I find Realtimetickets (same place as Realtimetrains) useful for seeing actual ticket types.

 

And after TEN years what has happened ?
Improved trollies has changed from a commitment, to an aspiration, and now sunk without trace.
Hot food in standard class, also sunk without trace (after a brief trial that produced the expected result that it was uneconomic)

 
The story is that it's a forced change for GWR (and some others) as their supplier, Wordline IT, is withdrawing from this market. However, Wordline do use the same engine on their own booking site, respottedhanky, at least for the time being.

 
All happening tonight!

 
I'm currently indirectly benefitting from First's withdrawal from Cornwall, as many of the buses have been transferred to the optimistically-named Berkshire and Thames Valley area (really Slough and surrounds). They now have more buses than they know what to do with and have introduced 2 frequent new routes forming a High Wycombe-Uxbridge-Slough triangle in a fight to the death with GoAhead's Carousel operation.

 
I have long used the GWR Mixing Deck booking site to buy my train tickets. This now seems to have vanished. Can anyone tell me of another site which tells me exactly what TYPE of ticket I am buying for my money/planned journey ? Is Mixing Deck still available - I fear not, its too simple and gives too much useful info away !

Every other site I have tried so far gives me a fare but doesn't detail whether it's "anytime", "off peak", "super off peak", "evening out"   or what ever.

What I am trying ascertain is: if I turn up at my station to catch the 0740 to ?? what is the cheapest ticket I can buy for that service at that time ? That would be handy to know - in case I need a bank loan for when I get there !

Mixing Deck told me that, clearly and simply - the "new" websites are very glitzy but don't tell me what I wish to know   

 

 

 
...and now cancelled. But there's a fleet of SUVs on the way, apparently...

 

 

I think that is the first one to make a special call at Melksham in the down direction.

 

 

 
...and the 17:35 from Swindon hasn't departed yet, "Delayed"...

 

This certainly applies to the 08:56 Great Malvern-Paddington. The Trolley always stays in hiding on this service.

 

 

The signs on those proclaim them to be "Staff storage room". This strikes me as a great idea - when the train is held awaiting a driver, they can just get a spare one out of the staff storage.

 
Ironically, given St Piran was Irish, he'd probably be regarded as an "incomer" these days, God help him if he purchased a holiday home or drove an SUV! 

 
I would hope when they are retired we get the ones Mr Rule hinted at, but then didn’t deliver.

 
Keep thinking the title of this is 'Shy and retiring on-train trolleys'. Tempted to name those cubicles found on IETs that unexpectedly contain one, the 'Drawing room'.

Mark

 
It must be less easy to tell now: here, and at Bristol Temple Meads, in the past, would a bike locked and on the station platform pretty well guarantee a 1:1 correlation with a rail passenger?

Anecdotally, locking the bike at the station and on to a train was very much a thing for me until the cycle storage was moved from the platforms, the perceived (and actual) security of the replacement cycle parking around Bath Spa has put an end to that (and along with it some of the rail travel).

In London, and centuries back, cycling to the station as part of the daily commute was very much a thing for one of the household, but only a single instance of a security issue with that - they arrived back at the station one evening to find a set of bikes had been secured together with a cable - presumably a would be thief had the intention of returning later and stealing the whole lot. The episode resulted in a phone call to summon the appropriate resources to deal with the cable and all was well once again.

Bikes on trains, very much enabled with the more widespread availability of things that fold, though I'm suspecting that the IETs are a challenge even for those, thanks very much, Department for, er, Transport.

Mark

 
From the BBC:

 
A bit like the replacement Cowes chain ferry, buy something new and flashier then find you can't use it part of the time.

 
Or maybe recent publicity raising questions about BTP attitude to cycle theft at stations.

 
It doesn't necessarily work well in the long term either if it tends towards monocultures. Nature's more resilient when the environment's peppered with microclimates and niche species. Something which applies to economies too?

Mark

 
From the London Chronicle

A long article worth reading


It goes on to remind us that the approach to fares in London is a choice, and that other models such as the one in Berlin could be used if we wished.

 
From the North Wales Pioneer


I find myself wondering if it's really about customer information improvement, or more about generating advertising revenue.

Llandudno is a mixture of ancient and modern at present - and I can appreciate the wish to replace the whiteboard with something that can be dynamically updated.

 

The whole commercial / competition setup is about survival of the fittest, and the failure to survive of the weakest, and the whole thing is modelled around weaker companies or parts of companies failing. Which does not in the short term fit well with social need - it leads to a scramble to get alternatives in place - sometimes perhaps better, sometimes not, but very much a shock change brought upon at a time and in a way that's triggered by the failing company and not in a planned sensible way.  [Personal view ...]

 

My wife Lisa is a dual citizen - originally from the USA, but now more British than American.  And some of my family too emigrated from the UK to the USA some 60 years ago and are now more American than British.  So we are an international family, and this question is about far more than a vacation - it's also about family events. Never the less, in the current climate we do not intend to visit the USA, even for those family events.

We are somewhat "with" family - Lisa's and mine - online and the distance does not feel as great; for sure, we can't pop into the yacht club at Los Alamitos to catch up with my cousins, nor into Roanoke, Long Beach or Naples to catch up with Lisa's siblings, son and family but yet we remain in touch.  Not *just* the political situation and what's going on in the headlined parts of the huge country, but also no desire to fly and as we get older the health issues so far from home, under such tension, and we have an alternative online too. We welcome family here to the UK and to Europe;  I've posted pictures of my cousin and her husband at Dundas and on the Two Tunnels walk, and in a couple of months I'll be meeting up with my other cousin and her husband in the Low Countries.

The world travel situation has changed even since I posted this poll though - so I never say "never".  The changes, this week, are rather in the opposite direction and I am rethinking my late spring / early summer plans to go as far as I can by train across Turkey.  Last year, the heatwave put me off, and I went to the other extreme of Narvik, and I've already been to Faro and Westport at the other extremes by train - Kars, Samsun  and Van may need to wait to a future year.

 
"The Last First Bus in Cornwall"

A video from a channel I subscribe to telling the story of buses in Cornwall from deregulation in the mid 1980s to the last days of FirstGroup's presence on the peninsula.

https://youtu.be/wLdlJZ73nk0