The same for all heavy goods and bus drivers!

Shifts starting 04h30 and ending 01h30 (not one continuous one!).
Bus-wise, you have a bit of paperwork to do, plus paying in your cash, etc.
Then several minutes chat about your shift with the few who also finish late.

 

No, that was "Magpie" 

 

I have to say Graham, you're not selling that one very well! 

 
From my timeline


Interesting questions. New railways covering extreme places are not unheard of -

The Ghan from Adelaide all the way through to Darwin, final section opened on Febraury 1st 2004.

The high-altitude Qinghai–Tibet railway, also known as the Sky Train, runs from the city of Xining in Qinghai Province to Lhasa, Tibet, and takes around 20 hours, final section opened 1st July 2006.

Rail Baltica is an under-construction rail infrastructure project that is intended to integrate the Baltic states in the European rail network (Tallinn to Warsaw)

In 20 years, I have not ridden / been tempted to go as a tourist on the Sky Train or The Ghan (nor have I looked seriously at heading from St Petersburg to Vladivistok or Bejing, nor the Indian Pacific nor the Californian Zephr, Empire Builder or The Canadian). So unlikely to look to be an early rider on "rail acrose the roof of the world"

With a political will, and that would be a very changed world indeed from today, I would not rule it out. But it would need that political will, and depending on the strength of that will a business case as to who would be paying for / supporting its services. Technology across the Bering straight could, I'm sure, be solved though at a price and you might end up with a ferry - as per Van to Tatvan, Tallinn to Helsinki, or even Villa San Giovanni to Messina though that latter is proposed for a fixed link as has happened with the English Channel.

Personally, I suspect my lack of enthusiasm to try out these ultra-long routes is my lack of wanting to be in the same train all that time - curious because I have been quite happy up to 11 days without port calls on a cruise liner. And, yes, I know that passenger trains on The Ghan, for example, stop for tourist breaks and are rather like a land cruise.  Give me - I suppose - something that's slightly more like and less alien from my home-travel;  I probabaly would / will travel on Rail Baltica if still around, and indeed I have already travelled from Warsaw to Tallinn on the local trains through each of the countries, and been back with Lisa too.

 
Loganair are also closing their Exeter <> Manchester route, with the final flight on the same date. CAA data for May 2026 shows a MAN-EXT Load Factor of 41% so I guess the 'Use It Or Lose It' principal might apply.
However the fact that the aircraft used is based at Southampton (SOU) and covers the Manchester > Exeter > Manchester sectors on the 5 days (not Monday or Wednesday) a week that it runs must have been the main reason.

Evidently more people prefer to travel with Cross Country trains. 

 

As an interchange between trains, Chippenham can work - sometimes.  But want to grab a cup of coffee while you wait for your connection, and if you have luggage or are mobility restricted it's impractical.   And as for changing between rail and road, I have to wonder (and have been asked) whether the people who planned the various changes we have seen in recent years actually consulted the bus and taxi operators, and those passengers who struggle with accessibility.

To my knowledge, tickets are checked on all trains that call at Chippenham - or should be - so why that contorted and awkward lift and gateline at the top of a remote footbridge?

 

Didn't realise there were any cross-border trains left from Weymouth.  Oh - wait - there aren't today!

 
From the Birmingham Mail

 
According to this article, Chippenham station is about to get 6 months of renovations to station canopies, and resurfacing platforms etc.

Upto 82 parking spaces will be closed so the contractor can set up a compound


https://megaproject.com/news/railway/improvement-work-at-chippenham-rail-station-set-to-begin

 
Meanwhile, as usual, Swindon bucks the trend it seems with complaints about faded road markings.

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/26442360.swindon-roundabouts-faded-road-markings-spark-safety-fears/

 

That's right. Strangely, it appears that the opening itself didn't make it into the papers - but the accident a month later did.

 
Reading your Google references -

West Hill
East Hill
My bet's on east Hill

 
There is an anniversary here - but I'm struggling to find a specific source as to whether it was the East or West side Cliff Railway opening.  The East Hill Cliff Railway, opened in 1902, seems to be the favourite, but my online sources seem to contradict each other. 

See https://www.visit1066country.com/things-to-do/cliff-railways-east-hill-p1424931

and https://www.visit1066country.com/things-to-do/cliff-railways-west-hill-p411571

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Hill_Cliff_Railway

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Hill_Cliff_Railway

Can any Coffee Shop member please add to this topic?

CfN. 

 
The isolating qualities of train travel aside, the Cornish main line might include nine miles of viaduct but I think we know what the train would be alongside at the crucial moment.

Mark

 
From the BBC:

 
Hmmm.   I can only claim, in mitigation, that Coffee Shop member LiskeardRich provoked me into posting this here:


CfN. 

 
Grahame's nailed it. Definitely the train should (and does) do the job.

