96.6% ran again last week.

I'm sure this week will be much more challenging.

Another decent week last week for Melksham, with one cancellation each way on the Saturday and Sunday giving a 96.6% reliability score from the Monday to Sunday.

Looks like all Paddington to Didcot services have been proactively cancelled today.

I too have been very glad of air conditioning, only a portable unit but it helps a lot.

As regards trains, I believe that all new trains should be designed for normal operation at an outside air temperature of 40 degrees, and should cope with 45 degrees (at a reduced performance, and with a slight increase in internal temperatures)

This is considerably in excess of Met office records, but a plausible temperature that could be reached in direct sun, in a chalk cutting, and with another train alongside producing heat.

Blinds closed to keep sun out
Windows closed to keep heat out

Air Conditioning running in lounge and bedrooms, 21c in both, good investment 4 years ago


Dealing with heat is more a question of how much want to invest to continue reasonably normally in modern climate, than a question is it technically possible to do so.    There are special labs for climate testing, and I believe there is one in Vienna for trains, can be tested from -50c to +60c far beyond temperature range needed in UK.

Great Western Railway (GWR) is warning customers in the Thames Valley to plan for changes to train services during the hottest parts of the day on Monday and Tuesday, as track temperatures are forecast to reach levels requiring speed restrictions.

The changes will mostly impact local stopping services between Reading and London Paddington, with changes to trains serving Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford.

Due to the short-notice changes, industry information systems will not show the correct train timetable until the day of travel.

No.

Will the arrival into Parliament of Andy Burnham - who's done so much to flagship changes and developments of public transport in the Manchester area, and who's a Labour heavyweight make any difference indirectly to the government's direction and approaches to public transport - trains, buses, etc, in the south / west of England and South Wales?..... 

Somewhat ironically.......

07:54 Swindon to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

Additional 07:54 Swindon to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will be cancelled.

This is due to train crew being delayed.

Surely its better to have some continuity in government departments during a leadership contest, rather than the modern tory way of mass resignations forcing out a stubborn incumbent. Although that might change if Sir Keir fights on. Which is looking unlikely judging by the 'off the record' statements filltering through media politcal correspondents.

The new leader can then decide on their top team.

Most of these two trains are on the rail. Can someone in, or familiar with, the current rail industry explain why these damaged units cannot be recovered by rail.

05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:10

05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:10 was terminated at Swindon.
It will no longer call at Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster, Salisbury, Romsey and Southampton Central.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham, Swindon, Kemble, Stroud, Stonehouse, Gloucester, Cheltenham Spa, Ashchurch For Tewkesbury, Worcester Shrub Hill and Worcester Foregate Street.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

ST9273NW COCKLEBURY ROAD 930-1/7/20 Chippenham Station, entrance 22/06/78 building and attached platform canopies (Formerly Listed as: COCKLEBURY ROAD Main entrance building, platform canopies on down platform, Chippenham Station)

II

Station building. 1856-8, for the Great Western Railway. By Rowland Brotherhood, engineer. Limestone ashlar with a plinth and eaves band; shallow-pitched hipped slate roof and moulded stack to the right. 2 blocks, both rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: single storey. Raised surrounds and bracketed sills to casement windows. The centre of the right-hand block is stepped forward; C20 double doors with overlights to each end and 2 windows to the centre, all under a flat-roofed wooden canopy with a fretted fascia and 5 substantial moulded wooden brackets. The open space between the blocks is covered by a hipped roof and a deep fretted fascia over tall spear-headed cast-iron railings, double gates and cast-iron piers with ball finials. C20 platform canopy to the rear. INTERIOR: altered.

Best of luck with this Heatwave.....

That's simply because (with the exception of the Stanstead line, added later) it reflects where the available lines for express routes avoiding London are, namely Bristol or Cardiff to Basingstoke, Basingstoke to Reading, Oxford to Birmingham, Birmingham to Derby and Sheffield to Leeds or York.

If we'd had East/West via an Oxford-Cambridge link we might have had (and might still get) direct links between the South West and East Anglia.

Cross country serves a weird shaped network,
apologies for the map with graphics, but it's only one on their site that is roughly to scale rather than diagram form.

https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/sites/default/files/basic_page_docs/12058264_illustrated_route_map_q4_2023_a4_-1.pdf

Now if compare that to UK population hubs then it's obvious that cross country network serves something operationally convenient rather than geographically sensible.

