So was I.  I haven't travelled extensively on the railways - but particularly in my commuting days, I used the train five times a week, for over a decade. No accidents in all that time, there or otherwise. 

Turns out they uploaded the wrong timetable 
Looks like its being split to run out of two depots and guessing one depots services were missing.
The correct timetable is now uploaded along with a message clarifying.
But still it really doesnt inspire confidence!

DISRUPTION TUESDAY 24 FEB 2026

5Z21 0622 Plymouth to Newquay
175002 seems to have sat down at Goonbarrow Junction since 1200 - then showing a 43 minute late running
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:V89020/2026-02-24/detailed#allox_id=2


A check on RTT shows nothing at either Par, St Blazey or Newquay that would cause "congestion"

17:05 Didcot Parkway to Evesham due 18:24 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

18:51 Evesham to Oxford due 19:50 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

Hospital consultant suspended over train sex acts


Dr Mark Elias engaged in sex acts in "full view" of other passengers

A senior hospital consultant who was caught engaging in sexual activity in front of fellow passengers in the middle of a train carriage has been suspended from practice for six months.

Dr Mark Elias, a consultant radiologist at The Christie specialist cancer hospital in Manchester, admitted outraging public decency and was previously handed a suspended prison sentence in February 2025. He was referred to the General Medical Council (GMC) and an independent tribunal imposed the ban on 30 January.

Elias is not "currently working" at the hospital and is not being paid while he serves his suspension, a spokesperson for The Christie NHS Foundation Trust said.

The Christie also said it had "carried out due dilligence" and had found no evidence of problems with Elias's clinical practice. It also found no evidence that patient safety had been put at risk.

A panel convened by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service stopped short of striking Elias off the register after hearing of his "remorse and insight". It also took into account testimonials from his colleagues, who said retaining his expertise in radiology and nuclear medicine was "essential".

The tribunal heard that Elias and a friend had spent the evening of 29 September 2024 drinking in bars around Manchester's Gay Village before attending a cabaret show. They then caught a train back to Chester.

They were subsequently spotted by a conductor on CCTV cameras, performing sex acts in the middle of a carriage "in full view" of other passengers. They were confronted by the conductor and stopped.

Both men admitted the offence at Chester Magistrates' Court and were given eight-week prison sentences, suspended for 12 months, as well as being ordered to complete rehabilitation activities.

The tribunal heard Elias claimed he had been "spiked" and had inhaled a "smoky substance" in a bottle before the train journey home. However, the panel decided his evidence was "contradictory" and had changed during the hearing. Elias eventually withdrew the spiking claim.

Members of the panel also considered evidence about Elias's health and personal life - this was not made public.

During the case, his colleagues were called to give evidence. One of them said Elias had expressed "deep regret" and "feels he has let himself, his colleagues and his family down".

Another colleague, also a consultant, said: "I do not condone the offence that Mark committed, and am aware that it was his own flaws and bad judgement that put him in this situation he has found himself in. I believe it has been Mark's personal struggles [redacted] that has led to this offence, which in my opinion [was] totally out of character."

The tribunal said it was satisfied Elias had "demonstrated good insight into the concerns arising from his behaviour that led to his conviction". However, the tribunal also said it "recognised that Dr Elias's behaviour which led to his conviction was a result of his own recklessness of drinking an excessive amount of alcohol".

Before the hearing last month, Elias continued working at The Christie under interim conditions imposed by the GMC.

The NHS trust added: "In line with the Tribunal's decision, Dr Elias is suspended from the medical register and will not undertake clinical duties during this period. The trust respects the role of the independent regulator in maintaining professional standards and public confidence."

We're rebuilding the railway from Portishead to Bristol, with new stations at Portishead and Pill.

Main construction work begins this spring and you can learn more at our public drop-in sessions.

To help me with local planning stuff, does anyone have any data about what proportion of people headed for a festival go by train (and by bus, by car, by other means) ... if the 15,000 adult tickets on sale are all sold, how many rail passengers into the area should be planned for?  1,000, 10,000, or somewhere between??

