Until recently you could have added Pilning to the list !..

 

The ticket machine at Melksham Station was offering "Bristol Brabazon" tickets on Wednesday evening.

 
While at Bristol Parkway on Wednesday' I noticed that the on platform Live Track Diagram/Schematic Signal Map used by station staff now included "Bristol Brabazon".

 
Good. Not that the BBC wasn't being rational in fantasising the railway terminating at Braunton with connecting (electric) bus services over the hilly bit.

 

That would be a bus from Braunton to Barnstaple [Road/Junction] these days.

Looking back to 1965, there were trains from Braunton to Exeter at 07:23 and 08:28, with an extra from Barnstaple Junction at 07:05. They reached St David's at 08:10, 08:50 and 09:51.

By 1967, there was an 08:18 from Braunton into Exeter at 09:32 and the following train wasn't until 11:35.   There was an 06:50 from the Junction arriving in Exeter at 07:49

Today, no trains from Braunton.  From Barnstaple Junction at 06:25, 07:22 and 08:35 arriving St David's at 07:30, 08:35 and 09:43.

 
Artificial Intelligence / un-intelligence has been with us for years - though it's now multiple order of magnitudes more powerful and sophisticated.   I can look back to around 1980 and a research project at UMIST which was logging / registering lift usage (see, I was into guided transport in those days - all be it vertical) to help program for vehicles (lifts) to be at the optimum place to provide efficiency in numbers and speeds of wait times, loadings and journeys.   It is with us on rail, but still makes a laughing stock of itself from time to time - look at this from Wednesday evening:


That's two trains from the same platform at the same time - no, I don't think so!  I - predicted to the folks I was with - that the Swindon train would be 4 or 5 minutes late and, sure, it was.  Not a problem for any of us.

Here are two screen shots from earlier in the evening:



Really - the "this train is delayed by 1 minute" stuff is really a case of TMI (too much information) ... and by saying "DELAYED" without any qualification seems designed to worry.    Sure, that reverted a few minutes later to "On Time" ...

And look at this when we arrived in Trowbridge:


Nothing automated in there - just an out of date / missing notice.   Someone has clearly identified the need for people arriving to know how to call a taxi, but all the work / cost of putting in a notice board is of no presesnt use when the frame is empty.  "We know you need taxi numbers, but we're not supplying them".  Think that ONE sign saying "Taxi Phone Numbers" rather than three close to each other would have sufficed, and the cost saving could have been invested in supplying the actual data - or how about a dymanic screen that tells you which taxis are running at the time and with availability?  Or dare I suggest Uber, who have identified the market

 
I've got it. 

From the BBC:


 

 

That's the plan ... should include an [AI] tag:
  Post includes AI generated content (?)
but I have only just programmed that option in to the Coffee Shop.

 
Yes - those two posts have been merged into this one here.

The software we use on this forum is slightly limited in terms of making such adjustments apparent.

CfN. 

 
See if you can land this article before it's edited to correct a reference to a 'Train from Braunton'.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c933k8eypknpo

 

I did Poole - Guernsey on the ex Condor high speed cat back in April and was surprised how much that swayed around the place on not a particularly lumpy sea. I've felt better on the Scillonian!!

 

This morning


Elements of "Long form" are worth having, though perhaps as an explanatory link.   Difficult one where they're looking for a common text between the occasional user who know little about rail and the expert.    For reports like this one, I would love to be able to read into what the rail industry definition of "usual" is - not that a change from 2 carriages to 3 is a disruption at all.

 
Melksham 2035?

 
Link giving me The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

 

You missed a good'un! Presentation shared (with permission) at https://www.passenger.chat/pw2wwrug.pdf and follow up in relation to local campaigns in "Frequent Posters" at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=32513

 
West Ealing area failure this morning

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Slough
Due to a fault with the signalling system between London Paddington and Slough trains have to run at reduced speed on the Reading bound high speed line.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed by up to 15 minutes. Disruption is expected until 09:00 18/09.

 
The slides from Peter's talk are available at https://www.passenger.chat/pw2wwrug.pdf - and they very useful. 

 
Or this one ... emailed to the translation section and returned ...

 
Lympestone Commando, possibly ?

CfN. 

 
He was more interested in the sandwich one of the volunteers was eating!

 
Apologies from me.  I was not, after all, able to join that meeting.  Family commitments meant that I was delayed getting back to Swindon, such that I just missed the train I was aiming for, to get to Trowbridge in time for the meeting.

I'm glad to read that it all went well (even without me). 

 
There's either a secret Celtic nations railway line or someone in TfW's signwriting department doesn't know their 'Welsh' from their 'West'!

 

Whatever were the staff there thinking of?     

And, by the way, what did our Coffee Shop forum mascot Finn make of it all? 

 

Spot on. Llanuwchllyn station (complete with dragon (and Finn)) and signal box, Bala Lake Railway.

I was even allowed into the locking room for a nosey.

 

"There is a larger than usual gap between the train and the platform at this station......."   

 
It's yet more hogwash, IndustryInsider. 

 
In that particular case, the doors were closed 40 seconds before the train actually departed from NLS - so effectively two minutes early, for someone pressed for time!

As it was, I had to scamper up the steps from the car park just to be sure of my catching that train. 

 
I, too, will bite - from when our daughter was at university in Bangor, when we did a bit of exploring.

I reckon that's the Llanuwchllyn Signal Box. 

 

Thanks for stirring that memory, Witham Bobby.

In my case, I was on the "Condor" from Weymouth to Jersey, sometime in the 1990s, I think.  I didn't have to resort to the brown bags, but I did have to go out on deck in the fresh air and grip the handrail, with white knuckles, to compose myself.