Whereas the second is obviously Severn Beach, with a remarkably placid Severn at high tide. 

1. I notice that there's no ticket acceptance on the x31 Bath to Chippenham bus.   I know that a sudden influx of passengers bursts capacity on the x31, and that the service is painfully slow if taken all the way, but never the less ...

2. When Box tunnel was closed for almost-electrification, Bradford Junction reversal signalling was added, so it should be possible to maintain all station calls.  I note that reversal is hardly ever used ... I wonder why that is (and I'm very sad that the Bradford North Curve was no re-instated instead of the reversal there even though it was in the initial plans.

3. Once the Westbury - Swindon service is up to an appropriate (i.e. hourly) frequency,  a Swindon to Chippenham (direct) and Chippenham to Bath (change at Trowbridge) will be available whenever Thingley Junction to Bathampton Junction is closed.

Or perhaps it was just horse-trading? WECA pay £13.8m consultants fee to kick the project into the grass long enough for Marv to be out of office. Marv gets to say "I got this transformational idea to the next stage". Marv stops blocking WECA. WECA include in the report scope some stuff they might actually be interested in.

In the scope of the report they include a bunch of stuff 

I see a login page but if you go to https://staging.future4west.co.uk/ in Google Chrome and ignore the security messages you can see something on the A38 upgrade which may or may not be news.

Have lost the link but the strategy document (which I presume this is based on) published a few weeks ago is an interesting read, very pragmatic and well thought out.

It's a shame that the headline figure is the one that's got picked up as it outlined a lot of relatively inexpensive things that could be done within this decade to get station re-openings and services to half hourly (including Portishead branch), with the big-ticket items such as quadrupling in the more distant future when presumably they could be avoided no more.

As I read it I wondered if the extent of the quadrupling proposed was a tactic to get Bristol Parkway to Westerleigh Jcn (which is probably the most needed) over the line. 

IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly), Electrification was only mentioned once but was effectively "electrify all the things"

There was also the separate union connectivity review which seemed to be a rather nice excuse to get funding from Westminster for a lot of new stations in South East Wales (no problem with that, good on em)

I think the 3rd photo is Taunton bound for Minehead....or perhaps Clovelly.....

Looks like they were filmed at Glass Wharf, which is where Burges Salmon have their offices.

This initiative seems to be backed by the Western Gateway Partnership, which is not to be confused with the Western Gateway STB. The Partnership covers Bristol, Cardiff, Newport and Bath, while the STB covers Bristol, Bath and Bournemouth-Christchurch-Poole. It’s confusing!

The STB has backed a strategy which would see four tracking from Bristol Parkway to Westerleigh and Keynsham to Bath, as well as capacity improvements between the Severn Tunnel and Bristol Parkway (Pilning anyone?). It’s easy to see how this could soak up a fair chunk of the £8bn they quote, especially if we add electrification to the mix.

There's a good interpretation centre at Cruachan I would highly recommend if you are in the area. I recall that the display and film showed a lack of high vis, hard hats etc. during construction, and indicated that working conditions were tough, albeit that pay rates reflected them.

Not something that would be tolerated now.

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) points west had some film footage,and on top  of one of the buildings opp BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI))(not sure which one).

approx 15 minutes

available for 24 hours only

ChrisB,if I sign up for any more travel sites,it will take all day to read them.