And another good - and varied - review ...

https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/26188799.richard-burningham-leaves-devon-cornwall-rail-role/

 
Why not aim higher?

I'd say it was closer to 80% in my day.

 
From the BBC:

 
It was a pleasure working as a volunteer with Richard leading during the opening week of the Penryn loop and the expansion of the Falmouth line services that resulted from it's opening. (quite how he trusted me with the Hornby set I really can't imagine). Do enjoy your retirement Richard.

 
I stayed in a budget hotel last night which had a real bath, quite a rare luxury nowadays and probably only because the bathroom hadn't been updated for a while. It was missing the plug however and I couldn't be bothered to go to reception to see if they had one. Ended up placing a mug carefully over the hole to have a good soak and wishing I still carried a universal one as I used to in my youth when I could find myself having a full wash in all sorts of unsuitable places with a sink only intended for rinsing hands (trains, youth hostels etc).

That plug, a toothbrush and the InterCity timetable booklet were always in my work bag in case of one of the spur-of-the-moment trips I sometimes indulged in back when I was young and foolish.

 

I doubt anyone would say their evening out starts at 12:00. It must be more like the earliest start needed for an evening out - most likely in London, for SWR. It took me a while to twig I could use one of these for a Lunch and afternoon trip to Reading. Obviously for longer journeys it will be more limited to a proper evening out - but then they are not sold for beyond Basingstoke (and not all get super off-peak either)!

 


An online look tells us:

Logic, then, is for evening tickets to be available for journeys completed less than 120 minutes before sunset, which is a defined, published, respected time for every place across the UK and is updated thoroughly in multiple places. since "time to go to bed" is typically when you get home, the return should be through to end of service, and perhaps extended to the first service in the morning.

 
We have the railways to thank for the introduction of a "universal" common time across Britain - but we now seem to be going backwards again.

GWR is introducing an "evening" ticket which starts at 1800.............but SWR already have  an "evening" ticket which starts at 1200.  Perhaps the new fangled Great British Railways will be able to agree to a common nationwide time at which the "evening" is deemed to start !

 
I have had the pleasure of meeting Richard several times, over the past nearly twenty years.

Richard is a valued member and authoritative contributor to well-informed discussions on the Coffee Shop forum: I have moved and merged here a previous topic.

Thank you, Richard, with my very best wishes for your long and happy retirement.

Chris from Nailsea. 

 
I'm raising a glass to the... glasses we raised on a train, travelling on what might have been the UK's best value rover ticket at the time... it was called something like the 'Cambrian Coast evening day ranger', covered Aberystwyth to Pwllheli, valid after... it was either 5:30 pm or six, and cost either sixty pence or seventy-five. (This was ~1979, mind...).

Four of these tickets enabled a sunny summer evening run from Aber as far as Morfa Mawddach, for four, on a (pleasantly) fragrant and characterful series of diesel trains with a view out of the front - and a brief pause in the evening light at the former junction station while the train that had taken us there crossed the river and freed up the southbound service to collect us.

Mark

 
More time for real ale then.   

 
Have a wonderful, railway journey filled retirement, RichardB.

 
In Richard's own words, shared in public on Facebook:


I strongly commend members to read Richard's full career story at https://dcrp.org.uk/long-time-devon-cornwall-branch-line-stalwart-retires/. Although the writeup majors on his achievements in the South West, Richard has been a positive worker, inspiration, and influencer far, far wider than in just those two counties.  Richard - enjoy your retirement; I hope (and suspect) that we'll still see you around as your love for what you've been doing has shone through.  A good chance - and with a personal tinge from me - to say "Thank you".

 
I was lifting 100 lbs onto trains across Europe.  Of that, I was carrying 42 lbs on my back and dragging 26 lbs in a suitcase. It worked, it can be done, and it was for two of us including mobility aids which I appreciate are requirements these days for Lisa, and medical supplies for myself.  But headed off onto leg 3 of my Interrail trip next week (on my own) , and going to see if I can do that with 20 to 25 lbs.   



