Closed on Christmas day and Boxing day so not an issue.

 

 
Their concern might be that it becomes a right of way - if it can be proved that they've let at least one person every day through for a number of years, it automatically becomes a public right of way.

 
And yet if you have a GWR payg smartcard, at least their policy allows you to enter and exit the station without charge so presumably would allow you to use it as a shortcut (though I have not actually tried this in practice).

Given they essentially have to have a member of staff on the gates anyway, surely it would make sense to give that person a ticket a machine to allow the same of a small number of tickets (in a the similar way to the excess fares desk on Platform 3). Or of course they could have bothered to do what TfW did in Cardiff and have a ticket office at the second entrance too (though tbh I have no idea how often the Cardiff south side one is actually open).

 

A very - err - predictable delay as the crew comes off a main line service and they are up the swanny this morning


A good example of where things happen outside the contol of the railway industry, but one can't help feeling that their systems are planned in such a way that wider spread disruption than is necessary results.  At least this is not showing up as 2 x cancellations.

 
So, instead, she alights at the Temple Gate stop & walk up the ramp?

 

I had to look up ATP - "Automatic Train Protection" turns out to be "Accessible Travel Policy".  I don't have the context in which the reply was written - so I hope it's a term you used, chuffed, in which case their use of it in writing to you is AOK - otherwise, it's rail jargon, and shouldn't be used without explanation to customers.

The rail industry has "created itself" a problem with multiple gated entrance stations where they offer a complete staffed ticketing service outside only one of them.   Typically the reason for multiple entrances is to reach a different customer catchment area.   You see the same thing at Chippenham.  Bath Spa - less of an issue; it's very easy and perhaps reasonable there to some across the bridge over the Avon from Widcombe and walk under to the ticket office. It would be no shorter to go in and out through 2 sets of barriers.

As an after thought - why is this only an issue for passengers with a disability - or is in an issue for all?  Cynthia Doe gets off the no. 8 bus with her twins in their pushchair, and needs access to the ticket office / travel centre ...

 
Around 2 miles in a straight line, but some of those options are so indirect as to end up almost as long as using the former branch line Phoenix Trail to get to/from Princes Risborough instead. No, I'm not suggesting that as another alternative; there are already far too many options offered, and this whole thing does seem in danger of frittering away a large budget on feasibility studies and consultations without actually resulting in anything happening on the ground.

Ultimately for this to be a facility people use on a day-to-day basis rather than just for a leisure trip on a sunny afternoon, it has to take something close to the most direct route, rather than winding around paths through fields just because they are simpler to upgrade and avoid having to do anything about motor vehicles. Alongside a road is also far less isolated after dark in particular.

 
A topic or update that I have not heard mentioned for a long while, does anyone know what is happening with the former Bonapartes area?
Seems a very long time since it was being used

 
The "Crosscountry at Bridgwater" issue arose as a result of a question from the floor I think.

 
I was refused entry at the new east entrance when asking to use the ticket office despite showing my disdabled railcard. Told to walk down cattle market road and up the ramp and 'we don't want people using this as a short cut.' Challenged GWR on their attitude and breach of accessibility. Got this today....


GWR Header

Freepost GWR Customer Support

www.gwr.com

Case reference: GWR-CR-3495357

Dear xxxxxxx

Thank you for your further comments.

We have acknowledged that an error was made in not allowing you through the gates and, as a result, we did not meet our ATP obligation on this occasion.

As this is a new operation, there can sometimes be unforeseen issues during implementation, mistakes can happen. However, we take these situations seriously and use them as opportunities to learn, review our processes, and put measures in place to help ensure we consistently meet our commitments in the future.

Thank you for bringing your experience to our attention and helping us identify where improvements are needed.

Yours sincerely

Leanne Jones

Executive Correspondence Manager

 

14 hours notice?   Me thinks that the "late running train" might be some sort of timetable change for this evening.

 
To expand on grahame’s comments, Daniel Mumby (local democracy reporter) was sat at the back of the meeting for part of the day, presumably on the lookout for any interesting stories that might emerge. I don’t remember having a reporter present before. It’s good to see this getting coverage, and also good publicity for the work that Travelwatch Southwest do!

 

I recall a journey, at that time, on a "classic" DMU from Sheffield to Huddersfield, reversing somewhere between stations before it headed up to Penistone.  Memories have dimmed over much of it; also very sad at a number of closures including some of electric services - others such as Lancaster to Morecambe and Tyneside electrics

 
This is a report on Ms Rolfe's comments at TravelWatch SouthWest.  And I and a couple of others here heard the words directly, within a great deal else that was said.  Bridgwater is certainly on the radar of Cross Country's MD, with its growth and growth in the area - and that's no bad thing.  However, I feel there's a big push needed to press the case if it's to happen, with issues likes line (and train) capacity, timetable slowing and robustness to be addressed, and whether those are actual or phantom problems. Then the issue of who's choice is it anyway, with Cross County's nationalisation coming closer to the extent that the parent company - who's shareholders are supposedly a primary concern - will see nothing of the cost or benefit because of industry timescales. An action void in some ways that's only broken if all parties are on board.

