We DO have our heartfelt thanks to add, Chris.  I suppose that comes under "comment"s.

 
Supporting grahame's message - that Network Rail Emergency number, 0345 711 4141, is programmed in to my mobile phone.

To be used only in times of emergency - but with immediate results - if required.

CfN.

 
Boxing Day rather than Christmas Day, from The BBC


Times have indeed changed in the last 60 years, and "Trains on Christmas Day" - the subject line - probably remains a "no". One would presume that the were withdrawn after 1964 by a combination of staff adversity and carrying fresh air around and running them in 2026 might have exactly the same issues.

We have covered / considered Trains on Boxing Day in the past, but times change and it is worth keeping an eye on. A handful run, and the idea of more is not such a rank outsider / silly idea.   The move to modern signalling centres reduces or removes the need for boxes all along the line, and perhaps a 2-hourly matrix of connecting services, with a single train running on many of the lines where a fast and a regional train both run on regular services.

Of course, the question comes "who would be using it?" and "how much would they be prepared to pay"? ... and the discussions start to get interesting.

 
From the BBC:

 
News from an Administrator's desk, here on the Coffee Shop forum:

Over the years, since they arrived, we have discussed many issues relating to these trains. The sheer number of pages of posts here on this forum was well over 200 .

I have therefore tried to break things down into rather more manageable chunks, by splitting / merging topics - generally in date-related order.  There are now three main topics related to our 'problems with Hitachi Intercity Express Trains - ongoing discussions'.  Click on the link to take you to the topic:

IETs into passenger service from 16 Oct 2017 and subsequent performance issues

Problems with Hitachi Intercity Express Trains - posts from April 2021

Problems with Hitachi Intercity Express Trains - ongoing discussion since 2022

I know that there are still many more, perhaps smaller, topics where similar issues have been discussed, and I will continue to review those and perhaps merge them, where appropriate.

This is all done in my spare time (I'm a pensioner now ) for my own enjoyment, and purely in the interests of clarity and ease of future reference for our members and readers. If anyone has issues, comments or suggestions, please do contact me - my details are all in my forum profile here.

Chris from Nailsea.

 
Coming back to confirm the emergency number of  03457 11 41 41 for Network Rail and that should be prominently displayed.

This confirmation come from Network Rail today ... a video of gravel / pebbles / sand washed over the main line at Dawlish shared with the question "who do I report to".  Confirmation it's Network Rail, and a follow up from Network Rail to say that it has been called in, to confirm that was the right thing to do and to say "Thank you" and it will be looked at / dealt with / handled before trains resume in the morning.

 
This is what happens when there's country-wide warnings issued - cold Health, weather, Mountains, RNLI, etc etc...

A traditional event with no organisation in charge happens on a certain day. No warnings put out so everyone has a SatNav moment - regardless of whether/weather one can see a problem, they do it anyway....

Dangerous things, those warnings....

 
St Keyne wishing well halt rail replacement pick up is a good mile up a very steep hill from the station.
Or in other words the station is at least a mile down a steep hill from the main road and village it serves.
Villagers who fail to check could find themselves walking a mile, to have to walk a mile back for the bus!
Rail replacement is more convenient for the village than the train. I suspect most villagers would use the 73 bus rather than the train.

 
" ...involving all passenger trains having at least five RMT staff on board... "

Hasn't the DfT occasionally already achieved that with the 5 carriage IEPs they specc'd, running two up, i.e. as a ten carriage set?

Mark

 
I tend to carry a copy of the local Ordnance Survey map when I'm out travelling. Even if I don't need it for geographic location purposes, it gives me something to read during any delays.

 

Probably second in my own earliest memories (the first is the birth of my sister, when I was less than 3 years old) is a visit to my maternal grandparents' house in Plymouth, just after Christmas 1962.  I would then have been aged just under 4.

Their house was on a hillside, with a raised path from the front to the back gardens - no safety railings, those were the days before 'elf n safety' was invented.  As a confident toddler, I remember striding down that snowy path, stepping slightly too far to the right and dropping vertically down into a huge snowdrift - well over my head height.  I remember my father and grandfather laughing as they reached down into the snow to lift me back up.

CfN.

 

That reminds me.

Recently, I noted references to 'NLS' on the Coffee Shop forum which were clearly not related to the station code of my local railway stop.

I therefore expanded the definition of 'NLS' in our forum's Abbreviations and Acronyms page, at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html , in the interest of clarity.

