I have a problem. Do I publicise the last through train day trip to Weymouth from Melksham and back for Saturday 5th September 2026, or promote the Food and River Festival which is also next weekend?

I have a solution to suggest - why not go to Weymouth on Saturday, and the Food and River Festival on Sunday? 

On Saturday, the train leaves Melksham at 09:09, getting to Weymouth at 11:08, and returns at 19:38 getting to Melksham at 21:32.  Return fare - £23.60 (adult), £15.70 each (group or railcard) £11.80 (child). Pay on the day at the ticket machine, or if paying in cash and joining at Melksham, on the train.

On Sunday, the first boat trip on the river is at 10:00 and events carry on until a close at 16:30. See https://www.facebook.com/MFRFF for more details.  Free entry, but on past form I'll end up spending far more at the festival than I will on my train fare.

 

Err - which one?   The links all seem to work for me

 
"page not found"

 
At this point they're having a laugh...

 
I manged to get some tickets for this place shortly after it opened.............absolutely breathtaking .............and that is just the building !! Well, well worth a visit.

I believe that some of the road vehicles that were stored in the old aircraft hangars are now in the new building, but the wonderful old aircraft collection is going to have a long wait for a building to house them too.

The star exhibit - of the aircraft.........


(www.aviationmuseum.eu)

 
I believe that I am reading this correctly, that the number 8 service that has ran from outside Temple Meads for decades is to cease using the usual stop on the right hand side as you walk away from the station.

With the new Eastern access point to the station, this service is being re-routed to provide access from this point.

Having travelled through Temple Meads last Monday and yesterday, I wasn't aware of any signage about this change, I would have thought it was a pretty major move for passengers?

The following is from here: https://www.firstbus.co.uk/bristol-bath-and-west/news-and-service-updates/updates/service-changes-30th-august-2026

Revised Route: At Temple Meads, from 8th September, we’ll be running a revised route to incorporate the new Eastern Entrance of Temple Meads Station, adjacent to the new University of Bristol Temple Quarter campus and with closer access to the Platform 13/15 end of the station. Buses to Temple Meads will stop at stop T1 on the main road, then run via Cattle Market Road to the new bus stop (T10). Buses towards Clifton will run via Avon Street to Old Market Roundabout. The current stop on the Temple Meads station approach (T5) will no longer be served. Routes 70 and 72 will continue to serve the station approach from stop T6.

From 30th August, the route in the City Centre will also be amended due to the closure of The Horsefair and Penn Street – buses towards Temple Meads Station will operate directly from Wine Street to Lower Castle Street via Newgate and Broad Weir.

The service will operate at an increased frequency and overnight journeys will operate on Monday – Saturdays.

https://www.firstbus.co.uk/sites/default/files/public/maps/Bristol%208%208th%20Sep%202026%20WEB.pdf

 
Passed through their yesterday
The added light from that end makes a massive difference to the feel of the underpass

I am intrigued how much use it will get and how much increased footfall there will be going the opposite way to normal at the station

Out of interest does anyone know what the hours this entrance will be open?

 

Potsdam is exactly right.  Wow - as I put the quiz together I thought "this one will be tough".

Don't suppose that Lyon station is just a request stop though 

 

..on a QWERTY keyboard.   

 
Tickets (All With Senior Railcard, 2 Pax▸ , Price Per Person):
DIG > TQY Off-Peak Day Return £7.70

Outward
DIG 1442 (OT) > TQY 1536 (OT) : 2T22 EXM > PGN : 1 x 165/1 (3 Cars)

Service lightly loaded. No ticket/railcard check.

Return
TQY 2145 (2147) > DIG 2256 (2259) : 2F36 PGN > EXM : 1 x 166/2 (3 Cars)

Service departed PGN 2 late for no obvious reason. It arrived at EXD on time but was then held for an additional 6 minutes to take pax from the late running 1C96 PAD > PLY.
No ticket/railcard check so we could have made the entire journey for free! I don't regard this as acceptable given that neither DIG nor TQY have ticket gates.

 

 

Perhaps ... there are so many different standards / machine types / TOCs around.  I have seen similar offerings to the Melksham machine in other places.   Come the day after nationalisation, and we'll have a miracle of a uniform and logical system [for clarity, the sentence written tongue in cheek]

 

I haven't been there for quite a while however checking the timetables it still only seems to have roughly twice as many departures per hour as Chetnole but has 3 much longer platforms and a huge station concourse and overall roof etc. for the relatively few passengers!

As an afterthought:-
B14: The Olymp & Hades shop would seem to make it in Germany.  Not that I've stopped off there but possibly Potsdam just because I see that Olymp & Hades has a shop in the station complex. 

