Is a white C on a red circle a standard road symbol for a toll/charge? I've only ever seen it in relation to the Congestion Charge in London.

 

Sounds simple.  Many moons ago I seem to remember that a few of our bus runs were timed for a five minute train connection wait.  From memory, traffic and passenger delays meant we rarely arrived on time.  Usually arrived well after our departure time, regardless of whether the train had come (or gone).
So we would arrive late (frequently very late), pick up whoever was there, and go.

If you are going to task a bus to wait for a train, it would have to be a dedicated driver and vehicle, and would wait until the train arrived, regardless of the bus schedule that was to follow that timetable.

Too many variables unfortunately.

 
I had an ultrasound appointment at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon at 11:45 yesterday (12th July 2026).  I understand that the operator does 30 ultrasounds per day so it wasn't a long appointment.  So how did I do that by public transport?  Is public transport adequate for such journeys?  What could be done to improve it?

I left home at 07:55.  I walked in again at 15:35.  Elapsed time 460 minutes. The appointment started on time and was over in 15 minutes.  That's 3.25% of the time I was away from home.

I caught the 08:32 train from Melksham to Swindon, arriving there at 08:58.  The bus from Fleming Way to the hospital runs 2 times an hour on Sundays, and the next train at 10:57, into Swindon at 11:26, would have left me around 20 to 30 minutes late for my appointment. 

I could have left home as late as 08:10 to - just - catch that train but left myself a few minutes slack.  I could have caught a bus straight after the appointment and connected with the 13:32 train, 13:56 at Melksham Station, and that would have been 14:20 home, and online reporting tells me that train was on time. That would have been 370 minutes with a mere 15 minutes appointment - still just 4% of the time I was away from home.  But I chose - and it has muddied the waters of this log and report - to take advantge of being out and about and do other things when the opportunity of time and place offered.

The question I started with - "is public transport adequate" - clearly is answered with a "yes".  It got me there, it got me home.  But if I asked the question "was it the most efficient" in terms of my time, no, the round trip driven by private car, plus parking, safety margin, etc, would have been 10:30 from home and back by 13:00, 150 minutes, appointment 10% of the time away from home.   Still not wonderful time use.   If the train ran every hour, with an 09:32 or an 09:57 in to Swindon, that would be a fair solution - still twice as long away from home as driving myself door to door, but a massive improvement and I suspect many other people would use it - especially as they may not feel like being committed to driving after a medical procedure.

Another example of where a reliable, hourly-or-better train service from Melksham and buses that connect with the trains at both ends should result in a major modal shift for people on this (quite low volume) flow and on many other flows that share the same transport along the way.

[Spoiler - the scan gave me a medical more or less "clear". Unlike the scan in March which lead to a phone call "come into hospital NOW" which fixed something before it was life changing.  So happy with the results; not as I was a year or five ago, but able to walk 10kms during the day, so not entirely incapacitated though I slept afterwards!]

 
I'm intrigued by the lack of detail on that toll warning sign. "Pay online..." but no web address or even the name of the bridge to search for, requiring a bit of detective work if the driver isn't familiar with the location.  The list of charges is unclear; why single out motorcycles but not cycles or pedestrians (or horse riders?) who also don't pay?  There are also various exemptions but as you actively have to apply for those rather than just not pay I suppose it makes sense not to list them on a summary.

Someone really needs to update the website, which was clearly geared to the charge being a new thing but now has irrelevant detail about the exact start date and time (but no mention of the year) which will become confusing when the same date - albeit a different day of the week - comes round again.

 

Yep - noticed it yesterday.  Happy with that; it shows a care for and acknowledgment of the station by Wiltshire Council.   I'm stopping one short of saying "delighted" - the request for the refresh came from MTUG via the Town Council and LHFIG (local highway and Infrastructure group) and requested coloured infill between the white lines to make the route even clearer between parked cars, as you can see at other stations.

 
Not sure when it was done but I noticed this morning that the white lines protecting pedestrians walking to the station across the Melksham Tyres forecourt have been repainted - they were getting pretty shabby.

 
Trying to work out a story ... distilled from https://weownit.org.uk/who-owns-our/railways


30 years is a long time in business.  My understanding is / was that the RoSCos initially took over a limited supply of trains that had limited capital value, but excellent rental value as they were hired to the Train Operating companies, resulting in excellent profits for the three companies who were under different ownership than that are today.  With the growth of rail passenger numbers, the shortage of trains became even more of an issue and there were further profits to be made by hiring out old stock to the highest bidder.   The success, if you like, of the franchised train operations in upping passenger numbers lead to a distorted market in train leasing.

