Bercy bus station Paris. Where travel vloggers fear to tread and I would imagine most  people who have to use it.

 
City of London, apparently.  [Image from here is not available to guests]

 

I am rather suspecting that performance records stretching back to the last decade would set me off on a tangent I can do without.

 
Having travelled around the US by Greyhound in 1979 as teenager, I can attest to this in spades.

 

Yes, I spent many happy hours in George's as well, and perhaps even more in Chapter and Verse, another bookshop which was on the opposite side of Park Street directly opposite George's.

I have also been to Stanford's in Bristol many times, and it was usually quite busy most times I visited, though obviously not everyone will be buying when they visit. The map basement was where I usually headed for. I did go to Stanford's about 10 days ago, to buy a specific map I wanted, only to find that they had just closed the basement as they had boxed up all the maps to be sent to their London store. I can feel a visit to London coming up soon.

 
Often when you had heavy loads going in one direction - the stone road making haulage easier.

 
As these are a stop gap, very unlikely to be repainted and the future of regional liveries is up in the air with the possible new GBR livery.

 
What is the smallest police force in the UK based on number of warranted constables?

 
A photo of Watling Street, so rather out of the Coffeeshop area, but useful as it shows rural road conditions at the turn of the 20th Century, albeit a road in quite good condition. Perhaps useful as a reminder of the nature of the roads people might encounter on leaving a railway station.

Also, that puzzle. A 'Stone-road', and just 700 yards of it. What were persons unknown up to with that...

Mark

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/AA97/05859

 
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/bus-station-the-most-feral-part-of-any-town-20260126263703

 
....or rename one "The Yerkes Line"!

 

Two objections to that ET!

1 - It seems that the Government's second main policy proposal, apart from amalgamation of the current county/regional forces, is that serious crime becomes the responsibility of a new FBI-style national serious crime body, who would presumably have this kind of organised criminality in their remit

2 - The communications between the two comprise just the Thames crossing - tunnel north-bound, Queen Elizabeth Bridge southbound, both notorious bottlenecks on the M25. Dealing with a major accident or incident (say) in Colchester from a special unit based in Maidstone, or vice versa doesn't bear thinking about, so you would probably have to duplicate facilities either side of the crossing, negating the savings from amalgamation. As pointed out in my previous post on this thread, police work is very much more than solving crimes, and dealing with major accidents is very much at the upper end of the rest of their work.

 
That sounds very much like what happened to Reading's main independent bookseller, William Smith (no relation!) that used to be in London Street. It suffered a major fire in the early 1970s, after which there was a big sale of fire-damaged stock. I acquired an almost undamaged 7th edition One Inch (1/63,630) unfolded OS sheet 178 (Dorchester) which in due course (about 10 years later) I framed and hung on my office wall. Somewhere in the house there's a slightly smoke-damaged copy of Monkhouse's Principles of Physical Geography I acquired at the same time.

The shop moved to (if I recall correctly) King's Road, and in due course was acquired by, and rebranded as, Blackwells too. It closed in the era when Waterstones effectively took control of the serious book market in the 2000s, but they kept a store at the University.

The old London Street store had a well-regarded second-hand department, but I think almost all its stock perished in the fire. The premises were the site of an early Quaker meeting dating back to the end of the 17th century.

 

When George's closed I discovered that it had been a branch of Blackwell's since 1929 and had not been independent.

I too remember the old shop with its fascinating second hand department.  I still have a number of books I bought there.

 
Not 100% a propos, but I was amused last evening when I got on the 18.46 from Temple Meads to Montpelier.

This train - and you will see the tenuous connection to the topic, -  is often cancelled when I try to catch it due to lack of crew. I had come off the Plymouth - Leeds train on Platform 3, so it should have been a simple matter of stay put while the Leeds train shuffles off, and catch the Severn Beach train from the same platform. The minutes ticked by, ramps were obtained, a chap in a wheelchair got off and then the ramp was installed in a door at the other end of the train. Then, suddenly! Nothing happened. People shrugged. Someone cleared his throat. No-one went and no-one came. And then, over the wheezing rattle of the Vogager, the inevitable platform change was announced. So I joined the crowd hotfooting it to Platform 7, and just a few minutes later we were on our way.

The odd bit was the conductor's announcement. He apologised for the confusion. I thought he was going to explain why the Leeds train had delayed us and led to a platform change. What he actually told us was that our train had been cancelled and then uncancelled because he had been reallocated to another train but then another guard had come in on a later, delayed train thus allowing him to work our train. So that puts us in our place then!

The Leeds train, incidentally, left 26 minutes late but surpisingly left New St on time. No idea what held it up for so long at Temple Meads.

 
Thanks for your post, ChrisB.

The BBC have now improved their graphic in that article:

[Image from here is not available to guests]

Probably best to keep away from the south coast this evening, if you can.  [Image from here is not available to guests]

 
I quite like the sound of 'City and South London Line' and 'Hampstead Tube'

 

George's (note the placement of the apostrophe - we'll come back to that) was just one shop - 89 Park St - when I was a boy. Spent many happy hours there, exploring all four floors and multiple levels, and buying many a book. I think they over-expanded when they moved into 87 and 85, and then sadly rebranded as Blackwell's - the Oxford bookseller who had actually owned the business since the 1920's.

