Arriva's Grand Central arm are apparently applying to run five trains daily each way between Newcastle and Brighton, via Banbury, Oxford, Reading and Gatwick:

https://news.arriva.co.uk/news/arriva-group-submits-open-access-rail-application-to-connect-newcastle-and-brighton-via-london-gatwick

Given that CrossCountry don't show any signs of bringing their own Newcastle–Reading service back up to full strength, good luck to them. Suspect it will be deemed too abstractive though.

(via the Oxford Clarion - https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:sehe5pdc7ptfh5ayttdusqpp/post/3lnmxy7cfqk2x )

 

But that's a SH bus ... and it was an SD.  Got to consider the little darlings (who were, it must be said, well behaved on the 88)

 


Grrrrrrr!   

 

Typical "because of a problem on another line we're cancelling the trains on your line".

Hopefully, we have a better solution for the future ...only yesterday, I was photographing the new Stop boards for IETs at Melksham, and a train manager was telling me how they've had a circular around telling staff that the long distance trains can stop here.  Ideal for the sort of thing we have going on today? If the none-stop Taunton to Reading services run via Bristol and Bath, the semi-fast can run via Westbury and serve Trowbridge and Melksham in addition to Castle Cary and Westbury.  But it will take a bit of getting used to - oy, anyone in GWR reading this 

 
Cancellations to services between Westbury and Swindon via Melksham
Due to a safety inspection of the track at Pewsey the line towards Reading is closed. Disruption is expected until 13:00 25/04.
Train services between Westbury and Swindon via Melksham have been cancelled.
Customer Advice
Due to a safety inspection of the track, all train services between Westbury, Melksham and Swindon are cancelled.

Customers travelling between Westbury, Trowbridge, Chippenham and Swindon are advised to change at Bath Spa.

Melksham is not being served by trains for the time being. Road transport is being organised.

((A section of track between Westbury and Pewsey is being examined for a possible defect. As a precaution we are not currently running trains along this stretch. This affects services to London Paddington from Devon and Cornwall. Where possible trains will divert, taking an alternative, slightly longer route. Where this is not possible, train services may be terminated at short notice.))

 

Old map follow ... I was there on Monday and took the opportunity to take a look at the new subway too.

One - wonders - if platform 1 should be renamed "Gloucester Road" but then that might lead to confusion.

 
Ah, the middle roads. By the time I returned to the station my phone's battery had collapsed, so, no photo of the Class 37 loco that burbled slowly through the station beneath the late afternoon sun, or a photo of the train for Westbury, waiting in that distant 'Platform 1' with the last of its passengers making their way along the tarmac towards it.

The shelter there is at the point at which passengers would once have found the long (in several senses - of considerable length and also long-gone) footbridge to Eastgate. The shelter itself does not appear to be a relic of those days, mind.

Mark

 
The 91 10 mins later would only have taken you 50-55 mins

 

"Final destination only" failings!

 
Journey check looking good today - flagging up just two cancellations across the whole GWR area.   Guess where


OK - so I notice a day when we are the only cancellations ... but this is not a unique occurrence!

 

Quite possibly it does ... but to a silly old git who doesn't know the area, who's to say which "vias" are on the main road.  It may have been helped if the real time display had been working, and I was in no great rush.    Reminds me of the time I took London bus route 46 from Holborn Circus to Paddington.

 

I’m led to believe the destination of the 85 does say Truro via… and then about 150 places scrolling along the bottom half. However this is meaningless to someone who doesn’t know the area

 
8 hours, 11 pieces of public transport. All GWR trains unless otherwise stated.  Not rushing but grabbing loads of photos and experiences

Penryn - joined train at 09:55
Truro
Bodmin Parkway
Totnes (to XC)
Newton Abbott
Starcross (to ferry)
Exmouth (walk ferry to railway station)
Exeter St Davids (to XC)
Taunton
Westbury
Bradford-on-Avon (to bus)
Melksham - left bus at 17:50

Lots of buses call at the station in Penryn, including those that will bring you up from the harbour and centre


Sign on door says "sleeper passengers only" and yet a different dignity gives all day hours. It was reading and puzzled and a staff member appeared and explained it's also available to other first class passenger.  Not being first class, not for me.


