To digress slightly........  I have always thought that US Immigration staff were recruited specifically for their rudeness and aggressiveness ...

The return service was - err - full and standing on occasions!   

Bit late on this one....

Yes the last train to Salisbury was the return SWR service back to the depot - and it was reasonably well used. This service was removed for a number of half baked reasons. The current last train to Salisbury is once again an SWR one - but having been banished from Temple Meads this one come up from Yeovil.  Totally bizarre !!

RNLI volunteer at Southend records 100th life saved in 40 years


Tony Bonham, 59, says he feels young and has "years" left in him

An RNLI volunteer commander has saved more than 100 people since he signed up 40 years ago.

Tony Bonham has logged 101 lives saved and 953 people aided since Southend-on-Sea station's record-keeping began in 1996, 10 years after he started. He said the real number was probably much higher.

The 59-year-old began volunteering as a lifeguard at nearby Shoebury West beach aged 15, joining the lifeboat team four years later. "We don't look at ourselves as heroes. I've been, I've done a job, I'm getting on with work now... we never look for recognition," he said.

If the person would have drowned without their assistance, it is recorded as a life saved, otherwise it is "assisted".

"There's 100 families plus that have still got their loved ones with them," he said.


Three generations of Bonhams - Tony Bonham with his son Tyler, and his son who "always wants to go down to the lifeboat station"

Bonham said they lose a lot of volunteers due to the commitment that is asked of them. "You can be out days, nights, anniversaries, Christmas Day. If you're on duty and you get a call, you've got to go," he said.

"We could be out at two in the morning... we do the job, we put everything back, make sure it's all ready. We go home to our families and carry on the next day. You might read about it in the paper; you might not."

Bonham says he is "very proud" of his son Tyler, who will soon be starting as a commander at the Gravesend lifeboat in Kent - and the family's involvement looks like it could extend to another generation. "Now his son, who's six, always wants to go down to the lifeboat station. He enjoys the cookies," said Tony.

Talking to Sonia Watson on BBC Essex, he described being called out together with his son for the first time recently. "He was my helm, I was his crew and it was really, really funny him being in charge," he said. "But I still got dressed quicker and was out before him."

He said he never turns his pager off, and returned to duty straight after the interview. "I still feel young. I am young - I'm 59 - got many years in me to go yet," he said.

or did come back with 175002 and not mentioned.
An interesting signal problem is how. On London Underground signalling; as the points cannot be guaranteed, because a train is occupying the approach section, to be locked they would have to be scotched and clipped and hand signalled into the platform or the trains moved towards Liskard past signal LD20, the points on the branch scotched and clipped then the normal signal interlocking can take effect and the trains moved onto the main line.

Also, thinking of the previously useful ~19:20 from Waterloo. Fast forward to 2026 and the closest Salisbury departure to that, on arrival, three carriages are detached - Gillingham, Templecombe, Sherbourne and Yeovil Junction get the benefit of those, while the three that could usefully serve Warminster, followed by the county town of Wiltshire, Bradford on Avon, Bath and Bristol are sent off to the depot. So, for that service, for once, there is the stock available and sitting around to cover the run to Bristol and return. (And the return wasn't a carrier of fresh air either.)

Mark

Rail signs call after runner's death at crossing



A coroner has called for better signs at level crossings after a runner listening to music died when he was hit by a train.

Sam Dudley died while jogging in Formby, Merseyside, on 24 August.

The klaxon siren and red light were in operation at Hoggs Hill Level Crossing and CCTV footage showed he appeared shocked at the sight of the train and tried to jump backwards.

Investigators found the 29-year-old had been listening to music on his mobile phone, which displayed a warning that the sound was too loud.

Anita Bhardwaj, senior coroner for Sefton, said the crossing had been "safe, compliant and operating as designed", adding it was "more likely than not that Sam did not hear the klaxon".

Following an inquest into his death, she concluded: "In my opinion, there is a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken." The coroner added that "increasingly, more people wear earphones and are therefore less aware of their surroundings".

She said visual signs on the approach to level crossings should be improved to prevent further accidents. "Visual cues generally attract initial attention more effectively and support rapid comprehension, while sound cues tend to create a stronger emotional connection," she said.

Network Rail, as the operator, is obliged to respond to her report by 31 March with details and a timetable of plans for action.

1.  Why set the cut off points at 30 and 60 minutes - they could almost have been designed to cause problems on "clock face" services where people drop back through a cancellation or a missed connection into the following train.  Why not 25 or 35, 55 or 65 minutes?

Not long to wait for the results.

Bus driver injured in airport police car crash


The bus driver was taken to hospital after the crash

The driver of a double-decker bus has been seriously injured after crashing into a parked police car at Gatwick Airport.

