That looks like either blood or ketchup on the yellow tray, but I hope it is neither of those!

Not when the train before it is running after the train you hope to catch, as happened to me this week.

Have just seen this thread. The point about connections is:

a) They depend on services running to schedule.
b) Passengers having confidence in the services running to schedule.

On this particular line (Cardiff to Portsmouth to connect at Salisbury) neither of those factors currently exist, and I cannot see any likelihood of improvement.

"Staff announcement, staff announcement. The train that is not supposed to be stopping at Swindon won't be stopping at Swindon."

Get a paper Delay & Repay form from a station and fill that in. That won't require any codes to be input, you can just write what happened in the comment section. It can be sent to a Freepost address, and you do get a reply, though it takes time...

Is his itinerary available? I wonder how the residents of the places he chooses to visit will react to being chosen.

There are lots of amusing place names scattered around the UK^▸ (United Kingdom). But only a few (very few) might be considered rude by some. Places like Bare in Lancashire aren't rude, but being a seaside location, some people might claim it is.

From an historical view, it might be more interesting to visit those places that have changed their names over the centuries because they were considered rude. Snottingham, for instance, might not have grown into the large east Midlands city it is now had it not done so. At a more local level, virtually every village and settlement in the country will have had street names that were definitely rude in the middle ages, but which are now heavily disguised or completely changed. An historic street map of any town can be quite shocking to see!

I have read so many articles which refer to people making this choice as being in the minority. We aren't (I have flown anywhere since the 1990s). Each year, the majority of the population in this country do not fly anywhere. Some fly once or a few times, a few fly a lot (mainly but not wholly for business). The point is that it is a minority of people each year who are flying, and to suggest that it is a very small select group of people who aren't flying is nonsense. It may be a small band who make that choice for environmental reasons (though I've never seen anything to actually back that up), but it is an equally small band who are frequent flyers.

On the alternatives to flying, breaking the journey for an overnight stop used to be seen as part of the fun of making a long journey, and there is no reason why it shouldn't become the norm again. It is just a matter of expectations (which both availability of transport and cost of course feed into).

Where are they going from Westbury? Each train company has different policies regarding carriage of bikes. On local services to north and south from there, i.e. Bristol to Weymouth line, bikes don't need to be booked and can be carried (but subject to the guard's discretion), but on the main-line east-west route, booking is I believe required, and may well be limited to two. This is precisely what cyclists like myself have been campaigning about for several decades, that it has become impossible for any group of cyclists to be able to travel together, thus making family outings impossible. And it is still like this, in a climate emergency...

While I'm here, I can also relate the story of what happened when I took a bike from Taunton to Westbury several (maybe 20?) years ago. The bike carriage space then was at the very rear of the train, which was very long (maybe 10 carriages?), and having put it in, I sat down in that rear carriage. As we approached Westbury, I went to retrieve it, and found the door locked between the carriage and the cycle spaces. I got off the train at Westbury, and found the rear of the train was overhanging the rear of the platform, so couldn't be accessed, and the only staff present on the platform were right at the far end of the train. I shouted and waved my arms to get noticed, but that had little effect. Fortunately, a rail employee (I assume he was a driver) walked along to cross the lines and I got his attention, and he managed to alert the train staff to my predicament, and after a few minutes delay, the bike was retrieved. I haven't tried to take a full-size bike on that route since.

Saturday wasn't a great day to travel between Bath and Bristol. As well as all the issues around the rail line, Keynsham by-pass was closed due to an accident in the morning, which meant all traffic, including rail replacement buses, had to go through the town, and between there and Bath, road works at one of the narrowest sections were causing significant delays.

I was trying to get to Keynsham, but fortunately eventually decided to cycle there rather than take the bus or chance a train, and found myself passing long tailbacks of traffic.

I'm completely confused about what is happening on the local services between Bristol and Bath today. The disruption notice suggests that buses will continue to replace train services, but the station tracker for Oldfield Park this morning has been showing all trains running apart from one cancellation. My partner was due to get the first train of the day eastwards from Oldfield Park. I warned her about the late changes as suggested by the disruption notice, but we also saw the station tracker, and she got the 0554 train at Oldfield Park without any trouble. So what is happening?

Yes, the 'overcrowding' in these instances is often caused by people asleep across more than one seat.

How does that actually happen? Is it a human error, switching the points too early, or a technical one with the automatic equipment?

In my opinion a more important point about the flooding under the bridge in Warminster is that it is the only route a wheelchair user, someone pushing a push chair or pram, or a cyclist can exit the station if they have got off on the south-eastbound platform. It has happened to me with a bike, though only with very minor flooding which I could get through.

Imagine what happens if you are in a wheelchair and find yourself rounding a corner and coming face to face with 18" of water to go through...

Also, out of interest, was it actually possible to arrive by train yesterday? My partner was hoping to travel from Oldfield Park to Yatton then, so on the same line that goes through Avoncliff but in the opposite direction, and all the trains that she could have caught (5 in total) were all cancelled, due I think to both staff shortages and to signalling problems in Warminster.

I somehow missed seeing this advertised, as otherwise I would have loved to have come along. I went through Avoncliff just a week ago and noted that the Cross Guns is said to date back to 1610, so predating the canal and railway by a couple of centuries. (I also noted on the web that it claims to be the most haunted pub in Wiltshire, with some past residents having been sighted numerous times). I assume there must have been a small settlement by the river in the middle ages, which the pub served. Was any mention made of this history at the talk?