Both were on Saturday afternoon, probably about 2.30pm and then about 4.30pm.

 
Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down with the BR timetable book from 1983, and it reminded me that at that date, Milford Haven was the terminus for the sleeper service serving South Wales from Paddington.

That said, to this day, Milford Haven has four through services a day to... Manchester Piccadilly - not implying that that's a bad thing: inter-regional services are a positive.

It's amusing given previous ambitions that led to construction in mid-Wales, giving us the empty trackbed pursuing its arrow-straight course across Tregaron Bog - and then its ghost in the form of the unbuilt Cwmystwyth viaduct and the subsequent tunnel beneath the high ground, which exists only as an isolated pair of brief approach cuttings. The signs of construction near Llangurig, followed by the remains of a once useable railway leading away from the village, even that, at one point, horribly eroded by the accompanying stream as it makes its way in the hope of delivering those rail services to, yes, Manchester.

The houses** in Llangurig - the two photos below show that they've seen the arrival of those ambitions and also their departure, unfulfilled - and yet, today, a traveller can board a train in Milford Haven and step off it in Manchester, without needing to worry about unbuilt viaducts in remote valleys along the way.

Mark

**Though looking again at the house in the second photo: it's not the same building as the one shown in the first photo, is it?

 
I guess it was no great surprise that so much had been spent, presumably on consultants, agents, civil engineering designers/engineers/architects, and land purchase before even a spade had been turned in the ground.

The project was cursed from the start.  I have no doubt that this is because it was all set up by politicians with their huge-scale egos and no one to say "no", and no one with any kind of useful experience being asked about the practicalities of the vision.  Couple that with so many involved seeing the rape of the taxpayer as some kind of god-given right or opportunity to just take whatever they wanted.

And all to get from Birmingham to the outskirts of London quarter of an hour or so quicker.  If you didn't laugh, you'd cry

 

Oh. Please do!

 
Thanks for this, that explains a lot. I think one of the things that had alarmed me was that drivers tend to be nose to tail through contraflows and weren't modifying this as they crossed the railway - and the northbound end of the contraflow was close to the crossing itself and there's often a tendency for people to slow down there too - and then there's the road junction as well. I was looking ahead and seeing apparent safety margins evaporate - but with signalling staff on site, the gates raised and interlocked with the railway control systems that's reassuring. (It does show how easy it is for many drivers of vehicles to disregard the basic principle of 'Do not enter a railway crossing until your exit is clear' though. It can be useful for people who may otherwise be distracted, when they need to cross a railway, to think of each individual railway line as one blade of a pair of scissors - so, double track railway = two entirely separate pairs of scissors - and before stepping over the one blade you need to be sure that the other one isn't due to descend.)

Mark

 

I am of two minds on this element.   I tend to feel (falsely) guilty when I encounter blocks of "the law" anywhere.  Partly, I suppose, out of the UK where I don't know the local laws, customs, rules and may accidentally transgress. And partly because of past encounters with US law and gun enforcement - three separate cases that spring to mind where being armed has given individuals what they feel is a right to throw their weight around in a way that felt like I was being bullied.

Having said which, I watch the efficiency with which rail based security / enforcement staff deal with situations outside the UK, and it comes across as far more effective than in the UK.   I suspect that's partly because the rules are much clearer over there - not the same labarintine fare systems that the automatic gates can't cope with so they require manning when in operation, and not the same ability to argue "I didn't realise" that works so well even if people did realise in the UK.

Three challenges, though, on my trip just completed.   

Our Interrail passes were checked on a train in Denmark, and then we were politely asked to move from 1st to 2nd class - however, our passes were 1st class.  I pointed this out politely and our TM fell over herself in apologies having taken another look at my ticket.  I rather suspect, having seen other train staff carefully check the ticket, that the automated bleep "yeah, that ticket's OK" says no more than that - no differentiation on class and, let's face it, I'm a scruffy traveller.

The ticket gates in The Netherlands usual work very well with the pass. However, at both Delft and Rotterdam Blaak they came back with "not valid at this station".   At Rotterdam, I pressed the "information" button and explained and the lady released the gate remotely for me.  At Delft, I walked over to the information point and asked the ladies there. One of them came over to the gate to let me through, jokingly suggesting I might like to stay with her.  And the joke came across well too.  Happy day.    I suspect that the gates are shared in Delft and Rotterdam with the metro on which the pass is not valid; a pattern in the rejection.

 

Makes sense to do the work all at once, and also not provide road transport;  still quicker by train, and no intermediate stations at all since June 1968, so buses would be pointless.

Noting that though that the reason given for reducing the frequency of trains from London to South Wales was due to "longer journey times" which makes it a double hit - less trains and on top of that slower travel.  Could part of the reason also be that the remaining trains are diverted via the old diesel railway with no electric railway alternative route?   Another bonus of the incomplete electrification.

 
You can't polish a turd: Voyagers are crap.

That's only my personal opinion, based on experience, by the way: not an official view from the Coffee Shop forum.  CfN. 

 

That reminded me of a train journey our family took into Paris, about 25 years ago. Several tall, crop-headed and determined-looking men in uniform overalls strode very purposefully up the gangway towards the front of the train, clearly intent on dealing with some issue.

I wouldn't have argued with them - and neither, apparently, would the itinerant accordion player, who had been rather annoying us in the carriage until then: he scampered off the train at the next station stop. 

