I've just tried NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s OJP^▸ (Online Journey Planner) for that trip, telling it to avoid Paddock Wood. One of the options it comes up with is exactly what you were asking about - and that's as close to being "permitted" as you are likely to get (unless you ask someone and trust them to be definitively right - righter than the OJP).

But (there's always one) that was for a single, not a return, and it's not offering me SOP^▸ (Standard Operating Instructions) returns at all. There's no obvious reason, but then the two edit buttons aren't working at the moment either, so maybe it's not well.

I don't think the Routeing Guide says anything about walking legs, so any route with one can't be permitted by the NRG. However, some walking links are shown in the data feeds, so journey planners do show them - but I have never found whatever it is that tells them they should.

If you "go" down Lower Station Approach/Bristol & Exeter Mews via the medium of Google Street View, you can see the locked exit door with its "Rail Replacement Bus Services" sign. If your medium is Google Maps, you can even see how that sign has moved in mysterious ways since 2012. And of course the bricked (stoned?) -up entrance from the forecourt can be visited too.

Yes - though CRL's announcement is not actually that new; it was presented to the TfL^» (Transport for London - about) board meeting a month ago. At the same meeting, the TfL Commissioner's report included:

I can confirm that the 23:34 ran - I heard it. But it was the 20:29 from Reading that was cancelled; the 22:00 was its return trip from Gatwick.

Is John McDonnell a comedian? Last year there were stories about him going round the city trying to persuade them he was just a cuddly Teddy bear wearing a joke-shop Marxist bow tie. They weren't convinced then, and now ... from City A.M.:

At the moment there are five practice runs out to Reading and back in the timetable, and they seem to run most days. Last Thursday I was surprised to see a 345 in P9 for its reversal, instead of the booked P13. I guess they (the drivers, perhaps, more than the trains) do need to know the way; on Tuesday one was allowed a go in P10.

Coast were reported yesterday to have wound their inflammatory statements up a notch. Their view of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) railways business is well know, but ... (from City A.M.):

The "onward travel information" sheet available from NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s station page says the rail replacement bus stop is the bus stop on the main road. That's dated last December, so later than the main car park (though their information page itself still hasn't noticed that).

Is that part of some government anti-obesity campaign?

Actually, yes. Though historically the Moretonhampstead and South Devon Railway was first, with the Teign Valley line branching off at Heathfield, inevitably the remaining branch came to be seen as secondary.

I was surprised to find that that bridge was not "borrowed", but newly built for the Wray Valley (Cycle) Trail in 2010/11. There's another new bridge over the A382, this one on a new alignment, just down the road. I think there's still more of the trail to be built, though (apart from the usual financial issues) the fact the Dawnus was one of the main contractors won't help. 

There's another way in which broadcasting and running railways are similar in their need to publish timetables - they both need to notify changes.

About 10-15 years ago I came across a paper from BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Engineering, about work to integrate sources of programme schedules and late changes. The idea was to drive all the systems - Ceefax, Freeview EPG, web site, on-screen messages, and continuity announcements - from one master source. I'm not sure if social media had come in then, though I don't think they are much used even now. Ceefax of course has gone.

I don't know how much was done on that, but judging by tonight not much. I was expecting the 10 pm news might be delayed, but there was no information being put out via any medium. Well, I suppose it was all in sync, anyway! (The programme timing data that drives PVRs when recording was I suspect present; I have a feeling that's separate from the EPG itself.)

The same idea of a single source is as important - perhaps more so - for other kinds of information too. It was the Lewisham "mass detrainment" incident that made me think this is something the railways need. With so many passengers looking at social media, and with information also available via drivers' tannoys, on-line, and even (in that case) news media, I think it is vital to put out the same message on all of them, and update it in sync too. While taking sensible decisions quickly enough was key learning point no.1, telling the passengers about it immediately - and with no confusion and contradictions - must be no. 2.

He's right, you know - on the A382 just outside Moretonhampstead.

And don't forget the rack and pinion bit of the metro up to Croix Rousse! That's unique now - at least in the sense that the only other example I've been on (Lausanne) now isn't (it's been derackinated).


I did think of the Rhone at Lyon, though not looking that way - but then I thought of lots of other possible places. Now, if that picture had been bigger so you could read the "SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)" sign on that shed ... it's part of the works at la Mulatière (or Oullins-machines), one of the oldest locomotive building sites in france (1846). Supposedly it's just closed - this month - though visibly there wasn't even rail access into it last November.

I just assumed that pollen is like dust only sticky - so it coats heat exchanger fins, reducing heat flow, and needs to be unstuck to be removed. This turns out to be true, or somewhat true. Pollen stickiness is quite variable, as it functions to stick pollen to insect pollinators but isn't much help for wind-blown pollens. I would have thought the latter make up any big clouds of the stuff a train will tun across (or into), but apparently even this is a little bit sticky.

But a quick trawl for cleaning products or machinery targetted at this problem for aircon units (for example) comes up with not a lot, so evidently it's dealt with as part of normal cleaning. Maybe if you have a cooler unit that's particularly compact, thus hard to get in and clean the surfaces of (and we know why that was a serious design issue for the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)), cleaning will always be a bit marginal. So if this is one of a number of fouling types that call for extra cleaning methods to be applied, it would not be a surprise - and you'd expect any initial problems to be soluble.