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Apparently, this week questions were raised in Parliament regarding the possibility of establishing regular services to Bodmin General and Okehampton in order to improve access to the rail network from North Cornwall, an area which was particularly hard-hit by the closures of the 60s.

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/regular-passenger-service-run-Bodmin-General/story-19342069-detail/story.html#axzz2WvvnbMW2

I'm assuming the idea is to have some kind of shuttle between Bodmin General & Bodmin Road to serve commuters, running before & after the heritage service, as I imagine the cost/benefit ratio of altering the track layout at the east end of Bodmin Road to enable some sort of all-stations service direct from Bodmin General to Plymouth would make it unfeasible. 

The idiot of an MP wants to run main line services from London through Bodmin General. I could only wonder where the infrastructure for this is coming from!

Oh dear, so it's a cuckoo on a cloud eating pie in the sky!

Indeed, his pitch to local media was so ridiculous it was funny. The thing was none of them queried the lack of infrastructure.
He also wanted a new station "Okehampton Parkway" next to the A30 to serve the Bude area.

If I remember correctly.
Approach BOD and cross over to the up - change ends and reverse in platform 2 - change ends and reverse across the ground frame  to the engine shed - change ends - set two manual points - reverse onto platform 3 - change ends, set manual points and continue to Bodmin General.
I don't think anything but a 153 or 150 will fit in the platform 3 engine shed spur.

Had a look today - the cross over is at Lostwithiel and you would only get a 153 across the ground frame into Parkway platform 3.

Looked at platform 3 which could be connected to the main line except for a few problems.

You would need two sets of points one of which would be on the road bridge - this would need a trap to protect the main line and whatever was derailed would end up in the river at the bottom of a steep embankment.
 

The exchange siding between Network Rail and Bodmin&Wenford infrastructure is long enough for a 2car unit; at the end of 2012, FGW lent the B&W a class 150 for a day. As already stated, there's no crossover at Bodmin Parkway between the Down and Up lines, so trains using the exchange siding have to have come from Lostwithiel to get on to the B&W, and then go towards Liskeard when they get back onto NR metals.

The B&W signalling allows a train to be 'locked in' to the line between Bodmin General and Bodmin Parkway; so after the heritage operation has finished (normally about 1630 each day), a DMU could be shunted into the platform at Bodmin General and locked in.  It could then shuttle between General and Parkway as often as demand required, needing only a driver and a guard - i.e. Bodmin General signalbox would not necessarily need to be manned.  But this would prevent the B&W from running their occasional evening Dining and Murder Mystery trains.

Welcome to the forum, Rower40 - and many thanks for filling us in on the infrastructure at Bodmin Parkway and the line through to Bodmin General.

As someone who doesn't know much anything about the specifics of Bodmin, I have to wonder at the practicality of transferring a 2 car dmu on and off the line on a regular basis under current infrastructure, in order to provide a morning / evening commuter service (to Plymouth?) and longer distance connections.  Of course, that's not to say that  the infrastructure couldn't be changed if the business case were there, or different operating arrangements made such as a more permanent residence (a la Stourbridge Town, Lymington, Cardiff Bay, etc)

I was assuming that it would be the Bodmin & Wenford's (heritage) DMU that would be used for the shuttle service.  In that way, the only shunting that needs to be done is at Bodmin General.

In order to unlock the points between the Exchange Siding and Bodmin Parkway platform 3, the shunter must have the Bodmin General to Bodmin Parkway train staff.  This is issued by the Bodmin General signalman (not signaller!).  Under present arrangements, this has to be taken to Bodmin General by road if the B&W is to take delivery of stock from the main line, or if a loco is to be brought up from the Parkway shed.

However, there's a plan for the B&W to build a signalbox at Bodmin Parkway; then a token could be taken out at either end (but only one at a time) for a movement to the other end, and any shunting at Parkway could be performed under control of a signalman there.  That signalman would liaise with the NR signaller at Lostwithiel for movements to/from the Exchange siding.

(I'm one of the volunteer signalmen at Bodmin General.  However, I live and work in Derby, and my association with the B&W is an accident of history!)

Good to have you on the forum, rower40.

Can you tell me if the B&W job titles remain gender specific because of the heritage nature of the operation, because there coincidentally happen to be no women in that specific department or because jobs are allocated as per some point in history?

The last of your three options.  In any event, the 'man' in Signalman, Fireman etc refers to their membership of the human race, not just the Y-chromosome-carrying half.  This means the job can't be re-assigned to a computer.

Well, no. NR employs signallers (human ones), not signalmen, because language is important. It is not good enough to say 'women shouldn't take offence' - some will, and some will feel excluded by the suffix -man. Are you happy to offend and exclude?

On a heritage railway I would expect signage to reflect the mores and norms of the period - but I would not expect its social attitudes and organisation to do so.

This is ridiculous. Postman, Fireman, policeman, boatman, are all long term traditional job titles.

...that have been replaced by postal officer, firefighter, police officer etc.

No, I agree, it's rediculous, they'll be giving them the vote next!  :o

Network Rail do still (or at least did until very recently) use the term "Pilotman" though.

How did Postman Pat and Fireman Sam feel about this. Postal office Pat doesn't work in the theme tune, and nor does Firefighter Sam in his theme tune.

I only slightly apologise for starting this: I wanted to make sure that women could be part of the signalling dept on the B&W even if the name was archaic.  I can understand terminology remaining quaint for historical reasons, but not attitudes and opportunities.