Victims 'devastated' by train CCTV failures that allow sex offenders to go untraced


Beth Wright says she was profoundly affected by being the victim of sexual harassment on a train

Sex offenders on trains are escaping justice because of serious issues with CCTV on the rail network, a BBC investigation has revealed.

One woman who was sexually assaulted on a train told us she was "devastated" to be told that police could not trace her attacker because the incident was not captured on camera.

In hundreds of cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault, British Transport (BTP) officers in England, Scotland and Wales say they struggled to gather evidence from CCTV footage collected from trains and stations.

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train companies, says the industry takes sexual harassment and assault cases "very seriously".

File on 4 Investigates has also been told that BTP has no control over the maintenance of CCTV cameras on the rail and London Underground networks, and that there is no legal obligation on rail operators to have working CCTV cameras on passenger trains.

We shared our findings with Claire Waxman, the Victims Commissioner for England and Wales, who is now calling for operational CCTV to be mandatory for train companies.

"I don't see how else we will keep people safe in those spaces and on public transport," she says.

(BBC article continues)

I was surprised that 15 have been involved in an accident. 

Do you go out at night?  (Voting closed: Today at 06:25:49)
Yes - and I drive   - 13 (31%)
Yes - I get a lift   - 6 (14.3%)
Yes - I use public transport   - 9 (21.4%)
Yes - I walk   - 12 (28.6%)
Hardly at all   - 2 (4.8%)
I am stuck in one place after dark   - 0 (0%)
Something else   - 0 (0%)

I commuted for 29 years, 5 return journeys per week, so around 14,000 train journeys, never had any accidents on trains I was on.
However did have few occasions where there were complete cancellations or diversions due to various (suicides, derailments, IRA bombs, storm damage etc)

So was I.  I haven't travelled extensively on the railways - but particularly in my commuting days, I used the train five times a week, for over a decade. No accidents in all that time, there or otherwise. 

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 has been delayed at Warminster and is now 10 minutes late.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system.

I was surprised that 15 have been involved in an accident. 

On 24 February 1905, the two halves of the tunnel came together. They were out of alignment by only 202 mm (8 in) horizontally and 87 mm (3.4 in) vertically. Construction time was 7+1⁄2 years, rather than 5+1⁄2 years, due to problems such as water inflows and strikes.

Last surviving teacher of Aberfan disaster still remembers faces of the children who died


The collapse of a colliery tip above Aberfan crushed Pantglas Junior School and nearby houses, killing 116 children and 28 adults

This story contains upsetting details that some may find distressing

Even after 60 years, Mair Morgan can still remember the face of the little girl with "beautiful black curly hair" whose body she had to identify.

In the wake of the Aberfan disaster - when a colliery spoil tip collapsed, slid down a mountain and engulfed the village's primary school and surrounding houses - teachers were asked to confirm the names of the dead children before they were cleaned up and their parents told.

Now, ahead of the 60th anniversary of a disaster that killed 116 children and 28 adults and left a lasting scar in Wales, the last surviving teacher has spoken about how the tragedy remains etched into her memory.

"I don't like the month of October at all, because that's what brings it back," said Mair. Now 84, Mair is one of the few surviving adults who witnessed the horrors of 21 October 1966.

She had worked at Pantglas Junior School for a year when the disaster happened. That day it was her job to ring the bell to bring children into class.

"Ever since I remember, I always wanted to be a teacher, I think it was because my aunt was a teacher." Her childhood ambition took her to her first teaching job in England before returning to the area where she was raised to teach in Aberfan.

Mair, who was 25 at the time, remembers the joys of that first year teaching back in south Wales: "I loved it. It was a happy school."


Mair Morgan had "always wanted to be a teacher," ever since she was little

The morning of the disaster, unbeknown to those at the foot of the mountain, the large tip had been made unsteady by a build-up of water. Then, at 09:15, the 150,000-tonne pile of slurry came roaring down the slope, crashing into the primary school and engulfing the building. "I heard this terrible noise," said Mair.

Her classroom was in a separate building from the main school and, through the windows, she saw a playground wall had collapsed so she instinctively gathered her pupils and led them out. She walked them down to the steps by the main road and stood with them, trying to keep calm as mothers began rushing to the school: "If you're calm, they're calm as well."

