I see this Elizabeth Line train arrived at West Ealing on time and departed 28 minutes late and terminated at Paddington.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:P07282/2025-12-13/detailed#allox_id=0

Possibly the culprit?

 
Passing Freshford earlier in the day  (not quite the quality of a Cuneo!)  Shame about the motley coaching stock!

 
And most of them are bilingual here in Carmarthen so twice the information

 
The Trowbridge fare looks a little out of place cost wise when Westbury, further down the line is 70p less and Bradford on Avon is just 20p more. Sure, we’re not talking large sums of money here, but a little strange.

 
Yes, the ~65 metre steel span needed is very achievable and hopefully the piers either side of the failed ones are sound. It might need to be scoped to enable a certain amount of access by vehicles in the interests of future maintenance of the rest of the structure.

Access to the site is an issue though as that would need a temporary road built to the site.

Initially it might seem to be an extravagance to repair this, but the other options are also expensive and offer no benefits other than to reduce/remove the liability.

To remove just the damaged spans and piers - that's expensive in itself and still needs the temporary access road - and leaves the rest of the structure to become a liability in its own time.

So, option 3 - removing the entire structure - means, among oher things, dealing with that centre span, at 368 feet it's over 40 feet longer than each of the Severn Rail bridge's two large spans - it even manages to be 8 feet longer than the two warren truss spans - between the three cantilevers of the Forth Rail Bridge. For good measure it's awkwardly placed in the middle of a wild and shallow river with no road or rail access.

The only positive for that operation must be that there's nothing nearby to damage while the span is dropped into the river by explosives, cut up by... whatever's used to cut up scrap steelwork in a river bed - and then removed from site. But... while that was ok for the Severn Bridge's big spans in the sixties, given the likely surface coatings on the Spey viaduct, environmental legislation would rule that out completely. So, would it be a matter of encasing the span, propping it, chopping it piece by piece and taking it back to dry ground over the remaining structure? That's an approach which has introduced the need for more expense in the form of a second temporary access road at the east end of the bridge....

Mark

 
I am going to start with some answers to my own questions


Nice to tell us - except it's wrong.  Rail Replacement buses call at the rail replacement bus stop on Station Approach


There is no ticket office here.  There is no Permit to Travel Machine. There is no smart card system here.  With a big "Penalty Fare £100" in big text above this, it's over complex and frightens the bajeebers out nervous potential customers.


There are no Cross Country of Transport for Wales services anywhere near - so why say this?  And in any case Transport for Wales do have Penalty Fares.


The Glee Club and Cafe closed several years ago


Now this is excellent advice - but if you drop something onto the track, are you really going to read into the text of a big poster?  I don't know the alternative but ...


But there is a toilet ... installed with a grant from the Town Council and others for the use of passengers while the cafe is open. It would be correct to say, sadly, that "No toilet is available"


There's a coin slot ... but nothing behind it and coins fed in here just fall to the bottom of the inside of the machine


"Cheaper off peak fares may be available ... etc.  Except that it's already the off peak fare being offered and the super off peak fare - if you know the various buttons to press - will get you a London return for £71.20.  But that is seven button presses for the knowledgable.


What extra would I like to see? ... for starters ...

* An emergency number to call in addition to the "Emergency" button on the help point

* A simple sheet of train departures / line of route to include the times of direct trains back

* An advice button on the ticket machine where you can speak to someone to explain the various fares on offer

 
Hopefully a new very light weight section - bridging the fallen piers - can restore the path and cycleway.

 
1967?

 
The question has been raised whether the current station is in the right position to best suit the needs of future housing and ancillary developments. Would a brand new replacement with greater footfall make the more economic sense?

 

Wow!

Thanks for posting that pictorial detail from ... well, Melksham station, unless I'm much mistaken.

I'm not convinced we have that many posters and signs, in total, at Nailsea & Backwell station - which has two full working platforms, being on the main line between Bristol and Taunton.

Give me a bit of time tomorrow morning, and I'll stroll down to NLS to count the relevant signs here.

