-guide/ Now here's a neat and potentially profitable idea for commuters. Register your details with TrainDelays.co.uk and they'll keep track of all the delays to which your regular journey might be subjected. At the end of each week its busy-beaver staff will send you a text summarising all the delays on your ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/delays/delay-repay-automatically/ The Guardian has published a very long piece about the new St Pancras station. Too long for the web, really, and flowery enough to leave you wondering why it wasn't cut down before being posted online. Writer Jonathan Glancey is bowled over by it. And so he should be. I've been ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/stations/the-new-st-pancras/ Chiltern Railways is rolling out a new phone-based paperless ticketing system. Initially testing with 50 passengers, the company plans to roll it out across its whole network in two months' time, before possible nationwide use. The system, where tickets are bought by mobile phone, should cut queues at ticket offices. Once ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/tickets/ticketless-tickets/ People do like a good whinge in this country. I think that's why we put up with a second-rate train service: it gives us something to complain about. So it's not entirely surprising to see that the announcement of Crossrail's final go-ahead hasn't been universally acclaimed. The service, which will link ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/crossrail/crossrail-or-cross-rail/ It's too easy to whinge about the state of the British railways, particularly when you have to ride them each day, so it's cheering to read The Observer's list of amazing facts about High Speed 1, Britain's first high speed line, which will carry the Eurostar from the capital to ... http://www.railrider.co.uk/trains/eurostar-facts/