A follow up on a long-stagnant thread. Things move an I found myself this morning thanking Horace on his retirement and also acknowledging and appreciating hard work done by others. They do just as much work, but much more behind the scenes, and are very much still active in various ways.

Community Rail has moved on; from gov.uk setting out the historic context


The TransWilts Community Rail Partnership was formed around 2010, with a view to helping increasing usage. This on what at the time was a line with a service so thin that it was officially doubted whether usage COULD be increased.

Around a decade ago now (2016), a new strategy was set up based on four pillars


To a very great extent community rail had succeeded in increasing usage across most of CRPs by 2016, and so the "getting bums on seats" was no longer the headline it was - in fact it is no longer stated as a primary aim, with CRPs mandated to look much more at what they can do for the communities rather than what they can do for the railways.

Really that change came too early for the line through Melksham, which had only just stepped up from 2 to 7 trains each way per day on a trial basis.  Our local primary need here is - still - to get bums on seats.  We have done well, we have risen from 3,000 to 60,000 journeys a year - but comparing to even the least used other town stations around, we should be at 300,000 journeys per annum.

Today is *the* day when the Community Rail awards are made in Derby - a national gathering of all whom are great and good in the sector.   There are lots of CRPs these days - TransWilts started as being the tiniest though it has spread its wings beyond just the five stations on "our" line to covering all of Wiltshire.  There is some sense in that - with modern government requirements for a dozen policies in order to be accredited, single line partnerships are too small to be viable and the change is something of a necessity.  It does mean that - like all CRPs - TransWilts has risen further and would be hard pressed to claim they are a grass roots movement.  Congratulations to them for being short listed tonight in both the small project and in the photography competition.

Personally, I was one of the founding members and directors, and the Community Rail Officer. When the roles changed with the CRP from being a role with a primary task of getting people onto trains to the wider pillars, I was no longer the right person for the job and was replaced by someone more efficient; I stepped down as a director to give her space (it's always hard to follow someone in a role). I further resigned my membership in 2021 when that was seen as a conflict of interest with my role as a Town Councillor.  Since my term as a councillor ended (I did not stand for re-election), I have rejoined as a member, and proud to be one.  Good friends and useful allies - glad to see their representative at the MTUG meeting last week and to establish links with the new MTUG / Town Council liaison person, but the community grass root vehicles - and where energy goes - locally has to be MTUG where we had a whole room of community support last Thursday, and that even while we are in the quiet period before exciting projects this summer.

 
I would support a cut in the government duty on draught beer and cider served in pubs.
Beer sold from large returnable re-useable containers is generally accepted as being greener than cans or bottles.

Any such reduction in duty would have to be carefully worded so as to avoid loopholes.

 
"Early Bus Replacement Service" says the original poster on Facebook - to which comment is made "Not a replacement. A service created in the absence of a railway line. And still running".  Although the bus service (no. 42) may still be running, stations (2 of them) in Marlborough and Calne are now closed and all the tracks are gone. A metro frequency Calne to Chippenham, Corsham, Bath Spa and Bristol would make sense these days, mind you.

 
A little known fact was the RT type was almost universal in London in late 1950s, there were a few other bus types, and single decks etc.   If include the RT, RTW, RTL were 6956 of the type produced

Nowadays I understand the most common type is a Yutong electric bus in China.  They have a huge production line factory (in eastern Zhengzhou) that can produce over 300 buses per day.   The factory is 112 hectares (roughly 5 times the whole site, or 10 times size of factory buildings of the closed Cooper tyres site in Melksham)

 
Winter refit underway ... and this summer's timetables largely published and on sale.
https://waverleyexcursions.co.uk



and here's a "Loch Long" trip that's not plausible

 

Good recommendations ... for many.   I was "going with the flow" by that part of the day - I often do and until I reached Holborn Viaduct [road], I didn't even have my Plan A.    I could have walked to St Pauls or Chancery Lane tubes; decision taken on spur of the moment to join the train at City and change at Farringdon.  I could also have taken the 46 bus from Barts to Paddington if I wanted a tour of north London.

