Paul Merton's Secret Stations

[whole diary]

[bobm]

I really can't argue with that - I think you are right!!

[marky7890]

St keyne I expect he will visit the music museum. I remember going with my Grandad as a child.

The museum has been closed for a few years now and the sign which was on that platform has been removed.

[readytostart]

Breich in the Scottish central belt used to be a request stop, now the one train a day booked to call in each direction always stops (unless the driver forgets!).

[LiskeardRich]

St keyne I expect he will visit the music museum. I remember going with my Grandad as a child.

The museum has been closed for a few years now and the sign which was on that platform has been removed.

I can't think what else he would of stopped and explored at st keyne then. I will watch with interest as I've not long moved to liskeard and finding my feet.

[marky7890]

according to this http://www.channel4.com/info/press/programme-information/paul-mertons-secret-stations he visits the well at St Keyne.

[rogerpatenall]

This all sounds like a direct crib from the book 'Tiny Stations' by, I think, Dixie Wills or someone. Anyway, it is a good read, which I thoroughly recommend.

[LiskeardRich]

This all sounds like a direct crib from the book 'Tiny Stations' by, I think, Dixie Wills or someone. Anyway, it is a good read, which I thoroughly recommend.

He met and spoke with Dixie at a request stop of course.

I enjoyed the show tonight, wasn't overly railway with a focus on the attractions at the stops.

[Thatcham Crossing]

At the beginning he appeared to suggest that the Cally Sleeper (a long train in any case) is 32 coaches long.

We all know that it's 2 trains of 16, but that wasn't the way he described it.

Good programme otherwise, the bit at Drigg (Nuclear Waste Storage Facility) was pretty thought-provoking.

[grahame]

On a similar printed theme, I picked up a copy of "Tiny Stations" by Dixe Wills on Saturday.

The Spectator reviewed this book in 2014 and wrote:

In 1964, as part of his railway cuts, Dr Beeching ordered the closure of Duncraig, a small, little-used station in the Scottish Highlands. The train drivers working the line simply ignored him. They continued to stop there, and the station remains open to this day.

A world where nothing ever changes, or indeed happens — this is just the sort of world that appeals to Dixe Wills. His latest travelogue takes in 38 of the 150 or so remaining ‘request’ stops on Britain’s railway network. I didn’t know such things existed at all, but apparently there they are (including Duncraig), only seeing action as and when a passenger informs the guard accordingly. Look at a timetable and you’ll see they’re denoted by an ‘x’ — for example, ‘13×04’ rather than ‘1304’.

The thing about nothing ever happening, at least when it comes to books, is that it puts you totally in the hands of the author. Whether or not you like this tale will depend on whether you like the way Wills describes the nothing that happens as he travels around the network. By his own admission there’s precious little to examine at the stations themselves, so you’ll need to share his sense of humour as he explores the surrounding areas, and his fascination with the minutiae of modern British life.

So you have 6 pages on Bugle (sounds like a trumpet), 5 pages on PenyChain (sounds like flushing the loo) ... and 38 pages on Altnabreac.  I'm so tempted to go and take in all the activities at Altnabraec, but the £277.40 return fare (off peak, not via London) or £450 (should I choose to start on the 07:20 or 07:49 and need an anytime ticket) seems high ... and I should probably take it in on a future all line Rover!

[LiskeardRich]

On a similar printed theme, I picked up a copy of "Tiny Stations" by Dixe Wills on Saturday.

The Spectator reviewed this book in 2014 and wrote:

In 1964, as part of his railway cuts, Dr Beeching ordered the closure of Duncraig, a small, little-used station in the Scottish Highlands. The train drivers working the line simply ignored him. They continued to stop there, and the station remains open to this day.

A world where nothing ever changes, or indeed happens — this is just the sort of world that appeals to Dixe Wills. His latest travelogue takes in 38 of the 150 or so remaining ‘request’ stops on Britain’s railway network. I didn’t know such things existed at all, but apparently there they are (including Duncraig), only seeing action as and when a passenger informs the guard accordingly. Look at a timetable and you’ll see they’re denoted by an ‘x’ — for example, ‘13×04’ rather than ‘1304’.

The thing about nothing ever happening, at least when it comes to books, is that it puts you totally in the hands of the author. Whether or not you like this tale will depend on whether you like the way Wills describes the nothing that happens as he travels around the network. By his own admission there’s precious little to examine at the stations themselves, so you’ll need to share his sense of humour as he explores the surrounding areas, and his fascination with the minutiae of modern British life.

