fence.gross.bats - Buckingham Palace
beats.member.daily - Long Island, NY

 

Beeching used inter-city uncapitalised, so in that sense it was not branding, it was the same adjectival usage we'd had for 50 years for railways. But he did identify intercity services as a worthwhile business that could be developed further and modernised. It even had some glamour (or even sex appeal) to help sell it, as we found out a bit later. So yes, it was the basis for the brand, but the naming came later. It is hard to unremember that InterCity is a brand and go back to the time before when it wasn't (even for those of us who were there at the time).

 
An update, from the BBC:

 
From the BBC:

 
I have an account with RTT so I believe can look back a lot further than a free account can.

If I can help, DM me your trains & I'll look them up for you?

 
Irritating Delay Repay issue!

I made a journey July, and decided to take a long, slow multi-TOC route with several tickets in order to keep costs down. Predictably for a weekend in a heatwave, things fell apart and I had delays going out and back.

The outward Delay Repay claim with GWR went through fine.

The return journey's claim just sat there being processed for weeks. It was a hard call – Southern had delays, but made the GWR connection because it was also late. It then became later. I put the claim through GWR, partly because GWR's DR system makes it easier to enter split tickets, and partly because the GWR service was the 'long leg' with clear-cut delay. However, eventually GWR rejected the claim on the basis that it was Southern's delay.

I've had this before where GWR automatically passed the claim with the other TOC. However it seems they can't do this with Southern, so I just had an e-mail from Southern asking me to enter a fresh claim. And guess what... I can't remember all the details (no idea how late the Southern trains were) and it's now too late to check on RTT!

When multiple TOCs are involved, especially with 'compound' delays, it would be nice if they could sort it out between themselves, just like they can do the ORCATS distribution on the original purchase themselves!

I'm half-inclined to resubmit as two separate claims with the two TOCs, but that makes it fiddly because the tickets don't link at the TOC-change point and might create suspicton of a 'duplicate claim'.

So maybe I should just appeal with GWR on basis of incorrect 'other TOC' diagnosis, stating the GWR train was delayed, and if they want to pass the buck they can sort it out between themselves.

Also kicking myself because I usually take RTT screenshots when there are non-straightforward delays!

 
My understanding – and this may well be 'accepted wisdom' that I've picked up somewhere and can't confirm there's definite coining and causality here – is that the Beeching report created or at least deployed the Inter-City concept in the UK context, perhaps deriving the name from that named train and earlier usage in certain localities. Perhaps in the context of the report the creation of the IC brand was useful in helping to justify the prioritisation of trunk routes. This would fit with it becoming more widespread in BR marketing in the second half of the 1960s.

 
An update, from the BBC:

 

and not mentioned but the truncated 13:16 service was a two car Turbo.

 
If you gave an AI access (your login details?) to those databases/websites/whatever, that might come up with something?

 
We pay it abroad without questioning it. Couple of quid a night per adult. Every foreign place I’ve been with it hasn’t charged it to under 18s.

I’ve voted no view either way, it needs to be spent correctly.

Geneva for example it goes to covering free city travel for overnight guests, brilliant use of the funds raised.

 
The earliest use of the word inter-city itself that I can find in newspapers is in 1871. The applies to a cricket match between Glasgow and Edinburgh, which sounds plausible enough. Following that it is used for all manner of sporting events, and as an adjective (e.g. "inter-city player", as with "international").

Before that there are hits in BNA searches, but they are OCR errors for intensity (close), or Interest(ing) or even yesterday!

"Intercity train service" I find first also in Scotland, in 1899, though the subject is a proposed electric train service between Liverpool and Manchester. It was also described as "a scheme of lightning express", which is a bit odd. A news report of 1910 has a mention of "the inter-city train from Dundee". In the 1930s "inter-city railway" comes up, e.g. of "the first inter-city railway".

The USA also adopts the sporting usage, and is earlier to start using "inter-city railroad", from the 1890s. There are also early uses of "inter-city railway" in Ottowa in 1910 - though it's a tramway, and the cities we would think part of a single city. Another such is quoted in Aberdeen in 1907 about electric railways in Indiana and from there. Inter-city also appears in railway company names at this time.

The first named train looks to be the CNR's "Intercity Limited" - this ran initially from from Montreal to Toronto, starting in 1926. It was later extended to start in Washington. There was also an "Intercity Motor Service Limited" running tours in New Zealand in the 1920s.

But using just "Intercity" (hyphen or no) as a brand obviously comes later on. As it's impractical to search on that alone I can't look for earlier dates. (You'd need a more sophisticated search engine than either the BNA or Newspapers.com possesses.)

