It was sadly blown over (unsurprisingly) the next morning

 

Blimey, that is some serious observations you have shared there.
Judging by the lack of positive comments about any of the renovations in any of your posts, I think it is safe to say you may be looking at it all with an already negative opinion?
Just my thoughts "thinking out loud" added above in red

 
BEMUs is the reason not to wire Temple Meads because of the complications of the layout. Maybe the mainline easy stretches.

 
I used the Airport bus stop twice during the summer. Unless it has been moved again, at that time it was about the furthest from the station building. Located on the ?Northern pavement and close to where the Empire Exhibition used to be. I noted at the time there was no seat or shelter, which was pretty poor. I imagine this location was chosen because it is easier for the bus to exit without negotiating the complete Approach Road.

Some while back it was of course located close to and to the left of station entrance on exit. There may well have been further changes in the interim! 

 

Well the sign in the photo in MarkA's post clearly says it isn't. Which is, I will grant you, eccentric.

 
The station map issue is indefensible - they have had years to update this, and it looks like no-one thought it was their job. Putting up an out-of-date map at the new entrance that doesn't show the new entrance is farcical.

I don't have a strong view on the No.8 bus stop issue. By my reckoning it is actually closer to Platform 13/15 than the old stop, and an easier walk, but it it does look like it could have been closer.

As to the northern entrance (past the Old Station and Midland Shed) - this is actually the busiest entrance to the station, and is due to be greatly improved over the next few years. The car parking will be moved to the new 'Southern Gateway', which will allow the Midland Shed to become the station foyer. All this is laid out here: https://bristolrailcampaign.org.uk/temple-meads-masterplan-november-2019-update/

 

Presumably some of the airport passengers have poor mobility due to luggage for their flight as well as any general mobility issues they might have?

Granted they are exposed to the elements to get to the eastern entrance from the No. 8 stop, but that route through to the station subway, from which you access the large majority of platforms and trains, is much nicer than walking through the cramped concourse, busy main gate line and down narrow steps or a lift.  The route from the eastern entrance to the subway is wider, quieter and level.

Not suggesting your points are wrong as such, but that there are nearly always counter arguments that can be used.

 

Because the bus company pays for it to be there.


That damn-well IS a pedestrian crossing. It was there before they started to use that area as a car park. I was a regular user of the crossing at that time.

 
Is this close to it?

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17528.msg215807#msg215807

 
From the Law Gazette


I have made a - fruitless - search of the Coffee Shop for a previous thread on this which as I recall involved ABC - the Association of British Commuters - I fee sure I should know what it's about already as it rings muffled bells, and I seem to be staring a thread very late in the day - or rather very late in the decade due to the (lack of) speed of legal activity.

Can anyone fill me in?

Can our merge master from somewhere near Backwell find the relevant started thread and merge?

A clue from https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/14047721-david-courtney-boyle. Southern, Gatwick Express and Thamslink - each operating trains from Brighton to London - and perhaps misleading people by appearing to compete with each other?  That's my reading of it but I could be wrong, and if I am, sorry for my misunderstanding - happy to add a correction.

 
I'd really like Temple Meads not to put me into snark mode every time and, the reasons it does, it would be easy to turn some of them around. Spend more than a few minutes and you'll quickly encounter passengers who are struggling with public transport's idiosyncratic ways, and its not difficult to find staff being dismissive towards them.

A general point: when it comes to airport connections, why are passengers heading for an airport often given priority treatment when it comes to bus stops - the airport flyer bus being the only service with a stop close to the station entrance? The number 8 stop there will probably have been a bit of a lifeline for people with poor mobility travelling to Temple Meads from other parts of the Bristol bus network and the new location is ... unconvincing and the eastern entrance stop is a poor replacement, it's less secure and, on the walk from the station, exposes people to a *lot* of weather.

The new station entrance. A big board shows 'Next fastest trains' to destinations, and their departure times, but doesn't that need to have some way to factor in the walking times from the east entrance to the platform and then to the train, as many of the listed departures will be well out of reach 5 to 10 minutes before they disappear from that list? (Personal experience of this in that at 16:22 it was still directing me to the 16:22 departure some way across the station rather than saying 'In through the gates and up to platform 13 for the 16:30' which, by the way, is non-stop to your destination'. )

Then, people will need directions for onward travel and particularly the new stop for the number eight, visible from the entrance but at a considerable distance - and the walking route to the bus isn't obvious. (Hint, ignore the steps and ramp that look as though they might take you to the bus stop, keep close to the university building and that'll take you straight there).

