Nice thought but I rather fancy that the publication in question would have jumped on that story if there was a much a whiff of a suggestion that this might be the case...."Former passenger heralds start of branch line reopening campaign"....or some such headline.  But you never know!

 

I'm intrigued by the new Northern Explorer ticket: https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/tickets/northern-explorer

Basically a flat-rate, go-anywhere ticket for the Northern network. Northern is, of course, a DfT-owned operator. I wonder if this is a very tentative experiment in go-anywhere ticketing given the success of such tickets in mainland Europe.

 
04/06/26 - Exeter To London
DIG 1114 (OT) > EXD 1124 (OT) : 2T15 EXM > PGN : 1 x 166/2 (3 Cars)
EXD 1143 (OT) > PAD 1417 (OT) : 1A81 PGN > PAD : 1 x 800/3 (9 Cars)
TfL Underground Paddington > Stratford (Elizabeth Line) + DLR Stratford > Stratford International

Tickets (All With Senior Railcard, 2 Pax▸ , Price Per Person):
DIG > PAD Advance Single £32.30
TfL Underground/DLR Single £2.05

On 2T15 both tickets & ‘passes’ were requested but the guard then didn’t hang around to check my digital railcard! The train PA was barely audible and wouldn’t have helped anybody who didn’t know exactly what they were doing.
To describe 1A81 as lightly loaded would have been an exaggeration - in our Coach C there were only about a dozen pax. Not for the first time there was no ticket/railcard check.
The short DLR run between Stratford & Stratford International was a useful way of avoiding the walk through Westfield which during most of the day resembles the Serengeti Wildebeest Migration.

05/06/26
Elizabeth Line Stratford > Tottenham Court Road followed by a pleasant stroll to the London Transport Museum. I did not know that on term time Fridays it features guest pianist sessions on a baby grand - very entertaining if you like that sort of thing (I do).
Our return to Stratford was severely disrupted due to problems caused by an Elizabeth Line signal failure at Gidea Park.

06/06/26
Jubilee & Circle Lines from Stratford to South Kensington, Via Westminster, for a visit to the Science Museum. On the Jubilee Line between North Greenwich & Bermondsey the semi-continuous very loud, high pitched noise, presumably due to wheel / rail misalignment, was most unpleasant and I would suggest using a different route if possible. At South Kensington we came up against the absence of the long planned lifts and having to carry an occupied, by our grandson, pushchair up two sets of stairs when surrounded by large crowds was pretty difficult. And then we had to do it again at the museum end of the subway. TfL need to pull their fingers out - planning permission was granted in 2023.
After the visit a walk in the rain to Knightsbridge, Piccadilly Line to Green Park & Jubilee Line to London Bridge for the main event - Afternoon Tea at The Shard Shangri-La - which was absolutely excellent.
A return to Stratford using the Northern & Elizabeth lines, walking from Moorgate to Liverpool Street, so as to avoid being potentially deafened on the Jubilee Line.

07/07/26 - London To Exeter
TfL DLR Stratford International > Stratford + Underground Stratford > Paddington (Elizabeth Line)
PAD 1336 (1353) > EXD 1610 (1631) : 1U84 PAD > PNZ : 2 x 802/0 (10 Cars)
(EXD 1616 > DIG 1628 - Missed Connection)
EXD 1651 (1653) > DIG 1701 (1703) : 2F18 PGN > EXM : 1 X 150/2 (2 Cars)

Tickets (All With Senior Railcard, 2 Pax, Price Per Person):
TfL Underground/DLR Single £2.05
PAD > DIG Super Off Peak Single £43.75

We were originally booked PAD 1536 > EXD 1810/1816 > DIG 1828 but decided to leave London early due to the poor weather. If we had travelled as intended it appears from RTT that we would have arrived home as scheduled.

