I expect (tongue-in-cheek) there will be a steam-powered road vehicle to the GSWR station at Toddington, where the punters will transfer to the expected steam-hauled train to Cheltenham Racecourse station - and be pleased to avoid all the road chaos of Race Week.
Or (tongue-out-of-cheek) a nice modern coach from Evesham to Toddington.

 
Curious.  The blurb on the link mentions transferring at Evesham to a steam train to the racecourse and also mentions it will be on the GWSR (who own Cheltenham Racecourse Station).  The trouble is, the GWSR don't have any connection to the national network at either the Racecourse or Broadway end, or anywhere in between, so I'm proper confused!

 
I assume you mean TfW, not TfL?


The DfT/Treasury are still trying to save money/cut budgets. Further service reductions I'm sure are on the cards.

 
Having just sat through the broadcast/video, I'd recommend it to forum members.

There's a defence of IETs and explanation of what seems to be wrong with the bi-mode units, an acknowledgement that the seats are a problem that's "being looked at", an explanation of the problems with the 175s (they had been run down by TfL to the end of the service maintenance cycle, suffered from storage and rely on technology that is now over 20 years old, giving recommissioning problems) as well as a clear indication that actually there is still not much clarity as to how GBR will work.

He also seems to have accepted that battery power rather than extending electrification looks like being the way forward, offering assurance that the technology has come a long way in recent years.

I did though get the impression he was being somewhat guarded over what will happen next, even allowing for the considerable uncertainty that there clearly is. It is clear that he has concerns that some of what he sees as First Group/GWR's achievements may be at risk. 

 
Rain weather warning out for Cornwall and Devon for this Thursday  [Image from here is not available to guests]

 
Rosyth-Dunkerque proposal.

Mark

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/27/scotland-france-ferry-dunkirk-regeneration-plan

 
... and that's reminded me of another memory of that area of Bristol. A little off topic...

My Grandma oft told the story of me as a toddler screaming blue murder in the Co-op department store a little further down from Wine St in Fairfax House (demolished and replaced by The Galleries shopping centre).. The reason I was upset? My Grandma and uncle trying to get me into the paternoster lift that was in the store.

The grown up me, with my interest in weird and wonderful engineering, would love to have been able to ride that paternoster lift.

 
"In order to increase effectiveness, efficiency and accountability we are centralising the police and making the service even more remote from people and from democratic control"

The Peelian idea that the police are simply good citizens who take an oath and wear a uniform seems to be very much dead-and-buried, along with policing by consent

Big Government's distrust of it's citizens being able to arrange things for themselves locally in a way that suits them best continues

 

Gosh yes, thanks for stirring up that memory. An Aladdin's Cave for us non-neurotypical types who like to keep their collection of Highway Code editions up-to-date, or who just enjoy the smell of newly-printed government literature.

Wine St was once Bristol's premier shopping street. It was badly damaged by wartime bombing and then swept away by a coalition of national chain stores and government policy, which decided that a fairly undamaged area of mediaeval, Georgian and Victorian buildings around Broadmead, Milk St, Rosemary St and Merchant St should be flattened and the shopping centre relocated there. Later, the demolished ancient buildings of Wine St, Castle St and Mary-le-Port St were bulldozed into the basements to create Castle Park.

Andrew Foyle, in his Pevsner Architectural Guide to Bristol, described Wine Street as 'perhaps the saddest post-Blitz transformation'.

Broadmead has been described as having all the charm of an out-of-town shopping centre without the parking. Soon much of it will be flattened, this time for housing. So it goes.

 

Ew. Poor station lifts. Thanks for posting that.

Mark

 

Can add a few more line closures to your list

Eastleigh - Fareham
near Sway (Brockenhurst - Bournemouth)
near Yetminster (Weymouth- Yeovil)
Exeter - Honiton
Ryde Pier Head - Ryde St Johns

 

And another one....

Alterations to services between Weymouth and Yeovil Pen Mill
Due to heavy rain flooding the railway between Weymouth and Yeovil Pen Mill the line is closed.

 

I used to love going to the HMSO on High Holborn in London to purchase copies of rail accident reports, of which I have quite a collection. They were a fascinating story and taught me a lot which remains with me to this day.  Fact far more interesting than fiction, and facts and evidence without a marketing gloss or bias.  In the information overload we have today, there is a great deal of other reading material available for analysis but these reports were something of a more educational trigger than trainspotting, though I can still tell you about difference in 4EPB units.

 
Many thanks for the responses so far ... which (for guests who cannot yet see the running results) are very much in favour.  That's something of a relief, as the poll is something of a sanity check.    Part of the intent of asking around (and I have been doing so a lot locally too) has been to ensure that this project is fully in line with the vast majority of people, and the other part is to wheedle out objections and concerns so they can be thoroughly assessed at an early stage so that they can be addressed and mitigated.

 
An interesting morning ...

 

Stilll showing at 07:30 ... it was 1 minute late off Gloucester.   Mountain out of what turned out to be a molehill.

 
Live on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002qk0d/breakfast-27012026

 
Dawlish station at high tide 24th January:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhceusV2Eqw

 
Tuesday 27th January 2026

in connection with the on going issues of the disruption to the rail lines in the area.

 
Due to flooding between Salisbury and Romsey all lines are blocked.
Train services running through these stations will be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 12:00 27/01.
Customer Advice
-
What has happened?
-
We have had reports of flooding in the area. When flood water rises above certain levels trains may have to reduce their speed or be unable to run through the affected area because debris may have moved onto the rails, or the ground underneath the track may have washed away. Flooding can also affect the power supply to the signalling systems or the overhead power lines the trains use.
-
What are we doing about it?
-
Until water levels recede, all lines will be blocked.

 
Hazy memory...

Was there once an Ordnance Survey shop on Wine St in Bristol?

EDIT: Some online research has informed me that this was a HM Stationery Office bookshop. My hazy memory was of me perusing OS Maps in there back in the early 1990s.

 

I'm subscribed to a few travel vloggers on YouTube - Steve Marsh; Planes, Trains, Everything; Wingin' It! Paul Lucas; amongst others. All have mentioned fearing for their safety in and around Bercy bus station.