On such a new and expensive railway, I am surprised that there is no in cab display of the maximum permitted speed.
In the absence of such technology, some cleaning of the speed limit signs is required, and possibly re-locating same to improve sighting.
It is reassuring though that a train travelled at nearly twice the permitted speed without any serious consequences. I suspect that doing 100 mph in a car on a narrow country lane would be more dangerous.

 
But surely the metal bar is an ergonomic metal bar, designed by experts so as to ensure passenger comfort.

 

They will be in limbo. 

 
I was born in Devonport, lived in and around Plymouth until I was 14, and I remember some of these Plymouth scenes, from this YouTube compilation.

However, I have to say that the item is 32 minutes long, it has an unfortunate amount of random 'camera waving about' footage, and the apparently inevitable background music.

Nevertheless, I suggest that you do view it, perhaps with headphones / speakers turned down, and just 'fast forward' now and again, to skip the boring bits. 

 

A friend of mine boarded the 1023 at Paddington which, she texted was "going nowhere" for 12 minutes,eventually she got to Reading and waited for the 1123 to Tilehurst/Didcot, which was progressively "delayed", eventually being announced as running fast to Didcot. By then I was waiting in the car at Tilehurst Station, where the concourse was jammed with vehicles of contractors working on the lists - and an ambulance making a rare appearance in its dedicated parking space; I was half-blocking the entrance and advised my friend to take a taxi and returned home. When I got there, I reflected that she might as well have waited for the next local service and she came to the same decision, opting to walk to my house. BTW nowadays the station car park seems almost as full as it was pre-Lockdown.

 
And that is what public money from the Government is required for - not the regeneration of the stadium per se.

 

Because so far as central government is concerned there are nine regions in England:

• London
  
• North East
• North West
• Yorkshire and The Humber
• East Midlands
• West Midlands
• East of England
• South East
• South West

Now if you want the South West only to apply to Devon and Cornwall what region will Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol  be in?

 
One of the developments announced by the Chancellor this week is Old Trafford Regeneration. News outlets are focussing on the football ground, but there is an important rail related aspect to this project. 

The land they want to build the extended football ground on is occupied by three rail freight yards. The project involves relocated those facilities and in doing so will significantly reduce the freight traffic on the highly congested Castlefield Corridor (between Oxford Road and Piccadilly) diverting them on other routes and releasing this capacity will allow more passenger trains which is a current barrier to improving rail services in the north of England.   

 
And the Elizabeth Line was bust this evening too.

My gripe for this evening is with (one of) the gateline crew at Paddington. There must have been 1000 people queuing for the 18.20 to Didcot.  The gateline team were checking all paper tickets and turning away anyone with a TFL ticket. That included a woman ahead of me who had a 2/3 year old child in that throng.

Where is the sense or humanity in turning that woman and child away, who arguably had a valid ticket, and who then had to battle through the ongoing masses to wait god knows how long for a TFL service. 

I’m off to complain to GWR on her behalf.

 
Pasty’s

If the Bristol contingent want a good pasty, Helluva pasty are a good baker not far from my house and are always my choice here. I noticed on Monday they have a hut in a lay-by between Lime Kiln roundabout and the airport.

 

Supposed to be about speed restrictions. Seeing the youtube video I'd like to know what speed it was going.

Another thing that surprises me is only one unit at a time will take ages. They have moved two units before.

 
From the Independent

 

R3D3?

 
That was another tour of England! Will they still need two Class 37s when they go into service?

 
Lovely to meet you both, and apologies I couldn't stay longer.
My wife kindly facilitated it, with the unwitting cooperation of grandson.
Unfortunately he'd just woken up from a car nap and didn't want to see the trains, which is unusual for him.

Pasties are very contentious in Cornwall!
Everyone has their own favourite baker - some with a lot of pepper (more pepper than pasty!), some with less.
We're of the less variety, so our local small farm shop (St Buryan farm shop) are great for us.
We also stop off when going by road at the larger Strawberry Fields farm shop in Lifton-again, not quite so peppery.
Each to their own.