On the way to Paddington I used RTT to check the status of the next Exeter service which was the 9-Car 1U84 from Platform 1 at 1336. Another check after arriving at PAD showed that 800304 had been reallocated to 1D26, the 1322 Oxford train, and 1U84 was now leaving from P2 as a 10-Car service. And then the fun commenced; RTT has no information on the arrival of the two 5-Car units but the process of coupling them up turned into a monumental cock-up. After several attempts the mating ritual succeeded but a fairly significant electrical issue, which prevented the doors from being opened, appeared. When that was eventually sorted(ish) and boarding commenced there was no power to the external bodyside information screens or internal reservation displays and coach end displays.
The train was rammed with some coaches full & standing. The late change of rolling stock also apparently put paid to the on-board catering, although oddly there was a customer host present who suggested during the journey that catering might be available from Taunton (it didn’t happen!).
The coach end digital displays miraculously activated as we passed Grove / Wantage. 
The journey delay was reduced from 17 to 10 minutes by the time we got to BRI but that improvement was subsequently more than wiped out by 1U84 having to follow the 2C79 BRI > EXD stopper all the way to Exeter. 2C79 was routed into it’s booked P4 so our train used P1. Understandably no ticket/railcard check was performed on the PAD > EXD journey.
2F18 was also full and standing. There appeared to be a significant number of CTCRM recruits - most of them ‘suited & booted’ so perhaps newbies - on board which was a bit odd because the train did not stop at LYC.
 
I submitted our PAD > DIG Delay Repay claim on Monday 8th June at around 1300. I received email approval of the claim at 0703 on Tuesday 9th June. For the second trip in a row good work by GWR.

 
Or might it have been a training type of exercise where the heritage railway provided a quiet line for the RHTT to use at no cost to NR?

 
So was this a "paid for" service by the heritage railway (eyes water at the thought) or does it mean that SWR will be running trains to Swanage?

 
The railbus - though still undergoing restoration work has been / is in some use on the Swindon and Cricklade railway already (and worth the trip).  Yes - it will be lovely to see the work completed by 2030 but it is already in public use - so is that date being oversold?  Or is the tale of "public use" relating to suggested re-openings of the feeder branch(es) from Kemble - Trouble House Halt, with the countryside around - might be a wonderful place for a new town to use a re-instated railway; 2030 sounds optimistic ...

 
From the European Rail Timetable


The ICE neteotk reached out with a number of of daily trains that fit into the hourly / 2-hourly pattern for their core journeys.  We were on the Amsterdam - Munich train a couple of week ago, just missed one from Chur that was headed for Hamburg, and I have seen them on Rugen Island.

In the GWR area we have summer-only trains to Newquay, and to Tenby on Saturdays.  Is there a case for more like this, and if so, to where?  Is the case made by the financial railway case, or the broader economic and political benefits brought to the places served?

How about ... a Fishguard service that connects with the Rosslare boat?  A Falmouth service?  Bath to York and Edinburgh? etc.   The UK seems to have pulled back from these services during and in the aftermath of covid, and yet with increased leisure traffic the case for them seems all the stronger.

 
From the BBC:

 
It was going to/from Swanage according to Realtimetrains.

 
Ah... wondering to what extent this is a system-wide issue for South Western Railway?

Mark

 
Back in Oct 2024 I posted some comments about the new (then) unisex toilets at Southampton Central.  Yesterday, for the first time since then, I had the misfortune to re-visit those on Platform 4 (Bournemouth bound), and on the return journey, those on Platform 1 (London bound).

Platform 4:  All/most of, them did seem to be useable. The one I used had not seen a toilet brush or bleach for some long time—glad I didn’t have to sit on it ! Not a pretty sight in any way.

Platform 1:  Took my breath away—in more ways than one !  As I pointed out in my post from Oct 2024, work on these loos had just started then. Knowing the glacial speed at which things progress on the railways it must have seem some considerable time later that these were actually in use (well into 2025 ).  I can honestly say, with a straight face, that these toilets were amongst some of the worst I have seen anywhere …………...on the planet. I didn’t stop long enough to take a detailed look (I kept hearing the word “Ebola” ringing through my head), but….there seemed to be about 8 cubicles of which 5 were labelled “out of use”.  The one I used had a toilet bowl which was a sort of pale coffee colour all over.  The bowl was “clean” - in that there was nothing clinging to it—it was just coated in a thick coat of limescale which had just “matured” with age.  It looked as though no attempt had ever been made to try and keep these toilets in anything approaching their original white colour.