Attempting to take a picture of Lostwithiel signal box, but photobombed by this old girl,


Bodmin Parkway (and Totnes) have lovely signal box cafes.  Disappointed at the very thin service indeed from Bodmin Parkway to Bodmin General - no (heritage) demand, not enough volunteers, or a potential not yet exploited?


Look around and there's a surprising amount of old stuff - this at Totnes


The old pumping house at Starcross is worth a look - probably - but doesn't seem open to the public unless you come on a Tuesday evening and sign in as a guest at the sailing club.  There may be other opportunities but closed, shuttered, unwelcoming yesterday. Pity.


As seems routine in the peninsular, buses call near the station and either buses or trains (or both) are frequent enough to make multimode journeys practical.


The ferry from Starcross to Exmouth ... a lovely run; daytime, hourly, in summer.


Exmouth - about a mile from the harbour jetty to the station through the Town Centre.  My ex lives in Exmouth (befitting of the name of the place?) and I half wondered if I would bump into her and her new family. Very unlikely indeed, of course - a quiet town centre apart from tourists. I doubt the residents risk going down there too often.


A connection that shouldn't - a quick hop over the bridge and as I trotted down the steps, the Edinburgh train was pulling in


Good to see platform 5 back in use at Taunton


Westbury - Warminster train waiting at Platform 2, Portsmouth train just arrived at Platform 1, and behind me the Weymouth to Gloucester train was coming in to platform 3.  Stuffed station.


Bradford-on-Avon.  In Wiltshire now, and the connecting bus does not call at the station - so I walked down to the Town Bridge. Fortunately I don't use a wheelchair or mobility scooter


Real Time bus information - could have done with this to be working in Newquay - and with the "direct" or "via the coves and villages" flag on Truro services the other day


Buses arrived in Melksham, around 17:50. That's over an hour earlier that the advice given by train staff when I asked about the quickest way back to Melksham from Westbury by public transport.  Joined up and correct transport network information would be useful from those who should be ambassadors for public transport as a whole.


And so those final few hundred yards home - 30 mph limit but people go along there much faster.  There is a SID (Speed Indicator Device) hidden in the greenery but I don't think it's working.   Reported to the Town Council who assured me that it IS - just that it only comes on when people are speeding.  I don't believe that answer, and now that a party-affiliated councillor has reported a similar problem on another SID, they are looking into it.  In any case - stupid place for the device just coming off a mini roundabout. I am so glad I'm no longer concerned - except that I am as speeding along here creates accidents waiting to happen - as they have in the past.

 
KI'm not sure routing easements are removed are they? Do we have any examples?

 
Does anyone know of a source for how routing has evolved over the last... well, I'm not sure. Perhaps since the railway moved from a pattern of infrequent services over a rather more extensive infrastructure and started to aspire to, say, hourly clockface patterns of services on the network we use today.

Is guidance for passengers to the effect: 'If the National Rail site won't sell a ticket for it, then it's not a permitted route'?

An issue is that the National Rail site can give the impression that for some journeys that had an alternative that was rather longer than the arbitrary 'Up to 3 miles longer is a permitted route and anything else needs an explicit easement' rule, routing easements have somewhat contracted, which is not to the benefit of the intending traveller.

Mark

 

That garden in and around the middle roads is going to look lovely, come summer

 
A very infrequent user** of Gloucester station writes...

An accident of history has stranded what is called 'platform 1' in a remote location - unfortunately, while Gloucester has had track laid here there and everywhere, there doesn't ever seem to have been a platform face on the 'south side' of the current long platform, as that would probably have been retained. As there was nothing there to retain, has building one been considered? The current arrangement isn't really fit for purpose.

Photo shows the view to the train from near the ticket gateline.

Mark

**Perhaps three times, ever.

 
OK, what I hadn't spotted on that was the use of a 5-car set on 1W05 1953 London Paddington to Hereford. Deduct two points.

