I remember travelling on a VT class 158 from Swindon to Cheltenham Spa during that short-lived service.  It was oh so comfortable compared to the Sprinters that were normally used - it was so smooth and quiet.
To be fair to the Sprinters, they got you there, and the Golden Valley line through Stroud is scenic rather than fast.
As for the Pacers that were used on the route at one time, hmm, well, they were OK on plain welded line, but otherwise I had to brace myself and hope the thing didn't bounce itself off the track. 

 

Yes, we are ... on the 22:00 last night (Friday) off Portsmouth, the "Salamanca" bound for Santander where we are scheduled to arrive at 08:00 tomorrow (Sunday).  Three buses, an overcrowded three carriage train, and now the ferry. Boarded on deck three; only telling you that because I'm looking for a three pattern through this post.  Long queue for the lifts to our deck; usual "survival of the fittest mode" which means that everyone else got up before we did, and after a pleasant chat with the ferry staff we had a lift to ourselves.

I can share a picture - taken within the last hour - that will give you a much closer triangulation onto us



I can show you some of the great features here and on open supply



And I can tell you the official view of transpotting in these parts

 
I couldn't possibly have posted such an answer, as I have inside information. 

 
As that figure in the Simpsons-themed dress looks like a Spanish one, are you crossing the Bay of Biscay on your way to Northern Spain?

 
Heathrow seems to be losing passengers and shrinking, based on last few months CAA passenger data, with every month lower than 2025

April 2026 : 6,721,740 down from April 2025 : 7,099,310
May 2026 : 7,121,542 down from May 2025 : 7,204,362
June 2026 : 7,227,536 down from June 2025 : 7,359,020
July 2026 : 7,859,325 down from July 2025 : 7,981,535
August 2026 : 7,866,719 down from August 2025 : 8,036,159

https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/uk-aviation-market/airports/uk-airport-data/uk-airport-data-2026/august-2026/

No recent month has reached the 8m+ passengers of August 2025

Of course aircraft movements, and passenger numbers do not stay in sync if different size planes are used over time

March 38,817 aircraft movements
April 38,638
May 40,590
June 39,415
July 41,206
August 41,569
obviously those over 40k reflect 31 day months, others 30 days

 

Indeed - if you're looking at the South Coast, international ferries only from Dover, Newhaven, Portsmouth and Plymouth these days. Gone are Sheerness, Ramsgate, Folkestone, Southampton, Poole and Weymouth even in my memory.

 
But not from Poole these days

 

Source: T&E

 

Very good research, Richard - as you say looks like it operated with a 2-car 158 for a very short period!  Presumably they took over from Wales & West, before GWR took over from them?

The WTT is a reminder that there were just the four through Paddington to Gloucester/Cheltenham services per day back then.  Now there are sixteen!

 

Suggestion noted: now done.

CfN. 

 
On the upside, venison as an option on the Pullman will make a nice change?

 
The fittings and furniture that are functional rather than plush or posh do strongly suggest a ferry.

 

Indeed, and now that we have come down up for breakfast, there are more clues

 
Coincidentally, there was a report on French TV news yesterday about the delays and damage caused by wild animals being hit by trains. Of course SNCF does have a lot of railway that's not fenced, plus a lot of wild boar - big, heavy, solid things. There were some numbers for collisions with boar and deer, which I can't remember exactly, but something like eight per day for France.

So they have been trying out fancy new beast scarers, which detect the animal and make a suitable noise at it, chosen to make it move away. The company involved, ElanRail, claim that their "Blue Sentinel" has reduced collisions by 90% year on year in the trial.

SNCF have also been fencing some lines; that may help with other kinds of trespasser of course.

 

At the risk of talking to myself, I have looked back for my data source and found various.  Seems that sheep are more of a problem in Wales, and people over the whole of GB:

https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/deer-oh-deer-network-rail-unveils-the-countrys-worst-trespassing-criminals-embargoed-20-august-2024-0600

https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/revealed-animals-who-top-the-lists-of-trespassers-on-the-track-on-wales-and-western-region


And Network Rail have even provided a graphic in case anyone doesn't know what a sheep, a swan or a badger is - though I would query their description as a "crime" which - to me - indicates a conscious intent to break the law.

 
But aren't we meant to be moving away from everything being London-centric? Let another part of the country (Manchester?) benefit from that growth, along with all the extra pollution and noise when we really should be trying to reduce air miles whether for passengers or freight.

I'm also struck by the PM's suggestion that it is a matter for London and Londoners, when planning more generally is reducing the ability for local people to have any influence.

 

Sadly, the most common animals hit by trains.  On something unrelated to this incident, I found some stats Network Rail has published a couple of years ago



"Deer" is shown as 350 (numerically) although without a time period for that number it's hard to judge.   Those makes with "*" are my guessed break down with gave an overall number of "others" and listed types under it in what looked like quantity order.  And, yes, I know swans are birds, but I think they separated them out.

