Any punters living in Birmingham Area interested in a Pie, Pint and jaw, one evening in a pub in Birmingham area.
Personally interested in small time investing(gambling), developing an appetite for CFDs. Also developing an interest in Charting or TA.

I use Sharescope, Moneyam, Barclays, Comdirect and IC

Think the main reason for the Wrexham line is to tap into the Cheshire, Mid wales Shropshire traffic. Also Shropshire is the only county in the country without a through service to London, so thats why not a lot of stopping in the West Midlands.

Further They were prevented from stopping at New Street (by Virgin I think) but agree it does seem crazy that they are not stopping at Bir. International for the Airport traffic (although I thought that they were originally going to do that).

I was concerned that they were going down on the Chiltern line (as far as time keeping is concerned) but even more so now that you tell about the amount of traffic to be used around Strechford.

Stan....Hope you found a suitable eatery ....

Along the B'ham - Coventry piece of track then it's a matter of combining the fast (Virgin), semi-fast (used to be Silverlink) and slow (all local stations - used to be Central) - all runing on same pair of rails. Then add the stechford junction in to it. Not too much of a problem fitting in freight trains or excursions that can wait at the junction for a while - but fitting in additional published timetable trains shold be interesting. Then they've got another junction near Coventry to get across to get down to linking up with Chiltern / Cross Country route (now Arriva, previously Virgin) at Leamington. Should work OK when everything is running exactly to schedule but ....

Also, no room for not following rules exactly as there have been a couple of mishaps at Stechford junction:
February 28th 1967 at the Birmingham end of Stechford station, at the junction of the loop line. The 13.15 Manchester - Coventry traveling at about 70mph ran into the side of D5002 running light, coming off the down line of the Aston loop. The locomotive escaped major damage but the two leading coaches were seriously damaged, the driver was killed in the wreck along with eight other passengers.
Stechford had seen a similar collision on March 4th 1962 when 46150 on a Holyhead - Broad Street meat train had a sidelong collision with the 16.35 Birmingham - Coventry dmu at Stechford No 2 box, the line being closed for eighteen hours.

(Note that London Midland is the new company that brings together the former Silverlink County and most of Central Trains, in particular the West Midland regional services including the Snow Hill Lines and the Birmingham to Liverpool route. It also includes the Bedford to Bletchley and Watford Junction to St Albans Abbey branch lines.)

And, after digging around a bit more, then seems Freightliner aren't too happy.
Here's the link for the 'Consultation on a proposed track access contract between Network Rail Infrastructure Limited (Network Rail) and Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway Company Limited (WSMR)':

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/s17-WSMR-new-frgtlnr-resp-300307.pdf

Also, Centro, don't seem overjoyed. "The WSMR services then layover at International (not picking up passengers) for 12 minutes while they are then overtaken by both the xx00 New St Euston and the xx03 New St Bournemouth services. Any delay to these services will knock onto the WSMR services."

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/s17-WSMR-new-centro-resp-020407.pdf

Although, on 3rd September 2007, the Office of Rail Regulation announced approval for the new direct rail services between North Wales, Shropshire and London Marylebone. Therefore assume Freightliners and Centro objections have been sorted.

http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2007/09/wrexham_to_london_rail_link_ge.html

Seems decorating and gardening are good for your stock market trading.

"Psychologist Paul Andreasen found that investors who received frequent updates on their holdings earned half the returns of those who got no news at all."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;?xml=/money/2007/11/25/ccneuro125.xml

" Just as a recovering alcoholic knows better than to trust his self-control and walk into a tavern, you should minimise your contact with anything that can fixate your attention on falling market values. Break your obsession with the market by going for a long walk, playing with your children or sneaking out to the cinema. "

Re Post 725,
One of the good things about today's information tech. is that there is a lot of information out there..one of the Bad things about today's information.... -):

Re 723 and 724,
The more I'm hearing about this service the less I like -):

We went to the Ochid in the end.

Findings

1.Service VG. 9/10.
2.Location VG. 10/10.
3.Ambiance and Decoration VG 10/10. especially Noise pollution, mind you we had an early sitting at 5.30pm.
4. Taste of meal, we switched to local organic food about 3 years ago and by doing so seemed to have developed quite high standards of taste appreciation now, result is that eating out usually disappoints as was the case here 5/10.

