In some senses they can't win.  In London the Day cap is already 1/5 the weekly cap, along the lines of jamestheredengine's suggestion to make things better value for those who travel only one or two days a week.  That then leads to complaints from those who still need to travel every day that they don't get any more discount than those who travel less frequently.

At least it removes the ridiculous situation of 2 people from the same household travelling together who had to sit apart and so were closer to other people than necessary.

That "via Marylebone" stipulation is just poorly worded, probably an attempt at shorthand to say that Marylebone is closer. LU has no such restriction on how you get between Paddington and Euston, and of course in most cases anyone seeing that there is disruption won't even go to Paddington first, but will head straight for Euston or Marylebone from their starting point.

That Journey Check website incidentally looks useful but is oddly set up.  There is no obvious way to switch from one TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to another other than guessing the bit of the address after the "/", and the home page of www.journeycheck.com is Forbidden.

...or frustratingly, just melting down the metal for scrap and chucking the rest.

Having to book greatly reduces the benefit of a frequent service. London to Leeds for instance is half hourly for most of the day but much of the benefit is lost if you can't just turn up and get on the first train, change plans on the day and so on.  It also increases the effective travel time; you can't rely on being able to rebook on the next train if you miss one so always have to aim to turn up early, and will quite possibly see the previous train leaving!

I've read the article 3 times and still can't work out what they are going to use them for!

That Anytime/Off-peak anomaly makes no sense at all; until I checked I expected the Anytime to have some detailed restriction that in particular circumstances would make it a little less useful than the Off-peak one, but there's nothing at all. 

I suspect part of the problem here is that fares regulation makes it so hard to iron out anomalies that the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) doesn't bother.  They can't increase a fare (even if they reduce another at the same time to balance it out) without going through a long-winded process with the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), so removing an anomaly would always lose them money and ultimately they're running a business. Come to think of it, they're probably not allowed to reduce fares either at the moment without DfT permission.

Should be "via Dilton Marsh" if that's what they mean.  Alternatively Chippenham would allow the Yeovil route as well.

Routes are meant to be unambiguous; you shouldn't have to know what they are meant to mean to understand them.

I did think that photo looked odd. There'd be no point stopping cyclists (you surely still don't need a passport to cross the border so nothing to check?) and the official is wearing something resembling a 1970s London Underground Station Inspector's uniform...

I'm intrigued by the last train of the day from Taunton to Minehead being so much quicker on Fridays despite calling at all stations. Does footnote B mean "Class 8 shunter haulage" by any chance?

Think I'll read this after lunch...

In my younger days I tried to get left on a train late at night to avoid a long wait outdoors for the first train in the morning but always got spotted; I obviously needed some tips from these two!  I do hope the indignant mother has now stopped trying to blame railway staff.

I ended up on a main road rather than a cycle path this weekend thanks to being unable to get a trailer full of stuff for the tip through several of these; I'd have had to empty the trailer, detach it from the bike and take it through on its side then reverse the process at each one.

These barriers so often end up being counter-productive.  They can make a path seem unwelcoming and even threatening, and certainly in my area are often dismantled - presumably by trail-bike riders or similar who come tooled-up for the job with an angle-grinder or similar. The forlorn remains of the barrier then looks even worse.  Unless they are virtually impossible for anyone to get through even with a normal bike, a couple of joyrider types can normally manage to get a motorbike through by working together, and few barriers would stop the child's version with the sort of parent who buys that sort of toy determined to get it through.

The real answer is proper enforcement of the rules, though in an era when our various public services seem more concerned with saying it's not their responsibility than taking it I agree that's not easy. If it's happening often enough to be a problem the police shouldn't have to wait long to catch someone.  Encouraging more use of the paths by legitimate users (ie removing physical and metaphorical barriers) will also help as a busy path is less attractive to those up to no good. 

They may have been unmanned in your day, but they're unstaffed nowadays! (or possibly not depending how describing station staffing levels is being spun...)

I'd dismissed Llangollen as impossible to get to without driving until the heritage railway had a special event that particularly attracted my attention.  I decided to look into it in more detail and found it had an hourly or better bus service only taking 20 minutes from right outside the nearest main line station at Ruabon, better than many non rail-served towns in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) land (though it does seem counter-intuitive that Wales isn't GWR territory any more!).  As well as the heritage railway it has superb walking, both level along the canal (the genuinely iconic Pontcysyllte aqueduct is little more than a stroll away) and more challenging elsewhere, glorious scenery, a range of eating and shopping options and an excellent B&B I found.

I do hope the railway recovers; I'd been looking forward to a return visit.