Also note

 
Monday November 10

 
An update, from the BBC:

 
Booking clerks used to get 10% of the insurance fee, but most railway companies didn't  allow them to actively suggest it as they didn't want any likelihood of accidents being raised.

A stranger late Victorian rail life insurance method was to carry the current edition of "Tit-Bits", as the publisher would pay out £100 on death.

 

Snap.  The walk is to be enjoyed, not endured through miserable weather.  Likewise, it shouldn't have be too much of a race against failing daylight, motivational as that might be! 

Looks like a good one for the new year.

 
You may be right, but I doubt you can remember this - from The Era, 30 July 1854:

Later, this business expanded outside rail travel, and was claiming to be the world's largest travel accident insurer. Its insurance was still being offered  by railway companies in their booking offices under grouping. After the usual mergers, associations, and takeovers, it was owned by the North British and Mercantile in the 1940s, and its name disappeared in the 60s when it was part of Commercial Union.

BR would presumably have had some other arrangement - best looked for in those interminable front pages of the timetable book?

 

It's already an accessible one in Coach A on a 5-car (same as Coach A a 9-car where there are two spaces), so that wouldn't need any alterations.


It's definitely a known issue, but perhaps not quite as much of an issue for the average passenger.

 
It's definitely the actual cushion part, and possibly the plate that the cushion sits on that neds attention, not just the cushion upholstery. And they're still owed by Hitachi, who need to agree to the work.

The IETs are still going through the work needed on the coaching stock dampers - only about 50% have been fixed. The seats will definitely not be done for a while yet. I don't actually see much social media about these seats from long distance passengers either, so I'd be interested in hearing from GWR if your opinion is widespread

 

This isn't a major refurbishment issue or a costly one. The (inexpensive) seat upholstery component is designed to be quickly detached and replaced like for like.

It can also be replaced with an upgraded variety - hasn't this been done once already? People will recall version one of that seat upholstery, the covers of which were plainish grey and quickly wore in a way that made them look dismal and I think they've gone from the system.

What's needed is for GWR to adopt a proactive approach rather than a reactive one so that passengers don't find that they need to send 'em an email every time they travel.

Which reminds me, when I need, in the email, to identify an individual carriage, where on a class 80x is the carriage's reference number to be found?

Mark

 
For GWR priced journeys, the following easements have been implemented for Christmas & New Year 2025/6

Friday 19: Normal weekday restrictions apply

[Saturday 20/Sunday 21: Normal weekend/bank holiday]

Monday 22/Tuesday 23/Wednesday 24: Off-peak no restrictions; Super Off-peak normal restrictions apply; weekend first available

Thursday 25/Friday 26: No service

[Saturday 27/Sunday 28: Normal weekend/bank holiday]

Monday 29/Tuesday 30/Wednesday 31/Friday 2: Off-peak & Super Off-peak no restrictions; weekend first available

[Thursday 1/Saturday 3/Sunday 4: Normal weekend/bank holiday]

Monday 5 onwards: Normal restrictions apply

*passengers taking advantage of the easements should note these are for GWR only; other TOCs may have different easements, for example if arriving at Paddington before 09.30 on a super/off-peak ticket, passengers may need to wait until 09.30 to comment further travel.

 
It baffles me why people fly-tip next to recycling bins, textile bins etc as though it's somehow less illegal/antisocial to do it there than rather than at any random roadside. It's actually more likely to get them caught on camera as such sites may well be monitored.  Probably the same people who dump things outside charity shops at dead of night.

 
My memory suggests you could buy it from the booking office with your ticket

 

Was there a time when the railway was very keen to upsell insurance (for an individual journey by rail) and does anyone know of a web resource with details of the way that was done? (Web searches return a metric tonne of the modern day equivalent...)

Mark

 
When an annual travel policy can be generally got for less than £(3 figures), it makes sense even if you travel a couple of times annually....

 
Ryanair is (in)famously strict, but I guess if you offer non refundable with option of either insurance or higher price with refunds, then if customer chooses to accept risk to save money, then they shouldn't really declare unfair if they then want to cancel.

 

Via Bromsgrove....and the Golden Valley - if you check the paper quotes above

 
Noting that two units scheduled for training, but again, only one appears in use (shortage of crew!).

