As an aside, the BGS borehole maps can be revealing of intentions for road construction. The site doesn't allow deep linking, so, for, e.g. the 'Bypass for the Saltford bypass' you'll need to search by placename or zoom in.

The roads, or something, had it in for Saltford, because it also finds itself on a line of boreholes between the M4 at Pucklechurch and Ilchester on the A303, not that that's useful to relieve the likes of Bradford on Avon or Melksham - though south of Frome we have boreholes for a 'Frome-Trowbridge bypass'.

Oh, and the A46 Bath to the M4 has... a new alignment indicated.

The mapping has an inclusivity control - wind that up and many more old records appear, of the mineshaft variety. At least one house in Batheaston looks to be built either beside or on top of Batheaston colliery's mine shaft, hopefully well capped. (The colliery in question recovered no coal, as its shaft was sunk outside the coalfield. It did produce slightly tepid water though, which was rather alarming)

Mark


https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/geoindex/home.html?layer=BGSBoreholes

 
Hurrah for that.....now for the Henbury station plus the small matter of that chord linking the line in the Severn Beach direction.

 
Ooh, well spotted, ta. In that part of the world, I'm probably lucky I'd not yeeted it into Wales, mind...

Mark

 
Further news updates tonight, from official sources so they story should be correct now. The vehicle was a Ford explorer belonging to the army, but used for a driving lesson. Both student and instructor, serving with the 41st signals regiment of Douai, were killed; there was no other injured passenger. Four of the 100 or so passengers on the train were taken to hospital, none seriously injured.

The driver is reported to have said he saw the car stopped on the crossing, others say it was there before the barriers came down.

 
Hmm. 

Wikipedia locates Kerne Bridge railway station in Herefordshire, rather than Gloucestershire.

The railway line itself was the Ross and Monmouth Railway.

 
I think you must have misidentified the loco................if it had a kayak it was almost certainly a paddle tank.

 
Thanks - don't worry about hunting it out, it's just good to have it confirmed that I didn't imagine it.

Mark

 
At the gym this afternoon and couldn't help noticing that one of those daytime property programmes was featuring Gloucestershire's  Kerne Bridge station building as a destination. Available at a cost that would probably once have funded the construction of the entire route from... was it Pontypool Road to Ross on Wye?

The prospective purchasers felt that while it was a lovely situation it fell short as something was missing. (Indeed. Track and a train service.)

Mark

 
I do, and have a reproduction of it somewhere in a book I own.

 
Source: West of England MCA

 

Paul Kohler - MP for Wimbledon - in the Commons
Baroness Pidgeon - in the Lords

 



What a surprise that was 

 

Is Claire the LibDem Transport spokesman? That would explain why it was her that mentioned these?
I reckon it's the 175s (correct number of units).

 

Oh dear - I think.

I have written before of how difficult it must be for the decision makers as a situation arises as to when to say something in public.  - but, really, broadcasting in public will be cancelled is a very definitive statement and to my gives no room for doubt - it's a statement that the train in question won't run.

I would (personally - is it just me?) like to see an option where a train service could be reported as being at  [low/some/high] risk of cancellation and with a note of a time by which the record will be updated.

 

Both re-instated half an hour later.

 

I’ll concede the Twyford points failure didn’t help matters, but maintain that had the 05:03 Penzance to Paddington not lost over half an hour in Cornwall this morning due to a points failure, the train’s next working (1C77, with the TM for the TransWilts on board), would probably not have been late enough into Westbury to have knocked-on to the 12:17 to Swindon. 

 
 Requiring of a rather hefty pinch of salt thinks me.

 
In the interests of continuity and ease of future reference, I have moved and merged several topics here.

These posts all relate specifically to the 'Strawberry Line': as ever, nothing has been deleted and the original topic headings have been retained where possible.

I do hope my consolidation of various historic information into this one definitive topic helps our readers.

