Very sad 

 

From my email

 
Understable with lines closed all over the place by lines that are flooded.  Not, as far as I can see, on the lines these trains would have used but these of all the services over the line are those which probably have the most complex stock and crew rostering

 

The driver of the bus was very understanding.

Mark

 

 
Put here as no board for HEX services, and now operated by GWR under contract, not TfL.

From Rail magazine


..../continues

Horrendous

 
DO NOT TRAVEL warnings now issued -

PAD - BRI

PAD - South Wales

Exeter & Barnstaple

HFD - WOS

 

 
https://www.pecorama.co.uk/

 
From where we live, near Montpelier Station, it's a fairly pleasant and almost semi-rural walk through Narroways Nature Reserve and Narroways Road to Ikea. You can drop in at Wah Yee Hong if you need to top up on noodles etc, or follow a rather lonely path alongside the embankment that led to the Thirteen Arches of yore.

You will, as Witham Bobby points out, struggle to carry home bedroom suite. But you could choose one to be sent round, or just treat yourself to one of their astonishingly cheap Full Swedish breakfasts...

 
But is it better to try & run (& then fail) or to advise in advance & not trap anyone away from 'home'?

That's the conundrum, and a very difficult one - especially so in weather like today's where there may not be any available road transport should you try & run & find you can't.....

 
There are a number of peak summer scheduled PAD-NQY services to cover most of that demand.

 

Unless you wanted to head to Alvechurch or Redditch in my example, or to Herefordshire from Great Malvern or points east.

I realise its a huge conundrum.  But I'm pretty sure stopping the show when the weather turns adverse, but not impossibly so, is not the answer.  People need a robust train service, not one that hides in a tunnel when the rain falls

 
How do you get on, carrying your Rakeestad 3-door wardrobe flatpack on your back, as you board the bus?

 
tl:dr - it's doable, but...

Yes, really. It's a bit of a challenge though, sitting as it does alongside the M32 and cosying up to an urban retail centre and associated car parks.

Travelwest's app didn't quite cut it as it suggested rail all the way, with quite a hike from the stations at each end. Google maps didn't find Bristol's 25 bus route either and suggested a lengthy hike beneath the M32. Dragging info on Bristol's 25 bus to the top - then found that the route only had one bus allocated to it - which was running a quarter of an hour behind time for what should have been a half hourly bus but was now hourly.

A forty minute wait at the stop closest to Bristol bus station had sightlines to two different passenger information displays, which were each giving information that conflicted one with the other, both promising the number 25 in ten minutes, then five, then two, then 'Due' - and then, off the screen it vanished. After which, rinse and repeat. During the wait, any heavy vehicle that hit the extensive length of  damaged road surface there produced an alarming resonance and bounce beneath my feet at the bus stop c. 8 metres away and made me wonder if there was a risk of something going through the road and dropping into the culverted river Frome there.

Bristol's 25 is a shortish route that serves a string of not well off areas and people and mid-way, passes the back of the retail centre, with a pair of bus stops on a crossable road that are a five minute walk to IKEA involving stairs (which isn't particularly well signed, Openstreetmap's standard map can help here with the walking route, and then their transport layer can help with the location of the bus stop).

Knowing the other bus stop from sight, I left the bus at the stop on the wee bit of dual carriageway close to the motorway, which turned out to be not the best place as the stop is across the road from the destination - myself and half a dozen other people then crossed the queueing traffic there rather than hike down to the lights-controlled crossing 50 metres away and back up again and we'd all have been better off alighting at the rather anonymous previous stop.

**Old Railway interlude - behind that stop, the scant remains of the embankment approach to the vanished 13 arches viaduct on that line from Fishponds that ran across in the direction of Clifton Down.**

Then, into IKEA, on a quest that turned out to be successful, and back through the retail centre to that more convenient bus stop and another 40 minute wait, though things were looking up, as a second bus and driver had been sourced for the route.

