Time for me to employ The Mortimer and Whitehouse variant , and without fishing for compliments I present to you Taunton.

In which case I'm going to Looe.

Early in the round I know,however using the  Armitage Shanks gambit ,I see your Dawlish Warren,and raise you Bridgwater.

I'll give you a starter of Bude - from GWR's virtual branch lines.

First Group plc Regulatory Announcement

8 years (with 2 year option) from 3rd May 2026 to operate all the London Overground network (those operated by class 378 and 710 trains)

Although obviously a joke, has made me think, could some senior First Group staff currently involved with GWR franchise/management contract, transfer to their new Overground concession to run that instead.

Not a lot of reason to stay with GWR, if at risk when GWR is nationalised later in 2026

.....and maybe one or two staff shortages? 

09/12/25 23:45 London Paddington to Penzance due 07:55 was terminated at Truro.

It will no longer call at Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Erth and Penzance.
This is due to flooding.

Mornington Crescent is a game featured in the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" (ISIHAC). The game consists of each panellist in turn announcing a landmark or street, most often a tube station on the London Underground system. The ostensible aim is to be the first to announce "Mornington Crescent", a station on the Northern line.

A few snippets of where they are with the nationalised operators were included in DfTs launch of GBR

SWR some upgrades of 159s between now and 2028  (so going nowhere soon)

South Eastern procurement by mid 2026 for metro routes to replace networkers

Northern contract for ordering over 130 trains during 2027 (subject to a business case)

Transpennine : no mention of the proposed 29 trains


https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/gbr-improvements-train-operators-in-public-ownership-are-making-for-customers

GWR is not yet nationalised, so nothing about when GWR might get something to replace its 33-40 year old DMU fleet and aging night stock.

Date set for challenge over second Gatwick runway

A legal challenge over plans for a second runway at Gatwick Airport is set to be heard in January, a High Court judge has said.

The privately-funded scheme, costing £2.2bn, will see the airport move its emergency runway 12m (39ft) north, enabling it to be used for about 100,000 more flights a year.

Campaign group Communities against Gatwick Noise Emissions (Cagne) and chairman of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign Peter Barclay are taking legal action against the Department for Transport (DfT) over Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander's decision to approve plans.

The DfT and the airport's owner, Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL), are opposing the challenge, which will begin on 20 January 2026. At a hearing on Tuesday, Mr Justice Mould said the case would be heard over four days.

Estelle Dehon KC, for Cagne, had asked the court for the challenge to be heard in February or March due to barristers for the group being unavailable in January, resulting in an "inequality of arms".

But Mr Justice Mould said that while he was "not oblivious" to the group's concerns, the date would not change. He said: "It is in the highest degree desirable that it should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. I am afraid I have to be pretty hard-nosed about this, and I appreciate this will create inconvenience to quite a number of people in the room."

Announcing its legal challenge in November, Cagne said there was a failure to properly evaluate the significance of inbound flight emissions and to assess the effect of non-carbon dioxide emissions on the climate.

In written submissions for Tuesday's hearing, Nigel Pleming KC, for the DfT, said some of Mr Barclay's and Cagne's arguments were "irrefutably unarguable".

James Strachan KC, for GAL, said in written submissions: "GAL first applied for development consent in July 2023, almost two-and-a-half years ago, and GAL is keen to begin the development which has been granted consent. It is obviously contrary to the public interest that (unmeritorious) litigation such as these claims should unnecessarily delay national infrastructure projects such as the proposed development."

That rolling stock strategy is due out next summer, according to Lord Hendy. It sounds as though she actually knows about it, which is encouraging in a transport minister.

Well at least they ain't wastin' time no more - they're southbound. But enough of my ramblin', man.

Exclusive: Londoners face inflation-busting 5.8% rise in Tube fares

At a glance
• TfL fares are likely to rise by 5.8% next March, as required by the Government’s funding deal (RPI + 1), meaning no freeze for Tube, Overground, Elizabeth line or Travelcards despite the national rail fares freeze

• Typical Tube fares will increase by 5p–20p, raising, for example, a Zones 1–2 peak fare from £3.50 to £3.70, but bus fares may be protected

• City Hall says the above-inflation rise is tied to securing £2.2bn in funding, with money from fares and road-user charges helping to fund new Piccadilly line trains and the DLR expansion

Tube fares in London are set to rise by an inflation-busting 5.8 per cent, Sir Sadiq Khan has confirmed to The Standard.