 
Well, I saw a cloud formation once just like that, but can't remember where . . .

I suspect not a cruise ship because of the tacky window surround. A ferry somewhere?

 
Oh deer............

Cancellations to services at Castle Cary

Due to animals on the railway earlier today at Castle Cary the line towards Westbury is blocked.

Train services running through this station may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 12:00 17/10.

Customer Advice
-
What has happened?
-
A train struck a deer near Castle Cary and the line from Taunton to Westbury, Reading and London Paddington is blocked.

 

I was expecting to be pulled up on the "Spotsman" - the Scottish Mr Blobby ... even my spell checker baulked at it until I insisted ...

 

"THE" Flying Scotsman? - Oh dear you will be in trouble when someone sees that! 

 
Everybody knows it would drive growth, so get on and build the damn thing!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw0k07d2nj43o

 
I'm glad to see that that's a calm sea.

But I don't know where specifically it is, nor can I identify the vessel.

 

Operation Princess as was. Connections via cross-platform interchanges and an attempt made for fewer of those to be made at Birmingham and didn't it then collapse as, the intention having been to introduce the new pattern with the 4 or 5 carriage Voyagers, to then lengthen them in the future to meet demand, but Virgin then found they needed to have lengthened them beforehand? Oh, and ever since, we've been living in the aftermath.

 
Just one picture ...



Spolier - NOT in my home town to see the Flying Spotsman coming through, nor do I expect there to be any trains passing the window.

 

Yes - tracks have been slewed into the centre, and my understanding is that's common, if not routine, when lines are reduced from 2 to 1 tracks.  Not only does it allow for faster alignments around curves, but it also means that maintenance of the full width of cuttings and embankments can be reduced.  So a redoubling may not only involve slewing tracks back over, but also rebuilding earthworks (even before we start looking at bridges replaced or added in the intervening years.

 
At the dawn of the railway age, when journeys could be reduced from days to hours, it would not have been difficult to justify a scheme, even using today's framework.
However, now, time savings (the main component of benefit/cost calculations) are usually marginal.
For a scheme like Devizes Gateway, where access by car is likely to be a dominant feature, the other possible benefits such as accessibility, boosts to the local economy and local traffic reduction are also going to be hard to produce. Planning doesn't require a perfect scheme, but it jolly well ensure that the scheme has more benefit than cost - and preferably more value than other uses to which the capital could be put.
Maybe the waste comes from asking the same question many times and hoping for a different answer? 


The scheme's promoters have insisted it will have benefits to the local economy by bringing people to Devizes. I hope it would. But I also have to ask how a connecting bus service would be funded for the long-term, and how attractive a taxi service would be. I am not giving answers here, but one could look at, say, Aschurch for Tewkesbury, Bodmin and East Midlands Parkway to provide a guide to how successful the scheme would be in meeting the promoters' aims.


Low abstraction from Devizes' bus traffic is partly because much of the Devizes travel demand is to Swindon, Bath, Bristol. Starting off in the wrong direction for several miles might make rail a bit uncompetitive.


Predicting the future is liable to failure. Some people would be delighted to have their train to London, whether or not the other objectives have materialised. Some would benefit from house price changes; some would lose out. Maybe there would be a Lydeway Newtown, if recent ideas in planning guidance prevail.

Please don't misunderstand me. I would like to see new stations and more comprehensive public transport. I could find plenty to criticise about the scheme development and appraisal process. But it's not the fault of this process that construction costs have risen faster than CPI inflation, that the railway's running costs seem to have ballooned, or that the railway investment pipeline (RNEP) was pretty much dry of funds from its inception.


 

 

I remember VT running Swindon–Gloucester, and that the ambition was Paddington–Swindon–Gloucester–Birmingham. But I didn't remember them running Swindon–Gloucester–Birmingham.

However, having wasted spent the last half hour searching for it, the ever reliable Martin Loader has a photo of a VT 158 running Birmingham–Swindon in early 2002, and the working timetable for summer 2002 has several Swindon–Birmingham trains listed (pages 4-19). So yes, it looks like it did run... briefly.

 
The first set of decimal pattern coins in 1963 went as far as to include a decimal farthing - a small ¼p coin in aluminium. Inflation has already rendered that a useless concept by 1971, although Malta went decimal the following year with 2, 3 & 5 mil coins.

The Decimal Currency Board was completely against retaining the sixpence as 2½p but was overruled by politicians. Their argument that it would disappear from common circulation anyway pretty quickly was pretty much right. The last time I received one in change was as late as 1976 but it was accompanied by a ½p to make 3p. It was unusual enough to be memorable.