Great Western Coffee Shop

"Hardest Quiz Ever?" ... now there's a challenge.  All my own pictures.   All railway locations / nothing away from the railway. But I bet a few of these will keep you amused over Easter.   Once guess each at a time please, but no 24 hour rule - once I've confirmed somewhere (or other members have agreed with) please have another go.   Most members will be grateful for any help you can give them.   Probably even at a "which country" level!

1
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_01.jpg)

2
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_02.jpg)

3
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_03.jpg)

4
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_04.jpg)

5
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_05.jpg)

6
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_06.jpg)

7 Munich Hauptbahnhof - Worcester_Passenger
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_07.jpg)

8 Taunton - SandTEngineer
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_08.jpg)

9 Citywest Campus tram stop, LUAS Red Line, Dublin - bignosemac
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_09.jpg)

10 Breich - stuving
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_10.jpg)

11 Tywyn on Talyllyn and Cambrian Coast lines - AMLAG
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_11.jpg)

12
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hqe_12.jpg)

No.8 TAUNTON...... :D ;D

Yep   ... a traditional quiz - had to be there somewhere

11 = Tywyn on Talyllyn and Cambrian Coast lines

10. Breich. Obviously.

Blast that was the only one I had a chance of getting
Well done stuving.

9. Citywest Campus tram stop, LUAS Red Line, Dublin.

7. Munich Hauptbahnhof

Correct in each case.  Wow!

Yes, indeed, a Taunton picture had to be featured here somewhere.  ::)

But, if I may go off at just a little bit of a tangent here - there's another railway station where a platform weighing machine is / could be a feature.  Where might this one be?

(https://i.imgur.com/RwcXQB2l.jpg)

 ;)

Don't know where it is ... but how does it work? Do you put whatever it is on the scales then pick up the phone to be told the weight?

The one in my picture doesn't work - at present - but you may possibly note some similarities in its local design to the one which you featured.  ;)

Truro. Starts with a T and on the GWR main line to Penzance?

Sorry, but No.  Opposite direction.  ::) ;D

Weston-Super-Mare?

6. Bahnhof Bern level 0. For want of an entirely convincing candidate.

Someone got No1 before the crash had something to do with a parrot that prefers kipping on its back.

I'm going to fill in the remainder tomorrow ...

Well, I remember that was Thun - and it was posted not long after. I was thinking that tells you the effective time of the backup, but on reflection it might not be that simple.

Yes, it is Weston super Mare.  My original, more detailed, post has apparently been lost in the forum server crash.  No problem: the point still goes to SandTEngineer.  ;)

Here are the missing ones

1. Norway - Aldesnes
2. Denmark - Aalborg
3. USA - California - Los Angeles - Mariposa
4. USA - California - San Juan Capistrano
5. Spain - between Barecelona and French Border
6. Switzerland - Thun
12. France - Paris - Montparnasse

I still can't make sense of 12.

There are plenty of clues in it, which together say "northern France": the train is classic Corail (old but still in use), the platform edge and signage fits, the string over the track (if it's main line OLE) could be 1500V, and black stanchions seen elsewhere in France. The building next door would be at home in the north, though styles do propagate, and the general look is small town not big city.

But platform 21? Now platform (strictly track or face) numbers are not necessarily monotonic or successive, but in big stations I'd expect that. However, even Lille has fewer than that, so you have to look at Paris, specifically Montparnasse or gare de Lyon (for 1500V). But platform 21 is not at the edge of either - at Montparnasse P20/21 is next to P22/23, and in any case it's under a big office on a concrete raft, and even the Vaugirard annex is under a car park. And none of that is new, either.

Extreme left hand side on arrival, on a sleeper train a couple of years ago. Very brief visit / part of our 28 hops north Atlantic public transport adventure.   Lots of luggage, and Lisa hadn't slept well on the train.

Oops - my bad. Austerlitz?

Right, I see. I've never even been there, and had no idea it is (still) that big. But as they seem intent on revamping it to take over some TGV services, we'll presumably get more used to it as a proper mainline terminus. Incidentally, I have seen some comments saying it is getting four new tracks - but I suspect that's really just a reference to making the existing RER C station part of the main one (it's not listed as as interchange at the moment).

I'm intrigued what use those yellow poles would have?

You could tell from the brickwork it was WSM (sadly seem to spend the majority of my life passing through here) but can't picture where about this is on the station. Is it still there? It looks really intriguing

For once my initial guess was right! Their official name is "Station Platform Between Car Barriers", which is pretty self-explanatory. If not, this is more explicit:

Those regulation were written around fitting a protective barrier between cars to prevent people mistaking the gap for a doorway. However, that turned out not to really work, so at LA (and elsewhere) an equivalent protection has been installed at the platform edge, both between cars and at the ends of the train. This relies on the use of CBTC, or at least automatic driving, to always stop the train at the right place.

And yes, that is a railway track - the perspective does make it look more like a narrow gap bounded by a girder, but it's not.

Another enlightening piece of information from stuving and I'm glad the picture perspective was clarified as I hadn't understood it.  Thank you. :)  Because of the images of the cars (automobiles) below, it took me a while to realise that the term 'cars' was being used in the USA meaning and my imagination was struggling to to work out how the bollards and the cars (in the car park) related. Silly me.  ::)

(http://www.impactrecovery.com/images/products/108/sentinel_app2_300x300.jpg)
There is a detailed explanation of the evolution of these barriers - with more pictures - from their suppliers here (https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjE-I-CkaHaAhWHD8AKHUJgBFUQFggnMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.impactrecovery.com%2Fimages%2Fuploads%2FAPTA_doc_rev2.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1G9U4s7RmOENmgm0lN03Xv) (the source of my quote). It does seem odd, does it not, that this particular safety issue should have become so important in the USA that it called for federal regulation, while here I have never heard it mentioned, and can't find it in the latest RSSB research plan for PTI.

Perhaps they're used in the USA because, maybe, gaps between linked end units as in the photo above are common there? They don't seem common here, though obviously not unknown. It could also reflect the way the UK disability laws work, ie that they don't prescribe standards which must be followed from design up but instead allow disabled individuals to sue an establishment for not making themselves accessible – this very rarely happens simply because most disabled people do not have the time, money, energy to pursue a legal case.

Eh? gaps between carriages within MUs are quite big enough to fall down, except perhaps on the new ones with wide gangways providing a continuous interior. I've commented before that IETs have particularly wide gaps at 1 m (nominal), but that may be more apparent than real. Their carriages have flat ends, while in an HST the end walls of the Mk IIIs taper quite a lot. So while the gap between body ends is 0.87 m, at the start of the corner curve I think it's 1 m or so. There may be a secondary factor in how big a hazard this is, depending on how far the doors are from the ends, but I'm not sure which way it would act.

As to attitudes to regulation, I don't think Americans are less litigious than we are! One difference I think is real, however, is in the use here of codes of practice rather than enforceable regulations. I know we tend to think of deregulation as the American way that we are copying (and Tory MPs are especially prone to think this), but if you go and look at the size of the Code of Federal Regulations you will find that's not true. Plus that's only the federal level, states and in some cases more local polities are at it too. 

Yes, so far as I know, it's still there, on platform 1.  Left of the middle, in this picture:

(http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/91/38/1913812_0197c52f.jpg)

 ;)