... 3 might easily be the last one guessed!

What happens if all the lights go out? This is the plan for a 'Black Sky' event


It was a Saturday night in early December when Roger Kemp realised something was very wrong.

"I was halfway through a Scandi crime drama when everything went off," the professor at Lancaster University told the BBC. "Streetlights were off. The sodium glow that we can see over the horizon from Morecambe was off."

The next day he went for a walk.  "[It was] almost like a zombie movie," he said. "People trying to find phone reception, wondering where things were, and there was a huge queue at the one working telephone box."

At 22:45 on 5 December 2015, the River Lune - which flows directly through Lancaster - had flooded, and the electricity supply to 61,500 people in the city went.

Households lost light and heat, some water supplies also began to fail because they relied on electric pumps. The railway station closed. So too petrol stations and shops. Most cash machines didn't work. Traffic lights failed.

The two communication systems that survived were copper wire landline telephones and FM radio. The local commercial radio station The Bay had an emergency generator and one landline and a reporter was sent outside the affected area to ring in with information.

Three months later, Kemp, a professor of engineering with a specialism in safety and electrical systems, gathered people together to look at everything that had gone wrong.

"It is perhaps ironic that, in a society with huge commitment to digital infrastructure, the most reliable source of news was a commercial station using technology that would have been familiar to the engineers on the 1960s Radio Caroline pirate radio ship," the subsequent report concluded.

For Kemp and others in the field of civil contingency, Lancaster was a warning. When a town loses power for several days, our connected world falls apart. This kind of disruption has been given a name: a Black Sky event.

At a recent summit on UK resilience, the conversation focused on the need for the UK to be able to withstand a Black Sky event for a minimum of 72 hours.

"We are nine meals from anarchy" is a phrase often heard in the civil contingency world. A brutal reminder of the fear that three days without food would be enough to turn a crisis into chaos. If a Black Sky event takes out electricity, water, shops and communications, there is a good reason the government wants us to have our own supplies.

The much talked about "Be Ready" campaign is designed to help ready us for all sorts of possible crises, but the government says there is no specific threat to the grid. Regardless, a Black Sky event is definitely at the backs of people's minds.

In a major emergency, we are being told to hunker down and turn on an FM radio, as thousands did in Lancaster. This is why the BBC has its own Black Sky plan.

(BBC article continues)

I reckon I know the location of 4.  However, to give Coffee Shop member stuving the opportunity to answer (and I have yet to see him at loss for the answer, to anything! ), I shall hold back from posting here for the time being.  I just don't want grahame's theory to be proved right.
CfN. 

Most pictures should be recognisable, though one (or 4!) is a "stuving special" 
4.

I am speculating to myself that No. 4 will be the last to be identified and if anyone (including those who have answered already) fancy the challenged of proving me wrong, please go ahead 

New Bristol railway station opening date announced


The new Bristol Brabazon Station will have an hourly service to Bristol Temple Meads

The opening date for a new railway station in Bristol designed to serve the new town Brabazon and the future Aviva Arena has been announced.

Bristol Brabazon Station - near the site of the former North Filton Station - will welcome its first passengers with an 07:10 service on Monday 23 November marking a return to passenger trains on the currently freight-only Henbury Line.

An hourly service will run between Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Brabazon, also calling at Lawrence Hill, Stapleton Road, Ashley Down and Filton Abbey Wood.

There are further plans for a new station at Henbury, which is expected to open in 2028.  The 23 November will mark the first time passenger trains have used the Henbury Line since 1964.

The Mayor of the West of England, Helen Godwin, is responsible for transport in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset.  She said the opening of the station would be "a major milestone" for the region.

"For the first time in more than 60 years, passengers will be able to travel on the Henbury Line, making it easier for people to get to work, education and leisure opportunities - with more work planned to enhance the station before the Aviva Arena opens," she said.

Great Western Railway managing director Mark Hopwood said the station was key to further development.  "Stations are catalysts for new homes, jobs and investment," he said.  "Bristol Brabazon will connect the growing Brabazon community and in time the new Aviva Arena to Bristol and beyond."

He added: "With work continuing to reopen Portishead and Pill, this is about more than track and trains. It's about unlocking access to jobs, education and opportunity, and giving a real boost to the wider regional economy."

Bristol Brabazon station will open in two stages and will be unstaffed initially with two platforms, while the station building will come into use when the Aviva Arena opens.

28340 cups of coffee
27739 cups of tea

Have just checked again with GWR and TrainSplit.  Tickets to and from Bristol Brabazon are now bookable.

According to the glimpse of signage, that is SNCF's "Le Bistro inOui" menu. There was a lot of media a year ago about this being new for the TGV-M, but it had actually been introduced well before even then. What's new on the new trains is mainly the cook-it-yourself feature.

You were spot on ... until the last word.  Buffet car, yes (what a lovely idea!), not Eurostar - nor on the Underground, GWR from Paddington or on the Melksham Flyer!

GWR seem less confident about the announcement if their app is anything to go by as I can't get any ticket/prices/times for the 23rd.  Same story with the TrainSplit site.

October 23rd late morning, a Friday, one of the Oxford trains at Bath Spa. Many people on the platform boarding what was already a rather busy five carriage train. If this was representative of how this new service has found its feet, it's very positive, but what a capacity-constrained system that providing even this service deploys trains that GWR doesn't really have.

7 is the buffet/cafe on the Eurostar

  We recognise that the temporary timetable has disrupted your journeys and affected your plans. Progress is being made, but we need to carry out some engineering work before we can eventually remove the speed restrictions, and later, restore the full timetable.

We'll be carrying out essential repairs between Salisbury and Exeter. ⚠️This means some evening services will finish earlier than usual on Monday 23, Tuesday 24, Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 November.
ℹ️ What's changing on these dates? 
•   The 20:20 service from London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids will finish its journey at Yeovil Junction. A connecting bus service will continue to Exeter St Davids.
 
•   The 22:12 service from Exeter St Davids to Salisbury will be replaced by a bus service from Exeter St Davids to Yeovil Junction. A connecting train service will continue to Salisbury.
 
•   The 23:06 service from Exeter St Davids to Yeovil Junction will be replaced by a bus service.
Please check before you travel, including your last train home, before you set off. Journey planners have been updated with the latest information.
Journey Planner

Makers of automatic braking system for railways. They had a large facility near Chippenham station in Wiltshire.

See https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Westinghouse_Brake_Co
and
https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/24185562.westinghouse-chippenham-site-demolished-new-homes/

The opening of a £100 million rail engineering facility is a "vote of confidence" for a region's economy and future, a government minister has said.

The new Siemens Rail Technology Centre on Southpoint Business Park in Chippenham was opened earlier, with the prime minister among those in attendance.

Siemens, which was previously based elsewhere in the town, creates digital signalling technology for the UK's rail network.
Heidi Alexander, the MP for Swindon South and the secretary of state for transport, said: "It's a great vote of confidence in the economy of the West Country

GWR seem less confident about the announcement if their app is anything to go by as I can't get any ticket/prices/times for the 23rd.  Same story with the TrainSplit site.

It will be interesting to see what GWR do with the planned 1Z services to Cardiff for the rugby today.

Customer Advice

As a result of some damage being sustained to the overhead electric wires we are unable to operate electric trains along the slow / stopping lines between Reading and Didcot Parkway.

Passengers who would normally travel on these services as a through train between Didcot Parkway and stations via Cholsey and Tilehurst will need to change trains at Reading; similar arrangements will apply in reverse for journeys from London Paddington.