Advent Quiz - December 2022

[whole diary]

[grahame]

It's here.   December!.  In the lead up to Christmas, on I have put together a random selection of 24 pictures to in the form of an Advent Quiz - "Where is this" is the initial question for each day, but I'm encouraging members as they answer to write a little more - some of
1. Where is it
2. Can you tell us more about the place? 
3. When the picture was taken (though all are pictures I have taken)?
4. How things in the picture might have come about?
5. A personal note

An example ... I will answer



1. This is Barnham

2. It the junction on the railway along the South Coast where the branch to Bognor Regis turns off. There are three platform lines, the line behind the platform I was standing on being the platform that most Bognor services use.  The train shown is one of the old class 313 units, of which just a few are left (?) ...

3. It was taken in May this year

4. and 5.  I was on a Brighton to Southampton train which got diverted to Bognor Regis, and we all got dumped off to wait for the following train.  As I recall, it wasn't a terribly long wait there - no more than 20 or 30 minutes to carry on to the next stage, but it meant a series of missed connections that had me arriving in Trowbridge after the last train, and the last bus too, had departed for Melksham for the day.

[grahame]

1st December 2022. Where is this?   What more information can you add about the place / time?  Stories?

[grahame]

1st December 2022. Where is this?   What more information can you add about the place / time?  Stories?

I see I drew a complete blank yesterday - let's see if anyone can place today's. There are some steamingly obvious clues in there!

[PrestburyRoad]

The direction signs in the top right of the picture mention Battersea Park, and it's a century too new to be Battersea Park station.  So my guess is that it's on the Northern Line extension and is Battersea Power Station station.  (A name beloved of certain Youtubers for the opportunity to add more "station" words when mentioning the name.)

[Bob_Blakey]

Battersea Power Station Station

The only Tube station with 'Station' as part of it's name. Opened 20/09/21 so therefore joint youngest station on the London Underground.
I am not able to say much more about this place as the closest I have been to it was while travelling between Waterloo & Clapham Junction.

[grahame]

Yes, the picture is Battersea Power Station station, opened on 20th September 2021 and visited and photographed on 9th July 2022; people in the picture include our guests from Ukraine - it was a day out in London with myself as guide, and I took the opportunity to add a couple of unconventional things into the route.  We stopped at the pub across the road - the Duchess Belle - for a soft drink and took the bus back into town, via Vauxhall to Lambeth Palace and then walked along the South Bank past the Covid memorial wall and County Hall to Hungerford Bridge - though I think that has a new name now?

This picture, the headline from Barnham and the one unsolved from yesterday are all British Isles but not GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).  That's a bit of a co-incidence; perhaps a half of the 24 pitures I have ARE in GWR territory, with the rest mostly in the Briish Isles and no more than one or two from further afield.

[brooklea]

1st December 2022. Where is this?   What more information can you add about the place / time?  Stories?

Here goes; my first post for a while!

The ScotRail branding on the poster gives a clue as to the location...somewhere in Scotland, and sometime between 2008 when that branding was launched, and the present day.

Overhead, the rusty riveted metalwork suggests rail tracks above, making me think this may be a low-level part of a larger station. And as they don’t build them like that anymore, it must be a station that’s been there some considerable time.

From the clues I’ll hazard a guess that it’s Glasgow Central, but not with any certainty.

If it is, my first visit was back in 1995, but as I recall, flooding had closed the low-level lines at that time, so it’s not a part of the station that I would have visited.

Can’t say that the blue lighting does much to enhance the environment to my eyes - reminiscent of the lighting used to deter substance abuse in public conveniences (perhaps the same thinking here, given Scotland’s problems with this unfortunate issue?).

[grahame]

Here goes; my first post for a while!

Welcome 'back'.

From the clues I’ll hazard a guess that it’s Glasgow Central, but not with any certainty.

Clues well noted, and you are correct.

If it is, my first visit was back in 1995, but as I recall, flooding had closed the low-level lines at that time, so it’s not a part of the station that I would have visited.

Can’t say that the blue lighting does much to enhance the environment to my eyes - reminiscent of the lighting used to deter substance abuse in public conveniences (perhaps the same thinking here, given Scotland’s problems with this unfortunate issue?).

It is / was on that date (6th December 2019)  not a welcoming environment.    Hard to buy tickets at some intermediate stations, and no option but to stand in line for this machine as their first and only "opportunity to buy" prior to barriers.

[Surrey 455]

then walked along the South Bank past the Covid memorial wall and County Hall to Hungerford Bridge - though I think that has a new name now?

The rail bridge is still called Hungerford Bridge but the two recent footbridges (2002) either side are both called the Golden Jubilee Bridges. I walk over both footbridges most weekdays but use the rail bridge when the weather is against me. (SouthEastern: Waterloo East <=> Charing Cross).

[grahame]

So where is this fine train?

[lympstone_commuter]

Is it Bridgend? The platform signage looks like TfW and at first I looked for Welsh stations named ‘Pen…. Bridge’ based on what is visible of the sign. When I found there weren’t any I remembered that Bridgend is Pen-y-bont in Welsh. Picture looks fairly recent. Wikipedia tells me platform 3 was reopened for Maesteg trains (and 1A for Vale of Glamorgan ones).

[grahame]

Is it Bridgend? The platform signage looks like TfW and at first I looked for Welsh stations named ‘Pen…. Bridge’ based on what is visible of the sign. When I found there weren’t any I remembered that Bridgend is Pen-y-bont in Welsh. Picture looks fairly recent. Wikipedia tells me platform 3 was reopened for Maesteg trains (and 1A for Vale of Glamorgan ones).

Yes, it is.

Bridgend was reduced in passenger terms to just an intermediate station in the 70s when the service to Treherbert was withdrawn (the service from Barry having been withdrawn a few years earlier).  The truncated Treherbert service - as far as Maesteg - was reopened in 1992 and the service via Barry to Cardiff in 2005.   Platform 3 was indeed re-opened but appears unused again, with Maesteg trains running to / from Cardiff and in many cases points east thereof such as Cheltenham Spa.

Picture taken when I was using SailRail from Rosslare to Melksham on 28th October 2022 - I dropped back from the Fishguard Harbour to Cardiff boat train (2 x 153, packed!) to this late running Swansea to Paddington Express - thank you Real Time Trains for flagging the option up - and arrived at Swindon for a good connection to Melksham, where I arrived one train earlier than would have been the case if the London Express had been ahead of the boat train, which is how it's timetabled.  And regular readers will know that trains to Melksham are infrequent, and so getting home one train early is a real bonus!

[Clan Line]

So where is this fine train?

Sorry Grahame, but that is not "a fine train"................it's two pretty mediocre short trains joined together.

[grahame]

And for 4th December, where was I when I took this picture?

[ellendune]

In  another country.