I think you're thinking of this incident:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-152017-serious-irregularity-at-cardiff-east-junction

At two thirds of the cheapest Child Advance ticket from Paddington, that's a bit of a drop in the ocean (groan), even if they did succeed in charging it. (I had no idea that dog tickets etc were even a thing any more.)

So run it through to Kingswear! :-)

If the surfboard were a fare-paying passenger, that would be a fair point. Maybe if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) were to sell tickets for surfboards, double basses, bicycles, outsize prams, and dogs it would have more interest in providing a service to such customers.

If the seats taken out are First Class seats, they can probably be replaced by reducing/eliminating the kitchen at the end.

The Swanline stations are a mixed bag. Only Baglan is truly hopeless, sandwiched between two motorways in the community of Baglan Moors (population 0), a classic of the genre of designing things for car commuters without thinking about where the car commuters are coming from (as in their origin, not "the M4"). The mistake was reopening that instead of Landore High Level (which would be right next to the Liberty Stadium). But realistically, however one plays it, four stations with a combined ridership of 131k are not going to be a very good argument for slowing down service to Neath (817k) and Swansea (2.159m).

And really, any additional local service should be at the Cardiff end – Pontyclun has very strong ridership despite absolutely dreadful service (if I were GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), I'd consider doing a massive ORCATS^▸ (Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services) raid and using SDO^▸ (Selective Door Opening) to stop some trains there), and Llanharan, Pencoed, and Pyle are all much busier than one would expect from their poor service.


Let's split them at Whitland. Front half to Milford Haven, rear half alternating between Pembroke Dock and Fishguard Harbour. With TfWs trains freed up from so much running west of Swansea, they can focus on providing a decent local service.

Strange selection of stations. It has The Lakes halt in Warwickshire, but neither Bridgend nor Neath.

That ended up nearly 2 hours down and was overtaken by the 1445, which was diverted via the Berks and Hants, called additionally at Bath (for Swindon), and reversed at Bristol Parkway.

Weird disparate treatment of stations there come to think of it. People from Swindon can be expected to cross over to the other side at Bath, but Bristol Parkway somehow merits a time-wasting reversal when they could be transferred to a local train from the same platform at either Stapleton Road or Filton Abbey Wood – in the latter case, probably a better station for walking or taking buses to where many of these South Gloucestershireites actually live.

But seeing as everything in Cardiff was already messed up by a bridge strike, I took the sensible decision of waiting things out in Wetherspoons until I could see that a convenient train (1615 from Pad) was leaving Newport, then going and excessing to First Class. So a reasonably pleasant Friday peak for me.

The plus side of making long-distance services all reserved is that it makes it easier to separate flows. For instance, an all-reserved South Wales/South West service would have the effect of removing Paddington-Reading passengers onto an unreserved mid-distance services, especially if Reading could be priced at the same price as, say, Swindon or Westbury on the reserved trains.

4. Class 159 on Waterloo-Exeter in 1993?

Interesting that the 0954 Malvern to Paddington still got there on time, despite the diversion.

So who's allowed to be a pilotman? Is it usually a signalman or a driver?

Presumably there'll be an option for people not to give their names. Or to give false names.

The CMA will enjoy this one, no doubt.

I've always found it puzzling how the Pacers haven't been used on Greenford, Windsor, etc, despite those branches having short journey times and relatively light loadings that would recommend the use of such units.