Sky News, inventing a headline? 

 
which you won't get back ever!

 
Intrigued to know where the figure of £100 came from…

 
A 30 minute watch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzM1hpnXux4

Mark

 

Wise call

 
Since it is summer and Interrail is a current topic, I will add my experiences of a recent trip to Istanbul. Last year I had planned to do this trip (which can be accomplished in minimum 3-4 days) but it did not happen and this year I originally planned to do it in the Autumn but instead I chose to do it in the current heatwave!

So the route was Frome, Portsmouth, Caen, Paris, Stuttgart, Budapest, Arad, Bucharest, Sofia and Istanbul with a flight back to Bristol. Duration 13 days. I will present it in chapters highlighting the transport matters. There will be few or no photos since I rarely take any.

Start date was Monday 13 July, another hot day when GWR might have problems! I planned to leave Frome after 1600 by train or by bus to Warminster. This was to allow plenty of time to properly dine at the colourful pub (The Ship and Castle) near the Continental Ferry Port. So first we have one mid-afternoon train cancelled then another bridge strike at Freshford. Whilst I had plenty of time for the ferry, it was best to go earlier on a bus at 1430 with a panic departure from home. At Warminster the chaos was still unfolding, so I carried on to Salisbury as a new bus experience. At Salisbury station, the matter had resolved such that I just missed the PMH train which I might have caught. Then a wait of 50 mins for a service to SOU which was also late. The next Portsmouth service was in fact the train I would have caught departing after 1600. So all went well after that. Plenty of spare time even after dining. Boarding was not until 2215 and foot passengers are subject to an airport-style security check. This was surprise news to me and I had a hard time over various pointed items in my baggage. Vehicle passengers do not appear to get the same scrutiny!!

Brittany Ferries excellent as usual and the trip passed smoothly although I may not have slept during the short night in my cabin. Worth noting that the ship docks at 0645 local time and if you want a shower and some sort of breakfast one rises at 0445 UK time. So not quite as glamorous as the brochures portray.

At Ouistreham passengers walk off but then get a short bus ride to the terminal. Only about 30 foot passengers dealt with efficiently by two immigration officials. They “manually” carried out the EES procedure with facial scan and fingerprints. I had given my fingerprints in Denmark recently and they were not taken again.
 
Now various travelogues imply that there is a bus stop for the bus to Caen, adjacent to the terminal. This is not so and it is at least 500m away in the centre of the town near the pharmacy. It was Bastille Day and there were question marks about the bus service, and I HAD to catch the only practical/available train at 08.58. So I did take a taxi (from 2 available!) and it is definitely a fair distance into Caen at EUR53 for the ride. ((Grahame’s use of Newhaven-Dieppe, scores better on this point as Le Gare is but a short walk away.)
 
So I had plenty of time, had a coffee and pastry and joined the busy dmu to Argentan and then a grander emu to Paris Montparnasse. I got my reserved first class seat on the busy second leg in a strange carriage layout. The service was a diverted version due to engineering works! Some 30 min late overall against the revised schedule.

Transit of Paris on the metro to Gare de L’Est. Metro does not accept foreign (or any?) bank cards at the turnstiles. Have to buy the Oyster card equivalent! Very hot day of course. Plenty of food outlets on L’Est but none for a proper meal. Found one nearby of dubious quality.
Next was a TGV service at 15.55 to Stuttgart. First class, upper deck, window seat and all fine. Very busy and I had intended to visit the Bistro for a “proper” meal prior to the next overnight stage. Seemed too busy for that. There is now a formal check at the German border which delays the schedule by 15 mins. Apparently, this is intelligence led so not every person or coach is checked. There were casual passport checks at every border except Germany/Austria/Hungary-so much for Schengen.

Stuttgart Station was uninspiring. It is a terminal station and I now understand that a through station is being constructed down below and the project is very delayed. Plenty of snack outlets but I did find a great boxed-salad outlet which was sensible for my needs. So I then boarded the 20.29 sleeper service to Budapest. My coach was Hungarian couchette compartment, but I had paid quite heavily for single occupation. So it was basic with a hard mattress but comfortable enough. They do provide a basic breakfast and arrival in Budapest Keleti (a classic European terminal) was nearly on time. The phone charge point onboard was near the window and I placed my phone on the window ledge. Do not do that as phones drown in the condensation when the a/c is working hard. New phone purchased in Budapest!

I find it remarkable that you can reach Budapest so speedily. Eurostar mid-morning from London is also feasible for this trip. Next chapter soon.

 
Train manager now on board, but she's announced that there's another train in front of us on the platform, going to be another delay...

Might be getting off at Bath and catching the bus at this rate, don't really want to miss the 18:00 Melksham service at Chippenham and wait another hour.

 
On the 17:12 now, waiting to depart, driver has announced we're waiting for the train manager who's on a train just coming into Bristol...

 
I have voted, thinking about Edinburgh in particular (where I have stayed in hotels many times there, years ago).

I don't think there should be another 'hotel room tax', as it would only serve to reduce the attractiveness of such a tourist venue.  They already have to pay substantial amounts of business tax, after all.

Those peripheral benefits of discounts on various tourist attractions would be irrelevant to me: I was there for an overnight stay to attend two-day business meetings.

CfN. 

 
Hard to keep up at the moment.

The 1127 Carmarthen-Paddington suffered a 40 minute delay at Swansea and then expired close to Severn Tunnel Junction, into which it limped 99 minutes late. Terminated there (for some reason it was booked to call there anyway today)  and ran ECS to Bristol Parkway.

In the opposite direction (and not so far visible on Journeycheck) the 1B17 Reading-Carmarthen and 1B19 Paddington-Swansea have both been diverted via Chippenham. (The Sodbury line is still open eastbound).