It was raining, the stop had a shelter but was strangely wet - it turned out that there was a large puddle very close to the slope-edged raised kerb, well known to vehicle miscreants - the driver of the grey discovery that shortly appeared and floored it, swinging in to include the puddle and sending about 5 litres of water into the bus shelter. (Thankfully neither I nor the other intending passengers were in it at the time but I'm irked that I didn't get their numberplate, and the incident caused that other passengers to decide that perhaps it was a good idea to walk to the train at Stapleton Road instead of waiting for the distant 25 bus). Four passengers arrived, were cautioned about the puddle peril, a general conversation ensued... and after 40 minutes the 25 hauled into sight having been accurately displayed on the tracking as it went to its terminus and back and the very full bus headed back into Bristol, where it passes the (rather congested***) bus station.

From there, onto an X39 back to Bath. Bristol's road works are a permanent fixture aren't they. The X39, though, made reasonable progress and actually made a good connection with Bath's first 6a of the evening.

So, yes, IKEA, doable but not for first-time users of buses perhaps - and the retail park's design's treatment of those nearest bus stops isn't the best.

Mark

*** Noooh idea how people manage bus congestion at undersized underspecced bus stations.

 

The trouble is that it's in Latin, and I don't speak Latin per se.

 
Over an inch of rain here since midnight - prior to today we had only had 14 inches all year!

 
I put I don't know, not because I don't but because my answer does not fit any of the above.

I have no problem with Overground Underground names or even TfL Rail.  They are marketing labels that make no difference. 

I don't care whether Overground or TfL services are run by GBR or TfL so long as they work.

I don't have a problem with the legacy of Network South East but I do have a problem with the pricing outside its area as they is why anytime fares are so high outside Network South East because they were never controlled fares. However extending it won't solve the legacy problems. It needs fares reform. 

 
It isn't - just cutting services short in order to stand a better chance of running to time

 

This service had already been amended to run from Paddington to only Great Malvern.  Now it's somewhat more truncated

The return working:


EDIT: to add the return working

 
Certainly in Exeter things are getting better albeit very slowly. Our local service, a circular route through the city centre via mainly significant residential areas, was fairly recently increased from 4 (2 in each direction) to 6 (3 obviously) on weekdays between 07:00 and 18:00.

And on my return journey last night - BSO concert at the University - both buses were equipped with audio/visual PIS' displaying service id and next stop information.

Stagecoach are unfortunately still having problems recruiting sufficient drivers to enable the delivery of 100% of services.

 

We used to call it "weather".  "Weather" would arrive without doom-laden advance announcements

Here in Worcestershire, the railway service between Longbridge and Redditch has been replaced today by a bus service, because of the weather.  I can't see why a bus service would be any less prone to incident than would a railway service

 

There are sections of DfT and ORR who are being moved into GBR, the devolution of local / metro services is a distinct possibility

 

I think you are mistaken in that the DfT, having transferred the services to GBR, will then move them again to the elected mayors.

Yes, the mayors will have overall control of what services are offered in their Metro areas, but I think that'll remain through 'requests' to GBR.

 

Only to Worcester Forgate Street (via Evesham) These days.

 
My thoughts on the direction of travel (pun intended  ) of the current Government with the devolution to an elected Mayor structure of local Government is to hand over the "Metro" type of services to the Mayors / local authorities.

So I can see for instance in London the remaining, mainly the Southern Region (SE Trains, Southern, SWT) Metro services being transferred to TfL, leaving the more regional and intercity with GBR.  The National infrastructure will I feel remain with GBR (former Network Rail)

Whether the all changes will take place this side of the next 2029 General Election is the question, certainly some will where the ToC is part of GBR

 
In 2025, Network Southeast is a magnificent quirk, yes. That said, a permanent debt of gratitude to Chris Green for what he did there, but as to its quirkiness, it reminds me of the arrangements for fares out in... is it the direction of Amersham, where, is there a faint fingerprint of commercial arrangements between the Metropolitan Railway and the long-vanished Great Central?

Mark

 
So basically just like any other November day in the past