GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) claim the sleeper is running and bookable again, but the daily journeycheck advice says that the sleeper will be replaced by a """high"" speed" train each day. so they are continuing to let people book sleeper berths with no intention of actually running the sleeper train?
I wonder what its like trying to sleep on a BRIGHT hitachi train? do the lights even dim or turn off? 

I was looking at the 22nd, which still shows up on journey planner, realtimetrains, etc, and you can in theory purchase a ticket for it it looks like, but on phoning gwr i'm told its seated only with no sleeper berths available.
The night riveria page says to phone to book berths. I can't find any mention of it on the "paper" timetables page, (or indeed any dedicated london to cornwall paper timetable any more??)
The engineering works page says nothing about it stopping, nor does the coronavirus page.

I tend to agree with broadgage, closure by stealth. maybe it only serves GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to run it in peak summer holiday season to catch the holiday crowds now? Whats next, overnight bus replacement service from cornwall to london?

When GWR say "due to a problem with our reservations system" I'd love to know what that actually means. And when the advisor said to me the cancellation has "only just happened", I wonder when exactly management decided this...

Just spent close to an hour sifting through the complicated and conflicting information on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website regarding the Night Riveria sleeper over christmas. Gave up and decided to phone ticket sales only to be told that the Night Riveria Sleeper bookings have been suspended over christmas whilst they review cabin sharing policies. I asked why the website and journey planner/timetables havn't been updated to be told that this "has only just happened."

I don't see any particularly good reason for this, coronavirus rules havn't suddenly changed and surely they can just sell one berth per person or for people in the same bubble? Caledonian Sleeper seem to manage just fine.

I just get the impression that some operators aren't interested in attracting passengers back to the railways at all.

"£1.2bn rail upgrade proposed for southwest Britain
Jul 20, 2020
Written by
David Briginshaw
RAIL expert Lord Tony Berkeley and Mr Michael Byng, a chartered quantity surveyor and construction cost consultant, have published a £1.2bn plan to reopen lines and double-track existing lines in southwest Britain."
https://www.railjournal.com/infrastructure/1-2bn-rail-upgrade-proposed-for-southwest-britain/

Wowser! Yes please! Lets be having some of this!
Does anyone have a link to the actual publication? I can't find it.

It seems that Agility Trains, Hitachi, have won the bid for the new "Super Express" HST^▸ (High Speed Train) replacement.

http://www.agilitytrains.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7885873.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/12/super-express-train-jobs-row

Unions don't appear to be happy...

The new train appears to be a hybrid allowing diesel working for the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) and MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) and electric for everyone else. This seems to rule out the earlier idea of electrifing the entire mainline railway system and building one type of train only.
There don't seem to be too many technical details yet, but the train looks remarkably like the Javlin Class 395 train.

The train visuals are for a very short train with a diesel loco at one end and an electric car at the other end with four carriages between. Hopefully this is only for illisturation purposes. The interior also looks very "suburbian" "metro" style, not at all "intercity" and comfortable. Hopefully this is also just for demonstration.

Hi all,
So I booked some tickets for SWT^▸ (South West Trains) travel (thank god) but for collection still nominated to collect them from an FGW^▸ (First Great Western) self-service machine as there is no other way to get them now, post was not even offered.
Went to the FGW machine, out of order (shock). The only option I can see now is to buy a new full price ticket on the day of travel and forget about my advance fare.

Will the toc do anything about this? The fault was with FGW but the advance ticket was booked through the SWT web site. The SWT station dosn't have a machine yet capable of supplying self-service pre-booked tickets.

Thanks for any thoughts.

What on earth is happening down in Plymouth?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7327673.stm
http://www.teletext.co.uk/news/national/46c3ad45a625a6c5d99f8b11c51a3ba8/Train+victim's+legs+amputated.aspx
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=181429&command=displayContent&sourceNode=229968&home=yes&more_nodeId1=133174&contentPK=20305430

Will be intrigued to find out how the chap came to be on the railway with his legs under a train....
The HST^▸ (High Speed Train) must have nearly been at a stand to have not killed him surely?

Fgw:
"Train services between Penzance and Exeter St Davids have been disrupted due to a person hit by a train at Plymouth.Short notice alterations can be expected."

I found the following sentance on the wiki article on the Intercity Express Programme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity_Express_Programme :

"In late 2007, Network Rail suggested that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) should abandon the diesel version of the Intercity Express for cost reasons; they argue that because of new emissions regulations and the minimal demand for diesel-powered high-speed trains abroad, it would be cheaper to electrify the remaining lines than to buy new diesel trains.[5]"

Its implied that the first series ICE trains will be rolled out on the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) from 2012, presuming that the Intercity 125 fleet would be replaced not long after, dosn't this whole thing imply a timetable for electrification of the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line)?

Of course, no gaurentees that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) will still hold the franchise by then, no gaurentees that ICE will actually happen either but its an interesting speculation.

Best bit of TV comedy I've been in ages. Who was that foolish "train designer" from about a million miles up country who said that we "sort of accepted" it was ok to remove tables from HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) in favour of more compact seating?

I'm very glad to see that Nick Harvey has found his voice in this finally.  Wondered when we were gonna hear from him.

http://www.firsthstshowcase.co.uk/gallery.php - Its still there. Just wanted to provoke a little recent discussion on the difference between what we were shown and what we got in light of recent service.
Just musing as I experience severe back ache from 14 hours in two days on their HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train).

So anyone else have fun on the 0817approx service for Cardiff Central which broke down at Bristol Temple Meads?
Half an hour to replace the clapped out 143 with a nice healthy 158 refurb.

----------------------------

Then of course there was the broken down HST^▸ (High Speed Train) refurb at Paddington on Saturday approx 1005 heading for Penzance. Half hour late due to not being able to turn on the electrical systems in Coach H first class. Train fitter scrabbles out of a cupboard, silver box in hand with electrical entrails hanging out of it.

So how do FGW^▸ (First Great Western) handle things when you are claiming rail vouchers upon rail vouchers upon rail vouchers, paying an ever decreasing fee for your travel? Will I eventually end up paying an infinately low train fare of 1p??
Would anyone like to pool their total savings from using rail vouchers and start an open access operator with me?