Great Western Coffee Shop

I've been missing for a bit. Does anyone know where I've been from these pictures?

1.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/46874100345_cd0d2d926a_c.jpg)

Unusual to be able to see a station and almost all of the route in one photograph.

2.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/32847060507_f7b7e1084a_c.jpg)

A gentle seaside view.

3.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47738338982_1220c208b1_c.jpg)

Lighter rail for the lighter side.

2. Severn Beach Line, just north of St Andrews Road station?  ::)

1.  Lynmouth.

2.  Dawlish.

3.  Manchester.

  ;) :D ;D

Future projects ... showing what might be by 2030 at ...

1. Uig Harbour
2. Clevedon
3. Bath

Not so far west, and the SVB isn't electrified yet .


Lynmouth is on the right track, so to speak, and Dawlish is the reason why I posted the second picture. Manchester's trams are yellow, and a bit younger.

Why does no-one take TonyK seriously any more? ;)

It is a bit of a curve ball, to be sure. As for not taking me seriously, I was a little concerned that my recent change of forum moniker could have unintended effects! 😂

Ok. Look:

1. Penang

Now then come on you lot be nice!

Good guess, young Squirrel! No malaise with you!

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/46874105235_ba9d028b71_c.jpg)

I shall wait a short while for the denouement to give others who may recognise either of the two other locations a chance. Then I shall explain myself.

Guess? I like to call it being praeternaturally good with Google...

Time travel to future electrification has once again been my undoing. 😧

You are not alone, I'm sure. Maybe that stretch of the SVB already looks like that in a parallel universe running a few decades fast.

It's so true, in that one Forest Green Rovers are Premiership champions and my Happy Hammers have won the World Cup... again! 😮

Do you mean one of those operations where Tony becomes Tonia/Tonya ?? :o

Out of interest, did you bump into any Bristolian politicians while you were out there?

Aha - your no. 3 is at Kagoshimachuoekimae Station, showing a Kagoshima City Tram - which surprisingly enough is in Kagoshima City (Kyushu Island, Japan).

Johnneyw has leaked us a spoiler from the next Marvel film, in which the evil Rogue Referee tries to thwart FGR's victory by taking them back to the 1950s and making them play with a leather ball!

Since this thread has already segued from trams to not being taken seriously, this might even be relevant. Did anyone else spot this example of the Belgians acting up to their historical association with surrealism? From the NT News (https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/brussels-hosts-tram-bowling-competition-during-european-train-conductors-championship/video/f999cebca8255dce532fdc110a79ba4c):

The Twitter video referred to appears to be this one (https://twitter.com/PaulMcNally/status/1124664609846251520/video/1) - and there's even an official website (https://tramem.eu/?page&lang=en) (though still showing as before the event). From that, it seems this was actually a German invention - first held in Dresden in1912 - which also rather fits with their stereotype. As the site says, with the straightest face it can muster, "If it`s true that nobody can resist an idea whose time has come, then the competition of the best European tram drivers will be one of the highlights of public life in the larger European cities.".

Absolutely correct - well spotted! (Or googled). The Dawlish-esque railway line is also in Kagoshima, on the approach to the main station from the greater part of Japan, so I will draw this to a close. Kyushu Island is the most south-westerly of the four main islands of Japan, and Kagoshima city is at the southernmost tip.

The reason I posted the picture of that stretch was not just to divert my attention for a moment from the magnificent Sengan-en gardens behind me, but to ponder the nature of coastal railways across the world. The area is seismically very active, with regular earthquakes. The weather includes frequent typhoons, and to put the icing on the cake, there is an active volcano a couple of miles away. Despite all this, the Japanese not only run a railway there, but have electrified it. What are they doing right that we could learn from for Dawlish, I wonder?

The other photos were just to make this a bit of fun as well. The Penang funicular railway was built in the days when we British ruled Malaysia. It's very hot there, and according to Noel Coward:
 

so we built a railway to take the expats to the cooler hilltops.

The Kagoshima tram is a thing of beauty, and an example of how to do public transport with style. The vehicles themselves are reminiscent of the old Blackpool trams I went to school on in terms of technology - that is to say, somewhat rudimentary. They are smaller and have seats along the sides with plenty of straps for standing passengers. One boards at the door in the centre. When the tram arrives at the stop, the driver stands and turns to face the passengers, who disembark via the front door. As they do so, they either swipe or show a pass, or drop the exact fare (¥170, or about £1.25) into a machine. The driver bows and says "Arigatou gozaimashita" (a very polite form of "Thank you", in the past tense because the service rendered is now complete) to each departing passenger. The vehicles are spotless, probably cleaned by the driver himself. Not that this would be much of a burden, as litter, graffiti, and the other curses of modern day western countries are absent everywhere.

Tram bowling sounds fun! Perhaps the Belgians could lobby for it to be made a demonstration sport at the forthcoming Olympics?

I'd just about worked out that it must be that stretch of line from Shigetomi to Kagoshima, and even that the train is a JR Kyushu 817 series. So I guess I can claim at least silver medal in the Googling event behind Red Squirrel.

Two pages and I have understood barely a word of all that. English A level and comprehension are obviously no help to joining in. If the answer was Tokyo, was an anagram of the poster's name (apart from one small typo) meant to be a clue?

I looked in several places in Kuala Lumpur. Eventually, I was told that the man I was looking for was on a 2-day visit to Bristol.


I'm glad someone spotted that final subtle twist*! You are hereby awarded the Bronze Medal.

(*I didn't.)

It may be that the Japanese have become more fatalist than us, due to the number of seriously serious acts of nature they suffer But I can't help feeling that it matters more that the sea here is very much an inland one - only 20 km across, and with just a narrow strait connecting with the high stuff. Even that volcano glowering across the strait, and its friends inland, block weather from all directions.

2. Tauntonoshima?