 
Horace has been a loyal supporter of public transport as a whole over many, many years and I fondly remember him as the portfolio holder for public transport in Wiltshire - an ambassador who helped advocate the case for something in addition to the private car.   How times have changed; Wiltshire is no longer regarded as the badman of public transport in the way it was two decades ago and much of that progress is due to a whole team of people - not only Horace waving the flag at "County" but others too who see the sense - in so many ways - of having public and mass transit available.

The article quotes shows Horace, Paddy and Sophie.  Taking another view, I bring you pictures of the outcome of his work - 27.2.2026 and 14.3.2026 but regular mass transit scenes on journeys to, from and within Wiltshire

Thank you - Horace and the whole team; we look in our team pictures like old men - and we are for the most part.  But the scenes on buses and trains show predominant people much younger, and on the trains and buses irrespective of gender, class or any other denominator.





Wishing Horace a long and happy second retirement - I spoke with him on the phone just the other day, and hope to see him in a couple of days at the WWRUG AGM this Wednesday.

 

175002 on it this morning.

 
Wasn't really a quiz but - yes - first picture is an STL, an RT and an RM alongside each other.  My understanding is that this are the three generations of rear entrance London buses.   I rode on the STL and a notice on board said it dated from 1935 (first brought in 1932) and ran until replaced by RTs in the 1950s. The RT bus was introduced in 1939 and ran to 1979.   The RM was introduced in 1960 and ran in normal service until 2005.

Picture taken at the Clapton Pond terminal bus park - and that one (picture) may turn out to be a classic.   The 7th picture shows the mythical "Clapton Pond" itself which I set out to find having photographed the buses!

The third picture is indeed Islington tunnel - a stone's throw from the Angel, with the toe-path, and Chapel Market, being favourite spots when at TCU (The Ciry University) from where I graduated 50 years ago.

 

Multiple threads running here - this is the "On the day" one celebrating the first Thomas Cook European timetable in March 1873.

The newest edition, under a new proprietor, has made some editorial changes, and these days the online planner app linked in with Interrail convey much similar and at times more details data, added to the local (country's) sources to fill in most of the rest.  Still very much a "bible" though and in spite of the weight (even on thin paper)  my copy will be travelling around Europe with me next month.

 
An excellent demonstration of how - within the main network - alternative routes are available at times of planned (or unplanned) disruption.    You can travel to ... Inveness via Aberdeen, Margate via Ashford, Weymouth via Southampro, even Swansea via Llandrindod.  Missing only Stranraer via Castle Douglas and Plymouth via Tavistock.

 
Water-ma-Trout viaduct has been acquired by the Railway, negotiations continue with land owners either side of it to enable the project to relay track to the industrial estate from the current 'terminus' at Truthall to proceed over the coming years.

 
From the BBC

 
My daughter travelled down from Kent to this neck of the woods today. She normally goes Kent - Waterloo East - Waterloo Main - Salisbury - Warminster. Today, she came via Paddington and Westbury.

When she explained why, I initially thought she had been at the cooking sherry ..........but having looked it up - today's routing from Waterloo to Salisbury was - train to Guildford, bus to Andover, then train to Salisbury. What a strange route !

 
I went to Westbury Station today to collect my daughter off a train from Paddington. On arrival I found that all the parking spaces on the approach road to the station have been "taken over" by Network Rail, It appears that the only people who can park there have to be in a Network Rail liveried vehicle - £100 fine if not.

On enquiring at the ticket office (open for once on a Sunday !!) I was told it was still OK to park there, really ! or I could park for free in the main car park for 20 mins.

I was under the impression that if you wish to restrict parking by threatening financial, or other sanctions, you have to place large notices, which can be clearly seen by those entering the area, clearly explaining what the parking restrictions are and how this might affect you. Go to any supermarket car park and see them - AND when entering the APCOA car park at Westbury Station !! There are no large signs on the approach road at Westbury, that I could see ! only the individual signs on the fence by each parking bay.

