Wonderful reading ... looking forward to the next chapter (in the next few days) and perhaps seeing some of these places for myself in the next few years.

 

I'm with that!

CfN. 

 
I'm reminded that in Devon in 1999 the farming community joked that Cornish farmers would turn in for bed during the eclipse.  I'm sure that the joke worked similarly for Cornish farmers.

 
With my very grateful thanks to grahame for hosting this image (and for overlooking the fact that I nicked one of his mugs, years ago), here is my own collection:



Actually, bearing in mind that I am the only person in our household of three who actually drinks coffee, I was rather startled that I have apparently collected six mugs. 

CfN. 

 
The Harz hex bottom left. Big and light inside so I can see it's been through the wash.

 
They are so new (this year?) that I suspect they haven't yet even considered that those questions need answers....so no, is the answer I expect.

 
Thanks for your update, ChrisB.

I understand that the erstwhile village church in Imber will be filled with stalls offering all sorts of souvenirs for the event. SWMBO, who is an avid collector of fridge magnets, has instructed me to purchase some, so I'm collecting all of our loose coins here (it will be cash only) to do so.

See you there on Saturday! 

 
Chapter 3 is Bucharest to Sofia, a more character-building part of the journey. I asked at the hotel whether the metro was normal on a Sunday- yes but you can just walk around the corner and catch trolley bus 10 direct to the station. This I did with a swipe from my bank card – not sure it registered by nobody cares. Bucharest Gara de Nord is a large terminal station with a typical layout of about 16 platforms and a very large building as the entrance portico. The departure board and platform numbering are perfectly logical counting from No 1 at the left. (I recently saw an internet influencer going crazy as unable to find No 4 but that is what these types do and for the rest of that video). As this was a holiday Sunday it was busy with families heading for the Black Sea coast. Plenty of snack outlets around the station.

The once daily train for Sofia departs at 10.46 and is multi-portion. I also fully paid for this trip at around £30. The journey is scheduled for 10 hours. I would say it was 10 car initially, with a mix of Romanian, Bulgarian and 1 x Turkish Couchette cars. It was mighty hot and my seat was in quite tired Bulgarian second class compartment stock with no a/c. The compartments had 6 well padded seats with armrests and quite comfortable. (I did see the first class version of this later which seemed no different apart from the seat colour). The windows were sprung upwards and kept closing. There are locks for a carriage key but the conductor failed to get them to work and resourcefulness was used to keep them open.
 
There were many stops along the way and we arrived 1 hour late for no obvious reason. The train divides at Ruse just inside Bulgaria (30 min stop - time for shopping!) where a portion is removed for Varna and one is added, perhaps from Varna. Sometime later at Gorna Oryahovitsa, the Turkish couchette is removed and sent on separately to Dimitrovgrad to eventually join the main Sofia-Istanbul overnight train. The through couchette service is summer only but the journey can be easily undertaken on the seats every day, using the various local services and joining the main train at Dimitrovgrad. As “seats” in a couchette may not be so comfortable it may be possible to use the seated coaches anyway until the train divides. The through journey to Istanbul takes about 24 hours with lots of hanging around so quite challenging and I was wise to divert to Sofia.

Sofia Central station is again a large Communist era structure where the many and quiet platforms are on top with a vast network of subways below. There are few catering outlets in the subways and not much else apart from toilets and ticket offices. One walks forward from the platforms following signs for taxis or trams/metro. I went too far and missed the taxis and still not clear where they were. As my hotel was quite close, I again resolved to walk (at 21.30!). Quite straightforward apart from some rough pavements and I reached safety just in time for the World Cup final which took me ages to find on the Bulgarian TV channels. This was the simplest hotel I used but perfectly fine. I now know it was very easy to catch a tram!

Sofia is also an impressive city with lots of historic and communist-era architecture and of course is now a modern “Western”-style city like everywhere else. I did a morning walk around in the heat and got slightly lost. I had enough and wanted to get to the hotel but not prepared to walk. A quick consult of Mr Google advised walk around the corner catch Tram 3 and on a circular route be back at the hotel in 15 mins! Sofia like all the other cities has fantastic public transport. Here the tram network is incredibly dense in the city with routes everywhere. Bank cards accepted on the tram too. (Bulgaria joined the Euro this year). Motorists were also well behaved in all cities except perhaps in Istanbul with good allowances at pedestrian crossings and not overtaking at tram stops located in the middle of the road.

I also took another Communist-Era tour which provided background history etc., most of which was new to me. The Bulgarian big boss, Todor Zhivkov, was deposed in 1989 by a tap on the shoulder at a meeting where he had no expectation of this. He had a kinder fate than Ceaușescu although convicted and imprisoned for a while. Meanwhile the remaining party officials suddenly became the new democratic government! Enjoy the read Chapter 4 awaits.   

 
After a previous solar eclipse it was reported that the children at local school, were banned from any direct observation of the eclipse, and only permitted to view it on TV.
Then it was declared, that even watching it on TV was only permitted if via dark glasses ! "we can't have too much safety"

 
I have voted - including one vote for 'some other reason'.  That is because I have a partial disability in my right hand, so I prefer to select a mug (or beer glass) with a handle, the dimensions of which I can pick up easily and securely.

As an occasional resident in Melksham, I am familiar with those mugs grahame has illustrated.  I tend to use one of their older mugs, branded 'Well House Manor' - purely for nostalgia reasons.

CfN.  