The mayor made clear that the national rail fare freeze would not result in a similar freeze in Transport for London fares from next March.

It means that passengers using rail services in London, such as the Elizabeth line and the London Overground, will not benefit from the national rail fares freeze.

Nor will passengers who use Travelcards, as the cost of these “combined” tickets – which cover national rail services and TfL services – are also expected to increase by a similar amount.

It could mean the cost of a single Zones 1-2 Tube ticket, for example, between Highbury & Islington and Oxford Circus, would increase from £3.50 to £3.70 for a peak-hours journey and from £2.90 to £3.10 off-peak.

A zones 1-6 Tube journey, such as from Uxbridge to Baker Street, could increase from £5.80 to £6.15 at peak times and from £3.80 to £4.05 off-peak.

Tube fares only increase by 5p or 10p or similar increments, meaning the precise increase may be above or below the 5.8 per cent overall average.

Sir Sadiq said a rise equivalent to one percentage point above the RPI rate of inflation was a condition of the £2.2bn capital funding deal that TfL secured from Chancellor Rachel Reeves in June’s spending review.

He said this requirement – which requires above-inflation fare rises every year until the end of the decade – was “not unreasonable” and was “fair”.The mayor takes the national fare changes into consideration when he sets TfL fares for the forthcoming year.

In March this year, when national rail fares rose by 4.6 per cent, most TfL fares – other than bus fares - increased by the same amount.

However, mayoral sources pointed to four years of partial fares freezes pre-pandemic - and a fifth year before the 2024 mayoral election - as evidence that the mayor did not always replicate what happened nationally.

Last month, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander decided to freeze “regulated” rail fares – those typically paid by commuters – from March 2026, the first freeze in national rail fares in 30 years.

Asked by The Standard whether he would be able to replicate the national rail fares freeze when he sets TfL fares, the mayor made clear this was not an option.

Speaking at the launch of a new ferry across the Thames, Sir Sadiq said: “What Government didn’t announce was individual cities freezing their fares.

“Londoners know that when we had the deal with the Government on the SR [spending review], the Government gave us £2.2bn – the biggest ever multi-year deal we have received in more than a decade.

“One of the things the Government said was that they’d expect us to raise our fares by RPI+1, which pays for around £450m towards capital investment.

“So that was not an unreasonable request from the Government, because the Government’s contributing hugely. They are not unreasonably saying, as grown-ups, we should also contribute. I think that is fair.”

Exact details of the new fares are likely to be published shortly before Christmas.

Sir Sadiq has a long-established practice of keeping bus fares as low as possible, so an “across the board” hike is not guaranteed.

Asked to clarify that a fares freeze was not on the cards for London, Sir Sadiq said: “No. The DfT were quite clear: the announcement from the Government was for a national rail fares freeze.

“So if you go from Euston to Manchester, or from King’s Cross to Newcastle, that was what the Government’s announcement was for. It wasn’t for travelling within Manchester, travelling within Liverpool, or travel within London.”

Travelcards are also expected to rise as they cover the cost of TfL fares and national rail fares.

But there is a risk that TfL’s share of the revenue from Travelcards may not be as high as expected, because of the national rail fares freeze.

Sir Sadiq said City Hall was talking to DfT and the Treasury to compensate TfL for any “knock-on consequences”.

He said: “The good news is that… we are working with them constructively to make sure there isn’t any adverse consequences on London.”

In her letter to Sir Sadiq in the wake of the June spending review, Ms Alexander stated: “The funding in this settlement is provided against an assumed scenario that overall TfL fares will rise by the value of RPI+1 for each year of this settlement.”

Money raised from fares and road user charges is reinvested by TfL into maintaining and improving the capital’s public transport network.

Fleets of new Piccadilly line and DLR trains are due to enter service in 2026, Oxford Street is set to be part-pedestrianised and planning work will begin on extending the DLR to Thamesmead.

The figure traditionally used for the calculation of fares is the July RPI inflation rate – which this year was 4.8 per cent.

The more commonly used CPI rate of inflation was 3.8 per cent in October.

Regulated train fares are those that are set, or regulated, by the Government, such as commuter fares and season tickets.

They exclude fares that train companies can set by themselves, which include first class tickets and advance tickets.