Paper is heavy - so I have just dowloaded both the European Rail Timetable and the three volumes of the European Rail Atlas. My own medical supplies are more bulky than heavy, but I am switching - having had a chat with the experts - to re-usable elements for the most part. A clipboard taken to provide a firm backing to writing turned out to be unnecessary, and a bag of Euro cents from previous trips was unopened. The HighVis station friends tabard I always carry and is very occasionally useful in the UK is - thinking it through - something I can't see myself using once I am on the continent.  The picnic plastic plates, with knives and forks will be replaced by the excellent card ones collected from under a meal in Switzerland, and wooden knives and forks - one of each.  I can leave out the chopsticks that were accidentally at the bottom of my bag all week.

Some things remain - the long cable attached to the power adaptor for recharging, and the long cable from that to our laptops. They are a godsend for hotel rooms where the power socket is nowhere near the bedside, and on trains where the power is above your head.  And a couple of other adaptors and cables so I can charge from USB, USB-c and a multitude of sockets including continental and Italian.  A recharge pack so that my phone / camera can last all day, even on exciting routes where there are 100s of pictures to take, and I'm burning up power using my phone as a hotspot too.  My laptop comes too - I need a computer and a keyboard; in March, I bought one of the new Mac Neo machines which is marginally smaller that the air I was using, considerably smaller than Lisa's Pro which was also in that 100 lbs, and provided more then enough cpu umph while I travel.

Clothing - I carried a cold weather jacket which I only used once, but I feel to be necessary even on occasional use. Likewise I carry copies of insurance papers and passport copy which I hope I never have to refer to.  Shirts, trousers, socks, underwear - 3 sets of each so I can have two in circulation, rinse and wash overnight, and still be OK if things don't dry.  And I should take a small towel - I neglected the importance of this, in spite of having read the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Let's see how I do for when I set out next ... and how I do during the trip ...

---

---

Some pictures that have helped and hindered with loads of luggage. 





Many, but not all, trains have some doors with better access than this.  And there is no need for every door on a train to be level / easy access if you know where to go on the train.  Station boards that show the zones are very useful!



The standard-to-first differential on Interrail is small enough to make it affordable without feeling stung, but sometimes it's truely "upper class"

 
The are efforts afoot to try & get them to reinstate the Oxford ticket too....

 
An update, from the BBC:

 
Devon did of course have an evening ticket until 2018, as did Oxford:

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=20804.0

 
Part 2 – A day out in Maastricht – and some reflections on our trip

Needless to say, we did not get up very early the following day, but still undertook our day trip to Maastricht.
Although it’s less than 20 miles from Aachen to Maastricht, it takes about 50 minutes to travel by train between the two. It is not a very direct route, a direct line having been closed many years ago, part now being a heritage railway. Instead, it runs via Heerlen, stopping frequently. It is quite an attractive part of the world, green rolling country with Heerlen the only substantial town. Look out for Valkenburg station en route which claims to be the oldest in the Netherlands, and looks like it was built in the Scots Baronial Gothic style.

The service is run by Arriva, who took over the local rail services in Dutch Limburg and Maastricht’s buses from Veolia in 2016, and have since also taken over local trains east of Liege in Belgium. Their services also extend into the area around Aachen in Germany. They use two- and three-coach articulated Stadler trains, which were clean and comfortable. Both trains and busses are in a blue and white livery, with a prominent rampant red lion, symbol of Limburg, a region covering this area where Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. There is a half-hourly clockface service between Aachen and Maastricht.

Maastricht itself is well worth a visit. It has a fine 1913 brick-built station with step gables, a large entrance hall and waiting area. From there, a wide tree-lined avenues with cafes leads to the St Servatius bridge across the Maas/Meuse, part ancient bridge, part a lifting bridge with an ingenious extending ramp mechanism that enables pedestrians to continue to use it when raised. This takes you to the old city centre, with two of the oldest church buildings in the Netherlands, one of the oldest city gates and a pleasant large market place where you can eat and drink.

At Aachen, the ticket machine did not like my UK bank cards, so I tried the “Go Rheinland” ticket counter where we could get a regional day rover ticket covering local/regional trains, buses and trams in a considerable area covering Hasselt and Liege in Belgium, Roermond in the Netherlands and parts of North Rhine – Westphalia in Germany, all for 23-50 Euros.

