4 October 2012

Semaphore signals and successful franchises

In all the furore about the cock up over the refranchising of the west coast main line, it might be easy to imagine rail services in the UK are generally overpriced, unpunctual and unclean.

Well I had to go to Banbury today and I did it by the excellent Chiltern railways - running out of London's best railway terminal (and John Betjeman's favourite) - Marylebone.  Chiltern run fast, frequent, clean and reasonably priced services - taking just over an hour to get to Banbury - far quicker than the traditional Great Western route via Oxford and Reading.

And my experience was made even better by the very rare sight of working semaphore signals.  There can't be many left anywhere on the rail network - let alone on busy commuter routes around London.

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