30 years is a long time.  And whilst quite a few of the original trains that were sold (? how much was paid) to the RoSCos at privatisation are still with us - in our area, classes 150, 158, 165 and 166 - others such as the class 175 ("The fleet is owned by Angel Trains, who has leased the fleet to various train operators" according to WikiPedia) and class 800 and 802 are owned by Hitachi who built them, and who lease them to the train operators.  Classes such as 142 and 143 and HSTs (125, 43) which we have seen in the South West were withdrawn end-of-life; class 153 have gone from our area too though a few run on elsewhere in the dusk of their days.  And I have no idea how much profit is going to the now-owners based on the original privatisation, nor what their profit margins are on newer stock especially once maintenance costs are taken into account.

Names such as HSBC Rail crop up; they came in as part of the natural development of the market economy of a for-profit setup, with takeovers, buyouts and failures being part of the mix.  Such a setup may be excellent in terms of a many-supplier competitive market where one company take pick up business from another as they wither and as they blossom, but it's not, perhaps, a natural model in a market or industry which is monopolistic or close to it in nature. Further more, the little fish tend to be swallowed by the bigger ones and what started out as competitive intent became monopolies.

At Swindon, 25 to 30 years ago, you could catch passenger trains from TOCs Wales and West, Virgin, Thames Trains, and Great Western.  Great Western was taken over by First.  So then was Thames Trains. Wales and West became Wessex, which was combined with Thames Trains and Great Western as part of the Greater Western franchise that started on 1st April 2006, awarded to the First Group who have been running it since.  Virgin, with their Swindon to Birmingham service were only on our tracks for a short time.  The former Thames Train services from Bristol to Oxford were withdrawn (2004) because of "overcrowding on the tracks" but I say that in quotes because it looked like an excuse to move passengers onto less convenient, but more profitable operations still running on the same lines.  A more recent parallel away from Swindon was the withdrawal of the Bristol - Salisbury - Waterloo through services that were well used, pushing a goodly proportion of passengers onto Bristol - Paddington services which means changes for many intermediate passengers, and more expensive (= more income for rail) journeys.   Again, "Line Capacity" was an excuse, though I note the irony of the withdrawn trains being replaced by other trains - even using the same classes of rolling stock - subsidised by WECA and termination at Salisbury without even decent onward connections.

It should be noted that rail line capacity for passenger trains has changed over the years.  In our area, the demise of the coal industry and closure of Didcot power station has resulted in a significant increase in train paths available from South Wales through the Severn Tunnel to Swindon and Didcot, but the growth of long distance freight from Southampton to the Midlands and north, and stone traffic from Somerset headed east and north east has to some extent counterbalanced that; it has certainly added pressure in some places like on the capacity-limited Trowbridge to Chippenham line.  A part of this equation is the different characteristics of different train types - slow old coal wagons mixed with high speed trains lead to significant losses of capacity when one type followed the other.  These days the performances differ but less dramaically.

Some Related topics
- Privatisation of Rail Infrastructure from British Railways to Railtrack and then the renationalisation of that just over 20 years ago into Network Rail.
- Passenger Train operation itself under franchises, turning into management contracts, and those contracts being terminated / not renewed as the whole comes together ready for Great British Railways (nationalised) operations
- Freight train ownership and operation which is largely privatised and in my understanding will remain so
- Properties and concessions at stations (you can pay more for a coffee than for a ticket)

 
My experience of roadkill whilst out cycling varies depending on the location; within the urban Exeter area the vast majority of victims are gulls - I don't regard this as a problem - and it is not uncommon to see two corpses together presumably because the gulls were concentrating on fighting over their share of whatever foodstuff was on offer rather than the vehicles heading in their direction.

On the road route (not the Exe Estuary Trail) between Exeter & Dawlish the majority of victims are grey squirrels, in East Devon it appears that the badger population is being progressively culled, and the occasional deceased rabbit or fox pops up in all areas.

Perhaps there should be national reporting so we can learn to what extent our wildlife is being decimated.

 
Then the 6:35 Salisbury Worcester developed a fault, so the 7:21 Melksham became 7:34.

Should have been ok to connect with the 7:47 Bristol (from Oxford) service at Chippenham, but then we had to wait for the late running Oxford service to pass us while we parked on the wrong side of the main line after leaving the single track.

So now it's another wait, for the 8:09 Bristol. What should have been arrival at Temple Meads at 7:28 is now 8:36, barring further delays...