Both the train there and back ran on time. Well done, Arriva.

Our return home also went smoothly. As with last year’s trip, SNCB selected their own trains (a slow local to Liege, from where we took the long-distance Eupen-Ostend train to Brussels Midi). The Eurostar, TfL and GWR got us back home with only one hiccup that worked in our favour. The Didcot Parkway train before the one we were aiming to catch was delayed, so we caught this, which then missed Slough and Twyford to arrive a minute or so late at Goring, but half-an-hour before we expected to get there.

I am still not a fan of the experience at Brussels Midi. The food outlets are either side of a busy subway which could be wider and suffers from what appears to be a Belgian habit of people walking through crowded areas at speed while looking intently at their mobile phones. The area where you wait after checking in is not really big enough, made worse by the siting of a substantial airport-style duty free shop through which you have to walk to get to the departure lounge. Please SNCB, reduce it in size, convert part to extra seating and part to a few more catering outlets.

It is also striking that by far the worse performing transport provider (again!) was nationalised DB. Contrast this with what appeared to be Arriva’s well run and integrated cross-border offering in Limburg. Please could Hilary Alexander and Lord Hendy stop trying to convince us that public ownership will cure all our transport problems. It’s well-trained motivated people on the ground and shrewd well-directed investment that is needed, from whatever source.

 

I'll probably attend to support ... but not standing to return to being an officer. 

12:10 train from Melksham, gets me there over an hour before the meeting so time for lunch somewhere.  15:51 return will allow me to stay to the end - well timed ending.

 
A classic reminder that (a) this sort of problem is not unique to the UK and (b) when something goes wrong, it is so important to keep the customers informed - both to reduce their angst and perhaps delay, and from the railway's viewpoint to clear the blockage of customers waiting.  Waiting in a crowded train with an indefinite delay at Midi is not a pleasant experience - been there!

 

I would suggest that trains to run a renewed service terminating at Bedwyn is probably not high up the shopping list of a government of the current political colour.  Their MP was elected as a Conservative, elected in 2024 with nearly 17,000 votes who defeated five other candidates, one of whom was Reform, who polled just under 8,000 votes.  But their MP is now with the Reform party - I find myself wondering what the candidate who represented that party at the election, and what the consituents, make of that.  Should we see a change in government colour  to turkoise, the priority order might change.   

Where a Bedwyn service beyond the wires from Newbury may gain just a little more politically is from Hungerford, and to a lesser extent (lesser because it is smaller) is from Kintbury, both of which are actually in the Newbury constituency - currently Lib-Dem, ex Conservative.

Away from Politics, where the business case really comes much more to life is with a service extension of the faster of the two trains an hour to Hungerford, Kintbury, Bedwyn, Pewsey, (new) Devizes Gateway and Westbury.  Whether that (perhaps alternate trains?) carries on beyond, or feeds into the existing 2-hourly semifast, is open for discussion.

 
Last year’s short break in Aachen left my wife and I left us thinking that a return trip was worthwhile. We noted that Maastricht was just a short train ride away, easily the subject of a day trip. We also hired a car for a day to visit Trier last year, but our day was curtailed by a brewing thunderstorm, and it was clear that there was plenty to justify staying overnight, and some attractive places to visit on the way and back (Monschau, the Mosel Valley), so we decided to undertake a second trip, again taking the train to Aachen, staying overnight, taking a day trip to Maastricht, then hiring a car for three days to “do” Trier, Monschau und the Mosel valley before returning to Aachen to take the train home. Unfortunately, the journey out was memorable for all the wrong reasons. So, here’s part one of a report. Please forgive its length
.
Return to Aachen – the curse of DB strikes again!

Our outward journey (on 4 June) started well, and went well until we got to Brussels. The train from Goring & Streatley ran to time, and although TfL said that the Circle Line was suspended, and we travelled early for our 17-04 Eurostar to Brussels Midi because of the strike action that day, there was a Circle Line at Paddington and we even passed another at Edgeware Road going the other way! The Eurostar also ran to time, which was as well as there was only 17 minutes before our connecting train, the 20-22 ICE 319 to Cologne and Frankfurt, was due to depart.