The National Library of Scotland is an absolutely brilliant resource, particularly for maps: I commend them to all of our members and readers.

CfNLS.

 
Love it at first read and going back to enjoy in more fully in a minute.  I am very much aware that many a true word is written in jest.

 
It's six years since I rubbed my crystal ball, and having found it when looking for Christmas decorations earlier this month, I've given it a good rub to see what it has to offer. The last time it was hopelessly inaccurate, but who could have foreseen the pandemic? I've downloaded some cheap AI to help it this time, will the results be any better for predicting 2026?

1 - January 2026 - The big story is the leak by a disgruntled ex-ORR employee of the details of Lord Hendy's new dynamic fare structure, the centrepiece of his policy of simplifying the UK's train fares. In the Guardian article in which it is revealed, the draft computer program is run and gives (in some cases) more different fares for a sample journey in a week than there are passengers travelling that route. The leak also includes a draft of the new seven-volume routing and permitted use manual, designed to ensure that no-one can ever use a ticket with a cheaper fare for a journey on another one between the same two places. In the resulting furore, Lord Hendy resigns, the proposals are dropped but some of the cost of developing the software is recouped by selling it to Ryanair.

2 - February 2026 - Dismay at Go-op when ORR finally terminates their provisional track access agreement. Their dismay is deepened when they seek legal advice about a court challenge, and are told that their funds of £25-19, two old buttons and an old Coke can ring-pull are insufficient to fund the action. Their email offer to Richard Branson to help with his bid for a new cross-channel service goes unanswered.

3 - March 2026 - Concern in Scotland as SNP Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop announces the award of the contract to replace ScotRail's aging fleet of HST to Ferguson Marine "to keep jobs in Scotland". There is however delight among the many fans of HSTs, who now know that they can look forward to many more years of holidays in Scotland to travel on their favourite trains.

4 - April 2026 - Political turmoil in the UK. Premier Starmer and Chancellor Reeve resign after a no-confidence vote fuelled by many competing campaigns for a new Labour leader and triggered by another set of poor economic figures. The subsequent leadership contest sees the Labour party split into four new parties - Pro Palestine, anti-Trans; Pro-Israel, anti-Trans; Pro-Palestine, pro-Trans and Pro-Palestine, pro-Trans. Andy Burnham decides that maybe Mayor of Greater Manchester is not such a bad job after all. In the subsequent chaotic snap General Election, Reform wins a narrow majority in a seven-way split vote. New PM Nigel Farage tries to find a new Transport Secretary and Rail Minister, but after Francis Bourgeois, Michael Portillo and Christopher Awdry all turn him down, he appoints Reform donors, the London property developers the Candy brothers, to the two posts. They promise a new national rail policy in the coming three months.

5 - May 2026 - After the Candy brothers announce their first proposal, a 75% reduction in staff at ORR and DfT, staff at both organisations go on indefinite strike. When Laura Shoaf, chair of shadow GBR and the managers of the remaining franchises ask the new government who should now give them instructions, they are told to "just get on with it".

6 - June 2026 - Eddy Dempsey, leader of RMT announces national rail strike in support of his campaign for an inflation-busting 8% pay claim and a return to guard/TM operated doors throughout the GBR system. In response, Donald Trump sends his trusted negotiator Steve Witkoff to help the new government settle the dispute. He emerges after three days hard negotiation with Dempsey announcing he thinks he has the basis of a settlement he is sure GBR will accept, involving all passenger trains having at least five RMT staff on board, and annual pay rises of at least 10% for the next five years. He then spends another three days at GBR and emerges  announcing he thinks he has the basis of a settlement he is sure RMT will accept, involving a three-year pay freeze and all passenger trains becoming one-man operated. Farage sends him back to Trump, settles the strike with a one-off 15% pay increase and is criticised in the Commons by Louise Haigh (Pro-Palestine, pro-Trans, Sheffield Heeley) for throwing away public funds to get a quick settlement.

7 - July 2026 - At the beginning of the month, there is uproar as the Candy brothers publish their new rail policy. All the London main-line terminals are to be sold for redevelopment as up-market blocks of flats, and the rail network is to be reduced to the Elizabeth Line, whose trains will be repainted in GBR's new Union Jack livery. Following riots and a further huge fall in the Governments opinion poll ratings (already battered by scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables and consumer electronic goods after imposition of Trump-style tariffs and an invitation to President Trump for a second state visit - fortunately for the King, his doctors issued him with a sick note saying he should not be stressed by attending any state functions), Farage, ever the wily populist, fires the Candys and announces his own rail policy, involving re-opening all the lines closed by Beeching, restoring steam traction to the entire network and making it compulsory to sell warm beer and cigarettes at all catering outlets on the system. Mayor Kahn announces his own counter-proposals, involving TfL taking control of all the old Network Southeast lines and renaming the South West Mainline as "The Tolpuddle Line".

8 - August 2026 - Unhindered by the DfT and ORR, GBR gets on with it (as instructed) and issues provisional tenders for the replacement of all the DMU fleet that is more than 30 years old, and phased overhead electrification of the entire remaining un-electrified network. However no money is made available by Chancellor Tice, so all remain unfulfilled. Notwithstanding, both the Trans-Wilts and North Cotswolds lines record their first week without cancellations in living memory.

9 - September 2026 - Concerned by continuing problems with its IET fleet, GBR begins negotiations with Mexican and Nigerian railways for swapping some of their fleet for the return of the exported HSTs. Negotiations break down when both of them insist on retaining the HST seats to use in replacement for those in the IETs.

10 - October 2026 - Another political crisis engulfs the UK. A calm summer and early autumn results in the record annual arrival of illegal immigrants by boat across the Channel being achieved by October. Farage, recalling vaguely something from history lessons at school about an ancient king stopping the tide coming in by sitting in a chair at the edge of the sea takes an armchair to the beach at Dover and commands the migrants to stop. He is kidnapped by a gang of Albanian people-smugglers, who take him to Albania concealed in a container full of stolen car parts. To capitalise, they issue a demand for payment of £50 million in crypto currency, in default of which they will send him back,  and launch a fund-raising site on the Dark Web. Within 25 minutes of the site being open, the funds are raised, so Farage begins a lucrative new career in Albania selling crypto currency and bullion investment schemes on the Dark Web, but keeps his GB News contract, broadcasting weekly from a bar on the beach in Durres on the Albanian Riviera.

Notwithstanding the continuing ORR and DfT strikes, the Trans-Wilts and North Cotswolds lines both record their second cancellation-free weeks.

11 - November 2026 -  Another snap election is called, after Reform fails to agree on a new leader and splits into several factions. Another seven-way split vote occurs, but Kemi Badenoch eventually pulls together a workable majority after the return the MPs who previous defected to Reform and doing "supply and confidence" deals with the Lib Dems and the Anti-Palestine, anti-Trans and Pro-Palestine, anti-Trans Labour parties, securing the latter two by agreeing that they can have a free vote on any Middle Eastern-related matters. Before her ministerial appointments are made, Badenoch receives early Christmas cards from all her MPs each with a message pleading with her not to make them Transport Secretary or Rail Minister. Lord Hendy sends her his CV.

12 - December 2026 - The UK rail system has its least-disrupted passenger rail service over the Christmas period in years, because the failure of the outgoing government to allocate any funds for any major infrastructure works means no closures for them, but there are still problems due to a larger than usual number of temporary speed limits caused by overdue repair works on the network. New Rail Minister Lord Hendy announces further delays to the completion of phase 1 of HST2, the East-West line, the Leeds tram project and the re-opening of Botley Road in Oxford.
 
Happy New Year!

 

 
Looking at Plymouth and thinking that a lot of it developed quite late in the day and also, generally, 'How did this work'? Long distance Southern services - did they all start from Friary, tour the city and call at North Road and then Devonport before their onward journey? At... Catdown Bridge on the approach to Sutton Pool, did the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway fade away and see its track lifted before the GWR reused the alignment and laid track once more? And at Laira, is that a flat crossing of the first on the scene P&DR across the GWR's line into Millbay Station?

Oh, and Albert Road crosses a good tunnel-over-tunnel intersection with little separation (with, for good measure a pub, the 'Railway Inn' sitting by the intersection and the location of surface buildings there very much constrained by the infrastructure beneath) . There's little indication of how the disused tunnel beneath the in-use railway is accessed for inspection. Perhaps there's an access between the two.

Mark

Plymouth on NLS Maps, two 25" to the mile sheets side by side...

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15.5&lat=50.38584&lon=-4.17952&layers=168&right=178

 
Too easy to speculate here

 
Even on Boxing Day, this sad thread continues ...

