Updated quote - an old http image now replaced by an https one.  Came up when "on this day" flagged the start of GWR's Twitter feed.

 
On naming trains - from the Didcot Railway Centre via Facebook


I recall in my youth travelling on these trains - running routes like Bradford to Kingswear ... which set me up for a lifetime love of train travel, even if there was a 20 year hiatus in which train travel was rare

 
These are the 2026 routes from their website. It still includes the Rainforest to Gold Rush route
https://www.rockymountaineer.com/

 
"On this day" has flagged up 5th May 1968 - as the day that the Okehampton to Bere Alston link was broken, and it got me thinking about longer distance main lines breached, and how some of them might have been bringing economic development and support sustainable transport to new swathes of England (and the other home countries) as we look to provide more houses in the UK - not necessarily because of an increasing population, but because households are 10% smaller these days which means we need 10% more homesteads

I think about ...
Plymouth to Exeter
Poole to Bath
Carlisle to Edinburgh via Hawick
London (Marylebone) to the East Midlands
Carlisle to Stranraer
Rhymney to Moat Lane
Many of these "open countryside" but then so was "The Met". Some of that worked; Brill was perhaps a branch too far

 

Agreed - and the "bonus" (I commented on my personal message / blog) is that people find us - though these days largely as guests rather than signing up as new members.  Indeed - it's frustrating to look something up word-wide-web only to be referred back to out own site as the best source.

The number of lines in our log file (request count) tripled in the 24 hours to 03:30 GMT this morning on our worker server - quite remarkable how it stood up!

 
From Trains.com


Can anyone put this into perspective?

 

I suspect you are right - but it would be more robust for them to front load it ... also less concerning for me (the customer) making a final public transport transfer onto the 23:00 ferry at Harwich International

 
I suspect the answer is that all the interchanges meet the minimum time laid down so if you do miss a connection you can use the next train at no extra cost. There is an "add extra time" option on the NRE website and possibly others, but it only allows time bands to be selected rather than going in to each step yourself and manually tweaking it, say to one train later. I'd hope it wouldn't add extra time to that Swindon change but I wouldn't bank on it!

 
The West Somerset Railway 2026 Spring Gala - 1st May to 4th May 2026

From YouTube, an item of some 27 minutes duration, of pure joy - at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tninW2UdoBU&t=248s 

 
I know - but you said, "one guess each". 

 

So is 4. And 2. And 1.

 
3. ... is in Northern Ireland, by the way.

 
As an administrator on this forum, I also have the powers of Albus Dumbledore. 

 
In a way it proves the wealth of information here that AI wants to plunder it for their memory banks.    However it peeves me they are using our resources for their benefit. 

 
Given the scarcity of 57s, if they are sending one to Highbridge there won’t be one available to couple to the back of the up sleeper to bring it back to Reading Traincare Depot from London Paddington.  Hence why it is terminating at Reading.

 

Gosh the secrets that could tell!   

 

A shortage of train crew….. or a shortage of a 57 to work it from Reading to Paddington. 

I believe they are planning to send a 57 light engine from Reading to Highbridge in the early hours of the morning and triple head the failed sleeper set back to Long Rock via Bristol TM.   

 

How can you cheat? Have you secreted a tracker on me at some point in the past?

 
Thank you for your very tactful correction, IndustryInsider.

 

They don’t have to.  A rare slip up from CfN as extinguishers are readily available in each carriage…no key waving from staff required.  Their location is indicated by red signs in the carriage.

 
3.  I know, but again I cheated, so I won't answer here yet.

 
You keep your Italianate facades to yourself. 

 
Yesterday's picture has confirmed the two countries I'm visiting for a holiday.

Here's a couple stations and a 'railway' location we visited today. One guess each.

1.


2.


3.


4. This is the start of a railway overbridge. What's the location and what's it's TV drama significance?

 
Thanks, as ever, for your work sorting that out, grahame.

It's all a foreign language to me, as an innate Luddite.

 
And Bradshaw comes along and poaches the goal!

Correct!