I’m not a great fan of Brussels Midi, which is probably the least impressive terminus for the cross-channel Eurostar services. At least the signage for finding our platform from the international arrival platforms is clear, and our train was clearly shown as departing from platform 8. This is an island platform, with platform faces as platforms 7 and 8. This was crowded when we arrived, but the track at platform 8 was occupied by an empty three-coach local train, and the screen sign said something in Flemish that clearly meant “don’t get on”. An SNCB (Belgian railways) train for Liege was loading on platform 7. There then followed a series of announcements in four languages (English, French, Flemish and German) alternatively informing us that the train would be departing from platform 7 or platform 8. Eventually the empty train was shown as a local train departing at 21-09.

We waited for another 30 minutes or so. Our fellow passengers were clearly a mixture of business travellers and tourists. As SNCB cannot sell tickets valid on DB ICE trains for travel between Belgian stations, it followed that we were all going at least as far as Aachen. Eventually at about 20-50 a DB ICE train arrived at platform 7, and we all boarded. The train was full. We shared a four-seat table with two Germans, and struck up a conversation. After (the usual?) complaints about DB’s service generally, the story that emerged was that something had gone awry on the high-speed line between Liege and Aachen (something to do with the OHL), as a result of which both the previous ICE to Cologne and Frankfurt and a Eurostar (formerly Thalys) train along the same line had been cancelled, hence the large number of waiting passengers. The female German who shared our table had been sent back to Midi from Brussels Nord. The train was understandably full. But worse was yet to come.

Firstly, no sooner had we all boarded than the on-board signage showed another 30-minute delay to our departure. Soon this changed back, but there was a message that there would be a diversion (unspecified) along our route. We set off, but stopped at Brussels Nord from where one of our companions had been sent back to Midi and picked up some more passengers there. We were at last on our way, taking the high-speed line to Liege, taking comfort from the speeds of about 260km/hr shown on the in-carriage electronic signage. But as we pulled in to Liege Guillemins, there was an announcement that the service would be terminated there, and we were all to leave the train and proceed to the station forecourt, where buses would come to take us on to Aachen.
 
So, we all duly disembarked. I’d guess that there were over 400 of us, as Wikipedia indicates that all the varieties of ICE 3 trains carry around 450 and it seemed full. We certainly stretched all the way along the frontage of the station, many well-loaded down with luggage. We chose a spot near the middle, and were joined by the other German passenger who shared our table, who introduced himself as Daniel, who had been attending an EU meeting in Brussels, and who was travelling back home to Leverkusen via Cologne. By now it was well past the timetabled 21-33 arrival time at Aachen.

After some considerable wait, two SNCB employees appeared and reported that buses were on their way from Aachen. Eventually, just two German-registered buses arrived, loaded with passengers from Aachen. After they disembarked, the drivers closed the doors and changed their blind signage to wording that Daniel confirmed meant that they had finished for the day. The SNCB employees spoke to the drivers, but reported back that they had no instructions to pick anyone up, and would soon be on their way home.

Daniel and I both tried the DB general help number, but this simply got a pre-recorded message saying that the service was now closed for the night. Recalling my experience at Osnabruck last year, when there were at least staff on duty at the station office until late at night, I found a phone number for Aachen station.  A call to this number was answered by a somewhat grumpy person, who under questioning from Daniel disclosed that he was not aware of buses coming from Aachen to Liege, only some to get people between Aachen and Cologne. He said that the “rule” was that if a problem arose in Belgium, it was for the Belgians to arrange buses, if it was in Germany, then it was for DB to do so. He said that there was no-one higher up the management tree who could be contacted to try to resolve the plight of several hundred passengers outside Liege Guillemins. They were slowly being reduced in number by few taxis that appeared, apparently pre-booked which filled and departed. By this time, timetabled departures had reduced to a couple of bus services run by SNCB, one of which arrived and was soon rammed with waiting passengers, who looked like they were in for a very uncomfortable ride. We were not close enough to the place this bus stopped to have any chance of boarding, even if we wanted to.