 
I don't drink tea these days, only coffee and water.
Any large mug that will hold two ordinary cups so I'm not constantly going to the coffee machine for a top-up.

Alcohol mainly at the weekends!

 
13:14 Penzance to Plymouth due 15:10
13:14 Penzance to Plymouth due 15:10 will no longer call at Lostwithiel, Bodmin Parkway, St Germans and Saltash.
This is due to overcrowding.
Disabled toilet facilities are not available.

A 2 car 175 (009).

14:36 London Paddington to Torquay due 17:38
14:36 London Paddington to Torquay due 17:38 will be starting late from London Paddington.
This is due to a fault on this train.
It didn't start late, but it's also a 5 car unit..............

As are many InterCity ones today..

Boardmasters presumably.
Do the Treasury not care about passengers.

 
It's unfair to say RTT was doing the blaming; they just passed on what is on the data feed.

Officially TN is "Late presentation from the continent" or LATE CHUNL. So it's obviously wrong.

But of course the train was not cancelled, so it should not have had another code as if it was. It was actually reinstated seven seconds after being cancelled! So RTT has got it wrong, by missing that reinstatement.

 
First train this morning

 
I see amber heat alerts have been issued from 0900 Tuesday-0900 Friday, warning of likely travel issues, which may be "upgraded" to red in some areas.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/red-weather-warnings-possible-met-office-says-as-36c-heatwave-approaches/ar-AA29IBjn?ocid=socialshare

Does this mean refunds/alterations will be allowed by GWR for the affected periods, for those who wish to change their plans taking the warnings into account?

 
Here are five mugs that Lisa or I commonly drink out of.



Why do we choose these from all those we have to hand?  Which of us chooses which of those pictured?

 

That graph is misleading, or at least its annotation is. The physical light level (in lux) varies almost linearly over most of the eclipse, with no sharp dip. It's the subjective brightness that we notice that gives the rather logarithmic shape in that graph. A cube-root-law model fits the eye better, but the shape on a graph looks very similar to logarithmic.

From what I recall, if you don't know there's going to be a partial solar eclipse, even a near miss, you probably won't notice it at all. Even if you are outdoors in bright sunlight, you won't be looking at the face of the sun so as to observe its shape change. The dimming is very slow and subjectively it doesn't darken much. That's why a total eclipse can sneak up on you, until at the last minute the world suddenly goes all dark. That goes for birds too.

 

 
2E06 0743 Penzance to Exeter St Davids
 This service is cancelled.
This service was cancelled due to a late arrival of the service from Europe (TN).

Blame it on the Europeans - that's a new one!
Left Penzance 42 down, and arrived Exeter 55 Down.
Departed Exeter 24 down, enroute back to Penzance.

 
Are you thinking of King Solomon's Mines perhaps?

 
Nobody is mentioning the original War of the Worlds story 

 
Intriguing.

So if this data is to be believed, a Friday afternoon train leaving Paddington headed for the Westcountry for one of the busiest event weekends of the year, with the previous train having been cancelled, has "many" seats available throughout with the exception of First class which is full (at those prices there must have been some very rich people on board, or perhaps the GWR management surfing team travelling on staff passes?)

I'd say either the data has a whiff of fertiliser about it - a case of "more sensors than usual requiring repair at the same time?", or perhaps if accurate and the train was as lightly loaded as the data indicates suggests that people have given up on relying on the train and have gone by road instead - or perhaps surfed all the way? 

 

What a day for you... Wednesday will provide almost the same depth of eclipse though at a different time of day, perhaps tell the rooks as 1999 will be a bit of a folk memory for them.

It's odd, the amount of light provided by a mostly obscured sun's disk. After the 1999 event, someone kindly provided me with a set of figures from a data logger that they'd set up at Carn Brea (the hill near Land's End rather than the one above Redruth). Despite, subjectively, the light levels dropping during a partial eclipse - while also gaining peculiar qualities - that plunge in light levels during the total phase then comes as more than a bit of a shock - and then, if partly cloudy, the abruptly dynamic appearance of the sky as the shadow tracks across...

Mark

 
A train to Plymouth organised by Pathfinder Tours that we picked up at Bristol. For the actual minute or so of totality, the clouds in the direction of the sun disgraced themselves - two minutes later they parted once more. However, obscured sun aside, the utterly unsettling appearance of everything else - and the behaviour of the wildlife - the eclipsed sun is only a smaller part of the experience and with a complex sky the lighting effects are overwhelming. After which we headed up to Gunnislake and back as that's pretty special too.

From the travel point of view the railway was... busy. A Network Rail helicopter on standby at Exeter, but the only disruption to the Pathfinders train was on the return as someone in the environs of Wellington saw fit to vandalise something (on another train) but management were on standby to sort issues so not much delay from that.

Mark

 

Yes indeed it is.
And when I bought my house from a bank, a date was agreed for the signing. I booked the ferry and time off work. Then the bank said that their guy could not get down from Paris but would come two days later. 'No problem' said the Notaire. The documents of title now show that I bought the property from Caisse d'Epargne on April 22nd 1992 and that Caisse d'Epargne sold the property on April 24th 1992. Fortunately there were no insurance or other complications during the dual period.

 
I remember occasional family trips to London where one of the treats for me and my sister was to go to Trafalgar Square and buy little bags of bird food for giving to the pigeons.

 

Absolutely. It's perverse. A safety net for poor performance.

Linking senior TOC pay to customer satisfaction ratings...........now there's an incentive that would have got results!