With a new war well underway in the ME, it would be well to review and perhaps to increase stocks of oil derived fuels.
Not just petrol, but also diesel, heating oil, paraffin, and LPG.

Shortages are possible, esp. if the situation escalates.

What happens to GWR refreshment trollies when they retire?   How would I set about getting hold of one (or two - one for spares) - don't see them at Railwayana sales ...

Data shows the number of cycle parking counts at bus and rail stations fell from 785 during Quarter Three (October, November, December) of 2024/25 to 629 in the same period in 2025/26.

...so, stoiciometrically speaking, carbon won't have had much of a rôle. In reality it will have been much more messy than this as air is nearly 80% nitrogen; a lot of those hydrogen molecules will have given up hunting for oxygen to bond to and the reaction will have formed all manner of by-products, with NO_x being among them.

Ardrossan harbour to be taken into public ownership


CMAL is set to finalise a deal to take Ardrossan Harbour into public ownership

Ardrossan harbour is to be nationalised with the Scottish government's ferries and ports agency expected to finalise the deal this month, the transport secretary has announced

Fiona Hyslop said negotiations between Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) and owner Peel Ports have now concluded.

The government has been forced to buy the harbour because new CalMac ferries ordered by CMAL for the Arran route are too big to berth safely at the existing facilities and it needs extensive redevelopment. Hyslop did not confirm how much the sale would cost but said negotiations had been "complex" but would bring "wider benefits" to ferry services in the long term.

CMAL is entirely owned by the Scottish government, and Hyslop revealed it had been necessary to make a "shareholder directive" to the CMAL board to conclude the deal. Hyslop said the port would remain the main port for ferry services from the mainland to Arran.

Speaking in Holyrood, Hyslop said: "This purchase will secure the port in public ownership to allow us to focus on the redevelopment of the facility as the primary mainland port for Arran. There is work to be done to move forward to tender for the port redevelopment, but CMAL are already considering short term work to ensure resilient operations whilst the MV Caledonian Isles continues to operate from Ardrossan and we are committed to funding a two port service until the major work starts."

Ministers also announced Ferguson's shipyard in Port Glasgow is to be directly awarded contracts to build four new vessels.

(BBC article continues)

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Rather disappointing that replacement trains appear to have been pushed into the long grass

Isn't that the same yard which had the massive overruns/overspends on the last ferry contracts given to them by the Scottish Assembly?

The standout thing for me is the correlation with service improvements. For example cases where the red bars are at least 2x the blue bars:
• Severn Beach – at some had a 2-hourly bus off-peak (possibly inc 2005)
• Falmouth – loop & doubled service
• Okehampton – proper service introduced
• Newquay – basic daytime service (ignoring summer weekends) doubled (or similar)
• Barnstaple – not had a headline change IIRC but more consistently hourly now perhaps?

Can't think of a factor for St Ives's huge change, unless perhaps tied in with a Cornish holiday boom or Park & Ride marketing.

Cf some others that haven't changed much – e.g. Looe, which hasn't had any obvious service improvements, and perhaps anecdotally is particularly prone to problems. Weymouth has two rouces of course – summer offering arguably deteriorated somewhat but IIRC the SWR offering has improved.

Exmouth is perhaps the most 'commutery' line there? So perhaps its WFH-related losses have disproportionately offset the other general increases in ridership over those two decades.

2.

9.  The best I can offer is Penarth - I'm ready to be shot down, however it's pronounced. 

Ferguson shipyard to be given contracts to build four new ships



The publicly-owned Ferguson shipyard is to be directly awarded contracts to build four new vessels under plans announced by the Scottish government.

Ministers have proposed that the Clyde yard be commissioned to build two small ferries as well as a marine research vessel and a marine protection ship.

The decision, announced in the Scottish Parliament, is subject to a due diligence process.

Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop said another contract, to replace the CalMac ferry MV Lord of the Isles , would not be directly awarded, but would go to a competitive tendering process.

In a statement to parliament, she proposed that contracts to build two new vessels for the Sound of Harris and Sound of Barra - under Phase Two of the Small Vessel Replacement Programme - are directly awarded to Ferguson Marine.

Shortly afterwards, Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes announced plans to award Ferguson Marine contracts to replace the Scotia marine research vessel, and the Minna marine protection vessel.

Forbes told parliament that the award of the four contracts would help unlock up to £14.2m of promised funding to modernise the Port Glasgow shipyard.

MSPs also heard that the contract for a replacement for MV Lord Of the Isles would go to open tender in the next few weeks with a view to placing an order with a shipyard later this year, despite calls for it also to be directly awarded to Ferguson's.


Forbes said the government planned to directly award the contract to replace Minna, a fisheries protection vessel previously built by Ferguson's


(BBC article continues)

An interesting exercise to see how passenger numbers to GWR termini have grown from 2005 (blue) to2025 (red).  Some branch lines have significant intermediate traffic, in one or two cases dwarfing the terminus.  Others have very limited intermediate traffic.  So the growth may be the thing to compare and not the absolute numbers