Great Western Coffee Shop

The Coffee Shop forum will remain open and online throughout the Christmas and New Year period, though perhaps with occasional short breaks while software updates are installed. I'll be the one installing those and I will give notice and try and keep the breaks as short as possible.  Our forum software has elements in it which have "branched" from the standard Simple Machines base system, and members may find that some of the special features are slightly slower in returning than the core forum.  I'm particularly aware of the "like" system with this regard.

Experience from past years suggests that the number of posts on Christmas Day will be somewhat down on a normal day – but only "somewhat" - and that any members who are on their own, at a loose end, or looking to escape from an intense family gathering will find some familiar friends here.  You need not feel alone if you have the Coffee Shop. Personally, Lisa and I "did" our family Christmas a week ago, and I'll be popping in from time to time in addition to the software work.

I'll leave "Christmas on GWR" to other threads such as http://gwr.passenger.chat/21831 (an early but still good summary) and http://gwr.passenger.chat/22624 (UK wide summary).

For members headed away (physically or just off the computer) in the next few days - thank you for being such great member this year and we look forward to hearing from you when you are back.  For members remaining around, have a great Christmas.

An especial "thank you" to the admin and moderator team, and to our friends / contacts /members at GWR and in the wider industry.  At times, we all frustrate each other - but 2019 has been especially memorable to me, amongst all the frustrations of engineering and timetable changes, for the support and kindness of those who I'm pretty sure will read this - THANK YOU. And looking forward to a 2020 which is just pleasurable, and perhaps even more productive as we move on and settle down from the flood of changes and issues.  Have a great Christmas, everyone.

....and thank you Grahame, the moderators (and especially BNM for his holiday cover) for all you have done over the past year.

As everyone says these days "have a good one"!

Christmas Day 2019 ... no trains (apart from an arrival by Crossrail into Reading just after the witching hour, and some shuttles within Heathrow) ... but in the Coffee Shop the statitics corner reports ...

45 posts by 28 different members, every single post in a public area (i.e nothing in Frequent Posters, Rumour Mill, Behind the Counter etc). 95 members logged in. 264 different users (v 482 users 7 days ago / same day of week) according to Google analytics. 194 were returning visitors and 75 were new (not sure why that adds up to 269 rather than 264!) and of the 264, 251 were from the UK.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/xday19log.jpg)

News feeds pretty much dried up for the day (Surprise? Not!) and that reduced my personal posts as (these days) I tend to find and share a lot of relevant links to our particular niche.  The one story - and not a new one - that struck a chord was from The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/dec/25/the-christmas-story-of-one-tube-stations-mind-the-gap-voice) about why "Mind the Gap" has a different voice at Embankment.  Sweet story that's bubbled around over the last few days.

Here's hoping you all had the Christmas Day that suited you - thoroughly enjoyed for those who do, survived and better than just-survived for those who are bah-humbug or worse.  The sales start today, the trains start tomorrow and the trains to Paddington restart the day after that!