 
According to HUAC UK*, in their "Safety at Street Works and Road Works - A Code of Practice" (which has statutory status" :


The Onibury crossing is manually controlled from a box next to the crossing, which is about the safest type available. It was recently reassessed under ALCRM~ and its score changed from G3 to J4, on a scale from A1 (very dangerous - do something now) to M13 (zero risk, e.g. closed).

As the operator knows what is going on all the time, I wonder what more could be done. Perhaps to provide the crossing operator with a connection to the contraflow lights controller, to monitor what it's doing and going to do next, or even to adjust its timing. Was there signage on the approach side at the crossing saying don't block the railway crossing, or similar?

* The Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee (HAUC(UK)) is the representative body that works with the UK and devolved governments to help make improvements to the management of works and the street and road network.
~ All level crossing risk model, Network rail's standard method. The letter is for the risk to road users per crossing, and the number for the collective risk to all users.

 
Saw my first 175 in GWR territory today at Totnes station just as I arrived at about 13.30.  It was Exeter bound and running about 8 minutes late.  20 mins later boarded my first refurbed XC Voyager... reasonable enough but they still seem not to have sorted out that unpleasant air in the carriages containing the WCs.

 

I think it's actually translated as "the true north".  Echte (true/genuine) sounds very similar to ecke (corner). 
I too have fond memories of one of the Schleswig-Holstein lines, the ANB (Alsternordbahn), which ran from the northern fringe of Hamburg right behind my Aunt and Uncles house with the local station -more a halt really- just a couple of hundred metres down the line.  That part of the line is now incorporated into an extended U1 line, part of HVV Hamburg, more frequent and efficient but without the charm of the somewhat antiquated original.

 
Onibury's the level crossing where the A49 crosses the line that runs up the Welsh Marches on the skew. Line speed I don't know but it may be 90mph. Driving the A49 northbound on Friday, the A49 has a traffic lights controlled contraflow, the southbound carriageway being out of use for some hundreds of metres. The contraflow extends across the crossing. Especially because the level crossing has a road junction immediately north of it, the arrangement felt a bit perilous, with the risk of traffic queues forming across the level crossing itself. Concentrating on driving, I didn't note what it was that made me feel uneasy - and by now, the entire contraflow may be history.

I've noooooh idea of the precautions that need to be taken when road works / contraflows are combined with level crossings, but presumably Network Rail gets involved and is involved in signing things off?

Mark

 
Fair enough: that shows why I shouldn't believe anything the BBC post. 

 
I shall send Heidi Alexander an e-mail, including our Coffee Shop forum's critique of her proposed colour scheme for Great British Railways, and post her (or her department's) reply here. 

 

No there isn't! It closed in 2018 when the Southern Bypass, with a bridge over the railway 1km away, opened.

 

......over somewhat less distance! 

 
When was this? The communications failure at around midday affected not just GSM-R, but phones and even signalling for a short period. Most SWR trains stopped where they were for 30 minutes and then started up, not all immediately, and were not in their paths for some time.

Mortlake  is a busy crossing (about 14 tph) and the timetable tries to have trains arrive in clusters, leaving several gaps of over 5 minutes in each hour. But opening the barriers depends that gap in the trains happening, and on knowing in advance that it will. I imagine that was difficult today.

 

...but will carry a few more passengers.

 
Yep, for two or three operators. This time it was a national outage but seemed not to last more than an hour.

Last time it was an over-zealous upgrade that wasn't ready. I guess it still isn't....

 
From that BBC news item:


CfN.

 

Helps to put it into perspective - HS2 is now expected to cost more than NASA's Artemis moon mission!

(And there'll probably be men on Mars before it starts running into Euston if the BBC article is accurate!)

https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/hs2-slower-speeds-costs-heidi-alexander-b2979336.html

 
From the BBC:


Click on the link to the BBC to view the latest update of their developing news item.

CfN.

 
I have had to wait a fair while at several level crossings over the years, but taking a trip to London this weekend with my folding bike I found one that beat them all. I took a train to Mortlake and then had to cycle south, crossing the level crossing, and later had to return that way (though not to catch the train). Sadly I didn't actually time my waits, but I'm sure the wait from exiting the station was well in excess of ten minutes, and 5 trains crossed during that period. When I returned a few hours later. as I cycled along Mortlake High Street there was a long queue of vehicles waiting, and I thought to myself "That's good, I won't have to wait that long this time." How wrong I was. The wait was at least as long as the wait in the morning, and several of the people waiting around me were getting extremely frustrated judging by their calls on their phones they were having. There seemed to be a gap of well over 5 minutes (it felt like about ten) when no train passed by, and people just couldn't understand why the crossing didn't open.

Yes this crossing, and others I have had to wait at for several minutes, had footbridges alongside, but they are always very steeply graded steps, of no use at all to those with mobility issues or heavy luggage or cannot manage their bike and luggage up steps that steep. On the return journey, I noticed that several pedestrians and some cyclists, who had been waiting longer than me, eventually gave up waiting and tried the footbridge route, not all with success.

So I wondered which crossings people have found themselves having to wait for the longest times. Before this experience, my longest have been when visiting Lincoln, and using the crossing immediately west of the station. I also travel to Shoreham-by-Sea a lot and that can involve long waits at the crossing next to the station, though on average it isn't usually too bad.

 

I can't think of a single railway vehicle on which this livery would look like anything other than a tacky toothpaste tube