And the slide set from the day is available in the Coffee Shop Archive for logged in members at
https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/mirror/TWSWAutumnGM2025.pdf

 
19. Yeovil Town station.

Convenient for the centre of town as the name suggests, but probably the least worst through route to have lost in Yeovil. Passengers travelling Taunton to Yeovil or vv on the 54 bus may not agree, with the through journey taking about 50% longer than the train used to, but Langport is the only significant centre of population on the closed route and, who knows, maybe Langport will regain a station (shared with Somerton) on the still-open Taunton - Castle Cary line.

 
From Somerset Live


Err - a section of the Somerset and Dorset (which is NOT forgotten!) reopened as a walking and cycling route.  Me thinks the headline is misleading.

 

 

Indeed - and that's why regional meetings such as TravelWatch SouthWest on 24th and RailFuture on 18th were both daytime meetings.  Where you are looking at a single town meeting - such as Melksham Transport Group on 13th November, evening has predominated and that's typically based on attendee profiles; we (meeting organisers) want to be available to "9 to 5" working people.

Meeting groups do take note of their current and intended/desired clientele and good ones such as TWSW are responsive to inputs - note the last couple of weeks where we looked to change from Friday to Saturday next March, but then we have reversed that decision after a substantive block of participants pressed that it needs to be during the working week for them.  You, infoman, expressed (if I read you right) a desire to come along last Friday but I don't think we saw you there ... happy to take inputs but for newer members / attendees it always has to be that a bird in hand - current membership - is worth two in the bush, and a substantive change takes a risk.

 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/railcard/

 
and this is argument about any meetings and that is any meeting being held at night times,

who wants to be an eco warrior and environmentalist  and use public transport in the cold and wet days

of our winter months for a bus that may never arrive?

Most railway events and talks have AGM's,

so maybe a suggestion to have a motion to change meeting times from night time  to day light hours.

Don't think any thing will be done in the near future,just don't out driving night times if you want to avoid LED headlights.

 

And under it's own power maximum 100mph. Hopefully more than one unit as it looks like more 175s being dragged to Wolverton from Ely Thursday.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:R19713/2025-10-30/detailed

This could mean a HST diagram being replaced by a 175 before the December timetable change.

 

2014, was it, and I delliberately sought one out, and in the UK it was a bit of a slog, and bike shops I went to were unfamiliar with the concept. To this day, many cycle lights seem to be torches, with not a thought given to beam shape despite it being very simple to achieve.

Turning to vehicles, LED lights can be a pest even in daylight - and even LED daytime running lights.

Oh, and then there's lighthouses, which now tend to be retrofitted with something low-maintenance and energy conserving, but those are possibly xenon lights of some kind. Again cool white, but also an abrupt zero to 100% to zero ramp for the on and off. I'm sure the safety and functionality is unaffected but it's so unaesthetic. :-)

And not that I need to but I find it easier to pick out a lighthouse and fix its position when the light leaves a ghost of itself when the beam's away from you and a loom when the beam swings towards and away from your position. And of course those are light qualities that say 'This is a biggie, this is the light that guides, it's not something small and on a navigational buoy (which still helps, but pfffft...)'.

Mark, all at sea.

 
18, Newquay Harbour tramway

 
My modest Vauxhall Corsa and my last car, an equally modest Ford Fiesta, both had switches to adjust the level of the headlights depending on the load, such as passengers in the rear seats.  (Quite how they would fit into them I don't know but ...) I suspect  that most drivers don't bother.

And that doesn't help when oncoming cars go over speed bumps.  On Sunday I drove up one hill with eight such bumps in daytime and was still conscious of the running lights of oncoming cars "jumping up".

 
Table 51 !! That brings back memories from the 70s. The 10:00 from Glasgow to Euston (always second sitting for lunch) and the Sleeper from Glasgow to Bristol are the ones that stick in my memory.

 

Cardiff Railway, and I believe only one train ever made the connection to the Taff Valley?, but in only one direction. The huge iron viaduct was scrapped during the War.

