Press release at https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/news/kids-go-free-on-the-wests-buses/

"The school holidays are due to start on 19 July. The proposed free travel offer would run from then until 5 September (to cover varying INSET days) across the West of England and North Somerset during the same period on all registered commercial and supported bus services starting in those areas, with limited exemptions to be set out in due course on the Travelwest website – e.g. for airport services."

"The proposed package is set to be funded using some of the £13.5 million of Bus Grant funding secured from the Department for Transport by the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority."

Perhaps I was too pessimistic?

Within that 2027 to 2032 window, we should have in the bag Portishead and Henbury reopening, five new stations and a reworked Temple Meads.

I'm not certain around the timelines but the rail/metrobus/cycling infrastructure around Brabazon looks pretty good on paper (though obviously a more frequent rail service would be better) and should be fairly transformational for the Cribbs to UWE "arc".

Support for small, incremental rail projects seem plausible - e.g. Narroways to Montpelier tunnel redoubling, Saltford, Ashton Gate, St Anne’s Park and Lockleaze station reopenings and perhaps even Filton Bank electrification. 

I believe it's a little duller than that. Basically the reinstatement of the 2027 to 2032 Mayoral Authority funding settlement which was announced in Oct 2023 but frozen by Labour when they came into power.

It follows on from the 2022 to 2027 settlement which in the case of WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about), has mainly been bus and road focused, although there's been a fair amount of rail strategic planning with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) including a study into whether Parkway to Temple Meads could be electrified for less than originally budgeted.

I'm not sure if a detailed pipeline for 2027 to 2032 is in the public domain - the main commitments I can find are reopening Portishead (MetroWest 1b) and Henbury (MetroWest 2).

Mass transit development could be something exciting, but realistically it's probably just bits like moving the busses to the north side of Temple Meads, roadworks along the A37 and A4 corridors to make the busses run faster etc.

I suspect that in the case of WECA it's PR^▸ (Public Relations) fluff rather than anything meaningful.





 

If you think that's cheap, I'm currently in Spain's Basque country. They seem to have some kind of special economic crisis pricing going on. If I'm not mistaken I just did the 12 miles by train from Hendaye in France to San Sebastian for 49c

It's an odd one - at a guess the ground staff checked her in against the wrong name, but I can't figure out how it wasn't picked up at the gate. Normally it's super strict and any deviation from your passport name e.g. Matt vs Matthew can result in a no-fly or require a ticket re-issue. Perhaps BA^» (British Airways - about)'s gate staff don't check business class tickets as carefully, but perhaps also because of the gender mismatch, the employee thought the passenger might be transgender and that any questions could get them into trouble? Also, once she got to Madrid, why on earth didn't she just go straight to a BA desk? That would have proven beyond doubt that she was in Madrid and indeed she's have the tags on her bags to prove it. 

As for the difference in the levels of checks between air and rail. I suppose it's down to two things, 1) security of the flight, 2) immigration obligations, 3) anti-smuggling, 4) treaty obligations

1) An air passenger with a weapon or bomb can (generally) do a lot more damage than their rail equivalent. Air travel is perceived to be a higher risk/profile target.
2) Airlines are delegated with the task of verifying passenger identity, right to enter the destination country and relaying that info to the security/immigration services of both. 
3) Airports are built to try and minimise smuggling, primarily of drugs
4) Countries are obliged to meet international conventions on passenger security etc
 
When it comes to rail, a train between Amsterdam and Berlin is practically little more than domestic anyway due to the Schengen area, Eurostar being a very different due to immigration and security agreements. I seem to recall the Spanish doing security checks on high-speed rail passengers due to terrorist fears and the Swedes/Danes re-instating border checks for a while for immigration purposes. 

You are right though that it does seem odd how the two are so different and how often high profile railway stations do not feel like they have been designed with security in mind. When you take the Eurostar in Paris there's a long mezzanine before the ticket barriers. I've always felt like in the event of an incident I'd be a complete sitting duck up there. 

Given the experience elsewhere in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), I think it's fairly safe to say that "build it and they will come" applies here and that we'd see almost immediate changes in transport usage patterns as people would take advantage of the new facilities.

I'm going to be very crayonista, but given battery-electric trains (and future electrification), would a half-hourly "all stops" Swindon to Salisbury service not make sense? Wootton Bassett station would of course be horribly complicated and expensive, I suspect that Chippenham would need 4 platform faces to enable trains to pass, Westbury probably needs the missing platform face to be reinstated and in this magical world, an Abbey Wood-style Swindon East Parkway with two terminating platforms would generate significant traffic and free up capacity in Swindon station.

