Why is it, and why ever was it, possible for people and bots to buy-up driving tests slots for resale?

21:16 Westbury to Swindon due 21:58
22:31 Swindon to Westbury due 23:12

22:31 Swindon to Westbury due 23:12 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

Heathrow shutdown cause still unknown, report says

The root cause of a fire which led to the shutdown of Heathrow Airport and affected hundreds of thousands of journeys worldwide "remains unknown", an interim report says.

Heathrow was closed to all flights for much of 21 March after a fire at a nearby electrical substation, which started the previous night, caused a power outage at the airport.

In Thursday's report, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said a transformer disconnected and caught fire at the substation in Hayes, west London.

The grid operator's final report is due by the end of June. Heathrow Airport said it welcomed the interim findings and that it hoped the final report would provide answers on what caused the fire.

The Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism unit carried out an initial investigation into the fire, but Neso noted that detectives found there "no evidence to suggest" the incident was suspicious.

The power outage and subsequent closure of Heathrow led to more than 270,000 journeys being affected.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband shortly after ordered an urgent investigation into the fire to prevent it "from ever happening again", and told Neso to provide its initial findings within six weeks.

Heathrow's management has been criticised for the decision to close the airport and the long shutdown that followed. Neso said power was restored to Heathrow's terminals seven hours before flights resumed.

In a detailed timeline, it said the fire at the North Hyde substation, which was built in the 1960s, started at 23:21 GMT on 20 March and resulted in a "simultaneous loss of connection". The power outage affected 66,919 domestic and commercial customers, including Heathrow Airport, Neso said.

A major incident was declared by the Met Police at 00:42, and Heathrow took the decision to close the airport at 01:11 the following morning.

Neso's chief executive Fintan Slye said: "It is important that the right lessons are learnt from this incident to prevent future instances where possible and to manage them effectively when they do occur."



Power was restored to Heathrow's substations by 06:25 using circuits from another nearby substation, Neso said, and the flow of electricity to all four of Heathrow's passenger terminals was restarted by 10:56. But Flights did not resume until after 18:00 that day, once safety checks were completed. Planes were able to land and take off through the night to allow Heathrow to get back up to full capacity.

Neso said the re-energisation of the entire airport was only fully completed by 14:23. Other customers' power was restored by 12:24, the report said, and supply from the North Hyde substation was reinstated the following day.

Heathrow relies on three electricity substations, and has emergency back-up power supplies, such as diesel generators and batteries - but these only keep crucial safety systems running, such as landing equipment and runway lights.

Heathrow's chief executive Thomas Woldbye previously said the shutdown was caused not by a lack of power but by the time it took to switch from the damaged substation's supply to the other operational substations. Due to Heathrow's "size and operational complexity", managers decided to close the airport on safety grounds while this took place. The airport said at the time that its objective "was to reopen as soon as safely and practically possible after the fire".

Neso confirmed that the restoration of power to the airport was followed by "a period of safety checking" to ensure "safety critical systems were fully operational prior to passengers arriving at the airport".

Heathrow said in a statement: "Further clarity on how the fire started and why two transformers were subsequently impacted can help ensure greater resilience for the UK's energy grid moving forward."



Both the National Grid, which owns the North Hyde substation, and energy firm SSEN, which is responsible for power distribution in the area, said they welcomed the interim findings and would await Neso's full report.

London Fire Brigade (LFB), which sent 70 firefighters, previously said that the substation blaze "involved a transformer containing insulating oil which was fully alight". "This created a significant hazard due to being within a substation containing high-voltage equipment and the challenges of an oil-fuelled fire," it said in a statement. LFB explained crews had to wait for the transformer to cool down "before cutting through the steel casing to reach and extinguish pockets of fire that were inaccessible".

Following the publication of the interim report, Miliband said: "We now await the full report to understand what happened and learn lessons to strengthen UK energy resilience and protect our critical national infrastructure."

8 miles, not 8 hours, surely? 

That aborts my day out then ...  07:45 walk start from Chetnole is out ... GWR booking engine now suggests 11:45 which is about the time I would be completing my 8 hour walk!

CalMac directly awarded new ferry service contract



The contract to run Scotland's west coast ferry services in future has been directly awarded to the existing publicly-owned operator CalMac Ferries Ltd.

