Tidal times are important in timetabling, though perhaps not for fares. From WikiPedia on the Staplehurst accident, 9 June 1865:

and

 
Next, we will be able to learn moon rise, set and possibly latest phase here and the times of high tide at Dawlish.   

 
From the BBC:

 

Really ?? 

 
The “catering updates” on Journeycheck is rarely used it seems.  However I have seen over the last few weeks a number of times that Great Malvern services have been listed as having no catering at all. 

 
There’s no water, hot or cold on the 1658 Great Malvern to London Paddington therefore no hot drinks. There isn’t a full catering loaded either so no soft drinks only alcoholic.

 
Some good photos taken outside the perimeter fencing of Okehampton Interchange have been posted today on the Railways of Devon and Cornwall facebook group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/384010423010289

 
There used to be an electric railway between Manchester and Sheffield. Then railways were rationalised and modernised and the redundant electric locomotives were shipped off to the Netherlands where they were used for a further number of years.

On 14th June 1986 - that's 40 years ago - a final tour was run to bid them farewell. That tour is recorded at https://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/80s/860614em.htm

 
From the BBC:

 

Not really - the data is easily to hand and accessible to the general public - and so to the booking engines too

Try (for PNZ and FFD):
https://www.passenger.chat/sunset.html?where=FFD&day=70
https://www.passenger.chat/sunset.html?where=PNZ&day=70

Change to any 3 letter code. ... "day" is the number of days forward.  Leave off the parameters and it defaults to today and (of course) to Melksham.

But my suggestion that this should be the standard was made tongue in cheek!

 
I can offer a few observations on this topic from my own town, Nailsea, and the next village, Backwell - separated really by the railway main line from Bristol to Exeter.

Nailsea and Backwell both have excellent comprehensive schools, which feature prominently in local estate agents particulars, for example.  Nailsea School currently has around 1,150 students (including the sixth form) and Backwell School has around 1,600 (likewise).  Nailsea School is apparently noted particularly for academic subjects and Backwell School is noted for sports.  The schools are about two miles apart, and are both situated fairly centrally in the town and village respectively.

From my own experience of driving a delivery van along Station Road, I found it remarkable how many students walk between Nailsea and Backwell at school opening and closing times - where they are effectively funnelled through the bridge under the main line railway.  Some are on bikes, scooters or skateboards, but most of them walk.  It's a fairly flat geography, with pavements all the way, and a cycle lane on the only gradient at Bucklands Batch.

I have never counted them, but they must represent a fair percentage of those ministers' aim.

CfN. 

 
Hopefully any such increase will be accompanied - or preceded - by tuition on how to ride bikes safely and considerately.  I live a mile from a large school, which I avoid during school runs because of the general mayhem, of which manic cycling is only one factor. Nevertheless I still see wild antics some way away. My road has a narrow footpath and grass verge, and some time ago I had to take evasive action when a neighbour's two sons careered towards me on their bikes.

I've also seen small groups of schoolboys cycling at speed towards a steep path so narrow that most pedestrians  wait at one end or the other for a fellow walker heading their way. Ironically for historic reasons it's designated a bridleway, so cycling along it is legal.  Even more ironically, there are other paths that lead into the same main street that have "No cycling"  signs at either end but could accommodate a car if the central hand rail was removed.

 
Guess what ...

16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34

 

Today, sunset is 15 mins later in Penzance that it is at Paddington - this could require good mathematical skills to work out which train to get 

 

.......and yet still "spare" IETs to launch new routes it would seem?

 

From t'internet:
In the 1980s/90s the siding adjacent to platform 6 at Exeter St Davids and the old goods shed was established as a small railfreight terminal ...
and
Exeter St Davids Premier Transport is an active railway location code and historical freight site located at the Exeter St Davids railway station complex. It functions as an operational timing point (TIPLOC: EXETDPT) used by rail network tracking systems to monitor empty coaching stock (ECS) movements, train stabling, and cancellations between the platforms and the Exeter Traction Maintenance Depot (TMD)
and
Premier Transport (a Bristol firm) had a depot at Exeter and handled the unloading of Guinness at St Davids.....

Obviously the actual siding disappeared when the new TMD was built. I remember it well - in it's later years it was commonly used to stable Tampers and suchlike.

 
I reckon the stated aspiration could only be achieved by the reintroduction of school/pupil catchment areas.

And I can think of a number of reasons why any government wouldn't be 'courageous' enough to do it.

 
Newquay and Looe branches suffering today with first services cancellations.
Spare units sent from Exeter St Davids Prem Tran
(Premier something?)!

With all the spare 175's at Laira, surely a few of those could have been pressed into service.

Still a few 5 car IET's doing the Penzance - Paddington runs - disgraceful.

The treasury have a lot to answer to (but not accountable to the public it seems).

The chaos at Bath yesterday seems to have caught GW Control napping; and unable to cope?

 
Hold it!