If we followed this logic, then a compliment would be an Oxfordshire-championed Swindon to Kidlington (or Witney if we were really enthusiastic) via Oxford service which would support a "Wantage Parkway".

I would have thought that the Bristol to Chippenham corridor would be best served by a MetroWest RER-style service, reopening St Annes, Saltford, Batheaston, Corsham etc.

I'm not convinced about Hullavington, but it would likely make sense to add an additional pair of tracks between Bristol Parkway and Chipping Sodbury, terminating a Bristol RER there in a "Yate South" station - there being a huge amount of land south of the line which could be used for housing.

It's a lot of money, but it would be transformational for the region and given much of the nonsense our cash is spent on, would it really be that much?

Sounds like grant-fodder to me.

"Yeah, we know it won't make money but the important things is to prove the technology for the good of the planet"

As others say, amongst other things, I suppose the trouble is that there's not really a suitable rail/road connected port on the English side.

So whilst on one hand a commuters/shoppers ferry from Cardiff Bay to Weston would be a reasonably short trip, getting to the pier on the English side would be a PITA^▸ ('pain in the a**e'), so you might as well do it on a 1h22 train or 1h10 car journey which won't leave you feeling seasick.

Similarly, whilst there might be enough Cornwall to South Wales freight to fill a ferry, I doubt the numbers stack up even time-wise - by the time you've driven your artic to Ilfracombe (or wherever), loaded it, offloaded it etc, you might as well have just left the truck on the Motorway. In modern logistics, predictability is critical.

And if you're canny, your best members of staff too.

By providing fast, reliable transport there is (still) enormous potential for frequent, reliable and affordable rail services to provide people with the education, career and cultural opportunities in the centres of major cities (and the leisure opportunities in the countryside for that matter). This is particularly the case for those who can't drive for age/affordability/medical reasons, but also those with families who often have narrow windows of time during which they can work, making long commutes unfeasible.

The classic example has long been the Welsh Valleys, but there are plenty of even urban places like Lockleaze in Bristol where a railway line runs through but getting into the city centre by bus can take up to 40 minutes in rush hour.

If we took the Bristol example further, an extra pair of tracks between Chipping Sodbury and Bristol Parkway would enable an RER-style service to serve the south of Yate, Winterbourne and Coalpit Heath, not to mention enabling considerable amounts of housing to be built south of the line (whether that is desirable is another question).

And for the true believers, it seems ludicrous that Bristol has a more or less serviceable rail right of way right through some of the most deprived areas in the north east of the city which would be quite feasible to return to rail use (albeit needing some creativity at the southern end).

Remember that First have a *long* experience of quietly playing politicians and civil servants and it's arguable that the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) franchise is one of the better ones as a result of them plugging away at it for over 20 years, making the best of the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan)), coping with electrification, aging rolling stock, lack of long-term investment etc.

I've always suspected that one of First's strategies was to be "The Devil you know" i.e. with GWR, they delivered the goods at an affordable subsidy level and didn't cause politicians or civil servants too many headaches - but they were no-one's poodle and would operate sharply where necessary.

So I suspect the statements around open access and their existing franchises might be a throw of the dice to get a couple more years on their existing franchises - "let us discreetly take care of things for a couple more years whilst you sort out GBR^▸ (Great British Railways), no-one but the trainspotters will ever notice".   

I do Bristol to Sheffield reasonably often and yes, it could definitely be faster but at 2h40ish it's much better than driving and can be reasonably priced if you pick trains carefully and use SplitSave. I'm really not bothered about catering, but the fact that the WiFi is invariably crap and they are built as Faraday cages so have minimal mobile signal is very annoying, not to mention that Sundays quite often have an extra hour added to allow for engineering.

I'd wager that electrification and replacement with 80x stock could make a significant impact on those times in the core, if only by permitting faster acceleration and braking. Presumably when HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) starts there will also be an opportunity to recast the timetables into New Street in favour of Cross Country. 

No quote from the Metro Mayor? ;-)

Thank you for posting the slides Graham. Interesting slides from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - I hadn't realised the scale of the Brabazon development and that it included student housing. How the Henbury line won't be an electrified 15 minute service seems crazy!

Part of the "Project Churchill" campaign perhaps?