The end of each month provides me with a natural break / review point.  Our "Coffee Shop" online forum gathers monthly statistics and I can look back and see how we are doing compared to months and years previous (in raw numbers rather than as outcomes), and it's also an opportunity to look ahead at personal diaries, plans, finances, and so on.

This is starting as a Coffee Shop post.  In September, we had 1,309 new posts - some into topics that have been running for months or years, others into the 127 new topics started in the month.  These numbers are stable and that's the trend for the last five years. I find it remarkable that we find so much to 'talk' about - even new topics - especially in the light of the general dominance of social media these days, a worrying lack of new signups, and the known jolt of our restructure which launched in 2025.  To a sad extent, we have to thank (First) Great Western, the Department for Transport, Network Rail, and wider government(s) and indeed others for providing us with too many negative things to talk about along with the positives.  If train reliability was at 99% rather than 90%, if new lines had opened when completed at December 2024 rather than still not running, and if the fare system had had the shock of being simplified rather than changed with more seeming gerrymandering, perhaps we would be travelling more and writing here less.

New posts for the past 5 years


New topics for the past 5 years


I see systems changing with "nationalisation" and I write that in quotes intentionally.  There's a potential change in overall direction and management here, though it's far too early to have any certainties confirmed by seeing changes as we travel.  Rather like a big ship sailing, we know it's going to happen, we see the headlines of where it might be going, we hear the hype of how good the journey and facilities provided as we cruise away will be ... but ... that first movement from the shore as we cast off is barely visible to us, and indeed the ropes that hold the old legal framework in place have not yet been fully released as more legislation is awaited.

Continuing the cruise analogy, we have far to go and we'll see some very different places along the way.  Passenger have chosen / voted with their feet to come on this cruise, but we are now very much in the hands of the captains and crew and have very little influence over them. The running company changed the captain in July, replacing the one who was seen as struggling to manage a ship that has various issues with another who still has those issues to manage but is perhaps more charismatic and has different priorities. And who can both steer the passengers towards certain facilities and onboard products, and can make other facilities rather more expensive.  As we sail off, he has a honeymoon period during which he will be forgiven plenty.

Have you ever been on a cruise?  Lisa and I have done a number of them. They don't always go as planned.  We were due at port call at Corner Brook in Newfoundland on Aurora, but with an impending storm coming up the coast, we put out into the Atlantic to ride out the storm - holiday resumed with a little disappointment (and no compensation) but the missed stop forgotten by most soon enough.  Not a unique experience - storms stopped us making several port calls on a Transatlantic crossing that stretched 6 sea days into 10, and the Bay of Biscay and a windy Southampton put Iona back by 24 hours - again forgotten over time.  We had a cruise booked to the Baltic and St Petersburg but due to some a major falling out between Russia and Europe, changes we made that left out key ports - to the extent that we pulled out of that cruise completely - what had been booked in good faith, and not for the fault of the cruise line, had changed into something unrecognisable and not fit for (our) purpose.  And - these days - the cruise line we have been using and faithful to - has tightened its rules to the extent that with our mobility issues it is, frankly, difficult to get a booking and there's an uneasy feeling that our custom has become something of a nuisance.  I digress, and perhaps take the analogy too far.

We don't know what will hit with the rail industry and Coffee Shop topics and transaction levels as a result.  We can analyse what we have been told, we can ask, we can prepare and have "plan B" options researched, and we can decide whether to kick like h*ll or roll over and stoically accept changes.

Back onto Coffee Shop updates. The crew here - the admins and moderators - do a sterling job and we all have a lot to say "Thank you" for.  They are cruisers (oops) like you and me, enjoying the journey and the places visited, but yet with access and roles out of the public area.  And I am akin to the engineer and see my role as tuning / tweaking things to ensure safety, and as pleasant a journey as practicl.  Some of those tweaks are small ones. 

Now that we have had 18 months for our major refit to settle in, I have tweaked the boarding procedure - the front page.  You may have noticed some subtle changes over past days / the last week or two.