You can't get a Cross Country train from Plymouth to Essex and East Anglia

21:34 Swindon to Westbury due 22:16

21:34 Swindon to Westbury due 22:16 has been delayed at Swindon and is now 15 minutes late.
This is due to train crew being delayed by service disruption.

Someone seems to be looking forward to a new regime.......one would have thought however that the more honourable course of action for her to take if she's lost faith in the Leader who appointed her would be to resign herself, as others have?

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/26212426.swindons-heidi-alexander-first-tell-starmer-go/

It’s been hidden on the side of a train for the past four years, so no wonder a secret code paying tribute to World War Two codebreaker Alan Turing has proved a tough nut to crack.

Great Western Railway last week launched a competition for would-be codebreakers to try to uncover the message before the anniversary of Turing’s birthday on 23 June.

The train operator named its popular ‘Trainbow’ Intercity Express Train after the pioneering computer scientist back in May 2022.

After revealing there was a secret message hidden within the livery on IET 800008, plenty of people have come forward with guesses and theories – but still the code is unbroken.

Some eagled-eyed participants have found the tribute to Turing’s school friend – ‘For his love of Christopher’ – but the main message is still to be cracked.

Now GWR is providing a further helping hand by revealing a third clue, which confirms the correct sequence of letters used in the hidden message.

The latest clue reads: “Remember the second clue (the palindrome 800008) and if you think there are too many ‘Z’s, make some SPACE – it may make things clearer!”

Bletchley Park Trust Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, said: “It’s fitting that Alan Turing has been honoured in a way that reflects his extraordinary codebreaking skills and sheer determination. He and his colleagues at Bletchley Park faced problems that seemed genuinely unsolvable. Turing never shied away from a seemingly impossible problem and neither it seems is the public.”

GWR Head of External Communications, Dan Panes, added: “We knew we were setting people a proper challenge when we revealed there was a hidden message on the train. We’ve had lots of guesses and some very clever ideas, but so far nobody has cracked it.

“With Alan Turing’s birthday looming ever closer, we thought it was time to offer an extra clue to see if that helps someone finally unlock the mystery.”

Anyone who works out the message before 23 June will be entered into a prize draw to win one of five limited-edition commemorative coins produced to mark the train’s naming.

Best known for his work at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, Turing led the team responsible for breaking the German Naval Enigma code, intelligence work that proved crucial to the Allied war effort.

His groundbreaking contributions to mathematics and computer science laid the foundations for modern computing and artificial intelligence.

Turing is also remembered as an important figure in the history of LGBTQ+ rights. Convicted under laws that criminalised homosexuality, he was subjected to chemical castration and died in 1954 aged 41.

Following a public campaign, he received a posthumous Royal pardon in 2013. The subsequent ‘Turing’s Law’ legislation led to pardons for thousands of other men convicted under historical laws that criminalised same-sex relationships.

The train was named by members of Turing’s family at London Paddington, where GWR also unveiled its ‘Trainbow’ livery celebrating the LGBTQ+ community.

First introduced in 2018, the rainbow-themed design continues to appear at Pride events across the network and reflects GWR’s support for LGBTQ+ colleagues, customers and communities.

Image credit: GWR

Tributes to driver killed in Bedford train crash



The family of the driver killed in the Bedford train crash have said they are devastated by his death, while a union leader has called it heartbreaking.

Shaun Burton, 60, died following Friday's collision between two London-bound services, in which 100 people were injured.

In a tribute released by British Transport Police (BTP), his family said: "We are devastated by his loss. Our thoughts are also with those affected by this incident."

Dave Calfe, general secretary of train driver union Aslef, said: "We are all heartbroken by the death of Shaun Burton, which leaves a hole in the lives of his family, friends and colleagues that will never be filled."

He said Burton had joined the railway "relatively late in life", having worked on buses and coaches before becoming a train driver seven years ago.

"He was dedicated to the job, devoted to his colleagues and enormously popular at his depot," Calfe continued.

"The railway family grieves his passing; no-one should go off to work in the morning and not come home."

[..../cont]

Network Rail said a "complex recovery operation" had begun to remove the damaged trains from the railway.

Engineers have started to build a temporary access road to allow them to use two 110-tonne rail-mounted cranes to lift the vehicles from the site.

Before that can be done, engineers must first dismantle the overhead power lines.

Once the trains have been removed, engineers will assess and repair any damage to the track before reinstating the overhead lines and carrying out final safety checks ahead of reopening the route.