 

It was a notorious white elephant when built (though actual numbers were not that low - over 1M pa). Why would you travel long distance by train to an minor local airport when you could as easily go to a bigger one? In fact it has picked up passengers since then (and since covid), as has the airport, no doubt both helping each other.

But the same problem applies to any high-speed rail station serving a local airport.  St Exupéry TGV was pretty useless for going to Lyon, and TGVs always served the city centre in any case, so it had no big reason to exist. I guess the HS2 Interchange station will primarily serve its region and greater Birmingham, and the airport only in a minor way, so may be better used.

For a real backwater look at Meuse TGV - it even looks as if it was originally designed to be thatched!

 

Agreed ... and raised the "why QWERY anyway" question ... Google headlines


and so there's an argument to be had that something different - such as alphabetic - should now be adopted, the original reason being out of date. But then this is railway.  Remind me where 4'8.75" came from ...

 
Coffee or not - there are some good views to be had from the vantage point



..depending on your interests.

 

I'm sure I've seen the destinations listed on some machines in terms of 'most popular' in the past?

 

Thing is Grahame, with any matters pertaining to Camborne, the line between humour and reality is so very very fine! ;-)

 
There is a similar conversation to be had about the keyboard when collecting pre-paid tickets.   Most people are familiar with the "QWERTY" style keyboard so find the alphabetical version more difficult.

 

It is - bus stop is right by the driveway.  Not that the stops are announced on Stagecoach West (yet) but it is helpfully called Wroughton Science Museum.

 

Would I be right in guessing that Lyons Exupery feel about as busy as Chetnole?

 
Since more than 24 hours have elapsed:
C13: Switzerland.  Göschenen station with the portals of the "original" Gotthard rail tunnel in the distance and the building on the left for the construction site of the new road tunnel.

I think I can identify C9 as well but I'll wait in case anyone else also wants a second go!

 
I did wonder about Liege for B13 but the total lack of people in sight made Lyon Exupery seem more likely!

 

The shop would have been open if they'd visited on any day other than Wednesday

 
Many thanks Graham and all moderators for providing a great and friendly discussion board.  I don't visit every day, but when I do, there's always something informative, entertaining, annoying, or fascinating to be found.

 
B13: liege guillemins

 
C2: Rotterdam Centraal - but not the better-known big pointy bit.

 
https://www.scienceinnovationpark.org.uk/
and https://www.facebook.com/groups/600195619390294/?multi_permalinks=1060648803344971


I make that near the No. 49 bus route (Stagecoach)  from Fleming Way, Swindon via Devizes to Trowbridge.

Happy memories of seeing the "Science Museum Store" there.  My understanding is that this is a guided tour through a single modern building, with the old aircraft hangars not now accessible due to concerns including asbestos issues.

 
Over the past 6 years, no-one has bought a rail ticket from Melksham to Brickett Wood, Bridge of Allan or Bridge of Orchy.   So why are those offered as top suggestions when people are entering a station-by-name on the ticket vending machine?     Where are Bristol Parkway and Brighton, which are the 26th and 42nd most popular destinations as you enter B-R-I....?

Here is what I was offered (on the left) and the most popular destinations - those to or from which tickets have been sold over the past 6 years - on the right.



Sure, the offerings are alphabetic, but wouldn't this be more customer friendly if the offer order was "most popular first", and with those to which tickets have not been sold in recent memory then alphabetic below if there are still gaps?

We can argue as to where Bristol Temple Meads should be listed as it's also on the front panel of ten most popular destinations.

 
The Coffee Shop had a busy August, with 135 new topics and 1,334 new posts.  And goodness only knows how many real reads by however many people; our stats for the "worker" server show only those read requests that the "receptionist" server can't answer straight off, and Google Analytics has been muddied by events from countries like Singapore and Brazil though it has filtered out a very high proportion of autonoma.  It does report in excess of 100,000 events from the UK in the last 4 weeks - that's around 3,500 per day.

I say "busy" but that's not out of the ordinary - below, you'll find graphs of the number of new topics (the blue areas) and of new posts (the red areas) going back to the Coffee Shop's foundation. Month by month, we have some serious peaks and troughs and I can't see any one reason that explains them all. Some can be noted as "that one was because ..." and the reason is often external to us such as a GWR or rail industry event.  In some ways I hope we remain as busy in September, but then I do NOT hope for any further accidents such as Lewes and Wickford, nor any major service disruption caused by heat, timetable changes caused by dry conditions, or the failure to have enough operation trains to run advertised services.

Beware - these graphs show this year on the LEFT and go back in time as you read right




The Coffee Shop would not be what it is today without the help and support of its membership - contributors, moderators and administrators - a superb team all of volunteers to whom I (as webmaster) extend my thanks.  Whilst it's true I spend a lot of time here as well, that's only a tiny proportion of what it would be without that help - you all make it easy, and a pleasure too.