Also, I should declare something of a personal interest here: the Strawberry Line is local to me, it is a great cycleway, and their cafe at Yatton station is excellent: if you find yourself in North Somerset with some time to spare, please do give it a go!

CfN. 

 
Ah hmm. Point of order m'lud https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=29650.msg359540#msg359540 

 

 

15 bikes, so you are happy for your exit to be blocked in an emergency then? I was infamous in Wessex days for enforcing the 1600 to 1800 no bikes rule.

Yes, I agree it's a disgrace regarding bike storage on IETs being abysmal but that was chosen by the "experts" at DaFT.

Dear Passenger,

When you get home do you close your front door and then block it with luggage /pram/bike?

No?

So why do you block a door as soon as you board a train?

One of the dispatchers at Barf was abused so much by cyclists he had to be supported in the 6 bike rule, if not then probably 10 plus in the van, again blocking the emergency exit.

 

Or else it is a very easy promise to make, since by the time Old Oak Common station opens there won't be any Great Western Railway. And as an operational timetabling matter, I would doubt any promise so far into the future, even from the provisional GBR, was worth much.

 

Claire Young is MP for Thornbury and Yate, in a constituency which includes a section of the main London to South Wales line on it with a single station which at present does not have a regular scheduled local service to London, being served by only by trains from Cardiff running to and through Bristol toward the West Country - indeed as far as Penzance.

Are the 26 trains mentioned a fresh announcement or are they the class 175 units which will be very welcome.  The use of the word "additional" suggests to me a net fleet growth, but other reports including from GWR suggest that some of the trains in this transfer are not additional but rather as replacement for other trains being withdrawn.

 
Then either none do & the current timetable would still work on the main lines, OR this will mean that there will be fewer paths available per hour as some stop (so the more 'locals' - Cotswolds, Bristol (poss not, as XC direct would be quicker than via OOC), Cardiffs, WSMs) while others don't....

 
Screenshot of performance data displayed at Reading station, via an account from one Ed Fielden on Bluesky.

(Bluesky's an open system, so, to view posts, no need for an account. X has changed and while it supplies content to search engines, an account's needed to view the content)

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/coriniumtv.bsky.social/post/3ljru5m5yzs2k

 
Bluesky post from an MP, an update on Old Oak Common services.

"After much lobbying from @libdems.org.uk MPs, I am glad to confirm Great Western Railway trains travelling from the South West to London Paddington will not stop at Old Oak Common as standard - as had been proposed - and that there will be an additional 26 trains added to the fleet."

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/claireyoungmp.bsky.social/post/3lkgyydpypk26

 
From the BBC:

 
tl:dr - a good if slow-across-the-ground day out, if imposing it on others, I'd make considerate choices though...

Needing a public transport fix, it turned into one of those Saturday mornings where the connections fell awkwardly, but working with what was available... Bath's bus system not cooperating, so a walk to the station, just missing the 9:29 to Swindon so, on to the 9:43... which at Swindon allowed 50 minutes for a quick walk to the bus station, which is within a month or five of being closed for good, and then across the forthcoming arrangement for buses to the shops and back.

Debenham's corpse is unfortunately very visible and, with scaffolding sheets torn and slatting in any breeze, drawing attention to itself. In the fenced off space in front of it was one of those automatic security things that looks as though it's going to taser intruders (and may be capable of barking instructions at people who approach, as I found out once...)

The cafe between the bus station and what was an underpass is closed too, either for good or for a refresh.

The new bus street arrangement thing looks all very well but might impose more of a hike for people changing between train and bus - or even between bus and bus. At the station, three platform staff at platform level had been having a loud anti-passenger conversation, which wasn't ideal. I asked one of the staff staffing the barrier if the bus station was still where it was and he let me know that he was having a bad day which wasn't exactly ideal either.

On to the bus to Cirencester. For some reason, Stagecoach's buses seem to have stopped accepting Bathnes diamondcards but the driver was fine with this.

