From the Rotherham Bugle

 

cancelled "due to the train making extra stops because a train was cancelled"

 

I used to drink in the Cross Keys in Hammersmith where several of the cast members were regulars. It was more notable though for the quality of its Fullers "Chiswick" ale, never an easy one to find but well worth seeking out!

 

By a very minor coincidence, last night I was watching the 2001 episode of "The Bill" police drama featuring the retirement party of "old-school" Sergeant Cryer; he makes a moving speech about the change from "Police Force" to "Police Service" - a pointed dig at "new school" Superintendent Tom Chandler. Frustratingly the episode is missing from the Internet Archive but can be viewed here on u.co.uk  One has to register.

(I'm working my way through all 2,300 episodes, and the above is number 1,593. By 2001 it had started to get silly, with various combinations of relationships between the police and a high death rate among them. It does have the merit of many scenes being filmed in and close to Docklands as it was re-developed from docks to yuppiedom.)

 
That's not far right though: when people quote 'Weekly pro-Palestinian hate marches in London' it's more a repetition of various tropes, boosted in this age of generational trauma.

Mark

 

 

Are you sure it's not a typo? In the context of the way the railways are owned/run perhaps "fiction" was intended?

 

Absolutely. I have a lot of friends who are recently retired/still serving in the Police, and they find it endlessly frustrating in terms of the way their priorities have been changed - one common theme is that changing the name from the "Police Force" to the "Police service" had an enormous cultural impact beyond semantics, and by no means all positive.

For example the weekly pro Palestinian hate marches in London would have been policed far more assertively in the past, but now hands are thrown up in horror at the thought of causing offence to particular groups.  The clip of a Police officer glugging coffee whilst patronisingly explaining to a Jewish woman that a swastika flag should be taken "in context" lives long in the memory.

I struggle to remember shoplifting being a virtual free for all either in the past with few or no consequences for the perpetrators.

(I'd better leave it at that before I get accused of being "far right") 

 
Jeez you still write code? I haven't done that for months, not since I got my Claude Code license. And Claude reviews it as well. What could possibly go wrong?

Seriously, have you tried it? I'm (mostly) using Opus 5.5 in VSCode, and we have a very good working relationship. It really is amazing what it can do, and how little time it takes to do it.

 
I think 'forecourt' over-sells it
https://maps.app.goo.gl/daWCKW6BJWBULCfB6

 

I do know. They don't.

 
And, in Bradford, despite the hills, it took 'till 1971(?) for the internal combustion engine to finally lay electric traction public road transport - by then represented by trolleybuses - on its back.

Mark

 
Do you know if taxi drivers have to pay a fee to use Melksham station's forecourt?

Mark

 

Carrying on from my previous answer, yes, Uber has come to Melksham.   I feel disloyal to our local taxi drivers to use them, but it has been and can remain a challenge to find an available taxi - as (I have heard but not experienced) to find an Uber.

As a hotel, our reception team was familiar with the pleasures of finding a taxi for people at short notice and we learned who was most likely to be available, and who would share views inappropriatley with our guests.  One driver, no longer in the business, regained Lisa and me with a monologue about how all people from abroad should be kicked out of the UK as he drove us back home from Bristol Airport.  Which was 'interesting' for Lisa, who originated from a different continent.

Here's the list that's on the wall in our local Chinese take away, which gives you some idea of the fluidity of our taxi drivers:



and here's the list for today (random order changes every midnight) on the https://www.mtug.org.uk/ Melksham Transport User Group website.  And, yes, I am aware that one of those has ceased trading and another retires next month, and at that update there are others who may wish to be added.



"Solution" - none, really, right away.  I am aware of the Taxi office at Bradford on Avon station and I suspect that "Information at the Station" may well provide a service in this area.  Could even ask for the can companies to sponsor us?

 

"Friction" is an extremely apt word.  I wish I'd thought of describing it that way

 
Simply shocking

You have to wonder why the more "anti violence" measures and response policing we have, the worse the situation becomes.  Some people's willingness to be violent in an an attempt to get their way is simply startling.

I say this as someone who's business property recently has been raided by a gang armed with baseball bats and crowbars.  Considerable damage and inconvenience, but, thank God, no one hurt.  2nd break in in 2 years.  I can't help but think a more robust approach from Staffordshire Constabulary (who have almost pulled-out of Tamworth, where my business is situated) and the legal system might just provide a bit more of a deterrent.  At present, despite all the fine words about clamping down blah blah, the opposite seems to happen.  The chances of anyone being apprehended and comprehensively punished for any "low level" crime are very, very small

 

I am considering changing one of the stations to "your local station" and the most natural one to change would probably be Birmingham New Street - it's the ONLY one we list which does not host any GWR (or GWR|GW) trains. That would go to a page which would check that you're allowing geographic tracking and if confirmed and you'r in Nailsea (or Backwell) would give you current running.  I have the code available to do that - here's an example hidden in the research:



I am, however, on one of those days where seemingly everything isn't going to plan and feel calculated to either enrage or upset, so I'm not in the right frame of mind to write good code!   But it WILL be rather useful when I get to it.