Which meant that this morning's 1P02 0523 Hereford to London Paddington was a 5-car.

And the same set will work
    1W02 1152 London Paddington to Hereford
    1P05 1518 Hereford to London Paddington (very busy from Oxford)
    1W36 1857 London Paddington to Great Malvern (very busy)

 
More money required for the Acton-Solihull line................

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qk6g4692o

 
Yup and that’s the issue. To hear the words ‘I’m sorry to say you have not passed’ can mean a few months when you can next take a test.

One of the issues I heard about a few months ago was automated bots buying up driving tests as soon as they become available that then get sold on, for a higher price of course, on unofficial apps and websites. I don’t know whether the government has done anything about it.

So yes, you probably can get a driving test much sooner, but you’re going to be paying more for it.

 


An old bloke at Taunton with a big suitcase shuffled enthusiastically in front of a handful on waiting passengers and across the yellow line and up to the door when the semi-fast London train arrived.  The others of us waiting helpfully suggested to him that he press the button to open the door. We then queued behind him to get into the carriage and find our seats while he tried, and failed to fit his suitcase into the luggage rack.

He looked at the reservation indicators above the seats and perhaps he was puzzling as to whether "Tiverton to Pewsey" was in front of or behind him. He was travelling, it turned out, on this train from Taunton to Westbury and his rail geography wasn’t brilliant. But anyway he settled down. Clearly his ticket was in order, as it was checked by a train manager who was being pedantic with other passengers, to the extent of being challenged. As he said "I am just doing my job".

We encouraged the old boy to press the button to let us off at Westbury. He dismounted, then stood there (yes, far enough from the train to let other leavers get past him). He stared at the next train departures from platforms 2 and 3 and looking lost and confused. I took pity on him - asked if I could help and he told me he was looking for the Southampton train. Ah!

We had come off the rear of the London train - outside the sheltered area / quite a way down the platform. I told him that these displays were only for these platforms and it was quite likely that his onward train was going from the other platform. Suggested he come with me.

At Westbury, the all platform departure boards are in the booking hall, at the top of the stairs and in the buffet / waiting room.  None of which exactly works for people ching off incoming trains much of the time.  Walked him to the top of the stairs.

And, yes, I quickly picked up that his onward train was going from platform 1 - the far platform.  He didn't - the board just said "Portsmouth Harbour". I had to re-assured him that it would be calling at Southampton along the way.  I pointed out the platform "across there" and you could almost see a panic in his manner as he looked at the stairs we were standing by. He was somewhat relieved when I pointed him to the lifts.

Last I saw of him - seated on platform 1, case beside him, as his train rolled in; my onward connection pulled in on platform 3 at the same time, but I'm guessing he managed to get on board.

I have highlighted 7 different little things that were little challenges - how much we regular travellers take for granted!

 
A driver was allocated to it and they arrived on time from Fratton on 2V52.

Doesn’t mean the RTT code is wrong (short notice illness etc.), but codes on RTT are unofficial and on JourneyCheck are ‘official’…but with a pinch of salt!

 

Interesting to note that Real Time Trains shows an on time arrival at Westbury and reports

So which is it - perhaps the fault on the train was that there was no-one to drive it  .

P.S. There is routinely a crew change at Westbury on this service

 

 
Thursday April 24

... was a very good day. Here's the screenshot of the trains at Evesham, with no red whatsoever.

 

It looks like they found a signaller - there are three trains out there at the moment at 05:00 - an empty passenger train, a freight train of some sort, and the first Swansea to London service passing through Briton Ferry

 
Can't apply for a new re-test for ten days,fair enough.

But getting a new test date could take many weeks/months?

 
Due to signalling staff illness there are no trains between Cardiff and Swansea from (24/4/25) 23:00 to 07:00 (25/4/25).

I am quite surprised that  a mainline railway can just shut down completely at such short notice; where is the resilience? Is this why the railway is being used more for leisure these days as those travelling to/from school or work can't rely on it.

GWR are apparently trying to source road transport.

 
From today ... in three different counties ...

 

..and here they are