Ah, the train manager's just been on with news of the points failure at Sutton Bridge: we're at Newtown at the current back of the queue for the exit from the line... TM was making it sound as though we're here for the next couple of days.

Mark

 
And the first sighting of a buffet trolley: on the lovely class 158 as it left Aberystwyth, with me aboard, by the skin of my teeth. There's a squeaky five minute connection between the bus from the south and the train for Birmingham, and the bus stops across the road. While there's a crossing, to get to that the traveller needs to cross the 'T' of Terrace Road (leading from the station to the front) and like everywhere else, Aber is car sick these days and people on foot need to be assertive to cross in less than a few minutes.

This 158 is now powering up the gradient from Cemmaes Road - reminding me that BR laid on a loco and coaches at peak times from Aber, these would grind up this same slope and would be down to what felt like 10mph at times to the general alarm and despondency of what lineside residents there were.

Just passd Talerddig where the cutting is these days trimmed, netted and nailed back and if there's a loop there I had the impression that there was something that wasn't a passenger train in it. Perhaps this, perhaps not.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:H20736/2026-01-02/detailed

Mark

 

I suspect you're right. But every member of staff I've encountered so far has seemed somewhat unfamiliar with the ticket. As this is the day of it's issue its validity is explicit, but I'll follow this up for the ensuing days.

Mark

 
Now on the T1 bus from Carmarthen, which as it turns out is electric.

I'm attempting to journal all this on this Bluesky thread. (A few photos there include blue sky too...)

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/markannand.bsky.social/post/3mbgdkul46k25

 
I thought rovers/rangers with multi-day validity - when printed on 'ordinary' stock - come with a second coupon that had 31 day boxes printed on it, and you completed each day by filling in the box? the mag strip didn't function in the barriers & you had to produce both coupons to staff in order to proceed?

 

Enjoy!

The magnetic stripe will have a ticket ID on it, and when you scan the barriers at Llanshamlet, Llanwrtyd, Llwyngwril or Llanfairechan it will send a message to TfW HQ that the ticket was used on that day.  So if you try to get onto the platform at Tygwyn for a fifth day, the barrier will bleep.

 
The ticketing: a Wales explorer, on the trains, has a 4 in 8 day validity, and this one is printed on the ordinary stock, has no machine readable code, so it isn't immediately apparent as to how it will record which days I've used it.

Just leaving Cardiff across the Taff, skies are clearing. On train wifi is stable (neither of GWRs on train wifi was working)

Mark

 
Bailed out of the train from Bristol at Newport a.k.a the house of freezing steel, particularly for staff working the buffet there, as the station's design directs the airflow from the entrance to the bridge straight through their unheated workplace. Now on the toasty and very well lit stopper as far as Carmarthen, so, for the moment, plan 'A' again. Behind this train, the late running GWR service to Carmarthen, now only 15 minutes late after a quick turnaround at BRI.

Mark

 
Highlight so far, on the approach to Bristol Temple Meads, many cold LEDs to the left of the train, but behind them, this great orb, the nearly full moon, low in the sky and behind trees, an entirely different quality of light.

Also, respect to the chap in the ticket office at Bath Spa, on duty since six am, and at a quarter to seven the rail rover he needed to find for me was his first sale of the day.

Mark

 
Well, that's the theory. The 07:15 from Bath Spa to Carmarthen is currently half an hour late and passing Freshford: I caught the 06:57 stopper to Bristol (also a 5 carriage IEP) which lived up to its name, waited outside BTM, then crawled to the far end of the station. As I walked back in the direction of the roofed area, a train to Swansea departed but I did make the... ~07:20 stopper to Cardiff (also a 5 car IEP and currently sitting on the approach to Lawrence Hill as the direct train from Bath Spa to Bristol Parkway has contrived to run late but has been allowed to get ahead of this one. The train manager is slightly irked.)

Plan 'A' was to head for Carmarthen and then Shrewsbury via Lampeter and Aberystwyth. That'll be out the window + I'm also intending to visit friends should the chance arise. It might be possible to travel via the H***t of W****s line (and there is also a plan 'C').

Or I could stick to Plan 'A' which would now involve stopping at every station between Bath Spa and Carmarthen which must be some sort of a record.

Mark