Early in my career, I was responsible for technical support, then for a while for product sales, in the South West. My managers regarded the further reaches of that territory as a bit of a joke; certainly lots of open countryside, long journeys from Chippenham where lived - 4 hours in the extreme, adding an hour in "shoulder" and 2 hours in peak season. I had some fun justifying my customer call rate which was supposed to be 2 calls a day versus, err, the 0.46 I achieved. It was fun because my bosses could say little as my territory was the only one making its sales target.
Cornwall was a different land. It was a land where the customer bought the salesman lunch (because he had bothered to travel all the way). It was a land where the customer trusted the salesman, and the salesman returned that trust by selling what was best for the customer, and not best for his commission. And it was a land where I made friends some of whom - updated - remain Facebook friends to this day.
Revisiting Cornwall yesterday - I was struck (with one sad exception) by how friendly and helpful everyone remains. I was struck by the survival of rail infrastructure and services maintained as best possible with the old stuff (though my train trip to Newquay has postponed because of a late running connection of London that skip-stopped Par, then my fallback from Liskeard couldn't run because of an infrastructure failure at Coombe Junction). But I was also struck by the growth of modern housing and business premises close to the railway.
I eventually (!) headed out to Newquay for a silly-short turn around (2 hours and 5 minutes having turned into 5 minutes). I think I've read of plans for an earlier train to start again and for general traffic in the area, surely that's needed - first train 10:23 from Newquay, 11:12 into Par and connection after noon into Plymouth rules out the line for any regular 9 to 5 work users.
The half hourly service on the mainline seemed running sweetly - once again the clear growth of housing in the county suggests that, surely, this is a sensible move. And whilst one or two trains I was on were very thinly loaded, the majority seemed to be taking off nicely .. and it is still winter.
The signalling may be old ... the politeness old-fashioned, but there are some things that really look forward to the future. I finish with three pictures where I was able to capture bus stops (and ones with useful services) in the same shot as the station; makes me rather jealous for Melksham where the buses drive past station approach stopping nowhere near, or Westbury with 4 buses per day from the station stop.
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