Rather better than, FOR OPERATIONAL CONVENIENCE. 

 

Hmm.  We, too, have 'a neighbour's cat': the ghastly Oscar, from next door.

Some time ago, very early one morning, there was considerable kerfuffle outside our lounge window. My wife opened the curtains, only to see Oscar with his mouth full of a, clearly dead, pigeon. 

 

 
Unfortunately, seagulls can't read.

 


Really good / sensible call.   As the Cheltenham Spa train has to cross over the Westbury train to the west of Swindon, it looks to be operationally sensible too. 

 

That's going to mean an extra couple of minutes for people from Melksham changing at Trowbridge for Bristol Temple Meads, which IMHO is no bad thing.    As well as meaning that the people who - virtually every day now - are travelling from north of Westbury (Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge) to Frome, Yeovil and elsewhere on the Heart of Wessex.

This train - 2O19 - has crept earlier over the years, somewhat in line with our nudging.  Looking back to not-all-that-long ago, it was a scramble-gamble over the bridge at Trowbridge, and no-way at Weymouth as you pulled in to platform 1 you could watch the train you wanted to catch leaving from platform 2.    Regular users will be relieved to know that I see no reason to campaign for any more minutes earlier.   It now looks right.

 
Just looking ahead to the December timetable change.   

Realtimetrains has started to show the services from the middle of the month.  As we know they can change but currently it suggests the morning Gloucester to Southampton service will leave Swindon three minutes earlier and arrive at Westbury at 06:45 giving a five minute connection to the Weymouth service.   

It will still involve a swift walk through the subway or via the lifts.  The train from Swindon is booked to use Platform 1 while the Weymouth will depart from Platform 2 at 06:50.

 

Four services a day (two each way) run serve Gloucester before or after Melksham. On previous occasions when the 05:11 from Gloucster has had to be modified, that has broken connections - being significantly disruptive for a relatively small number of passengers - from Melksham beyond Trowbridge and beyond Westbury.

I have checked with Olivia and - good news - the connections are maintained during the Gloucester works.  Olivia writes


And in a further follow up, I have thanked her for that and for the maintenance of times on 2O19 which she's let me know have been fed back to the engineering team as a note for future engineering - a drop of knowledge in an ocean, maybe, but still good to have it (with mixed metaphors) on the radar.

 
In the end it left five minutes late but was all but on time by Westbury.

It was held to allow a cross platform change from the London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa service which was running eight minutes late.

 

 
Delays to services between Slough and Maidenhead

Due to a fault with the signalling system between Slough and Maidenhead trains have to run at reduced speed on some lines.

Train services running through these stations may be delayed by up to 15 minutes. Disruption is expected until 19:00 11/09.

 
Voting has now closed.


My thanks to all of our Coffee Shop members here who have voted and / or posted their comments. 

I have taken a pragmatic decision to sort of combine the three most voted-for titles, in the latest revised heading for this topic.

Hope this helps. CfN. 

 
which includes a link to a GoFundMe page to cover half of the estimated moving costs, if anyone is feeling generous; current total is £471 out of £5k:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/moving-general-steam-navigation-creating-new-working-base

 
The loco has been stored at the Swindon & Cricklade Railway.

Details on its impending move reported by the Swindon Advertiser

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/25455807.historic-general-steam-navigations-future-hangs-balance/

 
Asking Gemini the following (and then, separately, the length of the Leicester structure as it like the London and Greenwich was a mixture of brick arch runs and steel spans of various sorts and merged that response with this...)

How does the London and Greenwich Railway Viaduct compare in length to the Tay Bridge, the Forth Rail bridge and the new HS2 Colne Valley viaduct? Which is longest?

The new Colne Valley Viaduct on the HS2 line is now the longest railway bridge in the UK. With apologies for the tabbing, here's a comparison of the lengths:

Bridge                                                   Length
HS2 Colne Valley Viaduct                           3.4 km     (2.1 miles)
London and Greenwich Railway Viaduct   5.55 km   (3.45 miles)
Tay Bridge                                                   3.3 km     (2.04 miles)
Forth Rail Bridge                                   2.467 km (1.53 miles)
Great Central Leicester Viaduct                   2.4 km     (1.49 miles)

So... perhaps it's that the Colne Valley structure while eclipsed in length by certain other structures is made up of the longest clean series of spans.