 
05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:10
05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:10 will be diverted between Gloucester and Trowbridge.

It will no longer call at Stonehouse, Stroud, Kemble, Swindon, Chippenham and Melksham but will call additionally at Bristol Parkway.

It will be delayed due to the diversion and is expected to be 3 minutes late.
This is due to a fire next to the track.

 
I did say it was in the backermost recesses of my (apparently failing) memory. 

 

History, more like. Eversholt (one of the original ROSCOs from thew BR break-up) was owned by Midland Bank, which became part of HSBC, and was then sold off by them in 2010.

 
From the backermost recesses of my memory, I seem to recall that HSBC owned some of them.

Or is that hogwash, II ? 

 

I think some of the 36 class 802s are owned by Eversholt (but were ordered by First Group, rather than by DfT), Hitachi have a maintenance contract, GWR lease them from Eversholt

I think the class 800s are owned by Agility Trains, which is part owned by Hitachi, part owned by AXA and part by GLIL Infrastructure (an investment by consortium of pension funds)

EDIT It is Agility Trains West Ltd, which is wholly owned subsidiary of Agility Trains (MidCo) Ltd, which in turn is wholly owned subsidiary of Agility Trains West (Holdings) Ltd, which in turn is subsidiary of joint venture where Hitachi hold 25%.  (complicated, but presumably works better to minimise tax etc)

 

Brique-battes ?

 

Are you sure about that?

 
First own some IETs and I'm sure their serial numbers can be found somewhere on this forum

Hitachi own the remainder

 
Ever wonder what the inside of a Warship looks like?

 

But these things add up ..  an RAC page from last year ...

 

The quote refers to "audit work", so presumably this will lead to an audit report. The NAO does those as routine, based on the amount of money being spent - the clue is in the word "audit". They do responsive and value for money reports too, where there is an issue to investigate, but I don't think that can arise before the money has been spent.

 
That's rather the principle I follow when I might perhaps start a topic here today, about 'Infrastructure problems between Paddington and Reading, 2027 - ongoing discussion".

CfN. 

 

The explanation might be that the Wallingford By-pass forms part of a somewhat convoluted diversion route for a lengthy closure of the busy A329 road in Cholsey between now and early September. I can (sadly) see the sense in not permitting this in these circumstances (not that this seems to have stopped other utility companies getting permission for other shorter closures in the area at the same time.

 

Are they just opening one before construction starts on the assumption they'll need it in due course when it costs at least double the estimated cost to actually build it?

 
With my apologies for possibly rather egging this topic:

I have a personal copy of that 36 page Melksham timetable booklet. It is absolutely brilliant - a reference source for anyone looking to use public transport anywhere in and around Melksham, in precise and clear detail.

It's worth acquiring a copy, free, to keep in your rucksack or handbag (whatever) for reference on any of your excursions.  Particularly as a non-native of Melksham, I do.

CfN. 

 
This topic has been moved to The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom.

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=14110.0

 
Early this morning I drove 33 miles to Savernake Forest, walked, then returned to Reading via Marlborough - about 80 miles of driving.  I was surprised at the amount of roadkill- at least 15 corpses, mostly (apparently) of foxes, hares and rabbits, far more than I've seen before.

The Forest is privately owned but nearly all its paths and tracks are "permissive" - but closed on New Year's Day to forestall any claim that they become public because of continuity of use. It's managed by the Forestry Commission who've done a good job of putting gravel on some of the most popular ones, though I met one local who'd known the Forest "for 75 years" who bemoaned the main route -  the Grand Avenue - having been widened, presumably to allow cars to pass each other.

BTW the locality is a transport enthusiast's dream, with some of the Forest roads showing remnants of tarred surfaces, presumably relating to when the Forest stored ammunition in WWII, the Kennet & Avon Canal (including the Bruce Tunnel and Crofton Beam Engine), the sites of Savernake's two railway stations and of where the Midland & South Western Junction Railway crossed the GWR and connected with it.

 
From the BBC:


All of this, for a toll of just £1 ??

 
I saw what you did there CfN....before anyone throws briquettes at you.

 

True, but given the current and ongoing issues caused by "severe" weather, signal failures,"more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time" aka too hot to be driven, falling trees etc etc we should probably be grateful for every small mercy!

 
11:32 Swindon to Weymouth due 13:45

11:32 Swindon to Weymouth due 13:45 will be delayed at Westbury and is expected to be 15 minutes late.

This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Will be formed of 3 coaches. Toilet facilities are reduced.

Additional Facilities Information
The accessible toilet is not available for use.