"So in total, this package is 110 miles of new high-speed line. All of it in the Midlands and the North. It is 180 miles of newly-electrified line. All of it in the Midlands and North."

To be fair - this is the "Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands". I'm not sure where the southern boundary of "Midlands" is, but wherever it is, this wouldn't be the right document for anything south of it. Question is - where is the "Integrated Rail Plan for the South and West"?

11 is Ash Vale, I think.

Travelling on a train in Ireland - No
Ridden the New York Subway - No
Eaten a curry on a train - No
Been on a Mystex^▸ (Train on which passengers don't know where they are going)▸ - No (this is a good start....)
Been on a Cross Country train from Bath - Yes, although it was operating a GW^▸ (Great Western) service
Dined in a Restaurant Car - Plenty (BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)), DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about), ZSR, CD^▸ (Capital Delivery), MAV...)
Travelled on a line that was part of the main network and is now closed - Yes (Gloucester Eastgate, original ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) through Selby amongst others)
Driven a train - No
Caught a train to or from Pilning - Yes
Been to a Railfuture meeting - No
Driven a tram - No
Caught the train to Barton-on-Humber - No
Had a train stop at a request stop for you - Yes
Been on the Ghan  - No
Ridden in a class 801 unit - Yes
Stood on a 153 - Yes
Travelled on the hanging tramway in Wuppertal - Yes
Been to Aylesbury Vale Parkway Station - Yes
"Bought" a zero cost excess - Yes (or rather have asked for one, but was told not to bother!)
Been to Ebbw Vale by train - Yes
Travelled on the Lymington to Yarmouth ferry - Yes
Crossed the Atlantic by ship - No (unless the Sound of Sleat counts)
Been rowed across Weymouth Harbour on the ferry - No
Left the station in Taunton - yes
Caught a train to or from Melksham - yes
Helped a fellow passenger lift their luggage on or off a train - Yes
Taken part in an event such as "Community Rail in the City" at a station - No
Done the gardening at a station - No
Used an easement - Not knowingly
Travelled on a Groupsave ticket - No
Overslept your station - No
Gone the long way round to avoid a rail replacement bus - No
Used a split ticket - Yes
Been to Platform 14 at Bristol Temple Meads (Possibly, but I would have been too young to notice!)
Visited Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch - Yes
Travelled through the Channel Tunnel -  Yes
Caught a through train from London to Newquay or Tenby - No
Travelled with Amtrak - No
Let your originally planned train go because it was too busy - yes
Used Plusbus - No
Used a rover or ranger ticket - Yes
Changed trains at Westbury - Yes
Got on or off a train at Coombe Junction - Yes
Changed trains at Worcestershire Parkway - No, but have used the station
Travelled on the DLR^▸ (Docklands Light Railway)▸ - Yes
Been to Hainault on the tube - Yes
Been to Media City on rails - Yes
Travelled on MailRail - No
Travelled the Rhubarb Loop - Yes (but isn't it a curve...?)
Understood all of the above without having to look up any definitions - Yes

I know there were lots of other reasons for doing the work, but it doesn't seem to have solved the problems of conflicting movements causing delays (which when the through services from Parkway to the Avon Valley already take an appalling 50 minutes for the 17 miles to Bath is very frustrating and not exactly designed to encourage people to let the train take the strain). Every day this week one or other of my trains up or down the bank has been held before one or other of the crossovers. Will not reinstating platforms on the "fast lines" at Stapleton Road (at least - if not also Lawrence Hill) prove to be a false economy?
I also noticed at Parkway yesterday that although the former terminators from Weston were cut back to Filton for capacity reasons, there appears to be no problem leaving a terminating London service stabled in a platform for the best part of an hour and a half

The previous hour's Cardiff - Portsmouth was running 50 minutes late, though, so may have been able to take up some of the slack. It's not been exactly the best of days in the Bristol area today!
A more serious gripe connected with this, with trains being "delayed" and cancelled left right and centre , in over two hours at Filton Abbey Wood there was not a single "manual" announcement to advise passengers whose trains had ceased to exist what alternatives were available. Recorded announcements were advising that "the next fast train" to xyz would be in 40 minutes when in reality there was another delayed train serving those stations arriving in about 5 minutes (or indeed a bus to somewhere - if you could find any signs telling you where they were). At times of predictable major disruption (I'm talking about the planned engineering work; not the chaos caused by last night's overrun) a station like Filton Abbey Wood needs a human presence. If that is really not possible, then it needs a clued up human on the other end of the p.a. system making announcements based on the reality of what is going on, not just a computer or someone reading from a script in India.
GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s score for customer care at Filton Abbey Wood today -  0/10 .

Interesting to know how it works if the train on the other side of a platform has a similar departure time and is not one of the priority boarding trains (particularly if it would also be a valid option for where you're going) .
At least, unlike E***jet, they are making it clear that the number of slots for this service is limited. I've always wondered what would happen at the departure gate on the day that the entire  flight has booked (and paid for) Speedy Boarding!