 
Lots of good, correct answers:

1. Hayling Island branch
CyclingSid, and with a fascinating insight
confirmed by eightonedee

2. Foxhangers on the Devizes line
Chris from Nailsea (K&A, line not identified)

3. Weymouth to Portland Line at Wyke Regis
eightonedee

4. Yarmouth IOW
Ray951

5. Yatton on the Strawberry Line
ChrisfN

6. Cortyon
MarkA - with an interesting example of a line buit and not used (my understanding is that it was used by a single train)

10. Hamble
Ray951
Interestimg further data from CyclingSid

11. Seend Cleeve, tramway to Seend Iron Works
bradshaw

12. Tramway - Caen Hill, Devizes
bradshaw - also noting tramway
Identified as Prison Bridge by Chris from Nailsea

13. Mangotsfield
chuffed

14. Near Midford, Somerset and Dorset
johnneyw, and yes it could make a useful part of the network

15. Ventnor
PhilWakely

16. Oxford - LNWR Station
ChrisB

20. Midland and South West Juntion towards Ludgershall
Kennet and Avon, yes CfN - but what line

 
11 Seend Cleeve, tramway to Seend Iron Works

 
20. Kennet and Avon Canal, again.

 
Interestingly there is a German standard for bicycle lamps:

To which I would add maybe it would be a benefit for application to other road vehicles. Bicycle lamps in this country seem to sold on how many lux, doesn't seem to matter if is being wasted illumination to trees, walls, roofs or sky etc.

 
Thanks for this, a really good explainer.

Mark

 
Hamble (No.10) was a freight only line. Built for the Hamble-le-Rice oil terminal. The oil terminal was fed from Fawley and Wytch Farm oil field (near Poole Harbour). There was also a connection to the Government Pipeline System. Distribution is now done by road tanker.

Hamble station on the Southampton to Fareham line is still open for passenger traffic, allowing for the fact that it not near the centre of population.

 
There's always Wikipedia - which has Autotransformer feeder station.

 
14 reminds me of near Midford Station on the Two Tunnels path from Bath to Wellow.  The line could have been a useful contribution to our national rail network today had it survived.

 
1 looks like the Hayling Island branch, and 3 looks like the Portland branch in Weymouth, coming up to Nothe Fort. 

(Sorry Sid - just seen you "got" Hayling already! I recall that there was a pub called "the Hayling Billy" on the island that had a Stroudley Terrier locomotive outside as an outsized pub sign for some years)

 
Ah, finding these now in a UK rail forum thread: in this context ATS turns out to be 'Auto Transformer Site'

SATS is 'Sectioning Auto Transformer Site'

Another: MPATS? AKA 'Mid Point Auto Transformer Site' ...

Not found ATFS yet...

Mark

 

Departed +16, arrived Evesham +18, held there (+33).

- and may well be late.

 
If it *is* Coryton, isn't it a singular example as the onward line at its extremity is in the 'Built but the junction to its destination never brought into use?

Mark

 
Shared from Brian Mathew's Facebook post.





IMHO - a request that is very welcome, but which should not have been necessary.  It only asks GWR to provide what they should be providing as standard. 

We are very grateful to Brian for this letter. The ultimate objective has to be a usable train service to, from and through Melksham, and I hope that the letter can be shared both downward from the MD of GWR to ask his team to level up the playing field, and upwards to his masters at First Group and at the Department for Transport to provide him with any more tools and support the they need to help him make it happen.   

 
6 makes me think Coryton.

Mark

 

With my thanks for your raising the issue, Mark, I have now reviewed and updated our Coffee Shop forum 'acronyms' page.

There was one I haven't added yet - simply because I couldn't find any independent source for it: 'ATFS'.

 

Fair enough, grahame - I'll fire off another couple here, then:

5.  The Strawberry Line - now a cycle path - looking back towards Yatton station.

12.  Kennet and Avon Canal, Prison Bridge, Devizes (near Caen Hill, Seend and all that).

CfN.

 
13. Mangotsfield ?