Before I went out on Saturday to photograph the Cl 37 double-headed excursion, I checked on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website). It showed the train as being between Southampton and Romsey - so I drove out to meet it. I checked RTT again when I parked - it now said that "this service was cancelled - due to a problem at the depot (MU^▸ (Multiple Unit))"  but...........further down the page it showed the train as "arriving" at Salisbury !  I started to get really worried until it finally showed up about 5 mins late.

It is still showing as cancelled on RTT ...........so please ignore my photo, I was obviously hallucinating.

Passing Norton Bavant this morning en route to Shrewsbury - sounded even better than it looked !

Please don't further denigrate the word "engineer"  !

Are 5 car IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train - the now official name for the replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan)) capable of Cardiff - Portsmouth ??  Quad mode: OHLE, 3rd Rail, diesel, battery 

Exactly, just another inane, stupid comment from an "expert" ....................which brings to mind Ed Millibland (sic)

I note, this morning, that the cause of the Heathrow shutdown was................ready for this ?.............because
 Terminal 2 was burning wood chips to provide power......................................I didn't read any further 

Sorry Bob - but you are making unsubstantiated statements about Heathrow and the National Grid. To provide full backup power for Heathrow ("as much energy as a small city") is economically impossible to contemplate.
I regret to say that your statement regarding UPS is also a little wide of the mark. A UPS does not "fire up in a matter of seconds" when power is lost (in today's digital age this this could be equally catastrophic) - it is on line all the time. A "proper" (not £9.99 from Amazon) UPS is usually fed from a battery, this battery is kept fully charged by the mains supply - if the mains supply fails the UPS continues to supply the load, now depending solely on the battery. There is NO break in the UPS output. This continues for the time specified by the customer. This normally gives the time required to get the diesel up and running - or for non-critical equipment, to carry out a controlled shut down.

As I said, the "robust back up system" did work, if an aircraft HAD to land at Heathrow last night it could have done so safely. Trying to keep an airport running when everything around it has failed is just asking for even more trouble. "Degraded mode" = what ?  Burger King open but not McDonalds ?

Strangely enough, before I retired, I actually worked at an airport setting to work a "robust back up system" such as is probably installed at Heathrow - albeit on a much larger scale at Heathrow. This was not designed to keep the airport restaurants running at that airport either.

Very profound statement - based on ?

Perhaps the substation control room was pretty close to the fire - or the blast wall (well illustrated by MarkA) was about to collapse - and the night shift decided to leave ..............quickly !
Stuving has summarised what did happen at Heathrow itself............everything essential worked ! The airport was still capable of handling aircraft - even if that was only to tell them to go elsewhere.

Closing the airport entirely was the correct decision............imagine the chaos today if they hadn't.
Just supposing Heathrow had 100% electricity back up (at what enormous cost ?) - the surrounding area had lost all power. No trains, no properly functioning roads (M4 was/is shut), no nothing ! What would be the point of trying to keep the airport open ?

What happened at North Hyde will unfold - making unfounded statements will help no one in the mean time.   
 

I have noticed that, of late, the promised "5 car" service for Cardiff - Portsmouth has now shrunk to one 5 car formation doing one round trip per day  - and that only actually becomes 5 cars at Temple Meads on the outbound leg ! So don't join it at Cardiff expecting plenty of empty seats .........

What a fascinating website ! I can see myself spending many hours on this.

I think you must have misidentified the loco................if it had a kayak it was almost certainly a paddle tank.

What a surprise that was 

I think, with hindsight, and a fairly straight face, it is not unreasonable to say that if the money wasted on what was done at Bath had been (better ?) used to bypass Melksham and Westbury then the M4 to Warminster bit of this "strategic" route would now have a reasonable road. Only the A36 to, and round, Salisbury left to do 

35 years ago - and all they have managed to do since then is close the Cleveland Bridge to anything over 18 tonnes.