20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06

Facilities on the 20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06.
Toilet facilities are not available. Disabled toilet facilities are not available.
This is due to a fault on this train.

Ticketless train tap tech trial used by thousands

Rail passengers on two routes in Yorkshire have made more than 30,000 journeys using a ticketless system as part of a trial, operator Northern has said.

The system became available on the route between Leeds and Harrogate in September and was extended to trains between Sheffield and Doncaster in November.

A smartphone app uses GPS to track journeys and charge users the best fare on the day, Northern said.

Commercial and customer director Alex Hornby said the technology represented "the future of ticketing".

"We've been receiving a lot of promising feedback so far, with high app review scores and many saying it makes travelling by train easier and more straightforward."  He said more than 3,200 passengers had used the app on the two routes in Yorkshire.

The technology is also being tested on some trains in the East Midlands, but a planned trial for services between Sheffield and Barnsley was postponed.

When passengers start their journey in the mobile app, a barcode is generated which they can scan at ticket barriers and during inspections on trains.  They tap "end journey" when they reach their destination, before the system then charges them for their ticket.

It won't allow passengers to spend more than £12.80 in one day, with passengers hitting the daily cap on the Leeds-Harrogate route more than 150 times.

The digital pay as you go (DPAYG) technology was tested in Switzerland, Denmark and Scotland before being introduced in England.

Northern said its use would be expanded as part of the government's creation of Great British Railways.

It would "make rail travel simpler by reforming fares and modernising ticketing," Rail Minister Lord Peter Hendy said.

Northern said passengers could continue to sign up to the trial, with £15 in journey credit given to those who take part.

'Failed' in that you hadn't yet the strength or gained the technique to move the lever?

However I am unable to copy the URL from my browser bar, to here.

Thursday might bbe 'interesting', as might next Monday....along with Sunday pm

The bridge on the B3108 at Limpley Stoke, where the railway crosses over the road, has been hit by vehicles a number of time this year.  You can find reports on it via https://www.passenger.chat/search.html?search=Limpley - a rail passenger forum which records and discusses issues affecting train travel.  In the last couple of months - 27th May 2026; 4th June 2026; 19th June 2026; 24th June 2026; 13th July 2026 and some of those stories reference multiple hits.

Bridge hits mean that the railway has to be closed while safety checks are made, and that means than trains cannot serve Bradford-on-Avon or Avoncliff.  A limited service is maintained between Trowbridge and Bath Spa, diverted via Chippenham, but due to the limited capacity of that route means that the local service on that line is withdrawn, throwing passenger onto the diverted trains at different times to the timetabled ones, and serving different places.  The impact is serious at all stations in the Melksham and Devizes constituecy, and indeed it's felt far further afield as it's the main line from South Wales (and Bristol) to Salisbury, Southampton and Portsmouth that is blocked.

Question ...

Train crash driver died from traumatic injuries

A train driver died from traumatic injuries to the brain and chest in the Bedfordshire train crash, an inquest has heard.

Shaun Burton, 60, died when his train ploughed into the back of another service at Elstow, near Bedford, on 19 June. It left 162 people injured, including 102 who required hospital treatment.

An inquest into the death of the driver opened in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, and has been adjourned until a later date which has not been fixed yet.

Senior Coroner for Bedfordshire and Luton, Emma Whitting, told the hearing the inquest would be adjourned pending reports from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) and British Transport Police.

Burton lived in Cambridgeshire and previously been a parish and district councillor, representing The Stukeleys ward on Huntingdonshire District Council.

During the hearing, which lasted five minutes, the coroner's officer read a statement which said a consultant pathologist identified the cause of death to be traumatic injuries to the brain stem and chest, pending further investigations.

Burton was pronounced dead at the scene at 18:49 BST on 19 June. He was formally identified by the Fingerprint Identification Bureau on 25 June, the coroner's report said.


More than 100 people needed hospital treatment - Image © Justin Rivett

An interim report by the RAIB (RAIB) said that Burton's East Midlands Railway train proceeded past a red signal moments before the collision.

His train had been heading towards London St Pancras, after leaving Corby, Northamptonshire, at 16:40 BST.  The other train had been travelling in the same direction and was running ahead of the Corby service, having originated in Nottingham at 15:50.

The Nottingham service had come to a stop "unexpectedly" because of a fault with its Automatic Warning System (AWS) equipment, investigators found.

Data seen by investigators showed Burton's train's brakes were activated for about nine seconds before the collision, when the train was travelling at about 76mph.  Its speed had reduced to 49mph when the impact happened.

I have just asked for advice from a friend with a foot in multiple camps as to the best / most effective way of bringing the very real issues this is causing rail passengers across the whole area to attention to get appropriate attention.

Actually it was open by Saturday afternoon (my sat nav said it was closed, but all the closed signs had been removed, and D1 bus was running normally)

However during the closure, a lot more vegetation has sagged from Network rail land towards the road, making any signage harder to see, but there is now a height restriction warning sign on blue background about 150m before the bridge, which I think is new (although the overhanging vegetation partly hides it as driving towards it)

Erm ... I've put it in my post above. 

Now, that 'b' road wasn't a through route for around ten days - closed for works to a gas main on Winsley Hill. That would have been a good opportunity to improve the signage and sightlines to the bridge - was this done? On the first day it reopened, it was struck again... It can't be that there's more income to be made from the constant risk and disruption of bridge strikes here than there is from simply operating the railway can it?

Mark