For those that don't know, Sandy Lane is an AHB (Automatic Half Barrier) crossing on the main line with line speeds of 100mph.  This freight train would have been travelling at no more than 75mph though.

Another tragic level crossing incident, and the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) has at least stuck with a sensible, non sensationalist and accurate headline rather than ITV's three offerings which have had the following three headlines so far:

'Train crash death - police statement' ITV News 16:41
'One man dead in train crash' ITV News 16:31
'Transport police confirm train crash' ITV News 16:21

I've bought tickets from a FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Avantix^▸ (Ticket Issuing System used on board trains) for a journey entirely on Chiltern Railways.  Sounds like an excuse for 'can't be bothered' or 'don't know how'.

"The train now arriving on platform number 1" gets my gander up in particular.  Not only is it a little silly saying the word 'number', but any train arriving on a platform is not a sight I wish to see!

And very nice it looks, too!

As 'John R' says it was 1976.  I remember being a young lad on Didcot Parkway and being fascinated by them roaring through in the late 70s.  The key to the date might well be the 253005 on the power car end as it very soon became clear that numbering sets like that wasn't going to work in the long term as power cars were always being swapped about, as indeed were the coaches.  Not sure how long until those numbers were removed though.

Indeed, an excellent quiz.  I spent far too long trying to identify Queen's Park and Norwich (unsuccessfully, I might add - Norwich looked right, but also looked wrong, so I didn't go with it!) and am bloody annoyed that I didn't identify Wolverhampton, Weston, and Exeter Central - given that I was at all three at some point last year!  Still, I think I just about scraped into double figures!

Indeed it does, with the 05c and 10c being the distance in chains from MP36.  Took another look at it today and if anything it looks like 15mph not 25mph!

No, it starts before the western end of Platform 8 (a small section of which has been demolished if you see what I mean), then arcs over to the current Down Relief line joining it before (I think) the Caversham Road bridge, in a similar position to where the old Platform 7 line converged with the Down Relief.

Well, there's no way on earth that it'll be 50mph - I'll try and get a picture to demonstrate how sharp it is.  I suspect it's a temporary crossover pending further remodelling and a higher linespeed when all the bits of the jigsaw at the western end of the station are in place?

Not quite in view from any of the lobstervision.tv webcams, but the new connection at the western end of the station from Platform 8 (what will be the 'Down Main Loop') to the Down Main was also installed over the Christmas shutdown.  It looks like a fairly slow turnout of 25mph to me (compared with everything else installed so far which looks like 40mph) and cuts across what was the extreme end of Platform 8 and, prior to 2012, the connection into the old Platform 7 bay platform.

Looks like a portable AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System) magnet to me.  Used for TSR^▸ (Temporary Speed Restriction)'s and ESR^▸ (Emergency Speed Restriction )'s.  Here's one of them from the catalogue:

http://www.hellotrade.com/yardene-engineering-2000/aws-tsr-magnet.html

No, there's no masts within the station area at the moment.  Only the area I described at Kennet Bridge Junction, about half a mile east of the station extending about another half a mile towards London.

Regarding 3rd Rail electrification, platforms 13/14/15 have passive provision, as well as the underpass, so I assume compatible sleepers will be used in all of those areas.

I would imagine some form of sweetener in the form of a bonus payment or possibly a couple of extra days leave would be enough to get the interest levels up.  Also, bearing in mind that some of the staff I mentioned are involved in quite menial tasks on a day-to-day basis, so some might enjoy the change?

Thank you, and yes, having thought about it a little 'Western Explorer's' hunch is probably closer to the mark, though the section that's been done is very much still part of the live railway - I remember hearing that electrification of the new platforms would start to take place by the end of the year, so this may be the first sign of that phase of the work.

I would suggest that there are ways to provide more staff during periods of disruption, with little overall increases in cost.  There are no shortage of other FGW^▸ (First Great Western) staff working at (or near) Swindon, you could have a pool of them trained to become assistants at times when there is service disruption - i.e. they get pulled from their normal duties to help out answering telephone calls, or updating the website for example (getting through to someone is one of the major bug bears of staff). 

Be they a combination of office workers (not ideal when the disruption is outside of office hours), or station staff (barrier staff - if it's bad enough just leave the gates open at Swindon or Didcot for a few hours and get those staff up in Control answering telephones), or even agency staff (could some kind of dual roles be created where security/cleaning/car park staff are trained up to help?).  I'm not talking about real decision making roles - that should stay with the 'three in charge' currently, but just some admin support which is desperately needed.

Also, perhaps an agreement with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) that decisions can be devolved more locally during times of disruption without everything having to go through Control.  For example, the AOM's at the out stations could allocate drivers like the previous Train Crew Supervisors at those locations used to do (editing Genius themselves so that everyone knows what everyone is doing), or the Duty Manager being able to issue a stop order for small locations such as Appleford?