The Salisbury to Exeter Rail Ale Trail encourages people from near and far to visit local pubs by train and has gained national recognition as a significant tourism and leisure initiative, being awarded a Certificate of Excellence at the recent Community Rail Awards in Newcastle. 

The trail includes 19 pubs along the railway that links the two cities, all of them within easy reach of the stations in the towns and villages it serves.  Collect 10 stamps to win a T-shirt.

11:43 Swindon to Weymouth due 13:57

11:43 Swindon to Weymouth due 13:57 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Frome, Bruton, Castle Cary, Yeovil Pen Mill, Thornford, Yetminster, Chetnole, Maiden Newton, Dorchester West, Upwey and Weymouth.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

1. 

2.  Rose & Crown, Trowbridge (an excellent hostelry);

3.  Queen's Tap, Swindon (another excellent hostelry).

I can't quite place the first one.  Not The Railway Inn at Yatton, I assume? 

CfN. 

That looks like it would be an attractive alternative for getting to Gatwick from Reading compared to the current GWR Turbo service - assuming decent rolling stock. 

Word reaches me from a trundling trencherman (guess who?  ) that Wetherspoons have added black pudding to their breakfast menu.

Excellent. 

Yes, IF you can persuade many of the foreign airlines to put on flights from these regions, as well as London.

They won't, because it's one plane load generally. Occasionally, two, and then Manchester sometimes gets one.

Ideally you would do the job properly and run them to Crewe and onwards.

Through this application, GC is seeking to provide more direct rail connectivity to areas which we consider underserved, and provide passengers with an additional option for environmentally friendly transport to London Gatwick Airport from the Midlands and North East of England, when compared to driving, or coach travel.

The new services will bring the benefits of competition, as experienced on the East Coast Mainline (ECML), to the cross- country route, which between the ECML and South East of England has no competition to the fare setter, other than premium fares via London.

This application will support the continued expansion of GC to the benefit of passengers, in particular introducing direct rail connectivity between the South Coast and the Northeast of England, where GC has a long track record of supporting underserved communities, while also growing overall revenue and patronage on rail services. In addition, this new proposed route will also directly connect England’s second most populous city, Birmingham and surrounding areas to the second busiest airport in the UK, which in 2024 served 43.2 million passengers, and whose stated goal is to serve 80 million passengers annually by the late 2030s with the project to open a second runway currently underway.

GC has already had discussions with London Gatwick, who welcome this application and are excited about the opportunities it creates for more direct connectivity to the airport. It also re- connects Birmingham with the largest British conurbation without a current direct rail service, in Brighton and Hove.

This application is made considering the implementation of the East Coast Mainline (ECML) Event Steering Group (ESG) timetable in December 2025, our timetable also makes updates and considers the May 2026 timetable.

 These new direct GC services provide rail journey times between the Southeast and Birmingham/Oxford, which compete favourably with the fastest current rail journey times (e.g. Gatwick Airport – Birmingham GC 3h 00, compared to 2h 40), which involve at least one interchange, usually including a change between London termini. Direct journey times are also comparable with average road journey times (c3h 00 for Gatwick Airport – Birmingham by car, and 4h 00 by coach), without the added uncertainty from the use of the congested M25. This is particularly true of poorly served stations for these routes, such as Guildford (Guildford – Birmingham GC 2h 14, against current rail 2h 30 via Reading, or 2h 45 by car).

On longer journeys from the Southeast to the Northeast, the GC proposed direct journey times also compare favourably with car and coach journey times, although they are slower than the premium- priced services requiring a cross-London interchange. For example, beyond Derby, coach services to Gatwick Airport require an interchange, which means the current cost-effective solution takes, for example, from York 8 hours by coach and 5 hours by car, compared to the direct proposed 5 hours by GC.

I am sure you are thinking of an additional pair of lines for anyone wanting to go from Old Oak Common tp Solihull

It took even me a while, but I have now found it for you, Kernow Otter: see https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15910.0

That topic was originally specific to Wetherspoons at railway stations, but it did indeed expand to cover 'public houses near the railways' generally.