Here's the more 'classic' shot of the station with its Italianate facade.

 
Ooops - sorry about some slow running this afternoon ... 86,000 requests from a single AI learning bot ... to give you an idea, the second most active visitor has made just 2,400 requests.   The servers copes well for the most part - though your may have seen the occasional "Bad Gateway" as the receptionist tries to contact a very busy worker

 
Way off subject.

Many years ago I had a job arranging travel for our overseas engineers. The occasion that sprang to mind in this case was an engineer travelling across the Middle East on a cheap flight during the Haj was a little disconcerted when one of the passengers apparently fired up a primus stove in the aisle. I said he was joshing but insisted that was the was the case. Another result of not providing catering?

 
From the BBC:

 
Dublin Connolly Station

 
02/05/2026 - Exeter To Poole
DIG 0914 (OT)>EXC 0922 (OT) : 2T11 EXM>PGN : 1 x 166 (3 Cars)
EXC 0930 (OT)>SAL 1116 (OT) : 1L36 EXD>WAT : 2 x 159 (6 Cars)
SAL 1134 (OT)>SOU 1204 (OT) : 1F61 WSB>PMH : 2 x 158 (4 Cars)
SOU 1224 (OT)>POO 1224 (OT) : 1W63 WAT>WEY : 2 x 444 (10 Cars To BMH), 1 x 444 (5 Cars To POO)
Tickets (All with Senior Railcard, 2 Pax, Price Per Person): DIG>PIN Off Peak Day Single £2.85, PIN>SAL Advance Single £11.70, SAL>SOU Anytime Day Single £8.45, SOU>POO Advance Single £6.50

2T11 lightly loaded to POL where around 25 pax boarded. Tickets but not Railcards checked.
1L36 was fairly well loaded from EXC and plenty of pax boarded at AXM & SHE. Tickets but not Railcards were checked. And as seems to be fairly common on these WoE services the on-train PIS was not working properly - it was stuck on 'Next Station Exeter Central' all the way to Salisbury and in between these messages displayed random 24 hour clock times. Why doesn't the TM just turn the bloody thing off if they can't get it to work?
There were no ticket checks between SAL & POO - hardly assisting the reduction of fare evasion!

03/05/2026 - Poole To Exeter
POO 1032 (1034)>SOU 1123 (OT) : 1W36 WEY>WAT : 1 x 444 (5 Cars To BMH), 2 x 444 (10 Cars To SOU)
SOU 1157 (1158)>SAL 1226 (OT) : 1F66 PMH>WSB : 2 x 158 (4 Cars)
SAL 1247 (OT)>EXC 1438 (1444) : 1L29 WAT>EXD : 2 x 159 (6 Cars)
EXC 1456 (OT)>DIG 1501 (OT) : 2F14 PGN>EXM : 1 x 165/1 (3 Cars)
Tickets (All with Senior Railcard, 2 Pax, Price Per Person): POO>SOU Advance Single £5.75, SOU>SAL Sunday Out Single £6.95, SAL>PIN Advance Single £7.55, PIN>DIG Off Peak Day Single £2.85

No ticket checks POO>SAL. SOU was a bit mad dealing with the fallout from the Southampton Marathon.
On 1L29 the Wi-Fi was inoperative. A passenger sat opposite us had got the TM to reboot the system but it was still 'Computer Says No'. Tickets and railcards were checked (wonders will never cease!).
1L29 was delayed 5 minutes at Axminster West Junction waiting for the late running 1L52, which itself had had to wait at PIN for 1L25, to clear the single line from HON. That was the only noticeable delay on the whole trip. Double Track PIN>YVJ Now!

Footnote: This trip was entirely the idea of SWTSMBO who saw it advertised on Facebook (which I stopped using several years ago). However I was happy to go along as the concert involved 3 singers, a four piece band and, most importantly because I attend all of their dates at the University of Exeter Great Hall, a sizeable chunk of the Bornemouth Symphony Orchestra ensemble which made for a brilliant evenings' entertainment. The Poole Lighthouse - my first visit - was an excellent venue.