 
Is Peter Hendy really saying that what passengers should expect from the railway is to do something badly, with obvious faults that are pointed out at the time, and only several years later do it how it should have been done in the first place? It's still a bit of a muddle, thanks to the overlap in name and eligibility with the 16-25 Railcard and only partial acceptance in Scotland.

 
https://www.malmaison.com/locations/reading/

The Malmaison Reading, boasts the distinction of being the world's oldest railway hotel, built back in 1844.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tregenna_Castle

The Great Western Railway (GWR) opened its St Ives branch line on 1 June 1877 and it leased the Tregenna Castle as a hotel the following year, opening it on 5 August 1878. Early railway hotels had only been situated near large terminals or junctions, but this one was the first intended by the GWR as a holiday destination in its own right.

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp3458/british-transport-hotels

British Transport Hotels was the brand name of the hotels and catering business associated with British Rail, from 1962 to 1983. In 1981, the Conservative government decided to privatise the non-core activities of British Rail, this resulted in the British Transport Hotels. being sold off between 1981 and 1983.

 
Dartmouth 

 
From Europe by Rail

 

Hotels do indeed pay for energy and water used, at the "going rate" At present they do not pay the capital costs involved in meeting the increased demand (new reservoirs, and treatment works, new substations and generating plant)

 

Agreed.  I have been trying to quantify hotel rooms / overnight guests in Wiltshire and it's not an easy piece of research!.   

https://www.visitwiltshire.co.uk/dbimgs/Press%20Release%20-%20ACCOMODATION%20REPORT%20HAS%20REVEALED%20SALISBURYS%20POTENTIAL%20FOR%20FUTURE%20INVESTMENT%20AND%20DEVELOPMENT%20-%20FINAL(1).pdf


Out of date, and just one part of the county. A 20 year old study suggests that 10% are business visitors.

6500 bed spaces, 75% occupancy, suggests about 1.5 to 1.7 million taxable overnight stays per annum within 10 miles of Salisbury a decade ago ...

>>> 6500 * .75 * .9 * 365
1601437.5

Let's call that £3 million income, with goodness only knows what proportion of that being spent on the actual collection.

Interesting to note figures of about 1.3 million per annum visiting Stonehenge - goodness only knows what proportion of them are day visitors to the county, what proportion stay locally, and indeed how many are local residents in the council tax catchment anyway.

All these thoughts ignore age issues - and on a recent visit to Stonehenge, I noted a high proportion of school / college groups ...

 
The general idea in France, at least, is specifically to cover some of the extra costs incurred by the local authority - roads and parking, cleaning and rubbish bins, and the like. Otherwise these are paid by the residents, only a few of whom make money off those visitors which could be taxed as an alternative.

That's not all their costs for visitors, and in some places day trippers (who don't pay it) are more important. But that's just a further problem, as yet unsolved. The visitor tax is seen as addressing part of the shortfall, at least.

However, I don't think that is why it's found favour with Andy and his supporters in Andyland (Andymia?). I think its real attraction as something to do at once is that it is (and can only really be) a local tax, paid to local government. And devolution is one of his Big Ideas, perhaps the biggest, and needs a lot of locally raised government revenue.

Since the plan requires local taxes, set and controlled locally, a block grant doesn't have the right look and feel. Shifting existing taxes over (or down) to local level will not be easy, involving undoing current arrangements to remake them, and replacing lost revenu in some cases.

So a new tax is more attractive, even if it is quite small in revenue terms and so makes almost no contribution to the financial autonomy of local governments. The idea's the thing! But I don't think the need or desire to tax visitors because they must have money to be taxed is important here.

 
It was, down to one Oxford - London service per hour which was usually running late and no stopping services all day between Didcot and Oxford.

 
It's widely used abroad, providing it is used to recoup some of the costs associated with discretionary expenditure on leisure stays I'm fine. It must however be reclaimable by business travellers and contractors engaged on construction and maintenance. Additionally virtually all of the take must go to the relevant local authority and not added to central funds and distributed by central government. There are many documented cases of visitors to Cornwall staying in self catering accomodation arriving with their food and not contributing in any way to the area of their holiday. If these are captured it'll be a good thing.

 
Makes sense considering the numbers over 18 in full time education.

 
AFAICS from Open Train Times, the stationary 1J93 18:08 Paddington to Frome has been blocking the DM at Twyford for over 20 minutes with a queue of trains behind it.

EDIT: now moving with 28 minutes delay and with three other trains closely following behind.

 
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will be terminated at Swindon.

It will no longer call at Stonehouse, Stroud, Kemble, Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury.

It is being delayed at Gloucester.
This is due to a broken down train.

 
Looks like quite a mess this evening.

 

Update "Disruption is expected until the end of the day"

 
I probably have too much time on my hands, but came across this combination of words for the steam railway ticket office in Kingswear Dartmouth (of course) - vocal.stooping.paramedic

Anyone else found some standout ones?

 
We allowed half an hour to change in Frankfurt - but I don't think our connection will have been held.

 
I have posted further comment - as both a hotel user and a past hotel operator - at https://grahamellis.uk/blog2041.html

 

Hotels already pay for the water and energy they use.  Roads, car parks, public transport more arguable.