 

I have always found the A/C on SWR's 15Xs to be pretty good - very noisy, but usually working reasonably well .................MUCH better than GWR's 158s !!

 

Looks like a mess today. Broken down train in / near the Severn Tunnel - line closed.   Broken down train on the Gunnislake line which is closed for the rest of the day and no spare available. Broken down train on the Newquay line - with a 2 train service now, at least there are still some trains.

 
I have voted - in favour - in my own poll.  I would prefer there not to be a "hotel room tax" - however, it makes sense to help the local authorities pay for the extra support needed by all the extra people around from things as basic as clearing the litter bins and providing more road crossings for the crowds in the town.

In some towns such as Rostock and Zittau, the room tax also brings you things like a pass to use on local public transport or a discount at local attractions. And, yes, used in Rostock to catch the bus without having to work out how to buy a ticket.

 
Looks like it - although at least Scotland already have this - Edinburgh has already implemented it for this summer's trade.

Maybe what's intended is that this tax is levied by mayors, not Government, and mayors get to spend it.

 
From Sky News


That refers to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rewiring-the-state-cabinet-statement/rewiring-the-state-cabinet-statement-html which includes a very long and potentially very plan setting agenda.  Deep in it


In our travels over this spring / summer, we have become very used to paying a handful of Euros or other local currency per person per night as a local room tax - is this what the proposal is suggesting for the UK?

 
...and same for the 17:00 Bristol - Paddington. That's my Plan B for getting to Chippenham if the 17:12 Bristol - Oxford is delayed/cancelled, so fingers crossed...

 
Is any work to improve the reliability of the air conditioning planned ? beyond lighter colored roofs.

 
It would be churlish not to mention that today is the day of the year when Charlbury gets its best ever service, with extra departures to Paddington at 0938, 1036, 1137, and 1237 (Reading) making for a half-hourly service between 0711 and 1312. The extras don't even stop at Hanborough!

(GWR puts them on to help deal with overcrowding on the way back from the Wilderness Festival at Cornbury Park.)

 
16:09 London Paddington - Bristol Temple Meads

 


Thanks to Richard Cowell for the picture - Image cleared for poster's use here (?)

 

Sunday evening is a real issue.

You refer to "First Introduction".   At the time that the Coffeen Shop was founded, there weren't just two Sunday trains on the TransWilts.   The Service Level Commitment on First from December 2006 called for two trains each way per day Monday to Saturday, and two trains from Westbury to Swindon on a Sunday. The two trains ran at about 18:00 and 20:00 from Westbury as I recall, both the same physical train and running back empty between the two services.

One of our first victories-for-common-sense was to have the train return in passenger service, followed summer 2011 with a Chamber of Commerce Commerce supported service early in the morning on 7 summer Sundays, with the early train from Westbury to Weymouth starting back from Swindon.  An interesting summer and we have to be very careful not to oversell / overfill the trains on those Sundays.


Edit note: Minor typo corrected, purely for clarity. CfN. 

 
From Rail Technology Magazine

 
A friend was reminded (by an intrusion of reality into a sunny day full of type 3 fun) that on Sunday only the last Faresaver bus from Bath to Devizes leaves Bath just before 7pm. He *did* manage to catch that service after heading for the bus stop at a trot.

(After that, there's an option by train, the 9.13pm from Bath into a somewhat relaxed connection to Melksham which sort-of shows the value of having a train service that's more than the bare-bones one as first re-introduced.)

Mark

 
The first and only previous time I passed through Leipzig I changed trains in 3 minutes.   On this visit, a little more time to look around, including platform 24

 
Thanks, not unlikely, and it's J.K. Jerome's interminable pound too.

Mark

 

I'd guess it's the one between Benson and Cleeve. It's long, and at the southern end (and between Cleeve and Goring, the shortest pound) it passes across the band of permeable chalk that runs across the country, forming the Berkshire/North Wessex Downs to the west and Chilterns to the east. If the water table in the chalk is low, I'd imagine that water percolates through the river bed at any point where the alluvial bed above it is thin. I see that the river traffic control measures that EA is bringing in cover both such pounds at their southern/downstream end.

 
There are two separate questions here: one about trams per se, on-road in the city centre and segregated outside, and the other about sharing lines with heavy rail. The first has been done, e.g.Croydon (where heavy rail lines were transferred rather than shared) or to a limited extent in other cities. And even in the USA - MAX in Portland, Oregon.

Sharing has been suggested (some time ago - before Sheffield - I forget when) but I recall that the idea fell foul of the issue of "buffing load". I have found little on this on line, or in old newspapers, but I think the standards required railway vehicles to sustain an end load (static?) of 200 tonnes. For trams the requirement was much lower, perhaps 20 tonnes. The Germans must have had a way round this.

 
I have often wondered in the event of a drought what the practicality would be of fitting boats with pumps which they could use when descending to pump the water back over the upper gates rather than letting out through paddles below. 

If this is a new idea, I claim patent and trademark rights, and will sell them to help supplement my pension 

 

We will probably never know ... and in the great run of things it was just (yet) another cancellation leaving a four hour plus gap in services at short notice without easily-forgiven external explanation or alternative advertised.

 
A whole new set of proposals have been submitted to the ORR for reopening the Marchwood line.  Most notably it proposes reducing the number of through services to London but increasing the local service frequency.
The "could be open by 2027" claims though may have been written through rose tinted glasses.  Still, nice to see it's not a dead duck.  Here's the link to the local news story in full:

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/26426736.marchwood-passenger-rail-plans-move-forward-60-years/

Edit to correct from DfT to ORR.