Shiona was also asked about sky high long distance fares, people splitting tickets and then having to change seats along the way, and whether this was / is something she might address.   She was much less positive about this than about Bridgwater, suggesting that it's not within her scope to do anything about it (hope I got that right). Part of a national system.  Which is all very well until you ask things like "why are Groupsaves NOT allowed on Cross Country" which looks to me very much like a fare differentiation between the TOCs.    Fares were brushed off, Bridgwater was at least given lip service.  And I should add that there were positives on other topics - such as adding in extra units that have been sitting idle to reduce overcrowding, and we have seen an announcement on that since the TWSW meeting.

 

It was also technically unique, the power supply 1500 Volts DC, which from the 1930's until the late 1950's was the UK railway overhead electrification standard Voltage. 

The Woodhead route which had many steep gradients the coal trains were at best partially vacuum braked, the EM1's (class 76) had regen braking, the substations were fitted with resistor banks to dissipate the energy not used by other trains, a very cleaver system for something designed in the 1930's

 

 
It is a poignant memory in my life, at the time I was 7 years old and vividly remember the News coverage on BBC 1 also it was covered by the teachers at my school.   The week after we were asked to donate the 3d we brought to school each week, in a match box, to put into our National Savings account.

The disaster while appallingly dealt with by the National Coal Board the chairman Lord Robens of Woldingham never visited the site and the handling of £1.75m (£30m today) dominated funds by the state-run National Coal Board (NCB), the Charity Commission, and Harold Wilson's Labour government caused decades of bitterness and controversy. The NCB and the Ministry of Power refused to pay the full cost, falsely claiming the tips were safe and that clearing them was too expensive. Under intense, secret pressure from the Wilson Government—specifically Secretary of State for Wales George Thomas—the fund's trustees were forced to capitulate. The government took £150,000 from the charitable disaster fund to help pay the NCB's bill for clearing its own toxic waste.

We should always remember the 116 young lives lost, the 28 adults that died and the many who were directly affected by it have lived with the trauma

 
On the eve of the 60th anniversary, there are many articles on the BBC - too numerous for me to quote them all here: please see BBC Wales for links to them.

CfN. 

 

Thanks for posting, johnneyw: I have moved your topic to our 'Cross Country services' board, as it is more a possible offer from Cross Country than a 'campaign for a new service'.

 
This topic has been moved to Cross Country services as it refers more to a 'tentative' offer from Cross Country, rather than a 'campaign for an improved service'.

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=32647.0

 
Somerset Live report on a meeting in Taunton where XC say that they will "seriously consider* adding stops at Bridgwater to their west country service.  They also state that this is not guaranteed.  PR job or genuine intention?
Here's a link to the article.

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/crosscountry-seriously-consider-bridgwater-stop-11206856.amp


Mods, feel free to move this post if there is a better location.

 
Those lines shut up shop in 2011, a few years after the huge superyacht builders saw their market bloom. Not saying that correlation is causation of course.

Visiting that part of Greece shortly after the Euro arrived there and landing at Kalamata airport in questionable weather, an airport where it wasn't a particularly good idea to point a camera at various things, I noted the railway line crossing the runway at the airport perimeter - a surely out of use by then branch from the city - which we didn't really touch as we were heading out in the other direction. This being a two centre break, on the journey across to Napflio there was an occasional glimpse of the railway doing something circuitous - and later, on the other side of the country near Argos the sight of a small shuttlecock shaped train moving at a surprising speed through the landscape.

Napflio's railway had been moved from its town centre site to a smaller platform on a new spur beyond the outskirts but that too has now closed. At the time we could have used the railway to reach the archaeology at Tyrins - well, we could have done but the timetable was thin to the point of extinction and the bus service ran cheerfully from the middle of town.

(While awaiting the bus, a Greek family's car stopped outside the building, they hastily left it and raised the bonnet to reveal the source of the smoke from the conflagration beneath. Cue everyone knowing what to do, various drinking water bottles retrieved from cafes and the fire given a thorough drenching. To my surprise it co-operated and went out. To my greater surprise the vehicle was still prepared to be driven, in piled the family and off they went...)

 

All across Europe, railways were built from perhaps 18xx to 1926, perhaps to an excess for what's justified for 2026. You could, perhaps, say that the Beeching report and subsequent closures did us a long term favour.   I've seen in Italy and France, and in the Balkans, lines on the maps of a couple of years ago that are no longer running, and this week in another country there are heavily engineered lines with few trains that has me wondering about these economics, and a rail replacement bus that often keeps time with the train timetable.   Sadly, the closure pendulum can swing too far as we see in Ireland.

 
From the BBC:

 
Very cyclable distance. Terrible infrastructure on which to cycle. Plans afoot and here's a consultation.

https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/h-to-t-active-travel-route

 
Namely, proposals for the hq and the routes converted to cycle paths.

https://www.tovima.com/society/grave-setback-for-peloponnese-railway-revival/