Nice idea and good publicity.

 
Reflecting that the 'Royal Iris' will have been on Mersea ferry duties at the time of a long ago family visit with a vehicle to Belfast c. 1965 - at a time when the ferry to Belfast ran from I think it was Princes Dock, so, the ferry needed to access the dock via a sea lock from the river.

I've a single memory of... was it arriving back in Liverpool after the overnight crossing - the ferry locking through and the general impression, to a youngie, of arriving in a great city teeming with unfamiliar activities. (This was the same city that my father-in-law, during WW2, had become completly lost as overnight bombing had utterly changed the streets through which he travelled to work to the extent that they were unrecognisable).

Mark

 
I learn that the frog gets its name from the frog of a horse's hoof which is somewhat 'V' shaped. Railways and horses existing in close company, the term 'Frog' jumped from one to the other given the similarity with the V shape of the join of the rails that formed the crossing.

Mark

 

I was visiting Liverpool at about that time, the frigate I was serving on was taking part in the Battle of The Atlantic commemorations and was in Bootle docks. I went into Liverpool with my run ashore "oppo", we walked out of Lime St station, took one look, went back into the station and bought tickets to Manchester !!

Having said that - I have been there a lot more recently and was really impressed with how much it had improved...............

 

There isn't a difference, but Permanent Way professionals will call what are loosely called "points" but the name of switches and crossings, or S&C.  The moveable blades end is called the switch, and the crossing is the cast steel bit where one rail is crossed by the other rail in a "V".  If Hornby is your thing, this crossing bit is sometimes called a "frog".  The moveable blades end is the toe of the switch, with the heel being at the crossing

 
The replacement ferry... its looks will fit right in, it's very much a mersey ferry.

Mark

https://www.merseyferries.co.uk/about-us/new-ferry/

 
Cancellations to services between Reading and Newbury

Due to a points failure between Reading and Westbury all lines are blocked. Disruption is expected until 12:15 30/03.

Train services between Reading and Newbury may be cancelled or diverted.

 
From the BBC

 
Good to see Network Rail emphasis the positive too.


Lots of work on the West Coast mainline and also


When did "points" become "switches" or is there a difference?  And surely crossings and not (usually) moveable?

 
The first 3 car in passenger service. Not one that has been through Wolverton.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:P22967/2026-03-30/detailed#allox_id=0

 
From Rail Magazine

 
I wonder what will happen to it?  There was a old Mersey Ferry "Egremont" that spent many years after it's ferry service days as the floating base for the Salcombe based Island Cruising Club in the Kingsbridge Estuary.  Sadly, the periodic maintenance costs inevitably began to mount over the decades so she had to be given up and I last saw her a few years back languishing in Sharpness docks looking in quite a sorry state.
As an aside, in my student days, I spent a very chilly night stuck on her after being persuaded (post pub) to join the people from the sailing course who were residing on her for an on board party.

 
https://twitter.com/NickDavid0655/status/2038540285345403050?


For something that was arranged so hastily, the WSR50 weekend was a great event.  The weather was helpful, the trains ran more-or-less to time

The re-creation of the 1000 first train from Minehead to Blue Anchor on 28th March went very well, with 0-6-0ST "Victor" in the very capable hands of Ray Lee, son of the driver of the day back in 1976 and WSR legend Harry Lee

A weekend of catching up with great friends, reminiscing and enjoying the event.

Someone told me that I am the last survivor of the pre-opening company payroll.  I do spend time thinking of the great people I worked with that we have lost over the years

I'm so please the railway is still there for all to enjoy, even if there's a sadness that our original intention to bring a pbublic service railway back to life between Minehad and Taunton has yet to be achieved

 
Drat: I'd like to be aboard for a Manchester Ship Canal cruise but for good measure, all the way to Manchester and I don't think those happen. Having, in an oil tanker of all things, been across the Barton swing aqueduct, at what must have been 8.30 in the morning, and in the process been what I was informed is called 'Tanked' it would be good to travel beneath it too and be the cause of some other boat being tanked. This year, though, they don't know quite how their ferry fleet will be.

Mark

https://www.merseyferries.co.uk/our-cruises/manchester-ship-canal-cruise/

 

Graham might have used it to get to school !

 
Wow! Who would have thought that the ferry I last used on my first visit to Liverpool back in 1980, which hardly seemed a paragon of modernity back then, would still be in use today.

Two other abiding memories of that trip ,- how cheap the beer was in New Brighton,  and how desperately run down and dilapidated much of Liverpool was back then.  All those politicians and journalists who twitter on today about "Broken Britain " should have seen Liverpool 8 back then.

 

I'd take the Torpoint Ferry over that rusty old tub full of Scousers any day of the week! 

 
Ferry cross the Tamar doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.   

However there is a link.  The Royal Iris was launched in Devon in 1959.

 
From the BBC:


Rather poignant for me: I, too, was 'launched' in 1959, in the Devonport Hospital maternity ward overlooking the ferry there.

 
Community report / what WWRUG would like see and consider reasonable and cost effective
https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/mirror/dmh4wwrug_20260330.pdf

 
Brave decision / perhaps a good green choice.  I do not know much about Austrlian public transport, but I would make an educated guess that doing the same thing in the UK would be several orders of magnitude more expensive, and on a system which at some times is already overcrowded, perhaps making further problems.

But I do commend readers to use public transport.   Their fuel costs also go up, but are a smaller proportion of the cost?

 

If anyone is slooking for it in print, it's in today's Sunday Times, p17.

 

A simple season/rover extension would not be defined as 'split tickets' although one could argue that they are. Split tickets definition generally involves two (or more) single/return journeys, rather than weekly or longer tickets.

However -

This would be a genuine split ticket journey, rather than a season ticket extension....so I would agree with you.

Yes - revenue protection did come through; I was not making use of this clause and did not feel inclined to raise it with them.
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