Why was the apostrophe where it was? Because it was William George's Sons Ltd. William, incidentally, started selling books in his uncle's bookshop at 26 Clare Street - more or less opposite Stanford's. He moved the business to Park St in either 1851 or 1871 (depending on who you believe). Perhaps he thought Clare St was a silly place for a bookshop?

 
Sad, but not surprised. I don't remember the Bristol store ever being very busy. It was on Clare Street, surrounded by bars and restaurants. There is a branch of Traifinders nearby, which could have sent some people their way, but overall it always looked a bit out of place.

 

Please don't encourage him, IndustryInsider. [Image from here is not available to guests] [Image from here is not available to guests] [Image from here is not available to guests]

 
In Bristol, we used to have the excellent Georges bookshops, on Park Street - there were three of them, on the left hand side walking up.

One of them was where I met Harold Wilson, who was there to sign copies of his book, 'The Governance of Britain'. I didn't buy one, I just offered him a sheet of paper - which he autographed: I remember saying to him, "Thank you, sir". I was with a group of fellow sixth-formers, who had all sneaked out of school simply to attend that book signing. [Image from here is not available to guests]

 
I've expressed opinions about the resilience of the route west of Plymouth before, but since September - when my son started at Exeter Uni at Penryn - I have had the opportunity to walk a mile in another man's shoes, as it were.

They're not very comfortable.

It is unusual to be able to make the journey from Montpelier to Penryn without problems. These range from annoying delays to needing to postpone or abandon the entire journey.

Crosscountry services are almost always overcrowded, and the trains are... seedy. They also seem to be very prone to delay and cancellation, and are slow to recover when there is major disruption. This seems to be an inevitable feature of services which run from one end of the island to the other. GWR services tend to be better and more comfortable (if you take a cushion!). But overall, it is a journey to be endured rather than enjoyed.

The railway at Dawlish is a unique point of failure. There is no other place on the network where a breach can isolate an entire county - six branch lines and around 175km of main line - from the rest of the country. Storms are getting bigger and more frequent, and the sea level is rising. Even if the line is able to resist the worst of the weather it will still be necessary to close it more often and for longer periods in the future. This part of the network is just too important to rely on a single coastal route.

Within Cornwall the branch lines seem to be becoming less reliable. The Liskeard Branch has been closed for over a month due to storm damage; the Newquay Branch was closed over the weekend due to flooding.

And yet the trains are busy. Even on a cold Sunday in January, the Falmouth line trains are buzzing.

In Bristol, we are at last beginning to see the effects of decades of underinvestment being reversed. Further west much more is needed. Who's going to pay for it? Like any good investment, it should pay for itself. The economic cost of the eight-week closure in 2014 was in the region of £1bn - over half the slated cost of reinstating the northern route (wasn't it £1.6bn?). The new sea wall has stood up well to the latest storms, but that's only fixed the most exposed area - the Teign and Exe estuaries are likely to become more vulnerable as sea levels rise. I would bet my shirt on another major failure before Bristol gets trams!

 

A realtimetrains+ subscription gives you the option to search back 5 years (or right back to 2012 with the 'Extended History' upgrade).

Might be very useful to you in terms of charting performance/timings over an extended period?

 
From https://www.stanfords.co.uk/our-stores - I remember in my youth visiting book shops like Foyles and Stanfords - the latter for maps.  Noting a post that fleetingly passed by told of the closure of Stanford's in Bristol, just a single store remains which is that one near Covent Garden.  I did have a look at their online shop too, which would now seem to be their dominant business.  Memories of other big bookstores too - whatever happened to Borders, or some of those wonderful specialist displays of IT books in places like Waterstones.

 
Kennington in the south (not Oval) is the same

 
I believe a major constraint on splitting is the passenger interchange capacity of Camden Town. At the moment both northern extensions serve both the city and Charing Cross branches. If the line was split, a large number of commuters would be transferring from one line to the other at Camden Town and its underground layout is not currently designed to cope with that kind of passenger flow.

 
The "Northern Line" is unique in having two branches running through the heart on London and this has been known to confuse visitors ... join a Northern Line train in either direction at Waterloo with a home of getting off at Moorgate and you'll find you're out of luck

From Timeout


It has always amused me (is it still the case?) that the most southerly station on the underground is on the Northern Line

Would it be a good idea to split?   What would the two lines be called?  Northern line and Southern line?  Charles and Camilla? Citylink and Westend Link?  Seaden and Denden lines? West End and Bank lines?

 
A link between Catford and Catford Bridge would certainly be useful, but a tunnel would not be applicable, more of an above ground walkway, preferably with lifts and/or escalators since the difference in elevation is considerable.

 
This week, I was planning to be in the North East - plan aborted due to weather amongst other issues. Instead, I am looking forward to travelling Interrail again - for a change, here are some pictures which do NOT show public transport though all were done by train (with the odd bit of ferry and bus) from Melksham.   Key at end end - not a competitlon

























Austria - Melk - 11
Finland - Kemi - 4
France - St Malo - 12
Germany - Potsdam - 7
Hungary - Budapest - 6
Italy - Taomina - 10
Lithuania - Trakei - 9
Netherlands - Enkhuizen - 2
Norway - Lofoten - 8
Poland - Hel - 5
Scotland - Inverness - 1
Spain - Nuria - 3

 
Long planned Engineering work