Rail Avent carries an article about an experiment in Switzerland placing solar panels down the middle of railway lines.  It's hoped that success would generate enough power for 300,000 households or 30% of the power needed for public transport.

Article link below.

https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2025/04/switch-on-for-worlds-first-on-track-solar-power.html

 
Three photos I took at the time. I will look for the Cl 31 I took from the top of the chimney that day

 
The lineside fire related disruption bit Bath rugby going home time, a bit of a queue outside the station and at least one bus driver being generous to people travelling back to places that suddenly had no train service. The bus station wasn't quite coping with the volume of people some of which were displaced from the trains and some *waves at the bus to Wells* definitely weren't.

Mark

 

I was ... a little surprised ... by the high proportion of passengers arriving at Penryn, apparently long distance and with substantial luggage, the other afternoon.  Really big flow to Penmere too, and a lot more to Falmouth Town; hardly anyone left on the train down to Docks.   Really shouldn't be surprised if I look at the ticket sales stats.

I have now travelled to or through every National Rail station bar one in Cornwall in the first 4 months of this year - not all stopping - and all except the "top" of one branch in Devon.  Through all passenger stations in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire and all stations bar one in Gloucestershire within the last 9 months.  Been on quite a lot of buses too.   Tired, but at least some (statistically insignificant) views and thoughts.  I am suspecting I won't be on a train again for the whole of the rest of this month.

 

 

And if you're canny, your best members of staff too.

 

Having lived and worked around the world with generally chaotic TV (Australia was by far the worst), I will gladly keep paying the licence fee if that keeps the mind-killing commercials off the screen.

 

Rather.....the DfT/taxman.....

 

Quite a lot of push back at the council, both in the planning application comments and also elsewhere about *that* decision, and from a wide geographical area too. Weymouth Super Snail ride to be found on Youtube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8QBtk88SVs

Mark

 
What a curious place to dump that. It'll suit the council, mind. There's an entire chapter to be written on visitor attraction retendering processes and not all good, as the operators of, for example, a certain miniature railway knows to their cost, having had a narrow escape from oblivion, though I can't recall if it was a retendering or simply a lease renewal.

Mark

 
As mentioned above, the Super Snails aren’t returning to the beach this year:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4grege0e0zo

 
From the BBC:

 
Looking at Swindon, the weekday timetable has four coaches a day between London, Swindon, Cheltenham and Gloucester, (three on Sundays), perhaps that's the new service that involves Swindon.

(Flixbus's web site's 'Network map' is actually a map of their destinations rather than their routes, so it takes a while to find that the route between say Cardiff and Swindon isn't quite sensible - it involves a change at Heathrow).

Mark

 

Young sir, you are again prone to a little exaggeration, the odd fillet steak or even Beef Wellington, perhaps followed by a glass of port, is hardly a rock n roll lifestyle !

 

I had heard of that and was disappointed that it's no longer the case. After the event, a web search hasten me to https://starcross-fcc.co.uk which does at least invite / state a tolerance of guests to use their restaurant provided you do't get in the way of members.   There is also a lot more about the pumping station at https://www.nationaltransporttrust.org.uk/heritage-sites/heritage-detail/starcross-atmospheric-pumping-station?lr=1

 

Your rock n roll lifestyle is well documented within these pages Broadgage! 

 
From the Swindon Advertiser

 
The Starcross pumping house was once a museum to show the Atmospheric Railway system, opened in 1982. You could access the roof for a panoramic view of the estuary, good for photographing the Cl 31 which passed while I was there.

 
Happy to pay for a BBC licence.

 
Found myself in Penryn earlier this month, accompanying grandson for his University interview. It was his first long train journey.

The day went well with grandson being given a good offer a couple of days afterwards.
We suffered from poor regulation leaving Exeter. We were a few minutes down and due to pass the all stations to Paignton at Dawlish Warren. For some reason that was not held and we followed it under yellows all the way to Newton Abbott, at a cost of 10 minutes and subsequently losing our path over the Tamar Bridge, which cost an other three minutes. We still managed to connect with our planned train at Truro.
Interesting to see the passing loop system at the station.(photo)

The campus was a pleasant walk up the hill through the grounds, with plenty of time before Jack’s interview. Tremough House was originally owned by the Foxe family and has extensive landscaped gardens. The pedestrian and cyclist entry takes you through these.

The return journey  went well and we decided to take time at Exeter to walk to the Mill on the Exe for refreshment. One advantage of Jack now being 18, however I still paid!

 
Head for Points have just done their review

https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/04/23/gwr-rewards/
Great Western Railway is trialling GWR Rewards – and it’s far too generous
Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

Great Western Railway is trialling a loyalty programme, GWR Rewards, in a new departure for the rail operator.

Unlike some rail loyalty schemes (I’m looking at you, LNER, with your 2% cashback offering) this is generous.

Perhaps too generous, to be honest …. you may want to reap the benefits whilst you can.

........snip........

 

Calamity and HS2 are never far apart.

 
*Anecdote klaxon*

Dover, not Brighton, but, fond memories of pre-channel tunnel days and two American customers leaving a conference in Paris and needing to meet me in Oxford that evening - for good measure I was involved in an event at Greenwich.

