A railway loop doesn't - it goes back to the main line it came off. But this one is a curve, and an avoider, as per the thread title, and two out of three ain't bad.

 
Are we possibly getting into the realms of Mornington Crescent here? 

 
Your decfinition of a loop difers from mine. A loop goes back on itself....?

 

The "loop", if you like, was the chord from Borough Market Junction to - oh help, what's it's name Junction on the way to Waterloo and Charing Cross was the little avoid. Alan Jackson writes in London Termini (David and Charles, 1969 " opened on 1st September 1866, "Cannon Street was served by almost all trains proceeding to and from Charing Cross including the continental boat trains?" ...

 
Your move, grahame. 

 

That makes it a loop?

 

RAIB will be able to say whether it had been runn8ing on yellows before encountering the red - at least, more than the one yellow before the red. As to whether ETs thinking was how the driver 'ignored' the Red, I doubt we'll ever know for certain unfortunately.

 

 
The usual pair:

 

IIRC, WECA's 10 year rail plan proposed to upgrade Narroways Jcn with double track up to the eastern portal of Montpelier Tunnel, though I don't recall having seen it in recent years. 

 

Exactly this. Of course high streets are struggling - we've replaced them with the internet!
The ones that are managing to do well still are offering something you can't replace digitally. Be that a more niche / independent shopping experience (like on Gloucester Road in Bristol) or by leaning into more cafes / bars / restaurants (again something Gloucester Road has going for it) or by pivoting entirely into things that really do make people want to leave their homes and do in person (which is why you are seeing a lot of these activity bars now, or another Bristol example being the temporary skate park where the old Debenhams used to be that also has some pool tables, pinball machines and is serving some food and drink too).

 
From GWR / Network Rail


Sharing, as requested.  Also on my personal Facebook page. And as invited, I have written to them as follows

 
Agenda
 
10:30 Arrivals
11:00 Welcome: Chair & Secretary, TWSW
11:10 Keynote
11:25 What could public transport do for us? Chair of the Interim Growth Board for Marlcombe
11:55 Getting around better: what infrastructure and commercial approach will deliver this? Strategy & Business Development Director, SWR
12:20 Operator Panel Conversation
12:40 Lunch
13:20 Welcome Back
13:25 Did you know? (AKA Just a Minute)
13:35 Managing Director reviews the way XC is meeting passenger needs: Managing Director, CrossCountry
14:10 Socially necessary local services, Swindon Working Group
14:50 Open-floor discussion
15:15 Close

 
See also:


CfN. 

 

I have now added ET to our list of 'abbreviations and acronyms', at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html

CfN.

 
I made a rare visit into Reading town centre this morning. Within a hundreds yards from where I got off the bus I saw three two-wheelers being ridding illegally on the pavement and got jostled by a girl intent on her mobile phone. I went to Go Outdoors to find that it was closing down in January after a rebrand a year or two ago (a larger store in south Reading closed in 2022). M & S, JD Sports and John Lewis didn't have what I wanted (admittedly very specific items).  Twice I ran the gauntlet of a large team of charity-muggers collecting for a cause I do not support. There was a street musician playing some very loud sounds that I did not like.  There were other cases of anti-social and illegal cycling, in some cases by masked riders. And there were several rough-sleepers lying on the pavement with blankets over their heads.

So an underwhelming experience.  ( I should add that I used to be a very keen cyclist, have generously supported charities, have given £5 and £10 notes to accomplished street musicians, and back in the 1980s twice-daily passed through "Cardboard City" near Waterloo Station.)

On the plus side, I liked the new main library where I spent 90 minutes using a PC faster than my outdated model  (though I could have gone to the branch 20 minutes walk from my home), and the lady bus driver on my trip home was exceptionally pleasant.

 

4tph? We'd be lucky enough to have two at the moment! (speaking as someone who lives a few mins from Ashley Down).

Jokes and sarcasm aside, one of GWR's complaints with these new services was to do with the 2nd train per hour from Henbury that is being discussed and that these services may cause issues with that, but the outcome was that part of the complaint was apparently handled and it wasn't going to be an issue (this is all in publicly available emails).

Some of the back and forth that went on is quite interesting, especially some of the shade being thrown (GWR saying they are concered about TfW's on time performance impact their services, to which TfW replied saying about the domino effect the ongoing Paddington - Reading infrastructure issues have with services at Cardiff) - https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2026-04/tfwr-ltd-s22a-52nd-supplemental-agreement-consultation-responses.pdf

Of course there are also the Burns station services which at least the last we heard were planned to call at most stations this side of the bridge too, maybe resulting in the same issue.

Maybe if 4tph from Henbury ever becomes close to a reality that can then be a conversation, especially if stations like Ashley Down etc get served by 2tph stopping from Cardiff (burns station services), and 2tph from Henbury, with Stapleton Road and Lawrence Hill getting that plus the Severn Beach services too and maybe some additional in the form of these West Wales services, maybe that actually is enough and the question then becomes could the an 2tph from Henbury run another way instead (maybe onto the mains, providing a quicker service between Brabazon and Temple Meads).