One by one, the children were collected and while her pupils had escaped the devastation of the slurry, some of their families had not been so fortunate. "A little boy in my class lost his mother and sister," she recalled, adding that he had to be picked up by his aunt.

She also remembered a teacher from another school, Bill Evans, whose house was next door to Pantglas. "He lost his wife, baby, and his son - who should have been in school but had tonsillitis so was home. He lost his complete family."

Only later did the scale of what happened become clear.

Five of Mair's fellow teachers were among the dead - only four of the staff survived.

In the hours and days that followed she and two other colleagues kept returning to Aberfan, even as police restricted access to the village. "We felt we needed to be there. You felt you ought to be doing something."

Inside the school playground, a temporary shelter was used to lay out the first bodies recovered from the debris. The teachers who had escaped were asked to perform a tragic task - identify the dead children.

"They opened Bethania Chapel as a place to take the children. But before that, in the playground, there was a shelter from the rain. The first bodies they brought out, they put in there, and the sadness was that they asked us could we identify these children before they were cleaned up and before their parents were told. I found that very hard. Thinking back, in this day and age, they wouldn't have asked you to do it."

She still remembers one little girl's face. "She had beautiful black curly hair," she said quietly. "Very sad times."

It soon became clear that the loss of life was too great to ask the teachers to continue their task but Mair - along with two others - Hettie Williams and Rennie Willams - kept offering comfort and support. Fellow teacher Howell Williams, who smashed a window to help his students escape, was collected by his family from the chaos of the village.

"We went to visit the parents of the bereaved and that was very sad but we needed to do things like that," Mair said. She believed that they, without formal counselling, provided each other with the emotional support to get through the disaster, maintaining a close bond for life.


Hettie Williams, Howell Williams, Rennie Williams and Mair Morgan were the only teachers to survive the disaster

After a short break to London arranged by the National Union of Teachers, Mair returned to Aberfan. Classes resumed in makeshift settings with children of all ages learning together. "[It] was very informal. We read with the children, did a little bit of work, just trying to get back to normal," she said. Hettie and Rennie moved on, but despite everything, Mair stayed in Aberfan, where she felt "rooted".

To this day, she lives just outside the village and former pupils still stop her in the street. Staying, she believed, helped her cope. "I loved the children," she said. "And children are resilient, especially young ones. It was in the parents that you could see the sadness."

The Aberfan disaster led to lasting changes in how industrial waste was managed in the UK.

For those who lived through it, the looming anniversary is an important moment to ensure the lessons of Aberfan are not forgotten, but it's also a deeply personal time for those who were there. "The only time it affects me is in October," Mair said. "I don't like the month of October at all, because that's what brings it back."

Having rarely spoken publicly about the disaster, Mair has also watched as the story of Aberfan is repeated, and sometimes, skewed. She is clear about one detail that still matters to her and wanted to correct a persistent myth - that children were singing All Things Bright and Beautiful in assembly when the tip collapsed. "There was no assembly that morning. If there had been, there would have been no survivors." That would have been because everyone would have been gathered in the main hall and the colliery tip would have collapsed on top of them.


A memorial garden replaced the ruined junior school and is the focal point for remembering those who died in the disaster

Assembly was planned for the afternoon, she explained, as the head teacher planned to warn children about dangers during the half-term holiday. They would have been told by the head, Miss Jennings, not to go near the railway line, to be careful of the river and not to go near the colliery. Yet the biggest danger loomed dangerously on the hillside behind the school.

Mair added that Miss Jennings "could have retired the year before".

"She didn't survive."


Mair Morgan (right) was among a group to take the Princess of Wales around the memorial garden in Aberfan in 2023

The thought takes her to another lost teacher, Michael Davies. "It was his first teaching job. You could say he'd only worked for a month and a half, which was tragic."

Aberfan remains etched into Welsh history and into Mair's daily life - the former pupils she still sees rarely mention the disaster, she said, but it binds them all.

Mair hopes that - 60 years on - the dangers are not forgotten. "People must learn lessons from what's happened."