As it was past 23-00, it was clearly time to try a plan B. We had booked an Ibis hotel in Aachen near the station. I noticed an Ibis Styles near Guillemins station, so walked over and spoke to the receptionist. She informed me that not only were they full, but there was a conference under way in Liege so most hotels were also full. When I asked about taxis, she said that due to problems on the trains that evening, they could not book any taxis from the town centre, as none were free for many hours.

I then spent some time on my mobile, Googling hotel and accommodation website and did find a budget hotel about 5 miles away that did have rooms free, but how to get there? Daniel had the Uber app on his phone, but this showed no available cars within 20km. Eventually one was located, and Daniel ordered it, on the basis that it would take us to the budget hotel for which we made a provisional booking by phone. It took a long time to arrive, but eventually near midnight a Tesla pulled up and we got in. The driver suggested he take us to Aachen as Uber could supply the requisite certificates for a DB claim, and that DB did meet such claims. We tried the Ibis in Aachen where my wife and I were booked, and they had a spare room for Daniel, so we cancelled our provisional bookings outside Liege and set off, arriving at our hotel at 00-45 – just over three hours late. When we left Liege there were still well over 100 passengers outside the front of the station, with taxis arriving at lengthy intervals to collect some.

From conversations while waiting, it appeared that the problem blocking the high-speed line arose at about 16-00, consistent with there being two previous cancelled high speed/express services. But there are hourly departures from Brussels for Aachen, with one change at Liege, via slower services until 21-56. These take together between two hours 26 minutes to two hours 46 minutes to complete the journey along the old line between Liege and Aachen. So why didn’t someone start making arrangements for Aachen passengers to at least be offered this straight away, and if the problem was not fixed by the time our 20-22 was due to depart, recommend this as there would still have been two services available (and, if required, ensure acceptance of the ICE tickets on SNCB)? Why was our ICE dispatched before the line was clear? Why were we told that buses would be available at Liege when clearly no arrangements had been made? Surely someone must have appreciated that finding ten buses (at least, for 400+ passengers, many with luggage) and drivers available and with enough permitted hours left was likely to be impossible at this time of day? And why, when it must have been clear that there was a problem was there no line of communication between SNCB and DB to try to resolve matters?

Needless to say, this second (and much worse) failure in two trips using DB has undermined my confidence in using them, at least for long-distance travel.

Next part – a positive cross-border experience….

 

TfW wants to extend their new Cardiff to Bristol TM stopping services (starting Sept 26) to begin at Milford Haven or Fishguard (by extending the route of existing TfW services). The rationale is so that passengers west of Cardiff don't have to change trains to get to Bristol TM.

At face value, they want to offer customers in west Wales new journey options. But the cynical might wonder whether it's an attempt to edge GWR out of West Wales and reduce the viability of Lumo's planned Carmarthen to London service.

 
Picking next Monday (15/06/26) at random RTT indicates that there is a half-hourly service for most of the day from CDF to BRI with alternate England-bound trains going to either PMH or, predominantly, TAU & EXD.
The return Wales-bound trains all terminate at CDF.
All of these services are run by GWR
So I think that Transport for Wales (TfW) have a valid complaint about their customers in South Wales, west of Cardiff, being poorly served. Perhaps in the forthcoming brave new world of GBR, when revenue abstraction should no longer be an issue, westerly extension of a few services, if justified by passenger loadings, might happen.   
 

 
You had me worried, and thinking 'which money tree do these muppets think the £45Bn is going to come from', until I read the press release and saw that the figure was £4.5Bn over 5 years. Which given the parlous state of the UK economy is still not going to happen. 

 
Hot off the press this morning:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cycling-and-walking-boom-with-45-billion-for-thousands-of-new-routes-and-safer-crossings

Not sure how long it will survive. If departmental budgets have to be cut to fund defence, my bet is it will be cycling, walking and trains that will get the chop not cars. How much will the HS2 for cars cost (new Thames tunnel)?

Hope I am wrong.