Any "legal eagles" out there who could offer any thoughts on this ? I strongly suspect that these signs have no legal standing as they are.

Plus, of course, what happens if the train you are meeting is 21 minutes late ? Does the ANPR system actually give you unadvertised leeway. I am aware of a large multi storey carpark where the ANPR system there actually gives you 30 mins - so if you are quick and don't need to buy much close to the car park you can park for 30 mins for free...............

 
2.  Clearly a full English breakfast - but there are too many liquids right next to the keyboard there for my liking.

 
3.  Islington Tunnel, on the Regent's Canal.  We could do without the graffiti there.

 
First picture has a RM, RT and STL side by side

 
Can I recommend joining the weekly TfL email that outlines all their weekend engineering work? You would have known about the line being out between (I think) Tower Hill & Edgware Road.

Also the TfL Go app which would have planned you a working route from City Thameslink to Paddington.

 

Here are some pictures from the day ... you can probably fill me in on what's what

 
I am posting in "looking forward" because I am looking forward - though much of this is the experiences of yesterday and noting what could do with attention for a better public transport offering.

It's a long piece at https://grahamellis.uk/blog1900.html and goes though the current fare offerings on the TVM which could be considered to be a scam, the lack of attention to "Information - cost - connectivity - comfort - frequency - reliability" issues, and so many issues on the way home that I started with Plan A and kept swapping it for another - ending up on Plan G - but still got home only around 100 minutes after I have intended, which for a laid back day out perhaps isn't too bad?

Always looking forward, I have reached a few tentative conclusions ...

 
"18 floors climbed". I hope some of those were to make top deck trips!

I was amused to see a report by one journalist who got excited about seeing a "Routemaster" bus being corrected by another pointing out that it was a far more noteworthy and older RT.  Routemasters seem to get all the glory, a bit like the Spitfire over the Hurricane.

 
From the BBC:

 

I got home ... but very late - did food for us then slept.   Full story of the journey to follow.   In another context and from half a lifetime ago, 4 hours waiting in an A&E department with a child with a broken arm and not having any idea of how long the wait would be tops any railway station wait.

 

Ah, where's that then?

Mark

 
Use of a building as a public house: it's something that without safeguards in place, is vulnerable, and it's not only the 'Use it or lose it' that applies.
 
Mark

 
from Home, 14th March 2026.
- bus running day, London route 38 Victoria to Clapton Pond
- and an opportunity to try out a new travel computer setup before longer journeys

Near perfectly to plan outbound journey to The Angel. On the way back, just about anything that could go wrong did go wrong. Never the less, a very much enjoyed day and huge understandings;  I had my eyes open - or perhaps they are different eyes of places which were haunts of my youth and Uni days. And I met and I saw some lovely people along the way; in parts they were sprinkled along many carriages of a train, in other parts there were too may of them crammed in. Within almost every situation, the most unlikely people will interact, helpfully, if they are in their comfort zone and we are polite to them.

B -> Melksham Station
T -> Swindon
T -> Paddington
U -> Victoria
HB -> Angel
U -> East Finchley
U -> Mill Hill East
B -> Mill Hill Broadway
T -> Kentish Town
U -> Angel
HB -> Clapton Pond
HB -> Angel
W -> City Thamelink
T -> St Pancras
U -> Oxford Circus
U -> Lancaster Gate
W -> Paddington
T -> Bath Spa
B -> Melksham Town
W -> Home

# awk '/^[A-Z]/{print $1}' yj| sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

20 "legs" - 6 on the underground, (5 of which were the tube, 1 on a subsurface line), 5 on trains part of the National Rail network, 3 on regular bus services, and 3 on the heritage buses that were there as the string that tied the day together.  And the final 3 legs were walked - totalling 6.7 miles (10.8 kms) according to my phone.  And it also says "18 floors climbed".

 
Suggested charging problems reported on another forum

 
Problems with the battery train on the Greenford branch today.

Two round trips were cancelled before it was replaced by a Turbo.