That ‘further notice’ being today.  Though of course this mornings fatality rather overshadowed it.

 
Did you happen to post that from your blast-proof underground bunker in Minehead, broadgage? 

CfN. 

 
We should be prepared for exceptional weather events, such as have occurred in the past.

A winter like those of 1947, and 1963, would be interesting.
Or more probable, a wind storm like 1987.
Severe flooding similar to the east coast floods of 1952 could result in substantial loss of life.

Most people, and most organisations are almost totally unprepared for such events. HMG advising food stocks is a small and belated effort to improve matters.

IMHO we need a proper civil defence department (and re-branding the fire brigade by adding the words "and civil defence" does not count !)

 
Burford Bridge Hotel to a hotel near Paddington Station, early 1990s, 25 miles.  Last train from Box Hill was cancelled. Called BR (from a call box near the station with a rapidly dwindling supply of loose change) explaining that we were at a wedding reception but were returning to Bristol that night and would now not make the last train back from Paddington.  BR person told us to return to the hotel and a taxi would come and take us to a hotel near Paddington Station where they would book us a room.  We were told that our tickets would be okay to use the following (early) morning.
Everything went as arranged but as a footnote, on our arrival back at the reception party, one of the guests, a  complete stranger to us,  kindly offered to book us a room there when they heard what had happened.  By then all the revised arrangements had been made so we had to decline....pity really, it was quite a bit of a do.

 

I can state with complete confidence that that is not true, with all due respect, PrestburyRoad.

In Bristol, at the start of their shift, police special constables were issued with truncheons - for which they had to sign, and sign back in at the end of their shift.  The ones issued to female special constables were of interesting size and dimensions, which inevitably caused some salacious comments from their male colleagues. 

CfN. 

 
Reading the announcement, you would never guess that, except for holders of train-specific advances and some other irritating operator-specific fares, much of this would have been possible anyway. Your average Saver fare being inter-available and valid on any later train, not just within a two hour window (peak restrictions apart).

However there does seem to be some advantage in allowing off-peak tickets to be valid on a peak train after a cancelled off-peak service. Also the "reasonable route" allowance would (presumably) clear up any worry, say of traveling Swindon-Westbury via Bath if the Melksham service is cancelled. (We can have fun later in investigating the difference between a "reasonable route" and a "permitted route").

 

Quite so. BRC have been arguing this for a little while now, and have raised it with WECA:

https://bristolrailcampaign.org.uk/zonal-fares/

 
Now I'm sure of the date (see above , I'm certainly intending to be there in Trowbridge - via Kemble, Cirencester, Kemble again and Swindon.  I'll be having a rather busy Wednesday.

CfN.

 
Cancellations to services between Newbury and Bedwyn

Due to a shortage of train crew between Newbury and Bedwyn fewer trains are able to run on all lines.

Train services running through these stations may be cancelled. Disruption is expected until 22:00 14/09.
Customer Advice
-
What has happened?
-
Due to a shortage of train crew, train services will be suspended until the end of service.

 

Sounds like a trip back to the dark ages - to escape the dark.   

 
Seems it is out of action again.

 
I'm still a little confused. This was announced on the radio news this morning as if it applied to all operators from this weekend, but then the official DfT announcement states that East Midlands joins later - see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/your-cancellations-covered-new-scheme-to-help-stranded-rail-passengers-arrives-this-weekend

Why the delay for East Midlands? Who else is left out? Is it just TfW, Scotrail and TfL? 

 
6-cell Mag lights have many uses and are much easier to carry/conceal than the good old bardic lamp,never without mine in the car.

 
... which prompts me to think... several things, and also discover that for adults, Temple Meads to Lawrence Hill is £1.60 (£1.05 with a railcard, 80 pence for the under 16s) vs Bedminster: £3.40 (£2.25).

Also, it's difficult to work out whether the distance between the entrances via the floating walkway is more or less than that via cattle market road / temple gate.

