Tree blocking line near Netley this morning

 
There have been a number of traffic (or, rather cpu) spikes in the past few days which have left the Coffee Shop unreachable for a few minutes. I think I have identified the issue (actually in my Well House Consultants site which shares the server and applied a fix ... but only time will tell.

 

Oops - I missed picking that request up.  Please send me an image of the page you get - I THINK I know what the issue might be, but want to check that I address the right question.

 

Sounds about right as to what happens.  But the theory is a crude one to be always applied.

First thought - open access license applications are supposed not to be primarily abstractive.  In other words to develop new markets.   And those new markets in many cases can help the older markets too.  Not Open Access, but the re-instated services from Oxford to Swindon and the west will abstract traffic from Oxford to Didcot locals and from trains heading west that call at Didcot.   But then many more people should make the journey from Oxford to Swindon and beyond, attracted by the new service - perhaps to the extent that many more people that before (rather than less) will do the "Didcot Dance" rather that waiting for the direct train which this year is only every 120 minutes.

I haven't data to say which way that balance goes in the case of Bristol to west of Cardiff, nor on the Oxford to Swindon example ... but I can tell you with some certainty that an extra service (whoever and however it's run) combed in with an every-2-hours Swindon to Westbury service run by GWR or GBR would (under the right conditions) increase the passenger numbers on the GWR/GBR service.     That may sound perverse, but analysis suggests that annual passenger journeys at Melksham (for example) would rise from around 70,000 to around 300,000 - in other words, twice the number of trains and each would be twice as busy..  I do need to qualify that; the service would truely need to be hourly (not two trains following each other closely then a long gap for the rest of the two hours), and the ticket system would need to be such that passengers could routinely get on the next train no matter who was running it (integrated fares).

 
Will have to try that.   I currently have Uber One to save on my weekly plaice and chips!

 
However... I've just discovered that if you join Uber One, you get 10% of your ticket cost back in Uber credits (plus a few other benefits). Uber One is £4.99pm after the first free month.

So even with my relatively low usage of 3 trips per week at £10.25 each I make it a saving of about £12pm, £7 more than the subscription.

Anyone tried this? I'm giving it a go...

 
The Department for Transport has always instructed franchised train operators to object to new services, or service extensions, by non-franchised operators - because they (in theory) reduce the amount of money flowing back to DfT. Remember way way back when Virgin's objections, at the behest of DfT, stopped Wrexham & Shropshire calling at Birmingham New Street.

What's different here is that the other operator is the Welsh Government, in the form of Transport for Wales. But it's the same principle there's always been.

 

The next year his "Railophone" company was demonstrating (on the same line) using his radio link to control trains - CBTC, no less!

 
This thread, plus thoughts of the long wave transmission from Droitwich finishing at the the end of this month, combined to remind me of some pioneering experiments with telephone communication from a train - this was in 1911 and involved the Stratford on Avon and Midland Junction Railway no less.

Mark


https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/im-train-wireless-messages-trains-1911-12

 
A friend who does have an allotment hadn't heard anything which suggests they might be.

I'm struggling to think where a new car park could go though. Allotments on one side, houses on another and the only open spaces nearby are playing fields and a Wildlife Trust reserve both of which I think would cause suitable levels of outrage if they were built on.

I did have to go back to Twyford for the first time in a couple of years and it was quite a surprise to see how far out the yellow lines had pushed commuters but also it felt quite challenging navigating all the parked cars. Pushing them to the village outskirts meant traffic speeds were that much higher along with some blind corners I'm surprised there's not more pictures of damaged cars on the local Facebook page.

 
...and not only that, the 6:46 Trowbridge-Bristol service was 4 carriages instead of the usual 2. Happy days

 
Arrived at the usual time, 6:27, so just a couple of extra minutes taking in the Melksham station scenery

 
I couldn't help smiling at number 2 - the watering point for electric locomotives.

 
From Villach to Ljubljana and back today, using local trains. Not the original intent as I had intended to go to Nova Gornia, but my train from Villach left there a few minutes late, got held up at loops because it was out of path, and we arrived at Jelenice just after the ongoing train had left.  Next one, 2 or 3 hours. Sound familiar?

Here are some pictures and I thing they all show things you would not see in England

 
There are some minor changes to TransWilts timings all day, all week this week.  Some mainline services also affected.