After a spell on the dual carriageway the bus serves Cricklade, and at Latton, allows a glimpse of an odd unexpected culvert beneath what is now a motorway in all but name, and the bus then threads its way through part of what's branded as the Cotswold Water Park, which is always surprising to encounter in what was until recently very much rural and somewhat remote country.

The final approach to Cirencester, the town particularly submerged in traffic, was complicated in that there had been an odd road traffic collision at the roundabout on the bypass by Waitrose. It looked to be driver of an SUV exiting the town via the grass strip in the middle rather than the road, and somehow clobbering a lamp post at speed, pulling that clean out of the ground, both car and lamp post on to the roundabout, stopping the job as it was no longer driveable, but no other vehicles apparent. Police were still there, along with a flatbed truck and ramp, and also a tech team to make the lampost supply safe.

So, a bit delayed, nevertheless the connection was ok for a bacon butty and then the several-times-a-day bus to Stroud.

Leaving the Stroud bus at Coates, at a stop that I'd last used in August 1970** time for a walk through the village and along a footpath to check if the Tunnel House pub is still there.

(It's still there but is currently not a pub. The building is ok but its surroundings are a bit building-sitey. Also, the collection of holiday huts for which I think the Bathurst estate gained planning permission hasn't happened yet).

Rather than walk across to Sapperton for the bus back to Ciren etc etc, Kemble Station was becoming a particularly attractive vision, so down into the canal's cutting and a little contemplation of the canal tunnel, the portal looking rather whiskery for the time being. Heading to Kemble would also allow me to repeat a previous walk that had been ruined by the need to care for the safety of a stray dog, something that was eventually achieved by confining it in the garden of a nearby house. As the garden also contained several geese, the improvement in safety of the dog may have been somewhat relative...

The towpath heads off conveniently in the general direction of Kemble and so did I, the clear water in the canal penned in by the stop planks at Tarlton bridge, the bed dry and thirsty thereafter. Copious snowdrops escaping from the garden in the forever roofless roundhouse there, a momento from the time that the building was an (inconvenient) home.

Eventually thrown off the canal towpath by recent barbed wire into the meadows, past the source of the Thames (or perhaps not) and later, a large pool just upstream of the Foss Way's crossing of the valley (and a nod to the location and time that I managed to wind an extinct form of MZ motorcycle up to 63 mph thereabouts...)

The site of the canal company's wind pump by Thames Head bridge is presumably now beneath the modern road, but east of the bridge, a larger pool that was generating a little flow in what for a couple of hundred yards was very much a stream bed before it petered out once again.

A pause, at least concerning anything resembling flowing water, before what is presumably something called Lyd Well took charge, filling the Thames with a copious flow. The river, very much established as a thing, heading across more meadows to pass beneath the road and Cirencester's railway's vanished bridge, at which point a convenient footpath leads to Kemble Station, where the start of the branch and small quarry has been turned over to pay-by-app car parking.

So, Kemble Station, and around 25 people for the 16:49 on a Saturday which is good to see. The bookiing office and cafe closed and who can blame them. The nearby pub open, but no time before the train. The bus from Cirencester is very infrequent and little indication as to how the people had arrived at the station as about half were not of driving age, (which is also good to see).

The return trip, straightforward. Both IEPs had the deep-vein-thrombosis-seat-defect but that risk only kicks in after 45 minutes sitting, so, not a problem. Swindon has automated stair announcements that I can't tune out, but these now make me think ' Ian Walmsley who writes for Modern Rail - what would he say?'

I'd managed to become too thirsty and the wait at Swindon was just long enough to hammer across to the convenient Queens Tap pub opposite and down a pint of lime juice and water. Then, refreshed, on to the train back to Bath, reflecting on how pleasant it is to be able to use public transport to set up a walk that doesn't involve returning to a vehicle or, even worse, a vehicle shuffle.

Mark



** or rather, hadn't used as the last bus, a bit after nine at night I think, had seen fit to run early, and we missed it, but that is another tale and for that matter, one that's probably been told here already.

 
Very much a group setup and organisation session