Within the new entrance, there are information screens, including this one which may be displaying onward destination information - and an out-of-date map of the station itself:



... about five seconds after you attempt to engage with this dense mass of text (that for many is rather too small to read), you'll find that the information board will turn the page and display one of its seven or so other more vacuous pages in its carousel. That £23 million pound space really needs some printed information boards. That would save the several members of staff from being understandably snarky to passengers when they're asked for the nth time where the No 8 bus is.

The main entrance, the top of the ramp at the former stop for the number 8, a notice with passenger advice on the change of location would be good, and indeed we have this, and there are issues:



The ad-hoc use of the train shed as a car park - that's so 1960s, as is the vehicle route to it that crosses the walking route for people approaching the main entrance.

Turning to the west side *major* passenger exit from the station, is this environment (and attitude) the best that the railways can do? How about a solid white line for vehicles, plus a pedestrian-priority crossing - and a mahoosive virginia creeper for that palisade fence?

 
Let's see if it actually runs, there have been many paths from Wolverton that were in, but then cancelled (sometimes twice).

There are still lots of 3 car units at Wolverton (and some have been there for 18 months), so potentially could be more than one unit coupled

 
I'm reminded of this video from the line, a wedding party at Mitcheldean Road. Thoughts of travelling from there into the Forest of Dean would have been far from their minds, particularly as this was filmed in the late fifties and the line to Drybrook had seen the rails lifted during the first world war - without so much as use by a single train in service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeL0uYzH2hY&t=2s

 
Bath's most recent iteration of 'Post office'. That aside, you wonder how losing that slew of shops impacts magazine sales.

 

Your positivity is always refreshing to see.

However, from what I can see on the map:

* The four proposed stations at Holme Lacy, Brampton Abbotts, Weston Under Penyard and Longhope would serve villages with a combined population of about 3000. 
* Rotherwas is an industrial estate on the outskirts of Hereford and a station on the nearby existing main line would look to be a much better way of serving that area of south Hereford...if it needs to be served.
* Grange Court Junction, Oakle Street and Highnam on the existing Gloucester to Newport main line don't really serve anywhere apart from distant tiny villages.
* Ross-On-Wye itself is a much bigger settlement of course, but is still less than half the size of Melksham.
* There would need to be about 25 miles of railway reinstated and even if the old alignment is free of housing (and roads, car parks, solar farms, cycle paths, newts, bats, etc.), it's quite twisty and challenging terrain which I am sure would need all sorts of expensive work to stabilise it for a modern railway reinstatement.

You wonder what planet some people are on.

 

That's kind of how STP diagrams work.  The computer will offer a path based on there being a path available, and taking into account any route availability restrictions for the type of train concerned.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's strange about it?  The logical way to get from Wolverton to Didcot now is via EWR rather than snaking around north London and apart from that it runs main line all the way apart from the bit through Melksham.  In fact you could argue that routing it via the main line from Westbury is a more risky way to send it than the route via Bristol because at least the latter has bi-directional signalling part of the way.

 
Can I point (bus-y) members towards the TravelWatch SouthWest meeting on 9th October where the theme of the day will be "socially necessary bus services".
See https://www.passenger.chat/r32460.html

 
Silly morning - also found https://www.facebook.com/reel/1068506312823674 - many a true word spoken in jest.

 
Strange route keeping, which could be more than one unit, off the mainline as much as possible. Does it show the confidence in these ready to run units?