CfN.

 

Erm ... excuse me ?!?

 
Yep: you're yet another old crock.

 
Thank you for your update here on the Coffee Shop forum, JayMac. 

Bearing in mind my somewhat lifelong interest in the safety (or otherwise) of railway road level and pedestrian foot crossings, I shall investigate that link and probably offer some input to their petition.

 
The inquest into Harry's death will take place in May 2026.

Meanwhile a petition to improve safety at, or close, the 5/13 foot crossing has been set up in Harry's memory.
https://www.change.org/p/improve-safety-at-5-13-railway-foot-crossing-or-close-it-down-in-memory-of-harry-basham

 

I think the pattern of channels has been a lot more variable than that. As the linked "Forgotten Relics" article says, it was intended to protect the bridge foundations by confining the flow to the main span. But the river had other ideas, and immediately started switching its path when the river was in spate (pretty common).

The Duke of Richmond and Gordon went to court to get the GNoSR to do more to block the side arches, a case that was settled without a ruling, so it's not clear what the result was. Equally unclear is why the big local landowner wanted to favour commercial fishing by blocking the river's flood channels, and so cause the river upstream to burst its banks!

In practice the argument seems to have been about how big a flood should be kept in the main channel, before being allowed to spread wider, and who was to rebuild the cills under the side arches after the flood had broken through them. Certainly it looks as if at some stage, probably long before the railway closed, people gave up trying to bully the river. So it's been shifting the stuff that held the piers upright ever since.

 
I want that bus's numberplate.

My initials and my day of birth.

 
I have merged two topics on the subject into one purely in the interests of clarity and ease of future reference for our readers (or whatever phrase that bloke from Nailsea uses) .
 

 
From the BBC:

 
The station opened late this morning too. WMT also seem to be short-staffed around Christmas Sundays

 
In 2024, a timely FOI request to Moray Council.

Mark

http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_155535.html

 
It is ridiculous that we have so many miles of unelectrified railway still, especially when you consider the previous plans that were shelved. In the case of Bath, it isn't as though the preparation hasn't been done - tunnels, bridges and anything else in the was were all cleared ready for the wires to come, as far as the tunnels at St Annes. The IETs all have pantographs at the ready. Extending the OHLE from Thingummy to the far side of Keynsham should be doable on a series of overnight stints. Sydney Gardens might even benefit from not having so much diesel traffic. If not, that could be left without wires but with a need to have the horn sounding a warning until the train can use the leccy again. Alternatively, a bit of extra cash could be spent on something slightly less out of keeping with the Georgian splendour than the standard steelwork.

 

Yes - though I caught - I think it was the 400 - to Svolvaer.  A really bleak bus station with services headed off to some fabulous places.

 
15. Narvik. I already knew the bus was a Svipper route 100 Narvik to Tromsø, and I was sure I'd looked at the obvious place, which is Narvik. But apparently not!

 
Supporting the carol service at Imber Church, apparently.

 
A rather ambiguous note in the 'Line Update' section of JourneyCheck:

Individual journeys are listed as "not calling at Worcester Foregate Street".

 
Yes.

Also, it was curious to watch several passengers off the up service at Warminster the other day cross to the down side and walk past the open exit by the footbridge to the 'Way Out' notice for the booking office exit to find that that that was closed: they retraced their steps to the very visible side exit.

Meanwhile I couldn't locate the ticket machine, then found I was looking at it. To passengers entering the station, it presents an anonymous grey flank that I'd dismissed as a piece of lineside equipment.

Mark

 
Are there too many signs at our stations - even the smallest ones?



Are they all necessary?

Are they all correct?

Do they all apply at this station?

Will passengers have time to read them?

Are they written in understandable English?

Will people be able to find the answer to any question even if the answer id there?

Are they all legible when needed?

Is anything missing?

 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1m87jlv97ro


Photographs in the article.

 

Oops - 13, 14, and 15 not yet correctly identified - 16 is indeed Newcastle Central

13.


14.


15.