What a vile creature.

Glad TfL have acted swiftly to suspend him and let's hope he's never seen in the drivers cab again.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tfl-tube-driver-suspended-rmt-campaign-against-antisemitism-b1279386.html

 

Drat: sorry it changed your plans. If it turns out to have been the condensate pipe, please send it my regards. Hope it's not got to more than the towels.

Mark

 
The terrible panoramic photo below, with a distorted splayed foreground - it shows the site of the old station looking west towards Portishead from the station road bridge. The former about-to-be-demolished station house on the left, a bit of the bridge parapet in the foreground, and on the right, remains of the old steps to the up platform.

The new station will be on the same site, initially a single platform (at the left of the photo) and an additional line through the station, while the existing line away from the 'live' platform face carries the freight services, with pointwork east of the station site before the two lines run parallel for some distance before diverging.

The station house is due to come down in May. In the meantime, yesterday, there was a work site at the south end of the building that I assumed to be preparatory works for that, but it emerged that it was contractors for the national grid who were augering a new hole into the ground in preparation to replace the tall wooden pole that carried a number of services to various houses - including the station house itself, with an even larger one that they already had on site on the back of their wagon parked round the corner. The site of this pole will be within the site of the new drop off area for the station so it's not impossible that it will be one of the shortest lived electrical installations in the UK.

Plans and more for Pill station to be found on the North Somerset Council planning web site https://planning.n-somerset.gov.uk - and an application reference is 24/P/0749/DCW .

Mark

 
Many years ago, walking in to work in an office in central Bristol, on the pavement, I was startled by the imperious ringing of a bicycle bell behind me.  Instinctively, I stepped to my right - causing the impatient cyclist to also swerve even further to the right.  He thus took a purler, over the handlebars, head first into a pile of empty cardboard boxes outside a shop.  I merely continued my saunter into work, while quietly sniggering to myself. 

 
Yes, I'm sorry I missed out on that adventure, but we did have a mishap at home here.

Reaching into the airing cupboard to get a towel for my shower, I discovered that the towels at the back were all soaking wet.  Investigation revealed that the gas combi-boiler, mounted on the wall above the shelving, was leaking.  Bowls were placed, soggy towels were hung up outside to dry, and we have a plumber arriving this afternoon to investigate the cause of this outage of water.

CfN.

 
21/04/2026. Update


According to RTT, 1P34, the return 1632 from Great Malvern to Paddington working is cancelled too.  I can't see a mention of that on JourneyCheck

 
Further, detailed, coverage in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/apr/21/what-happens-when-beautiful-village-loses-bus-route-mousehole-cornwall

Coincidentally I have been reading a book about the experience of transport planning in The Netherlands and how the low-car policy is happily also providing conditions in which ageing people can continue to live fulfilling lives for as long as possible. Here, we still have some work to do in presenting the case for change.

 
Yes I'd seen that in another post and was discussing it with my wife this morning; thanks for the reminder. Actually I had the buses from Chippenham (X34) and Trowbridge (X34 & 69) in mind, but indeed the Bath buses would be an option if it already looked like I'd miss the connection further down the line.

Of course this change is a bit inconvenient on the other 2 days I commute as well. It's already a 25 min connection at Chippenham, so adding another 10 minutes doesn't really help, just delays my tea time

 

Beware that from late May until November, the 271/272/273 will not be serving the Bus Station in Bath - see https://www.mtug.org.uk/ruh.html

 
Update 21/04/2026

Reading local Evesham sources: 

West Mercia Police are saying that they and emergency services are in attendance at Evesham Railway Station in response to reports of a person being hit by a train

Another awful event

 
Disruption to services 21/04/2026 caused by "Emergency services dealing with an incident close to the railway" (?between Honeybourne and Evesham???)


From what I can make out, this was terminated at Moreton in Marsh and sent back to Paddington forming a different service to it's booked return working

 
..............he's moved further West today! 

Cancellations to services at Hungerford

Due to trespassers on the railway at Hungerford trains have to run at reduced speed on all lines.
Train services running through this station may be cancelled or delayed.

Disruption is expected until 11:30 21/04.

 
Thanks for the heads up.

That change to the weekday Swindon evening peak from 17:35 to 17:45 is a pain - it means arriving at Melksham at 18:09 instead of 17:59. On a Monday evening I need to leave the house at about 18:35 for band rehearsal in Bristol, and by the time I've walked the 1.6 miles back home from the station it's already a bit tight. It doesn't help that it's not unusual for that service to be delayed by a few minutes - 2 mins yesterday.

Looking at earlier options from Bristol (currently 17:00) - both the 15:00 (via Chippenham) and 15:45 (Trowbridge) have scheduled connection gaps of only 5 mins, which isn't ideal. I'll take a look at the bus timetables to see which might provide the best plan B.

 
From The Guardian




Edit note: Typo in topic heading corrected. CfN.

 

Easy. A couple of beat bobbies positioned to identify the guilty, radio connected to a few more officers a little further along the way to effect the detention (using bicycle stingers if necessary). I take the view that if all such 'low level' offending is initially addressed with suitable financial penalties, and these outcomes are suitably publicised, it stops. 

 

Yes, if necessary. First option should always be physical removal of the miscreant as rapidly as possible by as many trained operatives as required. But if said trespasser resists.....

Negotiation should never be involved.

 
1. Melksham Transport News - a four page bus and train newsletter filling you in on many current travel issues in and around Melksham - available to view / download at: https://www.mtug.org.uk/newsletter_202604.pdf  . Easy print-at-home format.



2. Melksham Public Transport Timetables for the summer and autumn - back from the printers yesterday and available to collect from tomorrow morning at the Tourist Information, Library, council offices and other outlets. For those of you who run halls, community groups, etc - happy to supply a quantity of these for you to help distribute too. 40 pages including the timetables of all six operators. Buses current now; new train timetable from 16th May. NOT easy to print-at-home - please pick up a copy but it *is* online at https://www.mtug.org.uk/mrug_ttbook_202605.pdf

 
The answer is, they all still use the extensive, crowded but cheap network of suburban railways that serve the city. I remember briefly travelling on one (being careful to avoid rush hour!) on a short stay there at the end of my only visit to India almost 40 years ago to the day. Not sure anyone had considered a risk assessment for what I recall were the doors being kept open as we sped along....

This thread prompted me to check it out on Wikipedia. The information there is a bit contradictory,  but it appears to handle between 6 and 7 million passengers a day. It also seems like they replaced most of their trains at about the time the metro opened in 2014, and now run mostly 12 and 15 car trains.

 
I rather suspect that passenger numbers will increase over time, especially if nudged on by a few tweaks in the service.  The "sparks effect" is a general principle rather than a universal constant.

 
Chris, hope you didn't miss this as a result of a mishap. Sometimes it's good when someone merely catalyses such an adventure.

Mark

 

Trespassers had been reported on the railway in the London Paddington area.

The person has now been removed from the railway. Train services will be reinstated where possible, please check your journey.

Hooray! 

 

 

This is a bridge strike at Langley.

 
Now there’s a new ‘railway emergency’ that has brought trains to a standstill at Burnham

 
It is marked on this 1920s 25inch O S map

https://maps.nls.uk/view/106029043

 
Taser.

 
Yay! Severn Beach!

Mark

 

LNER faced a similar issue last week, reportedly someone climbed a gantry, and the resulting disruption affected train services for two days. I’m not sure what the solution is, but it seems wrong that a single individual can cause such widespread inconvenience to tens of thousands of people.

 
This does seem to be rather ridiculous.

 
20/04/2026




RTT reports that the 1523 Paddington was cancelled because it had been "replaced by a slower train"