I will admit ... I have not looked at the plan for the Okehampton Interchange in detail, but I was surprised to read in The Sun


I hadn't realised that there was a footbridge and lift to be installed here for a single platform on a single track railway - or have I missed something or has the Sun got it a bit confused?  *snip**

07:45 Westbury to Swindon due 08:34

Facilities on the 07:45 Westbury to Swindon due 08:34.
Toilet facilities are not available.

Were the people who supported this petition made aware of the significant cost of implementing a new 'Cornish Groat' currency? And border controls across the Tamar (and elsewhere)? And 20% tariffs on their cauliflower exports? etc.   

I didn't know about the vote!
It would have been a yes from me.

I'd be sure many others didn't know about the vote either, so perhaps a slightly bigger percentage increase in the vote.

petroleum & oil leaks....

Lelant still gets served right through to the last train, seven days a week.

Talking about Lelant Saltings, I organised a small celebration of the station's 30th anniversary all the way back in 2008.  Here is the press release.

The St Ives Bay Line saw 435,743 journeys in 2008.  Last year, it was 841,159.

The next major stage of work will see the footbridge and lift shaft installed

Do buses run on petroleum?  Thought most were diesel or, increasingly, electric. 

Is diesel not a petroleum product?

The DNO connection at West Ealing is 400 Amps 400 Volts 3 phase supply, there are 2 battery units each has a 3 phase sub main rated at 200 Amps

A petition calling for Cornwall to be recognised as the UK's fifth nation now has more than 12,000 signatures.

The petition, started following a vote in favour by Cornwall Council on 23 July, urges the government to grant the duchy, which has a population of about 580,000 people "equal status to Wales and Scotland".

Topping 10,000 signatures means it will get a response from the government and, if it reaches 100,000 signatures by 11 September, the issue could be debated in Parliament.

Council leader, Liberal Democrat Leigh Frost, said the move reflected a desire for "fairer funding, better representation and the ability to shape our own future".

MP Ben McGuire, Lib Dem MP for North Cornwall, said he was "really pleased to see such widespread support" for nation status. "I don't see why not. I'm extremely ambitious for Cornwall, and I think if we have nation status, it could be a real game-changer for our duchy," he told BBC Radio Cornwall. "It could give Cornwall real clout in discussions with this government and any future government."

Councillor Rowland O'Connor, deputy leader of the Reform group, the largest single party group on Cornwall Council, stressed that while Reform respected Cornish identity, it did not support the push for devolution. "We are all Cornish and proud of it, but we do not agree with the direction of travel towards a devolution agreement," he said. "There is a symbiotic relationship between Cornwall and the rest of the UK. Taking it to full devolution is a step too far, especially without overwhelming public consent."

Anna Gelderd, Labour MP for South East Cornwall, also expressed caution, emphasising the importance of listening to constituents. "Devolution is not something that comes through my inbox all that often," she said. "I'm hugely supportive of Cornish minority status, but what I want is for the people of South East Cornwall to be better provided for, with easier access to public services and a strong economy. That often means working with our neighbours across the UK. The identity and culture of being Cornish is part of who we are, that exists irrespective of the political situation."

Five people inspire five brand new songs in Radio 2’s 21st Century Folk.

To coincide with 'Railway 200' - the 200th anniversary of passenger train travel - all the people and songs are connected to the railways.

In this show, Mark Radcliffe reveals the stories behind the songs, which have been written by Findlay Napier, Chris While & Julie Matthews, Bill Ryder-Jones, Kate Rusby and Richard Thompson.

They’ve been inspired by Joanne, Tom, Ken, Charlotte & David and Siggy.

Joanne volunteers as a steam locomotive fireman on the Llangollen Railway in Wales. She survived a rare form of cancer in 2019 and is an activist for diversity and inclusion within heritage rail. Scottish musician Findlay Napier, who lives on the Isle of Arran, has written Joanne’s song. Findlay performs as a solo artist and as part of folk-rock supergroup, The Magpie Arc.

Tom is a railway station foundling. In 1965 he was found as a two-week old baby in the ladies’ waiting room at Reading railway station. He was left well-dressed and tucked under a bench with a spare nappy and bottle. Tom only discovered the full story later in life. Singer-songwriters Chris While and Julie Matthews, from South Yorkshire, are Britain’s longest-enduring female duo. They have played more than 2,500 gigs and appeared on more than 100 albums.

Ken has worked on the railways for 50 years and has a train named in his honour. He knew from four years old that he wanted to follow in his dad and grandad’s footsteps, and his family have worked on the railways for a combined 157 years! Ken works for Alstom at their Widnes facility, though he originally comes from Liverpool. His songwriter is Bill Ryder-Jones, co-founder and former lead guitarist with Merseyside band The Coral. Bill has released several solo records and collaborated with artists including Arctic Monkeys, Graham Coxon and Paloma Faith.