Just what a visiting tourist, or anyone, would make of these toilets I cannot imagine. I struggle to find a word to succinctly describe them……………..disgusting, foul, awful, shocking………...but I think the most suitable one is—shameful.  Whoever let these toilets get in this state should be given 100 toilet brushes and a 100 gallons of Domestos and told to get on with it—but I fear that the only way to now make them anywhere near acceptable from their present state is a complete rebuild—again !
 
I repeat my advice from 2024 ……………...use the loo on the train !  Oh …. and avoid the "Gents" on the Down platform at Bournemouth too !
 

 
Second of the day..................

Cancellations to services between Reading and London Paddington

Due to a fault with the signalling system at West Ealing fewer trains are able to run on some lines. Disruption is expected until 18:15 09/06.

Train services between Reading and London Paddington may be cancelled or delayed.

Customer Advice

Due to a fault with the signal system in the West Ealing area, we are amending our train service between Reading and London Paddington this afternoon.

 

I suppose it could have been - there weren't any weeds growing on the rails .....

 

Indeed - and you did NOT come across at all in that way.  I just commented on the clinical element in my treatment as being so positive to contrast it with the organisational issues.

 
From National Rail - causing a lot of cancellations

Between Abbey Wood and Heathrow Terminal 4 / Maidenhead / Reading, between Gidea Park and Heathrow Terminal 4, between London Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 4 / Heathrow Terminal 5 / Reading, and also between Shenfield and Heathrow Terminal 5

Description

An earlier fault with the signalling system at London Paddington is causing disruption to Elizabeth line services through London Paddington. Trains running through this station may still be cancelled or revised whilst service recovers.

Disruption is expected until 08:00.

 
Home to Copenhagen, 8th to 18th May, met up with cousin Jennifer and her husband Steve in Amsterdam and we travelled onwards together.  Home to Austria and northern Italy, 25th May to 10th June, with Lisa who can step in and out of trains and manage a few stairs, but has a mobility device to help with distances most of us can walk.

My ticket app tells me I have travelled on 80 trains (3 on UK legs and 77 in mainland Europe) and visited 50 places since I activated my Interrail pass a month ago. In that time, one train in mainland Europe has been cancelled when I turned up for it (Hengelo to Osnabrouek) but there was another an hour later and the day was just pushed back, one train has been delayed to the extent that a planned connection was missed, and one train turned into a bus along the way.  One train was diverted while we were on it, bypassing Antwerp Central to Antwerp Berchem,and I had to get another train a couple of miles back, and a train into Hamburg was diverted (and planned on the app) into Altona, so I had to connect on the S-Bahn. here have been some none-consequential delays - the worst being a 16:59 arrival just yesterday 23 minutes late at 17:22. 

One (UK) train was declared as cancelled - the 14:34 on 25th May from Melksham and I caught the bus to Chippenham, though my logging tells me that it ran, 40 minutes late.  The 15:56 from Chippenham into Paddington left 10 minutes late and  got there at there at 17:50 (rather that at 17:05), and the train from Liverpool Street, due Harwich at 21:00, left 5 minutes late and got there 25 minutes late. No consequences as I wasn't on the ferry until the next morning - Lisa travelling with me and we stopped at the Premier Inn.

Two train managers have challenge my ticket, one asking me to move to 2nd class even though I hold a 1st class pass. And one telling me that I had not "toggled" my ticket on to make it a valid journey because he misread my app.  At two stations, we found the lift from the platform to the main concourse out of order - in one case there was another way around (a combination of three lifts, not intuitive) and in the other we changed plans, got an alternative train to another station in the same city.

