Oui.

I thought that one would be a crow in that case. If you see a rook on its own, it's a crow, whereas if you see a lot of crows, they're rooks.

I was unaware that a Private Pilots' Licence was needed. Fixed wing or rotary?

Maybe Trainspotting. But a good friend of mine is, or at least was, a regular.

The bar of the hotel I stayed in last September, in Windermere, had a display indistinguishable from that on the platform of the nearby station.

I wondered if it could be that rural areas have lost so much public transport in recent times, and this is the quickest way to restore a bit of interest. Bristol's bus services have been roundly criticised over the years, but the root causes of poor transport there are driver availability and traffic congestion. A lot of Bristol routes get more buses in an hour than we in the sticks have in a day - or week in some cases. Rural services tend to be poorly used because of the time it takes to get from A to B, diverting into every little village within a gnat's crotchet of the route map on the way. Services are few and far between. leading to drops in passenger numbers, leading to reductions in services.

Then again, it could be because there's an election looming.


I think that's two pluses and a minus in one post. A record?

One of the Somerset rural routs is the 22 from Taunton to Wellington. That's about a half-hour, or an hour for the 6 per day that extend to Tiverton. The latter does not seem to be part of this magical transformation - sadly, as it stops at the end of my street. Taunton to Wellington is only about 7 miles, say 15 miles the round trip. It looks like there are about 15 round trip journeys, on a pattern that would fit 2 buses. Allowing for the small drain while standing at stops, I am sure two fully charged buses would manage that route comfortably without needing a top-up charge during the day. If that is an example of the sort of route to be worked by electric buses, I would see it as a cautious, but safe, step forward to prove the technology. Other chosen routes may be longer and faster, to try all variations on the theme. If this all goes well, I can see the number of new diesel buses dropping sharply in a relatively short period.

Devon has a mix - Exeter is very much urban, and nearly as bad as Bristol to get around. The 21/21A are the very opposite, being from Westward Ho! or Appledore (which doesn't have an exclamation mark) to Ilfracombe (which should have). That's about 25 miles including the drops into Bideford and Barnstaple, taking the best part of two hours according to the timetable. Services are hourly for the longest ride, and I would imagine no more than 4 round trips in the day for each. Again that should be within reach in summer. Winter, when batteries are not so efficient, may be different.

I know what you mean. I wasn't allowed to fly from there with a crosswind component above 17 knots.

Kind of related, I found this Rail Express interview with Mark Hopwood on the future of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). It covers all sorts of things from electrification to battery power to the Night Riviera, so it may already be posted somewhere, so I shan't quote. It's a very good read, although I suggest selecting the bits with a dark background with the mouse to better read them.

Maybe we should carry out an MVP on the various Sir Humphrey’s at the DfT and Treasury and see has they like that!
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Au contraire, dear boy. Sir Humphrey would enjoy spending money. It's that nasty chancellor telling him what to do that is the problem.

As always, cheese paring will get in the way. Taking the Tarka^▸ (Line from Barnstaple to Exeter) line as the exemplar, the fairly recently improved services are turning out to be very popular, to the surprise of nobody but DfT. Early trains leave Barnstaple full and standing, to the chagrin of waiting passengers further down the line. Studies are under way to find a way to resolve this, which will cost a lot of money. I cannot imagine that the Portishead services, when they finally start, will be any less popular with commuters, given the time it takes by bus and the cost of parking a car in Bristol. Being shoehorned into a 3-car Turbo at Pill will not be an appealing experience, and before long some will ask "Why wasn't the Portishead platform built long enough for 5-car trains?"

It looks a bit of a mess on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website). Paddington trains from Taunton seem to be going via Bristol at present.

I'm around 80 metres AMSL so would need a boat to get to the station. On the plus side, we would both find the value of our homes increasing significantly.

That is helpful, and very interesting.

I think it's primarily for the press. Whether Joe Public will be able to watch the smiles and handshakes, and listen to the minister saying "Vote for us, and we'll fix everything that is wrong on the railway and slash fares" is another matter.

Within that article, we find this from South Gloucestershire DC^▸ (Direct Current)'s cabinet member for planning:


Not Network Rail, then.

Delaying things to suit a minister seems to be falling out of fashion after the Post Office saga.

As I set off in the car about 10 minutes after I wrote that, I thought "Hang on a minute... I hope nobody notices before I get home." It is of course £940 million pa, and I'm blowed if I can think which orifice I plucked the first figure out of. That makes it a lot bigger, but still not as big as it sounds. A large amount of that will go on roads, leaving little for rail. I would assume that anything announced in the recent rash of station rebuilds - Cullompton, Wellington near me - will be included in this, so not much is going to be left for new rail projects. It might help pay for amendments to salvage something from the many schemes drawn up to link northern towns and cities to a HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) that won't be coming.