 
A sad news update, from the BBC:

 
You're not a Droxford fan then!
I visited the then new QE2 just before her maiden voyage from Southampton with a few from our radio course.
Taken around by the QE2 chief radio officer, amazing to see.
Also confirmed my view that I didn't want to serve on passenger ships, but chose BP Tankers!
My first few ships had Droxford engines, which frequently caught fire, so we had to stop, let the engines cool down, and proceed onwards.

Thank you CfN/grahame for the engine room pictures; happy memories.
Hopefully with May sailings from Cornwall we might be able to sail this year.

 

As in this case, there sometimes appears to be an assumption that people know where the station is. In this case I didn't, in relation to the local road system.

 
I was living on Hayling Island, and we had a sunken road between farmers fields. I woke up to what was the top of a double decker Southdown bus visible between between the fields. Southdown policy was that crews were not allowed to leave an in-service bus. Fortunately the driver and conductor lived locally and their wives carried tea cans (remember the time before Thermos flaks were widely available) to them across the fields. I believe it was mid morning before the company said they could leave the bus.

The bigger risk nowadays is more likely to be a Q-Day, when a cyber attack takes out the majority of modern infrastructure in the country.

 
You'd reach the station along that road unless arriving by helicopter/parachute, so the bus stopping there does make sense!  Replacement buses serving the centre of a town/village rather than the station some distance from anywhere also makes sense, provided it's clearly signposted, along with warnings on journey planners.

 

60 years ago far fewer people had access to a car.

I can see an argument for Boxing Day services, pretty much everything else is up and running and there are a lot of sporting events/sales etc, but let's be honest, we can't rely on the railway providing the advertised weekend services at the best of times, so expecting them to do it at Christmas? No chance. Although the Unions would no doubt see it as a potential pot of gold for their members.

I think Christmas Day services would largely be carting fresh air around, can't see the need for them. People who do travel are largely looking for door to door (or airport) services at this time of year and all forms of public transport are pretty thin on the ground, hence the car is a better option for most.

 
For 26th December 1962, adding OTD for the big freeze of 1962/3 which is within my living memory

From Wikipedia


I remember my mother's school friend Hilda Rowley arriving back from India - via a ship and staying with us in Orpington before she headed back home up north.  We were cold anyway and had a problem sourcing any more coal to keep the house warmer.  The only thing we could obtain was some stuff called "Glowco" and we came to understand why - it glowed rather than burned and we had some of the dreadfully near-useless stuff clogging our bunkers of what felt like years!

OTD log - replaced:1226    2019    ~ Every HST Livery?     https://transportdesigned.com/pictures-every-single-hst-livery-ever/    hstyatt

 
Posted today onto the Southern Electric Facebook Page

 
Complete solution:

1. Paddington to Oxford and north Cotswolds
2. Bradford-on-Avon, Bath, Bristol and Filton Abbey Wood
3. Maidenhead to Marlow
4. Glasgow to Oban, and also onwars through Bridge of Orchy
5. Yeovil Junction to Pen Mill
6. Newquay to Par
7. Leeds to Goole
8. to Southminster
9. to Helston

 

Hmm.   From another topic:


My wife was a serving Merchant Navy officer, on the 'Queen Elizabeth II', before I met her and led her back on to dry land.

Somewhere, I have pictures of the 'engine room' on the QE2, where you could have parked a whole fleet of London buses, without even touching the sides.

(My wife of over 30 years now was in the Engineers team: I therefore had onboard unrestricted 'staff' access to those deepest bowels of the ship - as well as up to the Bridge, actually.)

More anecdotes are available. CfN.

 

Yes, 24 is Luxembourg at the main station, and 29 is Austria ... further completions of exact places I'll fill in tomorrow.

Luxembourg isn't actually all that small ... all the other micros states would fit in there, but the others it is wedged between are all much bigger.   

Members should be thankful that there's a handful of more obscure countries visited without rail interest seen, or in the case of Iceland you've already seen picture of the only exhibition loco from every angle!

 

It is, isn't it. Of course, everyone forgets Luxembourg, as if it's tiny like Lichtenstein or Andorra. I'd actually just been looking there, but to see if the hillier bits of scenery and buildings might fit no. 29. So far it was a draw with a less mountainous bit of Austria, which must now be the best bet. Specific location definitely "somewhere" - or perhaps "nowhere (middle of)" fits better.

 
Dovey Junction is a mile along the footpath to the A487 - the nearest road.