West Coast Main Line

So that is going to affect, I calculate, at least half a million people a day.

That will be people on cross-country, on West Midlands trains, on Avanti West Coast.

So start getting your planning in early you'll find that national express and flixbus will be running plenty of extra services to kind of soak up some of the demand there's plenty of work going on elsewhere on the west coast main line including at london euston doing work for hs2 and guess what across on the Great Western Line, there won't be any trains in or out of London Paddington for most of the festive season.

And that is because, again, of HS2 work.

So, they've got a workaround, and it's really interesting.

Roads, canals, and later railways become conduits for people, and with them, their linguistic quirks.

When the West Coast Main Line opened in the mid-1800s, it stitched together Manchester, Birmingham, and London, allowing a north-south dialect wave to travel faster than ever before.

And if you look at recent commuter patterns, data from mobile phone pings show that even today, people who live in one county but work in another bring their local flavor into the city, slowly shifting isoglosses along the way.

Beyond just transport, the webs of friendship and business matter a lot.

Toton the train was remarshalled a bit with some wagons added, some removed and it continued on its route down the country.

It went south towards Nuneaton, where the train was reversed, before setting out on the final leg of its long meandering route, straight down the west coast main line, with an end destination of Wilsdon close to Wembley.

The last leg of this meandering adventure, south from Yorkshire, saw 6x86 hauled by another electric locomotive with 12 wagons behind it.

To the train's driver and the guard, the journey appeared uneventful.

No open access operators, no. Um, but, uh, all you'll need is your valid ticket as proof of purchase, right? So I mean, another example, if, if, if ...

We've been talking about the West Coast Main Line.

So if the London Northwestern Railway service from Crewe to, you know, London is canceled, but there's another one an hour later, why should it be possible to get on an Avanti service plus or minus two hours, right?

Hmm.

Service differentiation is important, right? I accept that, uh, the com- TOC-only ticketing creates complexity for pa- for passengers.

I accept that.

But since we're talking about the West Coast Main Line, but it's equally true on the East Coast Main Line, there are intercity services, there are regional services, there are local services, and that differentiation is important.

British Rail understood that.