Oh good, glad that's clear.  Thank you.

Sounds reasonably straightforward, and potentially cost-effective. Let^s say the B&W were asked to provide the following DMU services on Monday-Fridays (journey time 12 minutes):

FROM BODMIN GENERAL - 0554, 0640, 0714, 0748, 0837, 0911, 0945, 1635, 1709, 1744, 1829, 1903, 1953, 2032, 2108, 2147, 2249.

FROM BODMIN PARKWAY - 0616, 0657, 0731, 0805, 0854, 0928, 1002, 1652, 1726, 1812, 1846, 1924, 2015, 2049, 2130, 2204, 2320.

How much would it be likely to cost to do so?

Extreme early and late journeys would not be needed as frequently as that. We only get a couple on the Hind each morning and a couple off the later trains. First journey for me would run from Parkway just after the Night Riviera (0630) with last departure around 2035.

Fair enough. I was simply trying to provide as many connections as possible within the remit.

Rob T - How many passengers overall do you think more optimally-timed Parkway-General DMU services could attract, and can you (or indeed anyone else) have a stab at answering my earlier question on costings?

So, as happens on the Maritime Line, if the 153 fails, could we expect to see a pannier with a rake of two mk 1s until rescue arrives?

Are you saying that Panniers and Mk1s appear on the Maritime Line or simply that 153s break down occasionally?  (I think I know what you mean, but read it literally  ;D)

Correct, "Pilotman" is still used on the main line network, although given that it's a term that's specified in the Rule Book it's probably slightly more correct to say that the name is specified by RSSB rather than Network Rail. I've never seen this written down officially, but have been told by several senior ops trainers that "pilot" refers to "Person In Lieu Of Token" (slightly ironically, given the discussion above!).

"Signaller" is used throughout the main line rule book, and from my experience has been more or less universally adopted by the men and women who do the job.

At least we don't suffer the problems the French, with their rather fossilised language, heap upon themselves, e.g:

Le m^decin = doctor (masculine)
La m^decine = medicine (feminine)
Le femme m^decin = lady doctor (masculine)

Then there's words ending in -ence - all feminine except le silence; 'the only thing the women could not keep'. Ha bloody ha.

TBH I think its a non runner. I base this on two things, one is the hourly bus from Padstow/Wadebridge and Bodmin to Parkway which often only carries half a dozen people on arrival each time. The other is the time it would take to go from Bodmin General to Plymouth if the link went ahead (where the vast majority of our regulars go). It is much quicker to travel by car. (approx 40 mins by car as apposed to 60 mins by train assuming a good connection).

Bodmin Parkway serves more long distance travelers than any other station mainly due to its remote location which would mean a rail link to Bodmin will make very little difference.

Experience further east (I can't believe I'm saying further east for us!) shows a dramatic loss of traffic when a train is replaced by a bus, so that evidence along the lines of "only carries half a dozen" may in fact tell us that a train would have quite a good loading if the operation is reversed.

Oh, I think it's mostly a question of what you're used to. Part of what looks odd to us is the strict agreement of gender (and number too), which rules out our way of avoiding awkward cases.

I have a rather dated book about the Brits ("Grande Bretagne", Petite Plan^te, 1972) which says women get less recognition here because we have very few nouns for women who are, or do, something, compared with French. He not thinking of "-man" type words - his examples of feminine words hard to translate into English are ^pici^re, voisine, ^tudiante, menteuse, emmerduse, Londonienne (grocer, neighbour, student, liar, nuisance (or worse), Londoner).

I think he rather gives it away by saying that: he feels the non-specific term like "liar" is male-specific because it is in French. We don't feel that at all, so it does not have the same effect. It is very hard to lose the feel of your first language for such things.

Clearly you are on the ground and have local knowledge which I am not qualified to query but I wonder how many people would use a rail link who would never think to use a bus one?

Sometimes that is a personal choice - the "I never travel on buses" brigade - other times it is through ignorance.   I only recently discovered the bus links from Bodmin and have now used them twice - once to Padstow and once to Bodmin Town.  (Ironically on the first trip I ended up coming back by taxi because of a bus breakdown and the second time I came back by steam train). 

Some people are blinkered when it comes to travel and stick with one form.  I can be a bit like that sometimes - if I start by rail I want to finish by rail.  Through ticketing and PlusBus help, but some people will only be attracted it is train all the way.

There's a new article about this on ThisisCornwall / in the Cornish Guardian today:

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Talks-continue-plans-town-rail-link/story-20307075-detail/story.html#axzz2nBSK6a8H (http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Talks-continue-plans-town-rail-link/story-20307075-detail/story.html#axzz2nBSK6a8H)

Basically it describes how talks between Cornwall Council and the Bodmin & Wenford Railway have taken place, with particular regard to how any workings would fit amongst the heritage railway's operations. It also states that 2015 is a more realistic timeframe for any such workings to commence...

Thanks for posting this, alexross42. It's heartening to read that discussions are in progress on this proposal and that the will exists on both sides, it would seem, to give the idea a go by scheduling regular services before and after the heritage trains. In addition to the benefits to the wider community of shoppers, commuters and long-distance travellers, the introduction of such services should help to bolster the Bodmin & Wenford too, by enabling visitors to arrive earlier and depart later on a day out at the railway.