Off topic: it can be instructive to take the lengths for some of the Forth Bridge's components and, in imagination, superimpose them on other locations. Those two spans clearing 521 metres, or even the warren trusses that connect the cantilevers - they'd clear 107 metres.

But then, closer to coffeeshop country, the spans of the rail bridge at Saltash, at 138 metres in length, and lifted to their final positions after being assembled ashore. Also, the prequel at Chepstow, with a 91 metre span and a possibly more benign construction site. I wish the Chepstow work had survived.

Mark

 
Back to Ludgershall now. I've just acquired this card of the 4th Royal Fusiliers leaving the station in 1913. The splendid signal controls the MSWJR line to Marlborough and beyond and to the Tidworth branch.

I seriously think that taking into account its size Ludgershall must have been one of the most photographed stations in the country in between 1906 and 1914, with local cameramen being on hand to record the arrival of troops for their summer training camps and then publishing postcards. The most favoured shots show troops assembling on the platform, but others, such as this one, are of them outside the station.

The Great War brought a halt to such photography, except when George V left the Royal Train to inspect troops during the war. Earlier this year there were listings on eBay of cards showing the train's army staff and Royal valets, but the prices were at least double what were realistic. When the cards didn't sell, I suggested to the vendor that they might like to re-list at half the original prices or less, adding that this might prompt a "bidding war" between myself and an MSWJR enthusiast but nothing has appeared.

 
Ah, thanks Sid.  A fine collection of photos. In the early 1970s I cycled from Reading to watch the Tour of Britain "Milk Race" (then our national cycle-racing tour lasting two weeks) on the Amesbury by-pass and beforehand rode up to the machine-gun range target railway on Enford Down. It rained all day, and it was the only time in 270,000 miles of cycling that I suspected I was suffering from exposure up on the Plain. It was VERY bleak and wretched up there.

IIRC the maximum number of competitors allowed in the race in those days was 60, and when they passed me they were hurdled together in a very compact bunch, not looking very enthusiastic.

Then I had to ride 45 miles home; I was probably out on the bike for twice as long as they were.

 
My friend Gemini says:

 
The HS2 people have been fond of that figure, and not denigrating it, but doesn't the London and Greenwich Railway's viaduct from ~1836 have the better of it as far as length goes though?

Mark

 
...for HS2; 2.1 miles long. Looks impressive in the picture.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bc071f750a7ec7f0

 
Telegraph piece:

Tube strike sparks e-bike ‘kamikaze race’ through London

Trips made on Lime bikes up by 74pc compared to last week but crowded roads have become ‘terrifying'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/39590f9f0b1a51f3

 

While I agree that infrastructure provision is important I also believe it is essential for 'newbie' cyclists to be properly instructed in how to behave when out & about on their bikes. e.g. wear a helmet (I can testify that you never know what others are going to do - in my case it was the helmet that split rather than my head after I hit the deck when trying to avoid two pedestrians who walked out in front of me on a cycle path), lose the headphones / ear buds - cycling can become dangerous if you are not fully aware of what is going on around you.

Completion of a Bikeability course - before they venture out unsupervised - should be mandatory for all new cyclists.

 
An American friend who flew home from London hours before Lockdown clamped down on travel has just returned for the first time and tells me that "London is full of cyclists and people walking. I have to say I am not loving London this time around, I think living away from a city for nearly five years and travelling in a car most places really spoiled me for using public transport!"

I had warned her about the proliferation of shop-lifting and phone-snatching in the Capital, but I guess that has to be compared with the murder of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University.

 

Glad to hear that Earl is fighting fit again, and is helping to keep your larder stocked.

 
And she went to TfL around the time the SWR/TOCs ticket office closure plan was pulled (on behalf of the DfT); good practice if the EL discussions ever become plans.