At Dover, advised them to head for the late afternoon loco and carriages heading for... I can't remember. I left Greenwich and headed to Chatham, waited for said loco and carriages, met them on the train, and as it made its way across from South London to the GWML, was able to include in the general conversation a briefing on how best to thrive during their forthcoming week's holiday.

The only fly in the ointment was that this was 1986, the UK government had just allowed America to fly from I think it was fairford to bomb Libya and on hearing my companions' accents there was a bit of a frisson in the railway carriage. Shortly after that, I took a bike ride in the Upper Thames Valley above Lechlade and local feelings were being forcibly expressed and not only in several of the churches there. Said bike ride was then somewhat curtailed when on minor country lanes, encounters with a series of rather cold police - this was summer, so, not cold in the physical sense - more in the sense of the reception they gave me.

Dragging this, screaming, back on topic, the Saturday train that ran the Dover - Oxford leg before heading off further north was at least eight carriages and possibly more and was very comfortably busy throughout. Forty years on, the network has changed and Eurostar will be carrying some of those people, but, turning to Brighton, the proposed service will surely find cheerful loadings to and from the south coast. Presumably it will be a fit with the capacity and current services between Reading and Redhill?

Mark

 

That would be a big step forward, I'm thinking of one particular route that apparently isn't mapped as permitted but that for certain services offers the fastest journey between the end points. *Waves at Gloucester-and-points-north to Bath Spa via Swindon*

Mark

 
Personal views ...

Many easements that I'm aware of have come into use because of a horrid infrequency of direct trains - journeys like from Cheltenham Spa and south thereof to Bromsgrove allowing double-backs, and journeys to and from Dilton Marsh doubling back st Westbury or Warminster.  Once direct hourly or better direct services are offered, the easement becomes developed out of making sense.   Open another platform at Pilning and the easement to double back to get there if arriving from / through Patchway (or noting the lines are bi-directional, run some services "wrong line") and you can clear away another easement.

"Any permitted" is a joke of a use of the English language.   It's a tautology and every ticket is permitted to be used on any route on which it is permitted - duh! ... Agreed that the permission may be "via Bath Spa" on a particular ticket but even when that's added to the ticket, it is still permitted to be used by any route on which it is permitted to be used!

I would favour a return of the term "any reasonable route" and to define that carefully to reduce any confusion. To be clear, "any reasonable route" would start with any train scheduled to get you to your destination, with intermediate changes if need be, ahead of any other route.   And an "any reasonable route" ticket should be always available.

That "any reasonable route" would overcome - for example - those very silly suggestions from booking engines (clue - it's called a booking engine because people want to book tickets) that tell you of a travel opportunity but then tell you "no tickets available".  Try Melksham to Chepstow.    Or try (but the booking engine does not offer it) Melksham to Bristol Parkway where much the fastest is a usually a single change at Swindon.

A slower route with fewer (or no) changes should be allowed to, and a slower route which moves the interchange station (s) between services that are fit for the less able - that includes disabled, but also those with heavy luggage, babes in prams, arms or tummies who are less able but not classified as disabled - and indeed allow anyone to make those extended changes.

 

Which is excellent if your government XC contract runs out in 202x and you want to continue to use your expertise in providing train services to a customer base with similar metrics - snd indeed the same customer base.

Brigthon snd Gatwick to the Midlands and north of England is a known / identified market from the past - noting the 1S76 - http://www.1s76.com


Fond memories of a summer day in 1997 or 1998 when I was on a narrow boat at Hatton with a gang of teenagers and Lisa flew in from there then-home of Florida with Freddy Laker to Gatwick and took the trains to join us at Hatton, where we had worked up the flight first thing in the morning snd were waiting on the Grand Union.

 
This is very sad, but I feel that the deceased was largely to blame for this accident.
 Learning points include, do not get stupidly drunk.
After moderate drinking be especially careful near trains and near roads.
There seems little that London transport could have done to prevent this accident, perhaps exclude those who are very drunk from underground stations !

I have been known to drink too much, but never to the point of placing myself or others in significant danger.

 
I don't think there has been a widespread change since the concept of permitted routes was brought in as part of rail privatisation, though there has been some tightening up such as various journeys now being only "VIA YORK" as part of the LNER single tickets-only change which previously had much greater flexibility.  Easements do change, but generally on a temporary basis to take account of engineering work. 
It is I would say increasingly hard to spot useful alternatives to the obvious route, thanks to the National Rail Journey Planner being dumbed down to look pretty on a phone.  Even if you know an alternative route exists, it can be quite a battle to fool the algorithms to show the journey by using via points as just a few minutes extra on the journey time can render alternatives invisible.  In fairness most people would just be confused or irritated by being shown times they don't need, but perhaps a "show me everything however ludicrous" option should be offered.  Otherwise it can be a case of wading through the whole Routing Guide documentation, now held at https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/routeing-guide/.

 
Well, services were improving to hourly or better and clockface in BR days, long before "any reasonable route" became "any permitted route" and the Routeing Guide came into existence.

The thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/national-routeing-guide-update.99396/ starts in 2014, and the oldest I can find on the forum is from 2007: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/routeing-guide-easements.14305/

While these cover at-the-time changes, I don't know of any record of the cumulative effect of all the changes. I suspect that it would be difficult to research, especially as there are non-Guide changes that affect the choice of permitted routes. For example:

• Timetable changes that add or remove through services
• Some journeys not having an "any permitted" route option (only fares for specified routes)