In reply to LGS6753 - the answer is politics. You are exactly right; if baby is a success, let it grow, else can it. For the record, baby is doing remarkably well financially, but there are some political reasons being mooted at Donington Hall that suggest common sense is out the window for a bit.....
Uncle Monty - firstly, you have missed the point about low costs. They grow markets. If you had tried to convince anyone at STN five years ago that they would be putting a zillion people through Hahn, or Baden-Baden, or any of a dozen others, you'd have been sectioned under the mental health act. But they do. CWL and MME are still building; markets are being grown here. And as for "CWL, MME (both low yeilding)" - nope, wrong. Well, no more low yielding than most other loco bases - the nature of the game is low yield but high volume - that's the point!
WWW - South Wales "poor"??? I will grant you, pockets of it are less affluent, much like pockets of Bristol (bet YOU don't live in St Pauls...) - but, amazing as it may seem, we don't all work down the pit, or in the steelworks, or down the docks. We don't all live in 2up 2down hovels clinging to the side of a derelict valley. Many of us live very nicely thank you, and we may earn a bit less than those lucky bods in the South East of England, but then, I don't get raped for £1.000 council tax on a shoebox either (£340 for my band E, thank you, right in Cardiff Bay, cinema and restaurants at the end of my road). And remember, the whole point of low cost is that it allows the less affluent to travel - accountants, bankers and 737 skippers can sit and sip their champagne in BA lounges, the rest of us can travel with baby et al.
Must dash. Got the pawnbroker dropping by so that I can flog my first-born for a fiver to feed the meter.
TA
Just a thought, www .... has your employer managed to start selling next summer's timetable yet? Baby's getting one hell of a march on you, aren't they? Tony must be laughing himself sore at Uncle R..... Now that would have nothing to do with your baby-battering would it, www??