It seems to have vanished after terminating!

A number of years ago, when my ISP / landline provider went to FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) the last leg from cabinet to house was left as overhead wire, it meant to retain a land line an VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) unit was required to be plugged into my router, as I only ever had cold callers on the landline I dispensed with my landline number and save on the line rental.

The down side to the VOIP via FTTC or FFTH (Full Fibre to the Home) is during a power cut you loose your landline capability.

Reading - and not finding an answer yet - to how and whether this stretch can be accessed using powered (and unpowered) wheelchairs / wheeled mobility aids?

Yesterday was brown and dry - comes across as semi-desert.   I would characterise Portugal from what little I know as an Atlantic-facing country with most of its towns and cities close to that edge, and then with a number of river valleys cutting inland from the coast.  But they are not fast flowing torrents.

The most famous is the Douro valley which I have previously visited ... and runs out at Pochino.  A beautiful line along a valley that has steep slopes covered in Vinyards, with cruise ships offering a watery alternative to travel.   The one that crosses the border is the Linha do Leste.   The Linha da Beira Alta does not carry on into Spain, and the Ramal de Cáceras is an abandoned route on the Portugeses side, with (and I may be out of date) trains just three days a week into the core of Spain.

Maps to show some lakes ... not sure how much the water management does for them / how important they are.  The flora that we see looks like it's built for the harsh dryness, so I am somewhat relieved that the whole is not the effect of global warming.

20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06

Facilities on the 20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06.
Will be formed of 2 coaches instead of 3.

Almost inevitably, cyclists are ignoring the new rules................

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/moment-cyclist-ignores-oxford-street-ban-as-officer-tries-to-stop-him/ar-AA2gfoq2?ocid=socialshare

Thanks for posting that update, grahame.

Your photos seem to indicate that there is something of a shortage of natural water in Portugal and Spain?

CfN.

23:45 London Paddington to Penzance due 07:55

28/10/26 23:45 London Paddington to Penzance due 07:55 will be terminated at Exeter St Davids.
It will no longer call at Newton Abbot, Plymouth, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel, Par, St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Erth and Penzance.

This is due to a fault on this train.

Calls to remove liveable neighbourhood road


A single lane closure is in place over the bridge, and engineers are "closely monitoring" the structure - Image © LDRS

Hundreds of people are calling for a road to be reopened to traffic after damage to a nearby tunnel caused further disruption on a major route.

More than 860 people have signed a petition demanding motorists be able to use Sydney Road in Bath, which was closed to traffic in 2024 as part of the city's liveable neighbourhoods scheme.

The petitioners say a single-lane closure on the alternative A36 Beckford Road, after contractors accidentally broke through the roof of a canal tunnel, has meant long queues.

A Bath and North East Somerset Council spokesperson said safety was its "priority" and engineers were closely monitoring the bridge, but the lane and bridge closure would continue.

Sydney Road was previously used as a shortcut from the A36 at Beckford Road and around Sydney Gardens, until bollards were placed at the end of the road.

People living on the road say it is better for cyclists and pedestrians, but Beckford Road residents say it has pushed all the traffic past them.

Petition organiser Kay Martin said stopping traffic had caused "significant disruption and frustration".  She said people using the A36 into and out of the city had been further impacted by the 200-year-old tunnel roof being damaged by contractors building a shared-path and the subsequent lane closure.

Martin said she was concerned about longer journeys, increased pollution from idling vehicles and delays for emergency services.  "Reopening Sydney Road is not just a matter of convenience, but a necessity," she said.


The tunnel is closed to both boats and pedestrians on safety grounds, leaving all narrowboats south of the closure trapped on the last mile of the canal - Image © LDRS

The Kennet and Avon Canal and towpath have also been closed.

Keith, of Bath Narrowboats, said boaters could face months of disruption and backed calls to reopen Sydney Road.  He said it was the time of year when river boaters moved onto the canal to avoid flooding.

"In the next couple of weeks it's all going to kick off because all those boats on the river are coming up and they've got nowhere to go," he said.  "If they opened that, they would not have a queue of traffic miles back."  He also raised concerns about heavy lorries continuing to cross the affected structure.

A Bath and North East Somerset Council spokesperson confirmed the eastbound lane closure on Beckford Road would continue, alongside the closure of the canal and towpath at the north end of Sydney Gardens.

The BBC has contacted the council about the petition.

Train attacker asked man 'do you want to die?', trial hears


The jury has been shown this image of Anthony Williams at Peterborough railway station, where he boarded the train - Image © British Transport Police

Train passengers fled "in sheer terror" from a knife attacker who asked one victim "do you want to die?", a trial has heard.

