You can't get a Cross Country train from Plymouth to Essex and East Anglia. You are expected to change in London (Crossrail has made that easier); so for Plymouth trains, why go further than Birmingham which could be the hub for the north. Maybe on a Saturday there is a justification for Penzance-Scotland but I doubt it.

Passengers across Wiltshire and the South West could face fewer train services under Labour’s rail nationalisation plans, according to the head of Great Western Railway’s parent company.

Graham Sutherland, chief executive of FirstGroup, which owns Great Western Railway (GWR), said cuts already being introduced on other parts of the rail network could become more widespread as the Government brings train operators under public ownership.

GWR, which serves Wiltshire, Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire and South Wales, is due to be nationalised on December 13 as part of the Government’s plans to create Great British Railways.

Mr Sutherland said timetable reductions being introduced by operators including Avanti West Coast and Thameslink were an early indication of how ministers may seek to reduce costs by matching train services more closely to passenger demand.

He said: “There are a lot of services running that really don’t have very much demand for them, so I think over the long term it’s right to begin to match supply and demand.”

Smoking, Vaping, Drinking, Sunning, Sweating, Sheltering, Socialising. Living in apartment blocks surround by randomly parked vehicles wherever they fit, busy roads with vehicles perhaps cruising to find spaces.  They may be nice inside, but the external aesthetics shout functionallity. Local culture - there may be some but the bar names and menus are in English.

Alghero is at the end of a narrow gauge railway that's not on my pass, but I visited for and extra £5 as it's one of the few remaining parts of the narrow network on Sardinia.  Even this has been cut back to the top of the town - you can see where the tracks used to go. 

Finding out the train times was a challenge.  The line starts in Sassari, where the station has three working platforms and a ticket office labelled "We do not sell tickets for Alghero".  The standard European departure sheets don't show these trains either.  The "Sardinian Green Train" website tells us about the weekly special excursions on some of the otherwise abandoned lines where they are still passable. The ARST website (they run the narrow gauge trains) proudly concentrated on their buses, but I *had* actually found a timetable.  Trains differ totally on Sundays from the rest of the week, but they are all in one table there than needs very careful reading.  When I reached Sassari, I bought my ticket at the station newsagent and tobacconist kiosk - where the gent checked my timings an reassured me I was correct in my reading, and I could make a round trip before the next main line train, some 4 and a half hours later.

A modern 2 carriage train, and it would seem that while I had some problems knowing when it ran, others did not.  Before we set off, it was full (almost) and some standing.  Made me feel old - VERY old - young people off for a day on the beach, well behaved and laughing and joking between themselves.   No-one got off at intermediate stations; more joined at Olmedo where we passed a train going the other way. 

The station at Alghero has clearly seen better / busier days.  Apart from the platform we arrived at, two others are rusted and there's other track work that hasn't seen a train, I suspect, this millenium. A crossover to allow run-rounds, and a turntable - redundant too now that the trains are current generation diesel units.  An hourly service is possible with the loop half way, and that's probably more than enough. And I note that trains can be coupled and run in pairs.

I bought myself a can of cold Sprite in the station cafe.  Two big fridges full of beer, blokes sat at tables drinking been, smoking, talking back and forth.  I eased my way through to the smaller fridge of soft drinks that was tucked behind. I really have no desire to dull my senses in the middle of the day which I know a beer would do in this heat.  The return train was much quieter - still a goodly number of passengers through to Sassari.  The countryside here is interesting.  Low but steep hills with patches of trees between tree grown, and rocky limestone (?) outcrops.  Some sections of the railway have been rebuilt to eliminate some twists and turns, but other sections are still torturous.

I'm glad I took a look at Alghero, but it's not on my list to return.  Seen enough. Sassari may warrant a return visit; I had an hour to look around but felt there was still more to see; had to rush back to the station.

There have been a couple of "abnormal loads" on the worker server today.   I *am* aware and will look through the logs overnight.  The server emails me when it's in trouble and typical recovers over a few minutes when these things happen.

As an administrator on this Coffee Shop forum, may I thank all of our members here for your restrained, non-speculative, posts about this sad incident.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch will indeed discover all of the facts, and provide us with a definitive report, in due course.

CfN.  -X

The aspect displayed by 358 upon the departure of the 360 will be interesting to discover.

Here in Nailsea, we have the benefit of a latter-day Steptoe & Son, who drive along our road every week in their pickup truck with a loudhailer asking for 'any old iron?'
They aren't choosy - any scrap metal will do (I noticed that the only thing they didn't want was a neighbour's old fridge/freezer).
We don't have to do anything, other than put our unwanted metal items out on the drive, where they can be seen from the road.  Even if we don't hear the loudhailer (unlikely), they will come to the front door, just to confirm, "Is that to go?".
Recently, we updated our cooker and removed a redundant overhead extractor fan unit. My daughter and I will put those out on the drive and see how long it takes Steptoe & Son to snap them up. 

Some context on the events at Elstow/Bedford this evening.  There is a lot you can tell from train describer data on @OpenTrainTimes, however there is a lot of information that you cannot determine.  The purple trace is the Class 360's movements, the green is the 810's.

The first journey by a reigning British monarch on a train was made by Queen Victoria on June 13, 1842. She traveled on the British Royal Train from Slough to London’s Paddington Station, completing the trip in 25 minutes.

... She traveled on the British Royal Train from Slough to London’s Paddington Station, completing the trip in 25 minutes.