 
What impact might stopping these trains at Stapleton Rd have on the ambition for 4tph from Brabazon? Those relief lines are going to be busy, and single lead junctions at Narroways and the Hallen line won’t help…

 
I experience similar frustration at supermarket checkouts.

 

It's always been planned to go to every hour from next May, six days a week.  No plans currently for a Sunday service.

Delays to the 175 introduction might push it back, but hopefully not.

 

To the best of my knowledge there hasn't been any indication either way
I would be amazed if somewhere in the future the whole RNLI station was rebuilt etc

They are currently based out of Marine Lake, they can only launch quickly if the tide is high and they can use the slope at the end of the main beach.
Otherwise it is quite a slow procedure to get a boat launched

I was having lunch in the Captains Cabin beer garden a few weeks back, and witnessed a launch, this is not critical of the volunteers, but I was amazed how slow and laboured it was

 

One of the most frustrating causes of delay I see are the numerous people who don't get their pass/card/change out until they are actually on the bus in front of the driver.

 

Had a tamper tantrum, did it?

 

A tamper that was involved in overnight engineering has damaged a large section of track.

 
The noise of aircraft exercising over the St George's Channel, and SouthWestern Approaches has become commonplace these evenings.

 
These services are now showing as unadvertised station calls between Cardiff and Bristol

Example here, Bristol Temple Meads, Stapleton Road, Filton Abbey Wood, Severn Tunnel Junction, Newport (South Wales) all shown as unadvertised station calls

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L00542/2026-12-17/detailed

There were test runs in middle of the night to Temple Meads, with 5 car 197 formation, calling at the stations few days ago

a quirk of schedule is seems to be timed at 90mph in England, but 100mph in Wales (although it might simply be it's been copied from a 158 schedule, as no timings for 197s to Bristol exist)

 
Following from ET's comments on 'running on yellows', I think paragraph 81 is the most important:

 
(Dropping off SWTSMBO and heavy luggage at EXD for her trains to Heathrow and subsequent flight to Singapore. I'm travelling later after going to a BSO concert and two Exeter Chiefs rugby matches. We are going to Singapore primarily to attend a family wedding.)

DIG 1314 (1319) > EXD 1324 (1327) : 2T19 EXM > PGN : 1 x 165/1 (3 Cars)
EXD 1351 (1353) > DIG 1400 (1402) : 2F19 PGN > EXM : 1 x 165/1 (3 Cars)

Tickets: DIG > EXD > DIG Senior Railcard Anytime Day Return £2.95

The wife already had her tickets to Heathrow; I had intended to buy a ticket on the GWR App but as soon as I started typing a technical fault message was generated and the process would go no further. Not being sure that I would be able to display a web purchased ticket on the App I opted for paper coupons from the TVM.
2T19 was delayed by 5 minutes having to wait at Topsham for the delayed 2F17 PGN > EXM train. This service arrived at EXD on time but was then itself delayed.
Tickets / Railcards checked: No / No

EXD was extremely busy, and somewhat chaotic, due to a combination of significant numbers of students returning to university and many other pax milling around disrupted by late running trains:
1C77 PAD > EXD 23 late
1C78 PAD > PLY 27 late
1V50 EDB > PLY 22 late

And to cap it off the station PIS screens all showed that the 5-car 1C77 was going to stop at Platform 6A (north end) but actually ran through to 6B prompting a rush of intending pax from one end of P6 to the other.

2F19 arrived at, and departed from, EXD 2 minutes down despite a booked 4 minute stop. It often looks to me that station staff at various locations take a far too relaxed approach to train dispatch but perhaps it is the signallers not paying attention.
Tickets / Railcards checked: No / No

 

Yeah you could probably change between the 8 and the other services closer to town too.
And yep exactly, double deckers can't use the T5 stop that the 8 used to use.


The 8 absolutely should be serving the T1 stop on Temple Gate so if they aren't then that needs to be fed back accordingly. No different to it missing any other stop.


It hasn't moved. It is still at the T6 stop on Station Approach which is the lower of the two stops (T5, the one nearer the station entrance itself, is now unused since the 8 has moved).

 
The boards could probably just be headed 'Departures' and the issue part-vanishes - and departures by destination is smart by comparison with certain other options. The boards at my departure time were displaying the 'next fastest' to Chippenham and the passenger would need on a one-time basis to work out that that might indicate the best option for Bath Spa.

That 'Next fastest' array of destinations is also a functional opposite to the dysfunctional boards at Bath bus station which do something thoroughly peculiar and several of the forthcoming buses to a destination. This is combined with a 'Page 1 of x' approach, said pages padded out by the number of services in the list.

Also at Bath bus station there's the free-standing low energy paper white display badged by WEST that shows imminent departures of about half a dozen services - no carousel display so excellent on that account - but I think that's running on the Exeter principle mentioned in another thread, and it doesn't know about live departure times and won't show a bus that's not departed but is a few minutes late.