Anthony Williams, 33, is accused of attempting to murder 10 passengers and staff on a train that had to make an emergency stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, on 1 November 2025. He is also accused of trying to kill three people in Peterborough the day before and then a boy at a London railway station.

Opening the prosecution case at Cambridge Crown Court, Christopher Paxton KC said that of those on the train "some stood tall, to protect others trying to de-escalate his rampage".

Williams, of Langford Road in Peterborough, denies 14 counts of attempted murder.

Williams is accused of attempting to murder Jonathan Gjoshe, Sachin Balakrishnan, David Presland, Scott Bletcher, Scott Green, Kevin Deely, Stephen Crean, Raza Aslam, Michael Paffett and Samir Zitouni on the train between Peterborough and Huntingdon on that Saturday evening.

He is also accused of attempting to murder a 14-year-old boy and Dawid Taborski on a footbridge near Henry Penn Walk in Peterborough on 31 October, and William Ogelby at Railworld car park in the city shortly afterwards.

Williams was then seen swigging from a bottle of alcohol outside Ritzy Barber Shop in Fletton in Peterborough, before going into the shop brandishing a knife.

The jury heard he then travelled to east London, where he stabbed a 17-year-old on a Docklands Light Railway train at Pontoon Dock in Silvertown in the early hours of 1 November.

During that attack, jurors were told a witness said she heard the defendant repeatedly say: "Are you trying to beef with the devil?"

(BBC article continues)

If anyone is interested, this is the list of storm names for 2026 / 2027:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cn0n01vrw9vo

Landline switchover could cut people off in emergency, minister warned

Plans to switch off the UK's traditional landline phone network could leave people in remote areas unable to contact help in an emergency, MPs have warned.

Landline operators aim to complete the switch to an internet-based network instead of copper-wire cables by the end of January next year.

The government and operators say the move to digital landlines will offer a more reliable service.  But MPs representing remote areas of the UK urged security minister Dan Jarvis to ensure that scrapping the copper-wire network did not make their communities more vulnerable in a storm or other emergency.  Unlike digital services, the traditional landline network does not rely on mains electricity and continues to work in a power cut.

Labour MP Torcuil Crichton, who represents the Western Isles constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, said: "Resilience is inbuilt in the islands but we have major problems with connectivity because of this move from analogue to digital phone lines."  He said that "when the power goes out people don't have the phone, they don't have the internet and often they don't have a mobile signal either".

Retail service providers have been giving back-up battery packs to vulnerable customers, which can keep landline phones operating for an hour or more.

But Crichton said this was "simply not adequate" and that mobile phone providers "simply don't have the means to maintain or keep their signal going during storms".  He urged the minister to get telecoms firms to "up their digital game" to protect places "on the edge where people are vulnerable, isolated from their neighbours, where the ambulance is an hour away and the storm is 70 miles an hour".

Similar concerns were raised by MPs from the West Country and the Lake District.

Markus Campbell-Savours, Labour MP for Penrith and Solway, said: "I ask the minister to imagine an elderly constituent living alone in an isolated Lake District valley where copper phone lines have been replaced by fibre.  A storm takes out the power to their router in the night and by the time they wake, the modest battery back up has failed, as has the mobile mast, does the minister share my concerns that they would have no way to raise an alarm in an emergency and agree that we need a new technological solution to protect the elderly?"

Conservative MP Julian Lewis also raised concerns about the lack of a "back-up system" if digital phone services go down in the event of a cyber attack or other emergency.  He told Jarvis the copper-wire network "could have given us useful levels of resilience in an emergency".

Jarvis, who is spearheading the government's Be Ready campaign, which is advising people to stock up on supplies to be prepared for emergencies, said he would "look very closely" at the Tory MP's point.  He also assured West Country MPs that their concerns would be addressed at a government resilience summit, which was due to take place in Cornwall next month, and promised to raise concerns about telecoms firms with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.  "Our telephone networks are a vital part of our critical national infrastructure and our emergency response in weather-related crisis supports the functioning of essential services and keeping people connected when they need it most," he told MPs.

The government says the switch to digital phone services is needed because the traditional analogue network is becoming increasingly unreliable.  Digital signals will be sent over copper telephone wires where they have not yet been replaced by fibre connections.

The government's =https://beready.campaign.gov.uk/be-informed-about-hazards/phone-broadband-outages/Be Ready campaign advises people who have not yet "migrated to a modern digital network" to contact their landline provider.  If you are a vulnerable customer, for example if you are a telecare user, your communication provider must provide a free back‑up battery unit," it adds.

More information is available on the government's digital switchover site.