Charlotte and David live near Bradford. Charlotte was beside a train track, intending to take her own life, when train driver David got out of his cab and spoke to her until she felt able to board the train safely. She later contacted him to say thank you, they began dating, and are now married with children. Their singer-songwriter is Yorkshire’s own Kate Rusby, one of the most successful folk singers of her generation. Kate performs the song alongside her husband, Northern Irish musician Damien O’Kane.

Siggy came to the UK from Barbados in 1962 and became a railway worker on the day he arrived. He still works at Elstree & Borehamwood station and, in his free time, enjoys his other passion: cricket. He has bowled for the same cricket club in Enfield since the 1960s and has also played for England’s over-70s. Siggy’s singer-songwriter is folk-rock legend Richard Thompson, a fellow Londoner and cricket fan.

21st Century Folk is partly inspired by the BBC Radio Ballads, in which new folk songs were based on the spoken testimonies of real working people. The pioneering format was created by Charles Parker, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and debuted on the BBC in 1958. The first ever episode was about a heroic train driver called John Axon.

From Monday 28th July, videos of all the songs in 21st Century Folk can be found at bbc.co.uk/folk

petroleum & oil leaks....

It has been compared to the Board Master surfing festival - but for dogs.

Margo the whippet has become the UK's dog surfing champion after taking home the title UK Dog Surfing Champion of the Year. She and her owner, Carl Barnes, competed in the annual event at Branksome Dene Chine Beach in Poole, Dorset, on Sunday.

The duo made it through to the final and dashed ahead on their paddleboard to come first in the "Dog Masters".

The event has been run by Shaka Surf for the past five years and attracted more than 30 dogs with their humans.

As well as the main race, Shaka Surf also hosted a number of Guiness World Record attempts. The venue took home record titles for the most dogs surfing one wave on a board, the fastest dog and human paddleboard 50m (164ft) sprint at 32 seconds and the fastest 50m paddleboard sprint.

Mr Barnes had been volunteering at the event and said he originally entered the race "for fun" because Margo loves to be out on the water with him. "I've developed a relationship with Margo, where trust is involved and a lot of love," he explained. "If I go out on one of our paddleboards without Margo, she will cry and cry and cry at the gate, until I return and then she'll jump on and we can go off in peace."

Since their victory, the duo says it has been "surreal" seeing their faces on social media - but now Mr Barnes said he is setting his sights on next year's competition. He added: "I entered for fun, but there is a little bit of a competitiveness in me and when I realised I was in with a chance, I dug deep and bought the win home for all of us, loved it and next year we'll be training harder to defend our title."

Footage captured by the BBC London team shows a double decker bus on fire outside the Portland Hospital on Great Portland Street.

The number 88 bus was safely evacuated and there were no reported injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown.

London Fire Brigade brought the blaze, near Great Portland Street Tube station, under control by 07:00.

Why did the air traffic control outage cause so much havoc?

An outage in the UK's air traffic control system caused chaos at airports in the UK and beyond on Wednesday.

The fault lasted a mere 20 minutes, but was enough to ground planes across the country, causing 150 flight cancellations and delays that have continued into Thursday.

So, what went wrong with this vital piece of air traffic technology?

NATS, which is partly owned by the government, manages all of the UK's airspace for flights arriving and departing the country's airports. It has said Wednesday's problem was caused by a "radar-related issue" - understood to be problems with the radar display system in its national air traffic control centre in Swanwick.

NATS said the issue was "resolved by quickly switching to the back-up system". However, it said the problem was different to issues that the centre faced in August 2023. Back then, more than 700,000 passengers were affected when some 500 flights were cancelled due to a major outage.

NATS said it reduced traffic during Wednesday's outage for safety reasons and added there was "no evidence" that it was caused by any cyber attack.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said NATS told her it was "an isolated event and there is no evidence of malign activity".

NATS is working on an internal investigation into what happened, but there will be no formal report to the Department for Transport.

To understand how such a brief radar failure could cause such much havoc, Graham Lake, a former director general of the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), said people should imagine the NATS air traffic network as "national infrastructure".

"Think of the network as motorways in the sky," he told the BBC. "When you lose something like surveillance radar coverage for whatever reason, the capability of your network degrades to a country lane. That's why the systems slow down when there's a technical failure."


(BBC news article continues)

13:18 Hereford to London Paddington due 16:24
Toilet facilities are not available.
Last Updated:31/07/2025 12:19

Lelant still gets served right through to the last train, seven days a week.

Talking about Lelant Saltings, I organised a small celebration of the station's 30th anniversary all the way back in 2008.  Here is the press release.

The St Ives Bay Line saw 435,743 journeys in 2008.  Last year, it was 841,159.

Agree, twins more in the intention of the service pattern than anything else.

Thinking of Lelant, yes, there's a train service there but odd, given that the branch itself operates into the late evening, that the decision's been made to curtail calls there after five-ish.

(The last time I caught a train from there the staff really weren't expecting anyone to be on the platform let alone have a hand out: this led to the opportunity to explore a long out-of-use section of the station's platform. I'd earlier been looking for the rumoured section of shore that's bolstered by the plating from a WW1 navy ship. That, I did not find...)

Mark