Easter's late again this year, I see 

I have just heard (1st May)  that my entry is not amongst the winners ... sure, it was a long shot.  I look forward to seeing the winning entries at the stations.

06:54 Reading to Gatwick Airport due 08:25 is being delayed at Reading.
This is due to congestion.

Photo here, courtesy of Simon Hickman.

Mark

Depends on the day. Once MK-OXF EWR is open, then it'd simply be two changes, from May 18th.

'I get to work on the most scenic railway line in the world'


The Settle-Carlisle line is celebrating 150 years having survived a threat of closure in the 1980s - Image © John Giles/PA

Have you heard the one about the railway line that was threatened with closure, so lots of people started using it and it was saved?

Welcome to the Settle to Carlisle line, the quirky steel road through some of Britain's most magnificent countryside.

The line starts in Leeds and passes through Shipley and Skipton, but it is the section between North Yorkshire and Cumbria that is world-famous for its views.

Heading north from Settle, the peak of Pen-y-Ghent soon looms large, with Whernside and Ingleborough following a few miles later.


The line was voted the second most famous in the world last year - Image © Nick Wooley/BBC

Karen Morley-Chesworth from the Settle-Carlisle Railway Development Company said the route was "the best of British countryside".

"You can come on the train at Leeds where you bump into people every second, and you get off the train here and there's nobody. There's just scenery."

In the 1980s, there was a proposal to close the line but thousands of people - and one dog - objected. There is now a statue of Ruswarp the border collie, who signed the petition with his paw, and was classed as a paying passenger.

Passenger services started 150 years ago today, and to mark the occasion, tickets are being made available on the Northern-operated route for 150p each.


Ruswarp's pawprint was counted as a signature towards saving the railway - Image © Nick Wooley/BBC

This is a line with added value - it is not uncommon for the train conductor to give a running commentary on the landscape passing by.

Conductor Aaron Hendry said: "It's the luckiest part of my job, getting to be on this line. Last year it was voted the second most scenic line in the world, and I get to work on it. It's brilliant."

It could be argued there's a certain romance about the line too, according to operations manager Susie Smith. "My dad was a driver on the line and we used to come on holiday to Dentdale and stand in a field waving our tea towels, giving him a wave and he'd toot his horn," she said. "I met my husband, who works on the line, so we have our very own love story."

The crown jewel of the route is the legendary Ribblehead Viaduct. Blood, sweat, tears and death built this line. So many men died, many of them "navvies" who moved between major construction projects, they had to make local graveyards bigger. The viaduct consists of 24 arches carrying the track at more than 100ft (30.5m) high. It is an engineering marvel and a Yorkshire landmark.

Pete Myers, chair of the Settle-Carlisle Railway Development Company, has spent his life working on the railways. He said: "Without the viaduct, the line just wouldn't be complete. If we are serious about carbon reduction and green travel, public transport is an instrumental part of that. It is a truly green way of looking at the Dales."

At Ribblehead, you will find a station and a pub; appropriately named the Station Inn. The hostelry has just been bought by Andrew Hields, who said the pub and viaduct were "iconic".

"It's a few thousand people a year who come in from the train for sure," he said. "This place wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the railway 150 years ago."

The railway has some stations so far from the towns and villages they purport to serve, you need to bring your walking boots - Dent is four and a half miles from the village itself, but geography dictated where the tracks went.

In 2026, the railway is used by regular passenger services, commuters, steam engines and even mainline trains travelling between London and Glasgow when a diversion is required. When a steam train passes by, you can easily imagine what it was like here a century and a half ago.

Ad today as tickets to the Hammersmith Apollo on sale tomorrow.
Refers to Christopher as 'author'

Europe’s Rail Ticketing Mess: Why Booking a Train Still Feels Harder Than Flying

The European Union likes to present rail as the backbone of a sustainable transport future. Yet, as an April 2026 report from think tank Transport & Environment makes clear, the reality of booking a train across Europe remains fragmented, opaque, and often frustrating. The core problem is not a lack of infrastructure or even demand—it is a failure of the ticketing system to match the expectations of modern travellers.

A System That Discourages Its Own Use

At its most basic level, the European rail ticketing system fails to do what passengers expect: allow them to book a journey from A to B in one go. On some of the EU’s busiest corridors, one in five international rail journeys cannot be booked as a single ticket through major operator platforms.

The problem worsens with distance. For journeys above 900 km, more than half cannot be booked end-to-end via incumbent operators. This is precisely where rail should be competing most strongly with aviation. Instead, it is here that the system breaks down.

Passengers notice. Surveys show that 61% of long-distance travellers have abandoned rail journeys because booking is too complex and booking a train can take up to 70% longer than booking a flight. In an era where convenience defines consumer choice, this is a critical failure.

Think the boat's the Mount's Bay nautical equivalent of an Optare bus. Glad you've mentioned ferries, as there would surely have been a bit of too-ing and fro-ing between Mousehole, Newlyn and Penzance. All horribly weather dependent though.

Mark

Not long to wait for the results.

Widening the Thames bridges?.....

Radio Bristol reporting a contract is being signed today for continued construction work on the Portishead line,
not sure if they also said thee will be a "special train" going onto the line to celebrate the contract being signed.
 

Widening the Thames bridges?.....

It has sometimes struck me that this would have been (and might still be) a good idea. Being no civil engineer, sitting in a train between the two it strikes me that it might not be too much of a challenge,