This is a quote from Modern Railways annoucement of the contract:

"A review of the company’s diesel fleet is promised, while a ‘fleet strategy plan’ is intended to cut the costs of running a mixed fleet and replace diesel-only trains with what the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) calls ‘greener trains’, possibly including battery-only units."

As this is the DfT I would assume that 'greener trains' doesn't mean putting more wires up or laying more third rail.

I think it would be difficult to measure a sparks effect with a bi-mode train, because it also runs on diesel, and doesn't the sparks effect also rely on faster and more frequent services and that hasn't really happened.

And because electrification was never completed then I think it is true to say that some services have got worse, for example those wanting to travel from:
West of Reading to Oxford have to change at Didcot.
Bedywn to Reading passengers have to change at Newbury
No through services to Paddington from the Thames Valley branches.
Didcot to Oxford has shorter trains and less services

Let's hope we get some sensible people in dft/Government (delete as appropriate) who authorise a rolling progamme of electrification starting with the completion of the GWR electrifiction project.

I don't think the freight operators are included but if Network Rail , especially signallers, are on strike you probably cant run trains anyway.

While I have every sympathy with having a below inflation rate pay rise especially when inflation is running at 9%+, I can't help thinking that this is a massive mistake especially when the industry has lost 25% of it's income.

And where do the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers)/rail staff think the money is going to come from for a pay rise given that there are only 3 sources of income:
1) Government - good luck with that; you might find NHS staff, teachers, police, etc. in the queue for a pay rise, as well, and with more public sympathy.
2) Fare payers - fares are already too expensive and you won't be thanked.
3) Productivity - you might get a pay rise but some of your colleagues will lose there jobs.

I also think that this is a trap set by the Government to break the power of the unions on the railway, which you have just walked into. It reminds me so much of the miners in the 1980's and that didn't turn out well.

Looks like it left  today at 07:26 https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U68274/2022-05-24/detailed#allox_id=0

According to the London Reconnections team Crossrail will start operating on 24th May 2022 06:30 to 22:00 Mon-Sat.
Now confirmed by tfl and will initially be 12 trains an hour, and all stations except Bond Street will be open.

Isn't the root cause of the shortage of diesel rolling stock on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) caused by the cancellation of the Oxford and TV branches electrification? And the fact that it was cancelled without any real thinking about what the knock-on effects would be and since then GWR have just had to muddle through and they dont really have enough units to run even the current reduced services.

If the electrification was finished then both class 165's and class 800's would be freed up for use elsewhere. And remember a lot of money has already been spent on the half-completed electrification to Oxford, including an electricity ‘feed in-station’ that has been sat idle at Radley for 6 years.

The whole situation is stupid beyond belief; there are 12 year electric trains that are being put into storage and 27 year old electric trains going for scrap but hay rather than electrify more of the railway why don’t we add diesel engines to some 35 year old trains instead.

In my opinion this issue won’t be resolved until the ideologues in the Dft and Treasury, who would rather have money spent by private industry on trains rather than by the government on infrastructure, are removed or ignored.

The latest rumour is, is that they are going to sack all their UK^▸ (United Kingdom) staff and replace them with cheaper foreign labour.
Info from RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/future-of-pando/

Never mind short formations but according to Real Time Trains the 1Z39 20:17 Totnes to Paddington service tonight will be made up of 14 carriages from Bristol Temple Meads.

RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) states that it will be 5-car 802013 + 9-car 802113. The 9-car unit starts from Totnes and the 5-car unit joins at Bristol Temple Meads.

Is this possible or is this a data error?

Unfortunately I won't be around to check.

 https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:V11643/2022-01-31/detailed#allox_id=1

7. Is the Gosport Ferry?

I understand you can have up to 5 tickets on the card at a time.

The Spar Shop at Didcot was open this morning.

The facilities at Oxford within the main concurse are also looking very sparse with only 2 refreshment shops open if you exclude M&S and WH Smith.

The employee in the cafe on platform 3 looked very bored at 9am, so I guess the number of customers they have isnt great.

I have managed to answer this question by getting a Smartcard from another TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company).
The SouthEastern Key allows you load daily tickets from the App to your SmartPhone and it works for my GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) only journey.

Thanks Stuving.
So looks like you can only buy single and return tickets on a smartcard at a ticket office.

But you have to question why does it show those tickets as smartcard compatible on the website? It maybe strictly true but of little use if I can't buy them online.

I wonder why you can buy season tickets on line for your smartcard but not daily tickets?

I have a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Smartcard which prior to the pandemic I used for my annual season ticket.
I am now looking to go back to the office, only occassionly at the moment, so I thought I would try and add an Off-Peak Day Return between DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains) and OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) to that card.

On the GWR site the ticket type shows the 'Smartcard' symbol and I am logged into my account but I can see no option to load to my Smartcard.
I have also tried on my GWR app and again no option to deliver via Smartcard.

So my question is, is it possible to load a GWR non-season ticket to a Smartcard? And if so how?