All very subjective, but no surprises to see CrossCountry propping up the table!

 

And the Westbury to Swindon train that forms it too ...

 
17:35 Swindon - Westbury cancelled because of a broken down train

 
The soldier in the middle appears to be Canadian, noting the maple leaves on his collar.

 
I was surprised to see that GWR was as high as third.

I have a great jigsaw based on that 1948 picture of Waterloo  Station. It's in two halves, one featuring that picture, the other the same scene during the Second World War, with people in the same poses in uniform and that column of bearskinned soldiers in khaki.

(Assembling both pairs of clocks can be challenging.)

 
I think that the carriage in this pic may also have been ex LSWR. One window has "AME" painted above it right on the margin of the print, leading to the assumption that this was a scene at Amesbury in Wiltshire and a railhead for Salisbury Plain.

I couldn't recognise the roof tops beyond the carriage as being at that station, nor at Bulford, the civilian terminus of the  branch off the Basingstoke-Salisbury line. I enlarged the image to examine the magazines on display. One was Popular Mechanics, an American magazine. Below the bottom of the window with "AME" above it was painted "MAGA", so I concluded that this signified that the stall was selling American magazines. But obviously a scene at a British station.

(No jokes needed about this being an early manifestation of Trump's MAGA, please!)

 
Spoiler alert - GWR are 3rd (best).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/03afefd47a47c335

 
9 The little museum in Corfe Castle’s West Street

 
Ten years since First Great Western rebranded ro Great Western Railway

It really hasn't felt so great of late ... cancellation rates up through the roof, with a service that's been so unreliable that it's been too risky to promote to new users.

 

I have just commented on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/graham.ellis.melksham/ - an unusually policitical comment for me:


We do have a by-election coming up at a much lower level (Town Council, South Ward, which I used to represent) next month and there are just two declared candidates - one representing the Conservatives, and the other Reform.  As a voter in the ward, I am really interested to learn from both candidates what they would offer as one of my councillors. On that, I wrote:

 
Looks like Danny Kruger MP, has moved from Conservative to Reform.

When the Melksham and Devizes constituency was added, he moved his area southwards to East Wiltshire, having lost the Devizes part.

Not sure what others think of local MPs switching parties.

 
On Saturday, I went [from Melksham] to Weymouth for the day by train.  Almost "routine" for me, but not for others met along the way. 

I paid £15.70 for my ticket, and £15.70 for a companion ticket available with my type of railcard, purchasing the ticket from Chippenham rather than from Melksham as it's the same price, and that allowed us to return via Bath and the bus should we not want to co-ordinate our return with the infrequent service that calls at Melksham.

The Melksham service is used - we need to remind people of that!

There were 68 passengers on the 09:09 train when it left Melksham - I am always very much aware that our sideline does not attract as service users (m)any of the formal RACI people who are key to its ongoing provision and I take a look on each train I use on the line and gather data so I can inform people. The saying "Use it or lose it" is commonly used for all sorts of services - but there's a need to have some data about its use to inform all the RACI people as they review/develop/amend the service for the future.



I am aware that the railway line to Felletin (in France) closed a fortnight ago, and that our UK government has two railway headlines - "increased reliability" and "keeping taxpayer costs down" and they mention "simplifying fares".  They have not headlined "maintaining the network at its current size", nor "maintaining service levels", nor "keeping fares down".  Beware!  Collecting evidence of use and ramming it down the throats or the R, A, C, and I people is a key community and user action to ensure they know that each train on our service has at least 20 times the number of passengers on it that the train I took to Felletin to try it out in July had (I was one of three).  We are using it ... we could and would use it that much more if the service ran, reliably, at an appropriate level of at least one train per hour in each direction, all day and every day.

RACI - Responsible (who does the task), Accountable (who owns the task's completion), Consulted (who provides input), and Informed (who needs to be updated).

The Melksham service is used - we need to remind people of that!

I and my companion travelled a few miles to Dorchester in the afternoon, and returned from there.  Utter chaos, with two successive trains from Weymouth via Westbury showing up as cancelled; a very long and off-topic story.  Prior experience helped me sort out our journey and that for other people too; we left Dorchester in a train of 5 carriages, with 58 people in just one of them. It wasn't possible to walk the whole way through (no corridor between some of the carriages) but that train got use to Westbury, where we changed onto a train running via Melksham that was over an hour later - our intent was the 17:34 from Weymouth (quarter of an hour later at Dorchester) and we eventually dragged into Melksham at around 21:45 on a late-running final northbound train of the day.  28 people on that train into Melksham, 9 go off and a further 7 got on - so once again, and even with the disruption an order of magnitude busier than that Felletin train.

We need a more frequent and easy to use service. And that "easy to use" includes fare systems that are understandable, and reliability that is much improved and where passenger information and alternatives are well provided on the few occasions it does go wrong.

Pictured – people waiting at Dorchester as a train home eventually pulls in.  And the group here was smaller than it might have been – this train had been adverised earlier as CANCELLED but had then been re-instated, and in the “Cancelled” period, I noted
* people booking and heading onwards in a taxi
* people going home and planning to make the journey the next day
* people calling up friends / family to give them lifts
* people transferring to Dorchester (South) to travel via Bournemouth and Southampton
* people headed for rail replacement buses which (if they existed / ran) would have been even later than the re-instated train






As an afterthought on our Melksham journey, it’s “all about” combining lots of journeys onto a single train. In the most recent data that I have, Dorchester is only the 95th most popular destination from Melksham (based on ticket sales – see https://www.passenger.chat/MKM.html?limit=1500&sortby=5 ) 

The top 5 journeys by train from Melksham are to Swindon, Chippenham, London, Bristol and Trowbridge.

