I've had the dubious pleasure of using the A358 and A303 a lot over the years,  and know a few people that commute along it . Fortunately my need to use them both has reduced recently - the recession does have some plus points! There are usually fairly hefty queues through Henlade during the morning and evening peaks,  it can cause queuing back onto the M5 and into Taunton in the evening.

Some years ago,  on one of the many previous occasions that dualing the A303 and A358 has come up, I'm sure there was some talk of diverting the A358 by-passing Henlade and joining the M5 at a new junction (25A?) somewhere near where the Blackbrook leisure centre is now. But I'm not sure how much that would help as it wouldn't be any good for traffic going into Taunton unless they bulldoze a large chunk of the housing estate west of the M5 at that point.

Looking at the FlyBe schedules and prices for the next few days, if I had to be in Canary Wharf or The City I would consider it,  even living in Taunton. The first flight is due in at 07:50 which is 40 minutes before the first train from Taunton gets me into Paddington.

However, my colleagues who use FlyBe a lot from Southampton, refer to them as "FlyMayBe". One of them had a trip back from Edinburgh to Southampton that made an unscheduled stop in Dublin.

I knew I'd come across one of these things somewhere, I thought it might have been Leeds station, but it could well have been Bristol Airport. Either way, damned thing made me jump out of my skin when it woke up and started wiffling away at me, there's enough stress and aggro going through airports these days without them trying to give me a heart attack as well.

I was on that train and have to say that the TM^‡(resolve) was very good with his announcements and keeping us updated as to what was going on, he did a good job setting expectations as to when the fault was likely to be fixed. I didn't witness any passengers yelling at him which I think was down to his very professional way of keeping us informed, yes we were all cheesed off but we knew what was going on. I especially liked the way he walked through the train a couple of times very patiently answering questions, even to donuts like me that had headphones on and missed some of the announcements!

I got back to Taunton about 1:15 late, and then the key broke off in my bike lock, but on the plus side I got through some stuff on the iPlayer before it expired.

Interesting - I've found the new barriers to be closed on most of the occasions I go through them and unmanned.  Maybe it's the times I go through, 7am and 6 - 7 pm.

When the barriers refuse to read my weekly season ticket (usually by about Wednesday each week) I then have to use the video intercom thing to talk to the station staff on the other barrier to get in or out - quite challenging when there is a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) Power Car parked next to the intercom.

Sadly ^4.6m doesn't seem to go far on these sort of projects these days, so I'm not going to get my hopes up too much. Of course I hope I'm proved wrong.

Taunton only 90 minutes from London? Please show me that train in the time-table!

I think Wembley has a strict curfew policy  - a bit of Googling suggests that the curfew is at 23:00, the concert should finish by then. I'm tempted to head for one of the Metropolitan Line stations further out - along with everyone else that has the same idea.

No - we're not going to the concert with them, there are limits!

That ties up with what I saw on the NRE^‡(resolve) timetable last night - bus from Twyford after midnight. I think I'll pass on that!

Whose daft idea was this? I suppose I can only hope that Lost Direction split up before the 7th.

Maybe I should get my daughter adopted before the concert - then someone else can have the pleasure of delivering her to Wembley.

Thanks for the information, I had assumed that something had gone badly wrong with the train.

I contacted TheTrainLine and requested a refund and sent a followup email explaining the sorry tale, they have indicated that they will refund the full ticket price, which I'm pleasantly surprised at without having to go into battle. Of course I will  believe that when the refund comes through.

Drive up to Heathrow went amazingly well, no holds up at all which I would think was unusual for a Sunday night and I didn't break the speed limit too many times to do it. I'm sure the drive back on Friday afternoon at around 5pm will be a different story which is why I take the train! As i drove up I was working out a mental map of the car parks to I would try in descending order of cost and ascending distance from terminal 5. I managed to make it using number 3 on my list so that's slightly less reason for my boss to have a heart attack. Even so, I think my parking bill is going to be  the best part of ^150, that and the petrol cost will easily exceed the train fare. Another reason for using the train.

Does anyone know what caused the 17:15 from Taunton to be cancelled on Sunday evening?

I left home having checked National Rail Enquiries and it showed 'on-time', by the time I got to the station the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) system said 'delayed' - which I know is never good news,  interestingly phone app still said 2 minutes late. Train got cancelled 10 minutes later. Result was panic stations to get back home, get car and drive to Heathrow. I made the flight but it was uncomfortably close. Now waiting for an argument with my boss about the huge car parking bill at Heathrow. :-(

It must be said that this is the first time in years of doing this journey that the train going up has been cancelled, I've had it happen on the way home before, but that only results in stroppy wife, threats of divorce and upset children so that's OK. Missing an outbound flight results in the Spanish Inquisition from the expenses people - which is far worse.

Well I made it home without having to pay anything above the ^32.50 normal fare. The ticket inspector on the Romsey - Temple Meads leg did query it and I produced the printoff of the routing I had provided by Taunton station and she accepted it without debate. I didn't get ticket checked on the CrossCountry leg to Taunton, I have a feeling things may have got more interesting if I had.

That's the first time in about 15 years of doing that route now and again that I have had to route back via Bristol, in the past when the timetable has come up with that routing as the only option I've given up the unequal struggle and driven. These days driving is my absolute last resort as it's an awful journey and my employer is quite enthusiastic about us using public transport where possible. Might have something to do with be able to 'work' on the train whilst using a laptop and driving probably isn't a good idea.

Thanks for all the help and advice with this especially bignosemac, if there is a next time I'll just by the Southampton ticket and be done with it.

Off to book a much simpler trip to Heathrow for Sunday afternoon.

I did try to explain to the ticket office person at Taunton that I didn't think the ^32.50 ticket would do the job, but he was  insistent it would be OK. I didn't want to tell him his job as it's certainly not my area of knowledge or expertise! Dodgy computer systems maybe but not routing rules. He printed off all details on an FGW^▸ (First Great Western) stamped paper with all sorts of reference numbers on it, so we'll see what happens on the way home this afternoon. I'm fully expecting that there could be a debate about this, easier to argue on the FGW train between Westbury and Temple Meads, I can see it being more tricky on the CrossCountry service from Temple Meads to Taunton.

We'll see what this afternoon brings.

Ticket to Romsey bought this evening at Taunton station. I thought I'd first try the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) to see what that came up with, and yes, the ^40 Southamption fare was there but it only said via Salisbury, so being an un-trusting sole when it comes to technology I queued up at the ticket counter to make sure. I explained the tale and the very helpful person did a bit of digging around on his computer he decided that the standard ^32.50 fare from Taunton to Romsey would be OK. He then went to the trouble of printing off loads of 'stuff' which he said I could use as proof if anyone questioned it.

It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow!

I probably won't bother with a seat reservation, I've used the 07:06 quite a bit over the years and find that if I wander down the back to coach B or A I can usually find a free seat - or a seat that is reserved after Westbury - quite easily, famous last words. Even coach E usually has  a good number of free seats on that train. I can usually find a seat on the Westbury - Romsey and v.v train as well, although that usually involves getting someone to move their bag that has, of course, paid for a seat! All bets are off on a Friday evening however.

Thanks very much for the info bnm, that helps me a lot, off to the station this evening to attempt to purchase that ticket!

cheers

Actually I've just noticed that when I drill down into the route details for the return via Temple Meads on the National Rail Enquiries website it does actually say "You need to buy more than one ticket for this journey". If all else fails, read the instructions!