 

After a lengthy pause, they have settled on July 5th & have amended their website.

Hmmmm - A day at Wimbledon after success in the ticket ballot or the AGM? No contest.

 
And Sadiq Khan knows where his votes are - & has already come out fighting against it. 

 

...again. Plans for a third runway have been put forward, resisted, scrapped and put forward again since before the second runway was built.

 
Clearly BoJo forgot to put a lot of his old policy papers through the shredder when he left, and someone has found them and re-used them.

The 0.43% increase in GDP sounds like something easily lost in a rounding error, but note that only half of it is stated to benefit the rest of the UK outside London and the South-east. Perhaps someone can do the maths and work out whether it might fund Portishead and the Fawley branch.

Anyway - looking forward to the revival of the Garden Bridge!

 

That was what we thought was probably the case, but we got a heavy dose of vagueity which lead to us being am=lmost sure (though not quite 100%) that it was something like that.

 
Unfortunately there was a fatality at St Austell yesterday (28th)

 

Outward journey

 
I've also recently encountered this new discomfort feature on the IET seats.  Thankfully it wasn't on a particularly long journey but it felt ever present.

 

The report discounted the idea that sand and silt, that comprised the majority of the railway embankment, had been washed into karstic voids in the underlying limestone basement. This was identified as the reason for a collapse near to Grange's signalbox in 2019. The soil piping occurred within the embankment material and underlying salt marsh sediments and didn't enter the underlying original marine sediments. Reports of the embankment 'exploding' in the area of the train's final resting place suggest that there was a significant hydraulic head within the embankment itself sealed by the outer seawall skin. The amount of material moved by this quantity of water in the time available is quite believable and my thoughts are that the soil piping was already present prior to this breach. The tamping damage was just the final straw.

 
And now it's official.......

https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/29/heathrows-third-runway-given-green-light-for-140000000-passengers-a-year-22454631/

 
A wonderful trip yesterday - all the way from my home on Spa Road in Melksham to Penzance and St Ives toward the tip of Cornwall and all by public transport. Only practical - as a are so many other regional journeys - on the public transport service we have today, and which simply were not do-able 18 years ago when I helped set up the "Coffee Shop" online forum which celebrated the 18th birthday of the first post yesterday.

As well as the journey and the destination, the other wonderful thing about the trip is the people who have helped, the people met along the way, and the people who keep the system running. I celebrate them, and I celebrate what the improvements do for them and for hundreds and thousands of others who I don't happen to have met.

From home at 06:00 and a walk though town for the first train of the day - the 06:32.  Our first success story.  It's been retimed to connect properly into Bath and Bristol, and carries on to Southampton.  Even at that early hour, there almost as many people joining the train as joined all the trains here together when we started in 2007. 

A passenger I have known for many years joined with me, headed (as he does most days) for Southampton - arriving there at quarter past 8 in time for work.  He was contrasting the train this week to last week when we had rail "Replacement" buses - but not really a replacement since he wasn't able to reach Southampton until after 10 O'Clock - that's two hours late for work and for him a shabby alternative. And he had a similar story about his return.

06:32 Melksham to Trowbridge. Turbo train, on time.  I saw no-one else on foot as I walked the 25 minutes to the station, but a cluster jointed and the train - naturally one of the quietest of the day - carried around 20 people which is what we have been asked to achieve as an average over the whole day.

5 minutes to change trains in Trowbridge and a chance to buy a coffee to take on the next train. Friendly lady on the coffee van in the car park - known her for a while and a coffee pick up at station is so welcome. Pity that the setup we had at Melksham isn't running at the moment.  The five minutes at Trowbridge is enough for what that should be - which is a quick pickup on the go; no time here for a gourmet quality breakfast - the coffee is good, and snacks and cakes available in a minute.