Hotel receptionists when they see us roll up tend to panic; we don't book "upper floors accessible by lifts only" accommodation - just need a flat access or lift; a couple of steps is OK.  Two occasions on this trip, the hotel receptionist has known "better than us" and and has made a needless room change - in one case with a long and complex show of frustration.  I always indicate on booking that we cannot manage lots of stairs but that does not always reach the check-in dest. Good receptionists ask / check.

On busy trains (everywhere) there is a survival of the fittest mentality, but at the same time people when they note tend to be extremely helpful. THANK YOU.  One sad exception yesterday - Lisa got a green labelled (unreserved seat) in the ICE from Germany to the Netherlands, seated airline stile on the aisle beside a lady in a reserved seat.  But turned out it was not her preservation, and another lady came along and requested her booked seat.  Lisa got up, moved clear to let the wrongly seated woman out, then the rightful owner took her seat - and the woman turfed out grabbed the seat Lisa had been in. "My seat" I think she muttered.   Nothing around marked as priority seats and on one hand we want to be treated like everyone else - but yet I do question this woman's action.  We found Lisa the last reserved seat that hadn't been taken; I stood from Dusseldorf to Utrecht but - must admit - the app did say "reservations recommended" and we had made a call as the train came in to get on - we had a fallback option taking an hour longer via Venlo.

We are on the night ferry tonight - a leisurely day planned in Utrecht and Rotterdam ... and an opportunity for me to look at the stats and write up before a late breakfast.

 

Was it an MPV (Multi Purpose Vehicle) being multi purposed as a weed killer train rather than a RHTT?

 
Even without the help of an unseasonal gale, trees do a thing called 'June leaf-fall' though I don't know how much of an issue it is on the railway. Certain other members of this forum will be far more familiar with it.

Mark

 
I think what I did was cross the road outside Moor Street to the north side of the underpass that's above the tunnels to New Street - St Martin's Passage - which involves steps (but ramps provided and avoids the path that accompanies the bus route beneath the structures, of which I am not fond, in the same way that I was not fond, long ago in a world that didn't do Sunday trains, of the trip in to Birmingham on the bus, on my own, to see the film 'Alien' when it first came out. Bus trip in: fine. Film: scary. Bus trip home again: scary 'cos of the muti-player drunk fight that broke out at Halesowen between the people on the bus and the people boarding from the queue there).

Mark

 

Must be.......an RHTT went through Bournemouth this morning when I was there.

 
I wasn't meaning to critical of the clinical service, which is generally excellent.

The problem is mainly an administrative one. Also possibly compounded in the case of Reading with a wide range of options in Thames Valley, that you possibly don't have further west. I would guess the Banbury option is because the Oxford University Hospitals used to have one of the shortest waiting times for scans, presumably achieved by running services 12 hours a day 7 days a week at all their scanner sites. When we emailed them to say it wasn't really possible we were rang back within half an hour. After a discussion they said they would cancel the appointment (which stops the clock) and refer the request back to the consultant.

 
The plague of disruption due to engineering work continues on the line

Southampton to Portsmouth Sunday 5 July

(crazily spaced intervals few weeks apart so just as rail traffic builds up again and gets back to normal, there is another multi-day interruption discouraging usage)

Bath Spa to Bristol will be closed Monday 26 to Wednesday 28 October

Fareham to Portsmouth closed Monday 26 to Friday 30 October

Note strange inconsistency in the October work, one part of route is closed 3 days, other part 5 days.    And what's with mixture of weekend and weekday in Portsmouth area.   All rather feels gone out of their way to be passenger unfriendly

 

Advice to that effect was given on the thread in question ... including a note that the service runs about hourly, so if you miss one, just catch the next.  I decided not to add comment that Birmingham might be worth a look ;-)

 

Oh indeed. I'm always minded that what I see on wider travels may not reveal the trials and tribulations that come to the surface on social media and industry feeds in the UK.  And I am also very conscious that as a traveller out of the norm in Swizerland (as yesterday was) or today in Germany, I may well see some of the quiter trains.