So you have 6 pages on Bugle (sounds like a trumpet), 5 pages on PenyChain (sounds like flushing the loo) ... and 38 pages on Altnabreac.  I'm so tempted to go and take in all the activities at Altnabraec, but the £277.40 return fare (off peak, not via London) or £450 (should I choose to start on the 07:20 or 07:49 and need an anytime ticket) seems high ... and I should probably take it in on a future all line Rover!

After the tv show aired I visited at least 3 or 4 request stops. As expected in most of them there was very little to do. I've used all 3 on the Looe Valley to save myself walking up the hill back to Liskeard, having walked to each of the stations from my home. Menheniot is on my to do list, maybe sooner than later, and then walk home.

[Bmblbzzz]

The thing about places where nothing happens is that you can make them whatever you will. Places are places and love them or hate them we can all see what there is in New York or Stonehenge, but the spaces between the places are full of possibility. In Japanese there is apparently a word meaning "the space between words". Similarly, a woman I know who is a – pretty much by profession – a long-distance cyclist (she does things like ride from Alaska to Vancouver, sleeping in a tent, in midwinter, then writes about it – and gets books published, and I don't mean vanity publishing) – says some of her favourite places are the places between places. The places with no names. The places where you have to request a stop (or maybe build your own halt).

[Bmblbzzz]

I was looking for a different place, which I didn't find, but here's a pretty good place that's not a place, in Poland:



It means "Without a name" (slightly ungrammatically but no other interpretation is possible)!

And if I knew how to make the image a bit smaller, I would. 




Edit note: Done. CfN.

[froome]

I've just found this thread, so am resurrecting it to ask these questions.

What are the criteria for deciding that a station is treated as a request stop rather than a regular stop?

How are any changes to this advertised? I use Avoncliff occasionally and Freshford more often, and was never aware of seeing anything to say they either of these were no longer request stops (but had noticed over time the mention of them as request stops not being made on the train itself). I know Freshford hasn't been for many years but don't remember seeing anything published to tell me that, and as for Avoncliff, I still think of it as one, and when I've been there I've seen other passengers putting their arms out to signal to the approaching train.

On a related subject, I know that some TOs seem to not mention request stops when listing the stations they are stopping at (both on the station screens and on the train itself). I've certainly been on plenty of Arriva's Holyhead trains that made no mention of the a possibility of being able to alight at any of the other Anglesey stations, which are all request stops, even though they are listed in the timetable as stopping places for that train. From experience, it is very disconcerting being on a train that says its next stop is Holyhead when it pulls out of Bangor station, when you are wanting to get off at Llanfair PG (as I was), despite reassurances from the train manager.

[grahame]

What are the criteria for deciding that a station is treated as a request stop rather than a regular stop?

Once a request stop gets to the stage that virtually every train that can stop actually does stop, I believe it ceases to be a request stop ... and there are also visibility criteria which may have got a bit more restrictive over the years too.

With traffic growth being the predominant direction for most stations, and as a reduction to request status would wave a great big red flag about a station, reduction of stations from regular to request is pretty rare.   There was a question in autumn 2013 about whether the trial TransWilts services during the day and evening should only call at Melksham on request, based on figures of about 10 passenger arrivals and 10 passenger departures from the station each day at the time, all of whom were on the trains at "peak times". A view was taken that if the new service did modestly well, most trains would be stopped anyway, as there would be substantially more that 20 passenger joins / leaves spread over the 16 trains.

How are any changes to this advertised?

As I recall, the change at Avoncliff crept into the timetable with the quiet replacement of "x" with ":".

On a related subject, I know that some TOs seem to not mention request stops when listing the stations they are stopping at (both on the station screens and on the train itself). I've certainly been on plenty of Arriva's Holyhead trains that made no mention of the a possibility of being able to alight at any of the other Anglesey stations, which are all request stops, even though they are listed in the timetable as stopping places for that train. From experience, it is very disconcerting being on a train that says its next stop is Holyhead when it pulls out of Bangor station, when you are wanting to get off at Llanfair PG (as I was), despite reassurances from the train manager.

The Cardiff to Holyhead trains certainly state in their announcements that "this train will call at the following major stations" and the definition of "major" seems to mean ones that the train always calls at, even if there are no passengers.    When you think of it "This train WILL call at Valley ...." would be a bit of a lie in an announcement if there's no-one to get off and no-one waiting on the platform there.

[John R]

Are the announcements bilingual?  If so, it may be to avoid the announcements going on for ever when repeated (as happens at stations, where the train for the Heart of Wales line will be half way to its next stop before the announcement has finished).