The Scottish government said the service would now be focused on a "public service model" instead of being run on a commercial basis.

The latest contract for the Clyde and Hebridean Ferry Service (CHFS) had been due to expire last September but was extended by a year.

Ministers had indicated that a direct award, without a competitive tender, was their preference, but they needed more time to ensure this could be done without a legal challenge.

No details of the contract's value or duration were given, but the previous eight-year contract for the heavily-subsidised ferry service was worth £975m. One estimate has suggested a subsidy of £3.7bn over 10 years would now be required.

CalMac is the UK's biggest ferry operator and has held the most recent contract to run the routes since 2016, serving 50 destinations.

But the firm has struggled in recent years to maintain services with an ageing and increasingly unreliable fleet which it leases from another government-owned firm. Since 2007, the ships and some of the harbours it relies on have been owned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd or CMAL, in a division designed to comply with EU competition rules.

Delays in replacing the older vessels, in part due to the problems with two new dual-fuel ferries ordered a decade ago, have stretched the service almost to breaking point, with many vessels beyond their expected service life.

Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop said the direct award to CalMac signalled a new public service model rather than treating it as a commercial contract. She said this would lead to change that better served the needs of island communities, and she denied it would be seen as a reward for failure.

She told BBC Scotland News: "There are over 170,000 sailings. There have been cancellations, some for technical reasons, some for weather reasons, but the vast majority of CalMac's sailing are delivered very well in indeed. If you talk to islands the support for the frontline services of CalMac staff is very appreciative."

CalMac chief executive Duncan Mackison welcomed the emphasis on treating the Clyde and Hebridean routes as a public service and promised improvements. He said: "During the extension period for the current contract, we recognised the need for change and are already driving change through the expansion of local teams, enhanced community engagement and improved responsiveness to local requirements.".

The Clyde and Hebridean Ferry Service contract is offered as a single "bundle" which the government says has the advantages of protecting less profitable lifeline routes and delivering economies of scale. Critics of that choice have argued that unbundling certain routes and allowing competitive tender would encourage efficiencies.

The Northlink routes to Orkney and Shetland are currently operated by privately-owned Serco, with the government setting fares and service levels and paying the firm a subsidy to make up the difference between costs and revenue.

Hyslop said it was the government's intention to continue putting the Northern Isles services out to competitive tender.

Trade unions have backed the direct award of the west coast routes to the existing publicly-owned operator, with the RMT union calling for a "People's CalMac". The unions have, however, been critical of the government's approach to ferry procurement which has left CalMac with ageing vessels prone to breakdown.

The GMB union also contrasted the direct award to CalMac with the recent £160m small ferries contract that went to tender and was won by a Polish firm rather than the nationalised Ferguson shipyard in Port Glasgow.

GMB Scotland general secretary Louise Gilmour said the government should now merge CalMac and CMAL to encourage a more joined-up approach focused on supporting both ferry services and Scottish industry. "Our islands' need for reliable and modern ferries can drive a healthy and secure shipbuilding and maritime sector," she said. "It seems an obvious ambition with significant economic benefits and one that should not be beyond Scotland's capabilities to deliver."

The Scottish Conservatives said the direct award provided continuity but that CalMac would continue to struggle unless the government provided it with a resilient fleet. The party's transport spokeswoman Sue Webber said: "Islanders have been betrayed by the SNP time and time again, and any ferry provider is only as good as the fleet it has to work with."

(Article continues)

12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 12:59
12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 12:59 is being delayed between Westbury and Trowbridge and is now expected to be 21 minutes late.
This is due to a fault on a train in front of this one.

13:14 Swindon to Westbury due 13:57
13:14 Swindon to Westbury due 13:57 will be starting late from Swindon.
This is due to a fault on a train in front of this one.

Partly due to the section of the London end in your picture corresponding to the 1st class carriages perhaps?

Standing a couple of times recently at Bath Spa station, I am struck by the uneven distribution of people waiting on the platform

In the 1950s did BR really propose replacing Bath Spa with a new station on the site of Westmoreland Road goods station? Also, closing the Midland line between Green Park and the outskirts of the city along with the S&D from Midford, replaced with a spur from the GWR line to the Midland west of the city, and a junction close to the Bath Spa station site serving a new-build double  track line from there beneath Claverton Down to Monkton Combe, rejoining the S&D south of Midford?