My own statistical feed confirms the huge improvement last week compared to the week before on the TransWilts - sadly, the indusrty feed that I've captured and used for https://www.wellho.info/sh4.php shows a worse cancellation rate because the 20:22 "M" service flags cancelled and a "Z" extra service has been added; makes no difference to the public, and I am not going to risk a coding change from the ICE train I am on at the moment!   I would agree with quoting the running rate as being more positive; I would, though, argue that the rate should take account of trains declared as cancelled and later re-instated, especially those that are declared cancelled for quite a while anr re-instated late in the day. I haven't a clue how to take them into account in a reasonable, robust, automatic way though!

Where my comparison makes a difference, though, is in the service frequency that the Swiss train can run at, it seems, reasonably reliable, on a single track railway with long distance expresses sharing.   Through Melksham we have somewhere around 2 paths per hour, and Maiden Newton perhaps offers similar.  The departure board at Rheinfall shows 5 stopping paths, and in addition there were Zurich to Stuttgart expresses passing, and that is where the difference is massive.  If the infrastructure allowed it, and a single platform might still manage it, we would be looking at a 30 minute "Bath and Wiltshire Metro" service and in addition paths each way each hour for something else.  But it would be a fool's spec at the moment to try to schedule that without .... dynamic loops, crisp signals, trains that accelerate sharply, and perhaps flyovers / graded junctions where the London - Bristol and Cardiff - Portmouth main lines are joined.

 
If you mean under the underpass (exit New Street towards Bullring, cross road to Boots, turn left & follow the underpass to Moor Street, turn left again across Moor Street Queensway to Moor Street station) - then yes - the council needs to brighten the area up such that the homeless find somewhere quieter/darker or better found a home.

During opening hours, pass through the Bullring itself - enter at Boots, exit at Moor Street, dropping down a floor in the process. Takes longer, but nicer. Still doable in 25 mins that way though.

 

Last time I did it I walked under the shopping centre through a very depressing scene of dozens of homeless people, a few of whom were clearly under the influence of zombie drugs making it look a little bit like Philadelphia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XHoBsNgKm8

Is that the official route?

 

Whilst you've been away, the TransWilts has been largely behaving itself well, so perhaps a German visitor to England may have formed a similar opinion?

Four cancellations on trains stopping at Melksham (and one delay of 50 minutes) on the 4th June, but otherwise everything ran last week to give a 96.6% reliability score, and with the previous four days to that also seeing no cancellations, that equates to 97.8% of trains running over the last 11 days.

Rather better than the Deutsche Bahn's cancellation rate on regional trains of 5%.  From an article last year:  https://www.thelocal.de/20250213/train-passengers-in-germany-see-rising-number-of-deutsche-bahn-cancellations

Note how I've deliberately listed the percentage of trains running as a 'reliability' score, because that looks better that saying 3.4% of trains were 'cancelled', and that I've only gone back 11 days because the previous three days during the heatwave and Bank Holiday weekend saw multiple cancellations.  I've also only listed trains calling at Melksham, with no mention of whether they started/terminated early and would be defined as a 'part cancellation' and in some cases might have affected passenger journeys just as much as a full cancellation would have.

Statistics, eh?  Gotta love 'em! 

 
Apologies if covered elsewhere.

Plymouth MP Luke Pollard touting a "Plymouth Metro" starting with half-hourly services between Ivybridge and Bere Alston, new stations at Plympton and Laira, followed ultimately by Tavistock reopening.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/london-overground-style-plymouth-metro-10999026

Not my neck of the woods, but I suspect that it needs a bit more than just rolling stock, at the very least a turnback siding at Ivybridge.

That said, it's a "playbook" that worked fairly well in Bristol - upping the Gloucester service to half-hourly made the rail service from places like Yate much more usable, bolstering the business case for new stations like Charfield and reopening the Portishead line.   

 
From Bedwyn trains via Rail User Express (May edition) who are happy to be quoted with source acknowledged

 
Despite which, and despite knowing the way, last time I walked it, I managed to take a rather roundabout way between the two, a route that I recall involved, for good measure, steps. I don't suppose the monorail from Merry Hill shopping centre, long dismantled, is in storage somewhere...

Mark