 
The other day I had to travel to Spa Medica near Exeter Airport to have the prelim assessment for a cataract lens replacement.
Grandson drove me to Axminster to catch the 12.14 train to St Davids. Then the aim was to catch the Stagecoach 4A bus to the Airport at 13.15. However that did not arrive, neither did the next one, due 35 minutes later. The Stagecoach app would not reveal the presence of the 4A and kept directing me to the 4 instead!
The result a £24.80 taxi fare to Spa Medica.
After the assessment it was a short walk to the airport for the 4A back. However, this was running 35 late meaning I would miss the train to Axminster. Decided to walk to Clyst Honiton and catch the 4 to Cranbrook where I could catch the train. I got off in Cranbrook only to see the bus go off to the station, not shown on the screen or the timetable.
Naturally, the GWR Axminster service was cancelled but caught the SWR on a little later, arriving in Axminster in time for the last bus to Bridport, where grandson picked me up.
Following a strongly worded email to Stagecoach, I received a reply saying if I had the taxi receipt I could claim a refund. Not expecting them to do this I only had my Apple Pay record. This they accepted and £24.80 found its way back into my account, a good result and a thanks to Stagecoach.
At Axminster I even gad time for a swift glass of beer in the Ale Way, the old station master’s house!

 
From https://www.facebook.com/reel/1667876768271054

 
Google Earth indicates that the Holyhead array of sidings there received an extensive fettling around 2020, previous to that they'd become a bit of a jungle. With what intention I don't know.

 
I think priority has to be to now get rid of the BR dmus. Certainly relatively easy win is to wire filton/Chippenham to Bristol TM and Weston-super-Mare  this way you could get BEMUs on Cardiff to Taunton and Portsmouth Harbour services the latter will need tri mode units

 
Unfortunately this is a consequence of living in a sparsely populated rural location. Having a more regular bus to a village with a population of 1500, the majority will be car users who can’t be convinced to use public transport no matter how good the transport is.the rest of the 78 route passes through hamlets with less than a dozen routes each.
These people who move to these lovely rural villages don’t think, “what if I have to give up driving”.
Upton cross has its best service in several decades, until the current council tenders in 2020 they had 2 buses a day. They now have the 78 and 78A, which suffers from punctuality issues but always runs except in extreme circumstances.
As a rural bus driver myself at another operator, running times are unpredictable around rural country lane routes. You could have a perfect clear run through one day bang on time, the next day you’ll meet every farmer with their tractor and trailer and spend more time going backwards than forwards

 
Not so sure it's a *new* campaign - see https://www.passenger.chat/r23538.html from six years ago, but it doesn't seem to have gained much traction since then.   Having said which, the drip, drip, drip approach is often the ways things are achieved in the long term - took us 7 years from 2006 to 2013 to get a generally usable train service back at my local station.

The scale of Gloucester - Hereford via Ross on Wye is several orders of magnitude different to Melksham, of course - it's a (re)build-a-line job, and I have not seen the support for it at at the same level and Tweedbank to Carlsle, or Skipton to Colne.   But then, perhaps, their campaigning is better targeted towards the movers and the shakers which I am not.

 
Earlier this morning:


and also today:

 
While Bridport has a few closed shops, in general the High Streets(E, W & S) are in quite good shape. Yes, three of the big four banks have closed -HSBC is now a cafe bar, Nat West is being converted to a gallery and Barclays is a soft furnishing business. We still have TSB and Nationwide.
We have three artisan bakeries, three butchers as well as numerous small, local shops. A bookshop seems to do well despite Waterstones. RKL Tools, a hardware store has just moved to larger premises
Waitrose is on West Street and there is Spar and Premier on East Street. Morrisons, Lidl and Coop are on the edge of the town. Saturdays often sees Marion and I parking at the Coop and walking into town.
We even have a Hatter, Snooks, which still makes them on site. There is also a music store.
The cafe society is thriving with a number of artisan coffee shops preferred to Costa and #1.
There is an arts centre, an Art Deco cinema and a theatre, in an old chapel.
On top of this there is the twice weekly street market.
Trading estates occupy a number of old industrial site not far from the town centre offering a wide range of services.
We also have a busy Post Office

 
Another first for Melksham?
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:K04812/2026-10-01/detailed

Melksham [MKM] pass  1309

Noticed this from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/class-175s-to-gwr.272524/page-151#post-7964134

 


Lisa has spoken several times at the Atworth History Group, including March 2026, and her talks have not been videoed nor broadcast online.   

My own talk will be a new one, though sharing much of the material I used in July 2014 at the Melksham Heritage Day.  I'm open to presenting it again (if any speaker bookers are reading this) and hopefully nothing like as long as gap this time.

 
No, Graham will be speaking live.




Oh, I see what you mean.