Pity about the taste rating. Can't think of any Thai outlets that source organic foods.

The good thing is that there are a lot more people becoming aware which must filter down to the more intelligent of food outlet owners in the future one would hope.

The best I know in Birmingham is the Cafe/Restaurant in New Canal Street (Friends of The Earth are in the same building) only draw back is that they are vegetarian...but prices are very reasonable for a city as well.

There called The Warehouse.

Stan ..... noted ...... as long as it isn't called The Whorehouse.

I tell a lie all details are here www.thewarehousecafe.com/

Noted.... I see they've got a Christmas Menu from next week.
Don't suppose they've got the contract for catering on the Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway Company services... ;-)
GNER have moved a little in that direction: GNER LAUNCHES NEW LEANER AND GREENER MENUS
http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/PressCentre/PressReleases07/GNER+LAUNCHES+NEW+LEANER+AND+GREENER+MENUS.htm

Anyone live in Wrexham?.... The Shrewsbury-Chester Rail Users Association is staging a public meeting to promote a new service between Wrexham and London. The meeting, on Monday 26th November, is at St Marys Social Club, Regent Street, Wrexham. Doors open 7pm for 7.30pm start.

Interesting comment from one of the respondents to WSMR application: "The Birmingham Aberystwyth service is renowned for its poor performance and would represent a significant risk for the WSMR service." Don't suppose it (Birmingham Aberystwyth service) starting off late from New Street helps with its 'poor performance'.

"Anyone live in Wrexham?.... The Shrewsbury-Chester Rail Users Association is staging a public meeting to promote a new service between Wrexham and London. The meeting, on Monday 26th November, is at St Marys Social Club, Regent Street, Wrexham. Doors open 7pm for 7.30pm start."

Out tomorrow night otherwise might have attended that.

>Out tomorrow night otherwise might have attended that.

You seem to lead a 'jet set' life style. I presume the founder of this thread (Fred) will be leading such a lifestyle soon (to make up lost time of last couple of months)?

Perhaps sometime next year (during summer) then Pie & Pint meeting can be scheduled at a railway venue.... (a licensed one of course)....

Look no further... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codsall_railway_station

They put on a brilliant Beer Festival in September each year although I have missed it for the last 2 years unfortunately

Noted..... perhaps we could have a P&P Golden Glow meeting there in early summer (May/June).....

Stan.... have you seen this one:
The Beer Drinker Changes Trains
http://users.aber.ac.uk/jwp/drink/stations.html

(Wellington gets a mention as well).

He's done some good and accurate research there ( I've been in most of his selections ), -): I would add the Loggerheads in Shrewsbury as a good value Marstons boozer, just around the corner from the Fishes.

Survivor,

A little unfortunate business in the Fells.

55 - not sure I understand yr last post ..... can you pls elaborate...?

More questions over New Street station funding...

Council sources said there were now grave doubts about the Government tactics.
There are fears of a deliberate attempt to pick holes in the business case in order to cut the amount of money for New Street, possibly by as much as 50 million.

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost/news/tm_headline=more-questions-over-new-street-station-funding%26method=full%26objectid=20153430%26siteid=50002-name_page.html

Survivor,

Derailment of a Pendolino in Cumbria............ Even before that, a "spare" Mk3 set sometimes hove into view on the Manchester/Birminghams, so it is possible that there are two such.

Noted the interesting info you posted re Stechford and its history, and the ORR representations. Kenilworth is being re-doubled so that should alleviate some of the problems.

Any news on likely pricing yet? I still think only three passenger carrying coaches does not demonstrate much confidence - a three hour plus journey "serving" Britain's first and second largest conurbations....... (Yes I know Virgin run "fours" from one end of the country to the other, but they are all too often hopelessly inadequate).

Now, when men were men, and an engine wouldn't set off with less than 13 or more coaches in tow...............

OK .... noted....

Wouldn't it be handy now if the Kenilworth to Berkswell line hadn't been closed.... !