The next five are to Bath, Westbury, Warminster, Salisbury and Weymouth.  An explanation is needed for Bath being such a low number – it’s because the bus is far better for that journey – direct without a change, more frequent, and reliable.

The next dozen? … Cardiff, Frome, Bradford-on-Avon, Gloucester, Reading, Pangbourne, Stroud, Cheltenham Spa, Filton Abbey Wood, Dilton Marsh, Southampton and Oxford.

Notable other mentions within the top 50 – Weston-super-Mare (24), Swansea (25), Birmingham (26), Taunton (27), Exeter (32), Gatwick Airport(33), Plymouth (34), Stansted Airport (38), Torquay (39) and Paignton (43), Heathrow Airport (46) and Portsmouth (50).

 

I thought members might be correctly sway-ed in that direction.

 
3: From the flora and fauna, it would suggest the New Forest.

 
6. Victoria Park, Netley

Country park on the site of the former Queen Victoria Hospital

 
From the BBC:

 

No - and my goodness there might be lots of places where these translators can be found!   I had probably better give the game away / wider clue by showing you this particular example in context

 
From the BBC:

 
Guess
9. Dorset County Museum in Dorchester

 
18. Melksham. 

 
I had to abandon a journey recently and was told to return to the station I bought the ticket in and make a claim there, which I did, and which went smoothly, as I could explain the reasons there. This is one of many reasons why we need to keep ticket offices open.

 
Eight out of twelve already correctly identified ...

1. St Ives (Cornwall) - GBM
2. Hayling Island - Oxonhutch
4. Exmoouth - eightonedee
5. Dorchester - Timmer
7. Paddington - stuving
8. Totnes - AMLAG
10. Hamble - TonyN
11. Bath - PhilWakely

Only ones remaining are numbered multiples of three
3.
6.
9.
12.

 
My goodness that didn't take long - following all identified correctly:

13. Taunton (Bathpool) - stuving
14. Pilinng - Western Pathfinder
15. Cardiff Bay - ChrisB
16. Oxford - Mark A
19. Weston-super-Mare - eightonedee
20. Dundas - John D
21. Portsmouth - Surrey 455
22. Melksham - Oxonhutch
23. Swindon - Prestbury Road
24. Plymouth (Saltram) - Chris from Nailsea

remaining - just places with poor or no train service!

17.


18.

 

You have a choice ...

1. You could post a link to the flyer and website of Christian Climate Action Bristol - though looking at their Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066404681153 I see more a history of events they have supported and no  sales pitch for 27th September

2. Click "Additional Options" which you'll find directly below the window into which you type or paste your contributions, and you'll be offered "Attach / Choose file" which will let you upload an image, or a .pdf, from your local computer / phone - you will need to have saved a copy locally first

3. If a picture of the flyer is available elsewhere on the web - either on another site, or on your own web space - you can include it within your one post within [ img ] to [ /img ] tags.   A picture of s flyer,  provided that you also add a link back to the organiser in some way (that's usually on the flyer anyway) is usually acceptable as their purpose at putting the flyer out is to get the widest possible exposure - however you need to be aware of copyright laws and make very sure that you're not sharing a picture that someone else owns and could get upset about you sharing.

 
Abbreviations and meanings, from Rail Forum UK website


So the missing Castle Cary - Weymouth service was cancelled the night before for some reason, crew? Thus not appearing on RTT and necessitating the cancellation of the 14.15 Weymouth-Castle Cary service to balance it.

Today starts with the cancellation of the 06.38 Weymouth to Gloucester between Weymouth and Bristol due to a train fault.

Soon followed by the cancellation of the 07.33 Weymouth to Bristol, crew delayed!

 
Christian Climate Action Bristol and region - Three Ports Pilgrimage - Saturday 27th September

Join us to pray for transport systems, climate and nature on a six mile walk from Portway Park & Ride, via Portbury Docks, to Portishead.
You don't have to be a Christian, or in any way religious, to join us. The "prayers" will help us to think about how human beings have interacted with the environment.
Meet at Bristol Temple Meads at 9.30 am, or at Portway Park & Ride at 10 am.
Return from Portishead to Bristol by Badger Line bus X4.
There will be options for a shorter walk, and also an opportunity for a picnic lunch, and there's a coffee shop at the end!
If you'd like to join us, or if you have any questions, please email:
christianclimateactionbristol@gmail.com

Can any one advise how to post a picture of the flyer.
 

 
05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:09
05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:09 will be terminated at Westbury.

It will no longer call at Dilton Marsh, Warminster, Salisbury, Romsey and Southampton Central.

This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

 

Switching "CAN" services on, it reveals a round trip with a single unit every 2.5 or 3.5 hours Weymouth to Castle Cary, plus a working from Bristol to Weymouth in the morning and one back in the late afternoon.   With the line from Castle Cary to Westbury not available, the Bristol service is cancelled, as is one of the 5 shuttles - leaving just 2 morning and 2 evening round trips.   Next Sunday looks the same.

 
10. Hamble-Le-Rice

 
Today, the 1415 Weymouth to Castle Cary was cancelled, due to a delay not investigated.The problem seems to be the timetable shows consecutive Weymouth departures.
 Looking at next Sunday, which has the same Castle Cary /Weymouth service, it would appear they did not timetable a 15.50 Castle Cary to Weymouth. Since the service was being run by a single unit there has the be a return from Castle Cary before the next Weymouth.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:MDN/2025-09-14/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt