Archie is enjoying a rest after a game of chase-the-greyhound - no prizes for guessing who won! But if he'd sat here in 1960 he'd have been in danger of being flattened by a train. Where was he?

University of Bristol are being either vague or tight-lipped about access from their new campus into Temple Meads via the underpass. The initial round of consultation for the Cattle Market site suggested that such access was possible, but showed the buildings orientated in a way that pretty much ignored it...

To expand on this, eight bays (if I've counted correctly) of the roof of the Digby-Wyatt extension to Brunel's train shed were demolished in the 1970's to accommodate the current signal box. Personally I think it would be appropriate to restore these bays as they were, because the original roof complemented the main 'express curve' train shed; this image shows how it was.


I don't think there is any particular problem with subsidence; I was alluding to the fact that Temple Meads is in a pretty shocking state at the moment and that if current levels of investment continue then it will eventually fall down.

Happened upon these computer visualisations which show how the Old Station might look in some imagined future where the whole project doesn't get canned and Temple Meads isn't allowed to gently settle into the swamp on which it stands... we can dream!

Sandra: "Are you going to the Saracen's Head tonight?"
Seb: "No, the Lansdown"
Sandra: "Dammit, I told them that old Token Ring kit wasn't long for this world..."

"A distant cousin went to an expensive private school in Wells".
"Tautology?"
"I expect so"

Laze and gemmen, introducing Mr and Mrs Bennett-Doncha-Knowyereastfromiour-West, and their son Gordon.

I even double-checked on Google Maps...

...the 'Bristol' solution - a 'tram-like experience' which looks like a bus, smells like a bus and quacks like a bus.

I have a happy memory from my days rattling a tin on the Bristol Omnibus Company's Carol Bus - an elderly open top KSW as I remember it. We were heading out along Stapleton Road at what seemed like breakneck speed with Santa on the fo'c'sle, waving to some folks behind us, when some quick-witted chap cried our Saviour's name (including His middle name, whcih it turns out is surprisingly profane) and heaved Father Xmas off his podium just as the bus passed under Stapleton Road railway bridge. Could have made a rather gruesome addition to that year's Crimbo decorations.

Ah, yes, I think this building might have been part of the same abortive scheme...
 

"Apparently, you can fly from Lulsgate to west Africa now!"
"Kenya?"
"As long as you don't mind changing at Schiphol."

...and we can all be very thankful that it never did become available.

...and Bristol's answer to Reading Flyover

 

I am. So that's not no-one.

It was always single track after Clifton Bridge station, so you wouldn't be 'redoubling' it. Pill had a passing loop which, if memory serves me correctly, was in the plan for 2tph. The issue is the tunnels, which are a bit tight and bendy.