 

The Midlands rail hub has plans for a new spur at Bordesley linking the line from Moor Street to the Camp Hill line to Kings Norton.   At Moor Street plans are for couple of extra terminating platforms built over Shaws Passage (and adjacent derelict site), freeing up some of the existing platforms for the Camp Hill line trains.

The line from Moor Street was one of the GWR improvements of 1932 and was quadrupled to Lapworth (although some has since been rationalised to just 2 tracks)

 
175s have been up and about between Newton Abbot and Penzance for weeks now.
175007 is out and about today.

 

It's a sensible idea, but, given the capacity constraints Moor Street and Bristol (via Oxford, I guess you mean, but also if via Bromsgrove) I don't see how it could happen, without the restoration of the route between Stratford upon Avon and Cheltenham

 
The very notion that you can tax a nation into prosperity is laughable

Except it's not funny.  We have had years of governments that think exactly this

 
IIRC, as part of the Midlands Rail Hub there was a plan that TfWM would run a train per hour from Moor Street to Bristol, and one to Cardiff.

I wonder if one of those legs is now considered unviable (perhaps XC and TfW didn't want the competition to Cardiff) and so the powers that be are making a virtue out necessity? 

Seems like a sensible idea anyway.

 
I travel much less for business these days (only work 2 days a week anyway) but, when I did, the need to change at Cheltenham was a definite disincentive to use the train for long distance travel to the midlands and the north of England - where half our customers are based.  I have spent many hours on Cheltenham Station waiting for connections over the years. The choice of going via Oxford or Reading was not ideal either as Oxford involved 2 changes and the connections on that route are even more precarious, particularly if going to the east midlands or the north east. I have waited at Oxford while staff  stand around talking when the signal was cleared to take the local train to the sidings, delaying my cross-country train which was waiting to enter the platform, the delay meant I lost my connection at New Street!

 

I am personally looking now at postposing that yomp for a while ... looking for a fine day and longer daylight hours - perhaps into the spring.   Starting from Kemble to allow stopping short - even by a couple of miles - to get the bus into Stroud.  I have rules out the alternative of doing it next weekend based on the early weather forecast.

 

That would seem likely ... provided that sufficient crew training has been completed and there is a modicum of fixing skills/experience in place in case one fails with passengers on board.  Top priority has been stated as being to phase out the HSTs ...

 

Indeed, and I was very tempted to start a poll here to see what the private view or forum members is / was on this, outside the emotional and politically correct response that those of us who keep an eye on our profile have to consider when we post in public.

Logic is that you if have a cancellations policy - and Ryanair is certainly tight, and much more publicised than most - you really should as a business stick to it, balanced only by an element of easing up in extreme cases.  Those, however, create precedents which you may be very reluctant to do.   And Ryanair's long standing stance is almost an act of corporate bravery.

I don't know how much the unrefunded flight costs (one each way?  Travelling with friends / are they still going?) are - but there are also hotel and match costs probably paid already or committed too - and all the extra costs of being injured.   Thank goodness I am not (and I hope never will be) in the situation, but I would imagine that in the circumstance I might shrug off the loss of an airline ticket.

I - drift - onto rail ticket refunds and delay/repay which in many ways is a crude form of insurance / compensation.  It makes sense if it encourages the TOCs (should than now be TOPSOs - Train Operating Public Sector Organisations) to actually provide the service they are supposed to, but yet for some customers it's almost a gamble/game to choose regularly failing services to get lower or no cost travel, and in many ways it's an insurance that it could be argued should be separated out. Should the usual annual price rise be optional next year, and people who chose to pay in do so for the benefit of insurance in the form of delay/repay?

Personal thoughts and questions posted ... no easy answer available ...

 
They have enough 175s for a five car or even six if they can get them out of Wolverton at more than one unit a week.
So far two refurbished 2 car units are at Laira and four unrefurbished.

I suspect as soon as as refurbished 3 car comes down a HST diagram will go before being used for Barnstaple.

 
The person to lobby is the SoS who is Heidi Alexander MP for Swindon South!.

 
This topic has been moved to The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom and merged with an existing topic there. Apologies, grahame.

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=29076.msg367957#msg367957