 

Massively surprised that ICE omnibuses date from that far back!  Every day's a school day.  Maybe Diamond will get round to replacing their fleet around here in Worcestershire with something newer now

Also wondering if the Transatlantic telephone cable was thought to have very lavish provision with it's 36 pairs.  "Surely there will never be a need for more than 36 people to be making calls to the other side of the pond at once?!"

 
Source: RMT

Can anyone explain what's going on here? Presumably Go Ahead recognise RMT elsewhere, so why not in Cornwall?

 
OK, this is a good example of a deceptive image. Or perhaps it isn't. Bath bus station at eleven minutes past five yesterday afternoon. The deception is that the image doesn't show what was behind the camera - the eastern half of the bus station wasn't empty of passengers (though it wasn't exactly heaving). The western half of the building hosts the stands used by Faresaver, Flixbus, National Express, First's Number 8 service (an every forty minutes or so Optare that heads into the southern suburbs, useful for the Two Tunnels route) Lastly the five or so times a day council supported minibus that serves a number of areas that would otherwise miss out - but this last service also misses out the segment of the route that runs to and from from the bus station sufficiently often that passengers for it have dried up.

Most of this vacant appearance is the result of the Manvers Street closure but it would have been really good to see three things:

* During the Manvers Street closure, some sort of additional provision for passengers needing to travel across the city.

* Quality information provision at the bus station. The screens themselves when in use are pretty terrible in design, but switching them off completely is a naff approach. There is now, months after the start of the disruption, an A2 written notice but it would be embarrassing to sling a photo of it here.

* Plans for a formal relaunch of the bus service once the Manvers Street works conclude. Those works will immediately be followed by three weeks or so of Christmas Market road closures, which while it brings additional passengers, itself disrupts bus routes.

I've no idea why this is all so bad or where the aspiration is. The current prime minister visited First's bus depot here. Our local MP, on social media, has just pushed 'National Catch the Bus Month'. WECA's response to various things seems to be that decisions are commercial and there's nothing they can do. Without the bus fare cap and concessionary passes, the passenger numbers would be bleeding away faster than they are - and the concessionary pass aspect leaves the passenger with no mechanism to pressurise the providers into providing services that are actually useful.

I'd love to spend a couple of hours on the buses with the PM or local MP and they could experience that even when it's not bludgeoned by road congestion, how the public transport here is often set up to fail.

 
Cowley Branch News
Railfuture, Oxon County council and Oxford City Council, have a meeting, all coffee shop members are welcome to attend. It looks very interesting, facts not speculation.
Reminder: Railfuture Thames Valley Branch meeting, Oxford Town Hall, Tuesday 29th September 2026
Invite below :-

Railfuture members (and their friends, colleagues and families and Coffee Shop Forum viewers )  have the opportunity to attend a meeting about the Cowley Branch reopening project, which is being hosted by Oxfordshire County Council on Tuesday 29th September at 5.30pm to 7pm in the Long Room at Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1BX.

There will be two guest speakers: Simon Lymn of Oxfordshire County Council — he is leading the reopening project for the council — and the project sponsor at Network Rail, Sarah Cook.

This is great news for Oxfordshire , do come along.

 
With a "thank you" to the poster in a private group who put the basics of this table together, here are the prices this weekend in pounds per day.   With continuous passes 50% off and n days in y passes just 15% off, there'a a fare anomaly - don't buy the "15 days in 2 months" as the 2 month continuous costs less!

 
It's run using single deckers for the time being. First run it, and experienced seven broken bus windows courtesy of a tree branch that had descended but not fallen. (An overheard conversation - I don't know if this was seven windows on one bus or a single window on seven buses...)

Mark

 

Like https://tiger.worldline.global/NAILSEA/ciss;graphic=1 ?

Long station name - takes up a lot of screen real estate.  Consider moving to Rye or Wye (or Ayr or Ely).

I remember Derek Twigg saying "we can't run a train service just for Mr Ellis" on Today on Radio 4.  He had a point and the solution was to be far more general an look for everyone.  I have a cunning plan.  Watch this space ...

 
Does this work by... first encounter with the card, the system simply accepts it and issues a ticket, but then if the transaction isn't honoured, subsequently refuses it? If so, I'm wondering what the mechanism is to 'Reset' things so the card is accepted?

The background to this: on a rare trip on Bath's 6/7 bus service, the guy in front of me to his surprise found his card rejected so I paid his fare but I then wondered if his debit card was forever blacklisted.

Mark