I've just read that the decision on the Keyham bomb is to move it out to sea, requiring a journey from its current location to the Torpoint ferry slipway near Devonport which will enforce a 300m cordon along the entirety of the route and suspension of rail services whilst it is being moved as the line runs through the cordon.
No exact specifics but scheduled to take place between 1400 and 1700 today.

Fingers crossed all goes to plan!

From what I can tell, the Newquay branch (plat 3) connects to the up main (plat 2) and then there is a crossover to the down main

Three power cars have now been re-liveried into retro variations as a celebration of their contribution to the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) fleet (and their overall long-term contribution to rail services since the mid 70's I guess!):

(apologies, the original image link is HUGE). Edit - Alex - I have added an attribute to have this show somewhat smaller - grahame



Original XC tweet:

https://twitter.com/CrossCountryUK/status/1686035858816700416?t=_eREOhP9blMGOp1goI_yjg&s=19

Apparently due to start in regular/normal service from today (3rd)........

An update from the SRUG^▸ (Saltash Rail Users Group) today:

"Saltash Town Council have agreed a deal to open the café and waiting room at the station. This will mean that an accessible toilet and somewhere dry to wait for your train will be available soon"

Not to do a disservice to the two waiting shelters already in existence on the platforms but the environment of the station building is certainly far nicer than either of those.

Another great step forward in this brilliant project.

They're finally cracking down on those passengers that bring particularly potent foodstuffs into the confines of a carriage - the dogs are looking forward to their diets of egg mayonnaise sandwiches and smoked kipper rolls.

Given that this thread is not far coming up for 10 years I think it's definitely time!
Would a class 67 or 68 be suitable for such duties, or are there issues with ETH/power incompatibilities?

Thanks for sharing that, I wasn't aware of the project - the area certainly would benefit from redevelopment.
I wonder if this forms part of the 'Plymouth Metro' vision? At the very least it should place St Budeaux in a better position to be part of it, should it ever come to fruition.

St Budeaux square has always been busy in terms of bus passengers, it would be interesting to know how many of those journeys could be served by rail instead, as the bus network spreads out far and wide from there, especially to the North of the city (i.e. Derriford for the hospital & science parks), for which there is no rail provision. Is it the relative infrequency of services that has previously deterred those heading for the city centre from using the train?

Overall though it's great to see investment in local transport initiatives 

Another significant step forward in the project this week as the security fencing has been removed, exposing much more of the building on the platform side. Keen to see what the next step will be!



Regards,
Ross

That's right, up until a couple of years ago they were used for a Class 57 hauled Summer Saturday service from St. Erth - Exeter and back, consisting of 3 or 4 coaches.

Yelverton?

Sorry, I've re-read your original question properly now and see that you are asking about current day GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)(of course!), which neither of my suggestions fall into

Nothing to see here, carry on...

Plymstock Station?

"A view of Plymstock station looking into the split between the two branches - the metals to the left going to Yealmpton and those to right heading onto an embankment and across the bridge the parapets of which can be be seen in the second picture of the Turnchapel branch 1961 Copyright Sid Sponheimer"



Image from the Cornwall Railway Society website - http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/turnchapel-branch.html#

Greetings all,
As I was passing by the station on the weekend I took a few shots of the exterior, of which an excellent job has been done - look forward to being able to view inside, whenever that may be...





All the best,
Ross.

In my simplistic view the use of track circuits as a means of detecting the presence/location of a train in this age of advanced telecomms/GPRS^▸ (General Packet Radio Service)/RFID/Beacon technology, etc, does seem rather archaic and proven to be prone to failure.

If each train was fitted with a device that transmits a unique RFID pulse and each signal (and/or other trackside objects) fitted with devices to receive these pulses, isn't that a more resilient and accurate way of tracking trains?

I had my first experience of an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) this weekend, albeit rather short as it was a journey of just ten minutes.

I boarded in coach 9 and then immediately the tannoy announced that for passengers wishing to alight at the next stop they could only do so from coaches 1 and 2. So I started what turned out to be a rather long journey through almost the entire train only to meet the trolley in coach 7, which was seemingly popular at this time. I pulled into a vacant seat just behind the attendant and waited for him to finish serving the current customer after which I tapped him on the shoulder and asked if I could please slip past, thinking that he would pull the trolley past where I was stood, I would step into the aisle and carry on up through the train and he would push the trolley back to it's original position.

Instead, he said he would just serve the next customer on the table opposite and I'd be able to move then, so I waited as the passing scenery increasingly took on the form of that approaching my desired stop.....when the trolley then moved past the attendant explained that it can only move in one direction so if he had pulled past me he would not then be able to return to the waiting customer. At that moment I didn't have time to ponder/query this as I still had another 5 coaches and their respective obstacles (i.e. dogs with twisted leads, bags, elbows, etc) to negotiate as the looming form of the Royal Albert Bridge glided past the windows.

I don't see any reason for the attendant to be bending the truth on this but purely from a safety perspective I find this rather hard to believe. In the case of an emergency this would create a serious obstacle if only able to move in one direction - can this really be the case?

Also....the seats are hard 

I meant to post this link the other day - some very interesting photos of the interior with work well underway. So good to see this well-overdue project finally started https://www.facebook.com/pg/SaltashStationProject/photos/?tab=album&album_id=562729894062916.