"See it, say it...." should be relegated to posters (unless there is a particular heightened security alert). I know adding audible messages is more "inclusive" but, without being flippant, if you are unable to see posters, you are probably also unable to "see something that doesn't look right".
Less a moan about quantity of verbal announcements - but also their quality: I can remember occasions at Bath Spa where the delay to westbound trains kept fluctuating (presumably because of regulation issues at Bathampton). Every time the lateness changed, the full rigmarole of announcing the delay and apologising for delay and inconvenience was repeated for two trains that were going to follow each other in - even though those changes were 1 minute either way. I was always amused at the apologies for the fact that the train was now less late than it had been before. More importantly, however, what the announcements failed to get right (even after the first train had passed Bathampton) was which one of the two would actually arrive/leave first!
Not quite on topic, but another gripe: "We regret that the 09.45 to Bristol Temple Meads has been cancelled. Passengers for Bristol Temple Meads - your next fastest train (!) will be the 10.06 to Cardiff Central" - completely ignoring the fact that at the moment it's 09.35 and the delayed 09.30 (to Gloucester - so not immediately obviously going to Bristol) is expected at 09.40. I've invented the times, but the point stands.

What I do find confusing is that that imaginary Brighton - Great Malvern train that is cancelled between Hove and Great Malvern appears in the "Journey Check" under "Other Train Service Updates" - not under "Train Cancellations" - though I appreciate that if it were under "Cancellations" all those people wishing to catch it from Brighton to Hove might also assume their train is cancelled. A separate "partial cancellations" would perhaps be useful - as would a removal of the "This train will be formed of 4 coaches instead of 3" notifications - which are as much "clutter" as the profuse apologies over station tannoys that your train is now expected to be 1 minute late.

No doubt this was when the 17.47 was due to go over to Turbo operation. However, loco hauled operation of that service soldiered on until Friday 3rd July 1992 - presumably running ecs to Westbury as there would have been no opportunity to run round at Bedwyn.

In terms of the Twyford terminators (!) running ecs to Malago Vale, I wonder if that was every day, or just on Fridays prior to running Summer Saturday trains. I would imagine there were quite a few loco-hauled extras to Weymouth / Weston  - or replacements to allow dmus to double up.

Service frequency is probably more important than "pure journey time" - especially if the gain / loss in the latter is a matter of minutes. Quotes of "fastest journey time" are often misleading as they may well have referred to one train a day - it's all very well trumpeting a fastest time of 45 minutes, but that's of little use to me if that's only achieved by the 06.43, I don't need to be there until 11 o'clock but have still got to be on the 06.43 because the next train - the 09.43 - takes an hour and twenty minutes. A standard hourly departure - even if it takes an hour and 5 minutes, rather than 45 minutes - is much more use to me. The chances are also that the wonderful 45 minutes journey time achieved by our mythical 06.43 was at the expense of all the intermediate stations, whose passengers either had to wait for the 09.43, or catch the even more abysmal 05.14 "parly".
What ultimately counts is time required between leaving "home" and arriving at "destination" - and the speeding up of a railway service by the odd minute will often not change that one bit. Increasing frequencies / optimising connection times usually will!

You don't have to look that far from Melksham to find a city where 5 mile cycle journeys vaguely east - west are perfectly possible (assuming the weather plays ball, you haven't got to arrive looking smart and aren't carrying anything heavy or bulky), but if you're going north - south it's a different story. Until I arrived in Bath 30-something years ago, I belonged to the cycle everywhere brigade - but my first journey into town from the top of the southern slopes (do nothing but wear out brake blocks in one direction and push almost the whole way in the other) was also my last!

Thank goodness a bit of sense has been seen! I dread to think what the travel times would otherwise have been from Bath to Filton AW or Bristol Parkway - even assuming that a direct RRB^▸ (Rail Replacement Bus) avoiding Temple Meads was in the plan, the Cleveland Bridge closure is likely to make for "interesting" traffic conditions in Bath over the next few months.

Although it is certainly worrying that rail numbers seem to be slow in picking up, it is perhaps hardly surprising at this stage. As yet we are still being told to "minimise journeys" and (whether this is true or not) that train travel should be restricted to travel to essential work or other authorised reasons - so we're still being discouraged from making leisure trips and forbidden from making ones that involve staying anywhere overnight. Even if we decide to ignore that, there's little reason to travel much at the moment, especially with the weather offering little temptation to outdoor activity at present. The school-run is back (or will be again after the Easter break) as is, to judge by their car parks, the supermarket trip, but these tend to be car based activities. Meanwhile, the massive drop-off in rush-hour traffic (and, for some, the sudden availability of free spaces in the office car-park) will have removed many of the disincentives to drive for those who are going into work. Once the length of the drive starts to increase again and the chance of being able to park easily and cheaply starts to decrease, things may change. It'll certainly be interesting to see how all the changes to central Bristol traffic routing that have been introduced / completed over the last 12 months cope with a "real" rush hour - even if that is still quite a long way off!

Is number 15 what is currently the Tier 4 Lorry Park? (with the Southeast London suburbs at the top left and the green blob at the bottom right being Dover Priory)


John

No 5 is Snaith. Tried a quick visit once - but although the train stopped as per timetable, the doors weren't unlocked....