Why not Titfield Thunderbolt on the tenner, Thomas the Tank Engine on a fiver, Ivor the Engine on the £20 and Hogwarts Express on the £50?
:-)

 
The satellite view of the route: the out-of-use railway passing acres and acres of new vehicles of one kind or another parked up nose to tail... an eloquent commentary on the UK's transport priorities.

Does anyone know if the vehicle storage there is largely short-stay or is it the case that cars are imported and then suffer the fate of being, well, marooned is the wrong word as it suggests isolation, and there's thousands of them?

Mark

 

By 2028 the 175’s will, one hopes, be in service. This will presumably help. Is it naive to hope that in two and a half years there might be some improvement to the current crewing problems?

 
From the context, I don’t think it’s too big a stretch to imagine that the three stations referred to are on the Portishead Line. Portishead and Pill are baked in, but the plans have passive provision for Ashton Gate - close to the Stadium. There is no committed funding for this, but it has been mentioned by the WECA mayor recently.

 

That's how I read it.


Perhaps it should launch as a weekday only service to start with!?

Anyway, positive news, though there have been so many false dawns with this project before I can't help but think it will still have some hoops to jump through!

 

The signallers are able to enter any 4 digit alpha-numeric code.  I notice that one of the sidings at Westbury has a ground position signal W706, so I wouldn't be surprised that it was a short notice light engine shunt move to the Down Siding 1 that signal is located on. 

That would explain why it vanished as not all ground position signals at Westbury have berths (including W706), so headcodes will often vanish.

 
Are you 100% about the code, was it something from an earlier view of the website?

Only trains passing non commuter were:
6A12  / 6A18 Whatley Quarry to Appleford approx 1017
5U73  Empty 9 car IET from Westbury to Stoke Gifford approx 1021

 
Today (8th July) whilst watching the disruption/melee at Westbury between 0930 and 1020 on Opentimetrains, I saw a code T706 enter Wesbury via platform 1 and rapidly go towards Warminster.
It then vanished.

I can find no service with that code.
Any thoughts please.

 

Not really clear is it, could even read the loosely worded 3 stations as the new Wellington, Cullompton and Haxby.

Originally there were following on the line (not all open at same time) Bedminster and Parson Street (rebuilt in 1930s with two islands about 220m long, as part of quadrupling through to branch junction), then on actual branch had Ashton Gate, Clifton Bridge, Nightingale Valley Halt, Ham Green Halt, Pill, Portbury Shipyard, Portbury and Portishead.

Portbury (adjacent to M25 junction 19) would probably make a good Park and Ride location (if they could build a multi storey car park for some of the car import terminals thus freeing up land), although there is risk might end up stealing rail journeys from further south with people driving to junction 19 instead

 
I was just going to add a note to this thread about reports that the Chinese have built an ekranoplan. Here is one from Aerotime:

Supposedly the China Sea is small (and flat?) enough that such a thing might serve to shift an army across it to a beach in short order. Those reports also mentioned the DARPA programme called Liberty Lifter, aiming for a bigger one able to cross oceans. And then guess what - yesterday DARPA announced the abrupt closure of that pgroramme. In Aviation week:

Hard to keep up, isn't it?

 
I think the three stations are Wellington, Cullompton and Haxby near Liverpool. I would have thought a W&C Parkway might have made more sense, but some tanked up lager louts might have other ideas!

 

Is there any commitment to employ enough trained staff to run a train service reliable enough for people to use once the line and stations are provided?

 
Source: gov.uk press release

Three stations... so Portishead, Pill and, er..?

 
 I'd very much like to see the Titfield thunderbolt on a £10 note .

 
Rather fortunate that the same hara-kiri isn't expected of British Transport Ministers/Civil Servants when they get the chop or have to resign due to some past/recent misdemeanour or incompetence - there would be scarcely a lamppost on Whitehall without a (highly subsidised!) body dangling from it! 

 

Commonplace indeed.   There was no shock over the weekend that half the service was lost, and no external cause - "act of god" - to explain it.

The industry's position is indeed odd, and frustrating.

 
Finally finally finally...the green light has been given along with a whole raft of other rail and road improvements. The government has put in a further £27 million. Just the final business case approval and it will be spades in the ground....

 
Pity the 769s couldn't have been fitted with batteries.  Porterbrook likely to be looking for homes for yhe class 350/2's and they did suggest fitting these units with batteries

 

Now I would have said the Penydarren Engine was better known - and not just because this stands just down the road from me:

 

But it was in France not really a UK railway problem

 
Former Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit has committed suicide on the day of his dismissal.
Starovoit's death was confirmed by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. They reported that the former minister's body with a gunshot wound was found in the Odintsovo municipal district in his personal car. Russian investigators say they are investigating the circumstances of his death.
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Telegram channels report that a firearm was found next to the body, and the preliminary cause of Starovoit's suicide is a possible criminal case involving violations during the construction of fortifications in Kursk Oblast.
Mash reports that Starovoit signed a decision by the region's operational headquarters to allow the Kursk Oblast Development Corporation to spend 19 billion roubles (US$241 million) and select subcontractors itself.
In addition, the investigation is checking the possibility of Starovoit's involvement in violations in the procurement of medicines for hospitals in the oblast and in the "failed transport reform" in Kursk, which failed to repair tram tracks and deliver new carriages.

Starovoit was testified against by the former head of Kursk Oblast, Alexei Smirnov, who was arrested in a case involving the embezzlement of 1 billion roubles (US$12 million). The same was done by the former director general of the corporation, Vladimir Lukin, and former Kursk head deputy Maxim Vasilyev, who was involved in the construction business. Both are currently in pre-trial detention.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin dismissed Starovoit on the morning of 7 July.

 

Glad to have met your expectations. 

 

Just as I suspected.

 

The Class 76 (EM1) and Class 77 (EM2) locomotives used on the Woodhead route predate the Class 81. They were 1.5kV DC. The Class 81s were the first fleet of 25kV AC locomotives.

 

No evidence that I can post. 

I to have seen the latest joint communication.  I would have grave concerns regarding the process if I was a GWR driver.  Let’s just say, your DDC isn’t as strong as it use to be. 

 
Mr Hutson must have a holiday booked for next month. Plans for cable-cars and pods - nice touch sort of combining them - usually come out in August, when the Post traditionally has nothing else worth reporting on.

 

Not for the airport (though it might manage gradients) but do not rule out the Wuppertal system for suspension about the Avon - I have suggested it for Bath in the past, from Park and Ride at Batheaston Meadows to the Park and Ride at Newbridge.   Hands will be thrown up in horror of course, though I would bet that if it had been installed in Victorian times, it would be a major part of the cit's heritage and hands would be thrown up in horror at taking in down / closing it.   It is, of course, steel wheels on Steels rails, Red Squirrel - just that the rails are above the passengers not below them!

 
I thought people just wasted their time with stories like that on April Fools day

 
The system's capacity of 480 passengers/hour seated (or 780 with some extra standing) could arguably be said to be inadequate for a mass transport system for an increasingly busy airport.  Also sharing the route above the main line between Parson Street and Bristol Temple Meads may raise a few eyebrows at NR/GBR.

 
This, for what it's worth, seems to fit into the category 'Dangleway' according to the Gareth Dennis flowchart. For those who haven't come across it before, it's here:


Image ©Gareth Dennis (see https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1534621173027323904)