06:46 Trowbridge to Bath Spa - on time and pleasantly busy, more joined at Bradford-on-Avon.   What a contrast in numbers joining to Melksham - one smaller and one larger town there; it goes to show just how much potential we have, and not just for the passengers but also for the benefits to the area.  On time to Bath, perhaps a quarter to a third of the seats occupied.  Didn't notice any joiners in our carriage at Freshford, and I was not in the front (single door opening) to observer at Avoncliff.  On time into Bath - lots off, lots on, and I was left as the only passenger on the platform waiting for an onward train - 07:11 to 07:24 wait.

Friend and fellow Coffee Shop moderator Mark joined me ("last minute decision") at Bath, for the day, and as we awaited our train - the only through train of the day from Bath to Penzance - we grabbed a further cup of coffee each and a bacon butty.

07:24 Bath Spa to Penzance  - planned, due 11:40 but terminated at Plymouth at 09:45 due to the line being closed at St Austell.   More about that anon.   Of note on the journey - pleasantly busy but a far lower seat occupancy rate than the turbo into Bath Spa - large flows on and off at Bristol, Bridgwater (interesting to note that), Taunton and Exeter.  Lots off in Plymouth as we arrived, even before we knew it was going no further.

And so in Plymouth - because of the "incident" at St Austell (never told what it was, but police involved / asked for closure) we were asked to transfer to the 09;12 - still there waiting - only some trains going through because of congestion. We chose to stand on the platform while that train was "delayed" too - looked uncomfortably busy in the 2 + 2 halves of standard class.(IET 5 car).  A few minutes after 10, that train was cancelled too and everyone turfed off, and it was the labelled as the 10:15 and cancelled, and people were told to stand back because the "fast train approaching does not stop here". IET shunted out, then a 10:15 re-instated and in comes an HST / Castle.  "Don't rush to the platform - well wait for people" and indeed we did and it left 13 minutes late.

Noted the people looking for First Class, but when Mark and I told the there wan't any happy that it least it was a train.

10:15 Plymouth to Penzance - 13 minutes late from Plymouth, 16 minutes late into Penzance.  Made up some minutes along the way but paused 6 minutes at Par for unknown reason. Wonderful Swansong journey for me on one of the old girls. 12:28 into Penzance versus 11:40 due - I guess I could put in "delay/repay" but then on a £12 single from Melksham ...

---

Greeted on the Platform by GBM - lovely to meet you and the next step in my writeup.  I have 4 appointments / things the rest of the day which are far less pleasurable, far less effective, but need to be done for a couple more months.   Loads of pictures to share too!

 

https://youtu.be/v62kzDb_DW0

That video has the graphic of water flow by "soil piping", which suggests it came up some way away, i.e. in the pond. But the words in the report just say the sand was "deposited" there. So maybe it came out higher up and went into the drain at the back of the embankment, and was carried along that to the pond. Otherwise, I guess the water table is barely below ground level, so this extra water is flowing through water that's already there. And presumably already flowing, too.

 
The RAIB video on YouTube is well worth a watch, but I can't locate it now.

 
In the last quarter of 2024 a somewhat similar explanation was provided to me by one of the engineering team working, on behalf of the Environment Agency, to install ground movement monitoring equipment along the landward side of the River Exe bund between the Turf Locks Hotel and (just north of) Powderham. Regular checks had revealed that the structure was being undermined in several places on the tidal river side but there was no evidence that the lost soil was being washed into the river itself. I do not know for sure but think that the water level of high tides can be above the landward ground level (where the Exe Estuary Trail footway/cycleway has been built).

 
All very lovely I'm sure but how are these Spotty Herberts allowed to get away with multiple references to 'South West England' when Cornwall & Devon are conspicuous by their absence (apart from a passing reference to Exeter)?

Free copies of 'English Geography for Dummies' all round.

A former employer of mine had a business area that they called 'Severnside' and this + South Wales would be much closer to reality.