 

In the old days was hand signalling, but in 2019 ESW (emergency special working) was created to get stranded trains past defective signals.   Not clear to me why this wasn't used to get people past the defective area.   

Stranding thousands of people for 2-4 hours should not really have been seen as a serious option by Control once they realised they couldn't source alternative road transport due to multiple events at Bath, and congested roads in the area meaning local buses weren't an alternative either. 

 
I don't know nearly enough about how train running is managed / what broke. One factor in this might be that in the fairly recent past, wasn't a mobile operations manager based at Bath Spa station, but either this post was removed elsewhere or abolished entirely?

Mark

 

Fixed it for you! 

 

Both dwarfed in significance by events at the Rec, where Exeter Chiefs secured a glorious victory over Bath, only for many of their fans to find that their journeys home were scuppered.

There's going to be some pretty chunky compensation claims going in...........on the upside it may help to pay for Twickenham next weekend! 

 

None of the above is a rail landmark in the Thames Valley, Wessex, South West amd South Wales, let alone being a public transport issue of interest to us on the Coffee Shop.  Events seem to cluster around certain times of year, perhaps to do with politic, financial year and weather patterns, and we are June. There are other dates in June where our "On this day" reports "No 'On This Day' events reported for xxth Jun".  It's also - possible - that there's a personal bias here in that in past years I've been involved with other things at this time of year and taken my eye off the addition of items for some of these dates.

No news - in many ways - is good news. The Coffee Shop thrives on the "out of the ordinary" and "nothing much happening to distrupt trains or concern us" tends to lead to less messages being posted.  Good information systems (as well as more modern social media) have a tendency to leave us rather quieter than we were in the past, and really we should celebrate those good information systems, and consistent routine reliable operation which are, after all very much the goal.

---

Yesterday - 13th June - we reported On this Day on the first train ride by a monarch.  But a monarch is just a single person in their country, and they sit in a unique position.   Public transport - trains and buses (and trams, ferries, lifts, escalators, aircraft, taxis etc) exist for mass transit.  And there remains a logical social requirement to provide consistent mobility and information on mobility for all, and for those of us who wish to help inform others for better use thereof, to give thoughtful feedback, and to assist / partner with anyone and everyone who has parallel or near-parallel objectives. 

Yesterday also brought - to me - a micro reminder of some of the issues and areas we can help with, and some elements where current provision isn't ideal.  Plans and thoughts afoot reminded my of the little things where significant differences can / could / should be made over coming months and years.  There's another thread to come on this.  It also reminded me of my own increased frailty - and there's yet more of a topic there.

---

The 19th, 20th and 24th June are also showing up as "nothing much happened" days, as are 4th, 8th, and 13th July.  We do have over 500 "on this day" events that come up every year from our database, but the spread is uneven.  Please go ahead and post events for these days - or tell me and I will post them.  The OTD system is set up as a "capital" rather than a "revenue" system - single actions to add something leaves it there for the life of the system without a need to re-invest or maintain each year, and as such I haven't taken the time and effort to make it easy for anyone except myself to actually add the links that "pin" posts to days - a little bit dictatorial maybe; happy, then to add appropriate new items for members, and to take items away should there be good reason such as moderator team consensus that I should do so.

 
The overnight Cardiff-Waterloo train (which went via Reading and Olympia, unlike the day ones via Salisbury) started back at Pembroke Dock – I suspect as much because the diagrams worked out that way than through intentional end-to-end planning. I think one of hte daytime Waterloos might have been from Milford. They ended in the early 2000s. The Waterloo one's closure meant a curve near Clapham Junction lost its service, so there was a pointless replacement bus for a while...

I think I saw in a historic timetable that the weekday Carmarthen-Paddington train, for a long time daily but very recently becoming more frequent,  ran to/from Milford in the (very) early 90s.

 
The first journey by a reigning British monarch on a train was made by Queen Victoria on June 13, 1842. She traveled on the British Royal Train from Slough to London’s Paddington Station, completing the trip in 25 minutes.

 
Just to add to that. If running slowly though the signals isn't possible, why are trains not running as far as the previous station and then returning, on all lines? At present, nobody can get from Bath to Bristol by train, and I very much doubt whether anyone can by bus either as the services would already have been packed. And yet this line, as far as I know, isn't where the signalling problem is.

 
I have heard that Bath Spa station has been shut. We were caught up by this problem as we were on the 17.00 train from Freshford to Bath which eventually ended up returning to Freshford. Certainly amongst the group I was with, many ended up walking back to Bath (about 7 or 8 miles along the canal). We rang for a taxi.

I cannot believe that GWR cannot run trains slowly past the signals that are causing the problem. They couldn't have picked a worse day for this to happen.

 

Yeah ...   From Wiltshire 999

 
They are available on any GWR service that normally has 1st class, as a walk up on-train upgrade bought from the guard or TE, where space is available (ie any seat unreserved for the duration of the journey undertaken) - same as Weekend First.