Firstly, I have made some changes on the home page, in the data block
1. It now defaults to the last 20 topics rather than the last 3
2. Topics times are also followed by dates where they are from before the current day
3. The time and date of the page generation is now included in the header line
4. Threads updated in the last 40 minutes are marked "Hot Update"
5. Threads last updated between 40 and 80 minutes ago are marked "Recent"
Where a topic is new, it is flagged as such in preference to "Hot Update" or "Recent" and not in addition

Sample front page showing changes


Second, the main viewing / editing page has a link to the live departure board for Birmingham New Street replaced by the word "Testing!". No code changes yet - but it will link to the station nearest where you are when browsing the page.  Some 1,000 of 2,500 stations - including (almost?) all in our area are in the 1,000; code work is needed to pull various bits of logic I have together to make this work, to not irritate by constantly asking for permission to track, and to know what to do when the request comes in when you are nearest to the other 1,500 stations.  I also need to check conversions between names and the variety of naming and coding conventions our industry has for stations

Third, I have restored "espresso" pages that were locked out of use due to an infestation of automated accesses for quite a while, and in testing them this morning I have found and fixed a bug that it wasn’t reporting "0" for new topics at the very start of the month.  The heading now included the dates range for which posts are summarised (this will help crawlers) and the report is two tone striped board by board to help your eyes run across.

Espresso this morning, with and without zero bug




None of these major changes; "steady as she goes" is the basic ruling, keeping legal, safety and privacy matters, including data security, to the fore. There are potential issues that can pop up unexpected, and others issues that we know may pop up into the future - we are not an isolated world, but rely on our suppliers and our customers.

Moving on from the Coffee Shop, the last 10 days have brought forward planning for the next year, triggered by (as I'm sure they intended) the Interrail sale that offered travel through 32 countries for up to 3 months. It has been their standard for the last few years to offer a sale with good discounts at the end of November, but this year there has been a sale with an exceptional discount (but with much more limited cancellation options) two months early.  Cutting a long story short, a lot of working things out at home, and a decision to buy, followed through in the last 48 hours together with checking on cash flows, etc; the next year's major travel dealt with in cost terms.   I somewhat follow online groups with regards Interrail; I have moved from being a consumer of the expertise of other group members into a much more centrist role, and have found myself answering lots of questions from nervous newcomers based on personal experiences over the past three years.

Which leads me on to something else I have been looking at / thinking about, and the start of a new month and the final quarter of 2026 - where do I spend my time and what and who do I 'support', and why?  I -love- being helpful (perhaps too much sometimes), and I get satisfaction from that help being effective - getting results - and of getting back some sort of flag to know I've helped.  And I -hate- waiting around, being let down, being ineffective, being needlessly rushed, doing something because someone's too lazy to do it themselves, answering after ship has sailed, and not being trusted will full information on which to help.  Wow - I suspect - no - I know - that the boot is on the other foot sometimes and I'll fail to provide feedback or answer as I probably should.

An email of 26th August, calling for no more than a confirmation of receipt on an important matter, has not even received the courtesy of that receipt.  A visitor to our home, an hour of advice willing given, and a follow up email to the powers-that-be to help someone's personal situation hasn't even been acknowledged by either the visitor or her chaperone/contact who set up the meeting, and should know better. A promise to fix / listen / contact has been lost into the cloud of - perhaps - other priorities and where that's a repeated pattern from someone it makes me less inclined to help them, and certainly warns me that I should not rely on them to - ever- get back with me / do anything they faithfully promise.

Pet Facebook peeves, then (and the Coffee Shop avoids most of these):

* Anonymous posts that have no reason to be anonymous. Why - when I declare who I am, should I interact with you without knowing who yo are?  And should I really "open up" when you don't?

* Names like UnforgettableAsparagus5913, SilverHedgehog602, CapableFlower5603 and KnowledgeableRaspberry2588. At least they help me know which anonymous person I am talking to in a sea of 'em.  Capable Flower indicates that he or she is not capable without help, and Knoweldge Raspberry shows a lack of knowledge. 

* Turning off comments as you post. So you ask a question in public that other would probably like an answer to, but then only leave private messages available for anyone who might benefit from an answer. Not exactly community spirit?

* "Sharon H***** turned off commenting for this post" and "Karen M**** turned off commenting for this post".  I love it when the original poster thanks for follow ups and appreciate that such messages may be added while I am composing an answer.  But why oh why turn off commenting in most circumstances?  It is so frustrating to write a long answer that's lost on submit because of this turn off, and which included other data that could be pertinent.

* Don't post wildly off topic, especially to advertise, and don't post with such volume that your inputs are discounted.  Make the headline of title line a good one, and don't make me read the first comment and click on a link in it to get the complete story

* Give me/us the full facts

And having said all that, I am perfectly happy to address questions that provide hooks onto which to hang informative posts ...

"Has anyone traveled to Bristol, England? Is it safe? Is there a recommended neighbor to stay in?"