If you have a meeting in Manchester (before 20th August) and want to get there and back on the same day, there's currently just one offering on Booking.com or Kayak. It's the 12-20 SOU-MAN, return 16-55, 1 hour flight up, 50 minutes return. Those times are (of course) net of check-in times (still one hour?), and getting to the airports at each end, at least 20 minutes by pre-booked taxi each way. As a veteran of many a business meeting when I worked, that doesn't leave much time for the kind of meeting that justifies travelling all that way. Cost? £268

Cross-country runs hourly trains at 15 past the hour from Southampton Central, return at 25 past for much of the day, that you can join at Central, Airport Parkway, Winchester, Basingstoke, Reading (all within Southampton Airport's catchment). It takes 4hrs, 14 mins for Central to Piccadilly, but respectively 7, 17, 31 and 55 minutes less from each of the calling points above, and you are delivered into Manchester city centre as well as having reasonable working conditions (a little cramped, but better than most short-haul aircraft) for your journey. There's also the option of Stockport if that's closer to your venue.  Cost? £69 advance fare, or if your meeting might run on, £150-20 semi-flexible.

Yes, there are reliability concerns, but these apply to air travel as well (and to driving along the M3, M27 or A34 to get to the airport). 

 
A hard landing holed the runway.

I won’t assume which airline did it, but I know which airline offer a free rough landing with every flight.

 
Yet the train stayed to help?....so they could have escaped on that in an emergency?....hmmm

 
You'd do better looking to be travelling *towards* PNZ at a section with westerly views from the southern windows....between 1900 & 1930 - max at around 1913.

 
We saw him at the Wiltshire Music Centre in Bradford on Avon a few years ago, it was very interesting.

 
Details of the solar eclipse here: the map on this page allows you to pick a location and see precise timings etc (for british summer time, add an hour...).
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=20260812

**Raises hat to anyone who was involved in the railway's considerable provision to help bring people to Cornwall-and-a-bit-of-Devon for the 1999 eclipse.**

While this one's not total from there, and the eclipse is toward the end of the day rather than the middle, Land's End is about 300 miles off the path of totality, where the moon's shadow will be tracking along said path at over 2000 miles per hour.

People viewing this from Lands End will have the shadow on the upper atmosphere in plain sight - along with an element of absent reflected light from the ocean - though also looking in the direction of the 96% obscured-but-not-to-be-underestimated sun. Given a clear sky there are likely to be visual effects as the moon's distant umbral shadow passes beneath the deep partial eclipse. Visual effects in the form of a sense of motion, and this may give you thrills, and you may find that they're multiplying. Alas, I suspect that this will not be so noticeable from much further east in the UK, though perhaps...

Lands end being what it is, its worth bearing in mind that Penzance itself is tucked in its bay behind high ground. Away from the rail system, the Lizard is about the same distance from the path of totality and somewhere on its western coast... the environs of Poldhu perhaps... might well offer a better... visitor experience.

Turning to August 12th trains & looking to return the same evening, there are a couple of trains from Penzance up-country as far as Plymouth, but anything further would involve the sleeper. Thoughts extended to the people on the train that leaves at the moment of totality with connections as far as Bristol.... and Yeovil Junction.

Mark

 
Unfortunately seems to have been involved in an incident around Weston Milton.
Thoughts with all involved.
2U14 1043 Exeter St Davids to Cardiff Central.

Later trains showing thus -

11:25 Taunton to London Paddington due 14:07 will no longer call at Weston-Super-Mare.
This is due to the emergency services dealing with an incident.

 
From the BBC:

 

Closure of a Manchester route - The PM won't be happy about that...................

Before I retired I once flew from Southampton to Manchester and back - I did that solely as I was meeting up with colleagues from Germany and we were driving on from there in a hire car. I must admit that, even at the time, I did think that the route was a borderline one - especially when they served "afternoon tea"; somewhat pointless, on a short and very bumpy flight.   

Having said that, I flew up to Edinburgh, from Southampton, a few months back with Loganair. Couldn't fault that - even had a Tunnocks wafer with my coffee !

 
I really couldn't find a home for this photo - perhaps he was heading to the catering..

https://x.com/peterallenparis/status/2085664121869975676/photo/1

 

 
Well, now we know where the supplies for the BBQs are sourced! 

 

It's hearing stories like this, and seeing pictures like that supplied, that remind me just how happy I am to have given up air travel as much as I practically can. And there are very few reasons - in practise - that it's a life necessity for us.   

For sure, 5 hours late into Aachen on Tuesday and that standing on a bus, and then an earlier departure from there - before seven rather than after 8 the following day, followed by a 15 minute connection that failed at Chippenham Station into the only daily bus from there to our road in Melksham, but there are usually solutions that are not as bad as the airport scenes seen.