Or I could. Try this link, Red Squirrel

Fair play to them! I know a couple of the leading lights in this, and they refuse to countenance anything other than reinstatement of the route. Next to West of England Partnership's feeble efforts, they seem titans of public transport.

I used to live within earshot of that too. The problems you get with only one route are predictable and severe.

Wasn't Scorrier at one time blessed with a long siding to service my former employer South Crofty?

No truer words ever spoken! 40% of railway in UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is already electric, yet 60% of journeys are on electric trains. That number includes the less-than-ideal third and fourth rail systems, and it is difficult to see any new project other than a tramway being electrified at anything other than 25kv AC. EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) and electric locos typically are expected to last 30 years, with a midlife refurb. So on the day a new train goes into service, we have a good idea of the day it will retire. There is typically a 10-year lead in for new schemes - the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) electrification was announced in the early 1980s, only to be cancelled and re-announced and cancelled again before being actually started. There was no reason for this other than political inertia. My idea would at least mean that any government tampering with the masterplan would have to say why.

The argument about whether or not to electrify the railway has already been won. As a one-time flier of light aircraft, I understand more than most how the fuel efficiency of a vehicle is affected by the fuel it needs to complete the journey.
Steam was brilliant in opening up mass transit. It still is, but is unsustainable economically. Diesel was the saviour of the railway, being more flexible and more efficient than coal, but electric is surely the future. The HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) use two diesel engines to generate electricity to drive the train. That is efficient compared to cars, but hugely inefficient compared to a real electric railway.  Not only do you not have to carry the fuel for the journey with you, so lessening the load, but you can generate the power source away from the cities by the best available method. HOOP is the answer to the conundrum, but the conundrum is not the question.

I bought a new car under the auspices of the then trade in scheme for old bangers. My car was just 10 years old, and did 40 mpg on a certain journey to north Wales, something I thought was brilliant compared to my previous vehicle. The new one did 60 mpg for the same journey, and had it been powered by electricity all the way would have been even better.

Diesel has no long-term future in any kind of transport, let alone public transport. A diesel-powered electricity generator at Avonmouth makes much more sense than importing diesel to power a train, if only because it is more efficient than a wind farm, more likely than a biomass plan where we import some wood from the USA and pretend that the ship emitted nothing  on the voyage.

I deliberately excluded buses to avoid the possibility of a repeat of the Avon Metro fiasco. Not having the choice of bus as the motive vehicle would preclude downgrading any planned scheme to save money, in the way that the proposed tram system for Bristol has been value-engineered down to a Bust Rabid Transit route - in truth, a thinly disguised road building scheme.

This is not the first recent project to be completed early by National Rail, although by other measurements it is 30 years late.

I'm impressed - it's much posher than I had imagined. When the words "Bay platform" are used, I always think of the strangely disused example at Weston super Mare.

* Me too

I would like to see a national infrastructure agency set up to keep as many decisions as possible out of political hands. Though a national agency, its remit would include large-scale local transport schemes that do not involve buses. As well as national railways, I would tell it to make sure we are able to generate all the power we need, sort out problems with airport capacity, and maintain sea defences. I can see the obvious problem, in that the government is the body who will pay for it all on our behalf, and all of these aspects of national life have a political element to them, as the HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) and Heathrow third runway debates show.

But I would tell the infrastructure supremo to hang on to the HOOP kit at the end of this programme, and draw up a timetable for doing the whole country. This is urgent - as each class of vehicle comes to the end of its life, it should be replaced with electric, not diesel. So keeping the HOOP going will mean the progressive cascading of diesel stock and introduction of electric vehicles, planned to avoid diesel under wires as much as possible. This would also include conversion of third rail systems to 25kv AC OHL^▸ (Over-Head Line). I say this is urgent because, if we start now, we may never have to develop and buy any more diesel rail vehicles.

A mistake I hope we do not repear when the current programmes end! Surely,  the aspiration must be for a wholly electrified railway one day?

Aircraft air conditioning and toilets are major items that have to work and cost a fortune. For trains, it all seems a bit hit and miss. If some trains have aircon that works, why are trains still built with inferior systems? Or are they supposed to be more advanced, but don't work as designed? It seems that the answer could lie in remembering these things when writing the specifications.


I didn't realise there were so many non-opening widows on trains. I shall look out for them, and maybe ask one out for a Bombardiet. Oh, the joys of predictive text!

Brakes from Melksham, then. That will please somebody!

Then you were late - you were not "on chocks" (although you may have been on chocs, if hungry)

I might go after all. A club I am a member of via work have a corporate doodah there, with a bar.

A taster from my back garden last weekend:



Transport is one reason why I won't be going. The other is that it may very well come to me. I shall sit in the garden for the 6am show (with tea), and later for the evening bash (without tea).

I'm not an expert on ballooning, although I know a man who is, but I know it's slightly more complicated than just temperature. We have a high barometric pressure, which also makes a difference. You should be alright for the early kick-off

I am going to offer Bombardiet to Charles Wells Brewery as a name for a new low calorie beer. I-Phone update, perchance?