 
Police special constables were not allowed to carry truncheons.  But they were allowed to bring their own 6-cell Maglite.  I believe the impact would be similar.

 
After reading so much about them I was somewhat surprised to find myself on a 175 last week, just for the short hop between St Erth and Penzance. It worked although we wouldn't have caught it if it hadn't have been running about 20 mins late; we were expecting to have to wait about that long for the next service we'd planned on catching

We were staying in Carbis Bay - like Melksham its station is on a single track line, but unlike Melksham the services are every half hour, in each direction (To be fair that's because it's just a short dead end branch line between St Erth and St Ives; the same train just shuttles back and forth.)

 

Very happy to be corrected.

There were 2 in Devon/Cornwall over the weekend, we are moving into the season for it I guess 

 

That is correct
If it not a public pathway, it is an additional entrance to a train station
Like any station people can't be passed through onto the station without a valid ticket

 
Looks like a positive development.

In Darlaston and Willenhall's case it looks like they are perfectly spread out with the existing Shrewsbury service in one direction - 30 or so minutes apart heading towards Wolverhampton, but very badly spaced the other way, just four minutes apart, giving two trains an hour to Birmingham New Street, but with a 56 minute gap.

 

Yes, I've always thought that a bit odd.  Other internal and public systems, RTT for example, do make allowance for allowances (if I can put it like that?) and even if they're usually a little on the optimistic side...a delayed train is more likely not to get 'greens all the way'...they are often not too far wide of the mark.

 
Bristol -> Paddington services still disrupted, 14:30 and 15:30 cancelled.

 
My longest is Shrewsbury to Pwllheli

 

Agreed on how hard and human intense the systems are at the moment.  It feels like they are too much "fair weather specified" systems at present - and the example at Oxford rather confirms this.

AI?  We already have machine intelligence of a sort - AI is a fancification of that, if you like - but much of it is rudimentary.  Many of us can look at what we are told, especially at times of service going wrong, and quietly chuckle. 

It's a fast moving world, so some of these things may have been fixed, but examples I have seen include multiple trains expected from the same platform at the same time (at Trowbridge), and also a Swindon train show as "On Time" when the incoming train hasn't even passed on its way to Westbury and there's no way without time travel that it will arrive on time.  Journey Check seems to have a habit of thinking "once delayed, then delayed for the rest to the journey", even for trains like the sleeper, and the 05:11 Gloucester to Southampton which when running to schedule twiddles its thumbs at Salisbury and often makes up.

 

It would be very interesting to know if that's official policy or something decided or guessed at by a member of the gate staff.

And it has me thinking - what happens if you want to access the lost property office but aren't on a train journey at the time?

 

It's very hard to provide accurate data with serious disruption anyway - you have a small number of control staff trying to deal with dozens of trains at several locations at once.  But there have been recent cutbacks to some operations staff - for example the morning Area Operations Manager shift at Oxford has now gone - which means the number of staff trying to coordinate things is woefully short.  And then we have the chop-and-change diagramming which means more trains have a change of staff en-route than they used to, which works fine when things are going well, but adds another layer of complication when things go wrong.

Perhaps AI can help sort it out before it takes over the world?

 
I believe that the Marlow-Maidenhead issue is one and the same as the Twyford incident but with train crews caught out of position/unable to get to depot.

 
I was denied access at the east entrance today when asking to use the ticket office and even showed my disabled railcard . I was told we dont want the public using this as a walkway. You will have to go back down cattle market road and up the ramp....surely this isn't right.....

 
Lines now reopened according to National Rail but as can be seen from the map, cancellations and delays continuing for some time, although there now seems to be a similar incident between Maidenhead and Marlow.

 

That makes sense, thank you. In the GWR area, then, the only exceptions where it may not apply when GWR cancel a service are Cheltenham Spa to Gloucester and Severn Tunnel Junction to Pembroke Dock inclusive of all intermediate stations.

 

24 September 2026 is earmarked as the date for the first “refreshed” one to be delivered to Laira.

Other units planned to go back to Wolverton from Laira.