There were no passengers on the bus and no officers in the police car when the crash happened at about 04:50 GMT on an approach road to the South Terminal, Sussex Police said.

Officers said the road between the Gatwick Road and Longbridge roundabouts was closed but has since reopened.

The police car was parked while officers dealt with separate incident in which a driver had failed to stop for officers and had left his vehicle, the force said. The crash involving the bus is being investigated.

I have only (personally) made use of it once that I can recall - having bought a ticket for someone staying with us, but on the morning she was headed for Manchester, plans were changed on a family crisis.  I was actually pleasantly surprised I could get my money back, even though validity had started.

I understand that this is to counter ticket fraud, where unchecked tickets or tickets not put through an automatic barrier have been submitted for refunds, despite the ticket holder having travelled.

I'm guessing that the 'certain exceptional conditions' will include (but not necessarily limited to).... Disruption resulting in the ticket holder not starting or abandoning the journey; health conditions where the holder is unable to travel, etc. Whether guidelines will be published or the decision left to the discretion of the retailer, I do not know.

My message would be don't write off travelling to any country simply because you don't care for the incumbent regime. If I had, my horizons would have been considerably reduced.

Americans generally speaking are very well disposed to the British and your chances of coming to harm are minimal - probably safer there than in many parts of Europe in all honesty.

The TransWilts/Arts Society photography competition attracted 200 entries with a wide variety of subjects.

The judges are now working on an initial shortlist with the aim of whittling it down to the final 50 prize winners. The images will then be specially printed on weatherproof board and displayed at our seven local stations.

The successful winners will be contacted in early March.  It is planned the displays will be in place on the platforms by Easter.

Advance warning for nine-day rail closure in May


Part of the line had to close in 2021 after a landslip near Bearsted

Rail passengers in Kent are being asked to plan ahead as a nine-day closure of a route is scheduled for May.

The line between Borough Green & Wrotham and Ashford International, via Maidstone East, will be closed from Saturday 23 May to Sunday 31 May inclusive.

During the closure, buses will replace trains, with services running from Borough Green to London and also from Ashford. Stations that will have no service include West Malling, Maidstone East, Bearsted and Lenham.

Network Rail said it needed to carry out essential upgrades to improve the long‑term reliability of the line, after the route had to close near Bearsted in 2021 due to a landslip.

Works will include improving drainage in the Wheeler Street tunnel between Maidstone East and Bearstead, replacing nearly 2,500 yards of track between Harrietsham and Charing, and the replacement of the level crossing at Ryarsh Lane near West Malling.

David Davidson, chief operating officer for Southeastern Railway, said: "The Ashford to Maidstone East line is an extremely busy part of our railway, but the rock cuttings here are more than 150 years old. As a result, we are seeing an increasing number of weather and ground movement related incidents which cause delays to our customers. We want to fix this, and we need to do the work as quickly as possible over the nine-day closure rather than during a series of disruptive weekends."

Network Rail said detailed travel advice, including ticket acceptance, would be provided before the closure begins.

My "keyhole" picture was taken at Chippenham Station ...

A really difficult one - where there's a "hard line" between two categories in a continuum, and where you have such a hard line there will always be issues - and temptation by the arbiters to push the decision in the way that favours them.

1.  Why set the cut off points at 30 and 60 minutes - they could almost have been designed to cause problems on "clock face" services where people drop back through a cancellation or a missed connection into the following train.  Why not 25 or 35, 55 or 65 minutes?

2. With modern electronics and calculations, why not a sliding scale?  Up to 25 minutes, no delay / repay, then a sliding scale up to 65 minutes after which full single journey refund is due.  Perhaps with a minimum refund of 2 pounds to avoid the overhead of "pence" claims?  And, yes, I am aware that will give rise to anomalies such as parent getting a payment back, and son/daughter not.

I suspect that the older Welsh stock is largely held together with duck tape, baler twine and livery vinyl by now. 

• The number of times I've had a 15 minute delay but it's been logged as 14 minute so not payable, or 30 minute logged as 29 minute. Sometimes it genuinely just missed the threshold; other times I've had the claim rejected because it was so close.

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks

Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone’

BREAKING: WTF? Trump's ICE goons shackled and threw a British grandma on a tourist visa in their gulag for SIX WEEKS!
Karen Newton, a 65-year-old grandmother from Hertfordshire, England with a clean record and a valid B2 tourist visa, thought she was heading for a dream two-month road trip through four Western states and Canada with her husband Bill.
What she got instead was a nightmare: six weeks in ICE detention after being shackled, sleeping on the floor, and locked in a windowless cell with no end date in sight.