[[Following is an announcement - see also personal note at end ]]

Ladies and Gentlemen

Last week was a huge news week - internationally, for the UK and locally, and our Melksham Transport User Group meeting on 13th May failed to make the cut for the Melksham News in amongst elections, VE Day preparations and the rest. That is totally their editorial decision - but very disappointing personally as I look to re-envigourate our public transport user group.

The steps public transport has taken forward in the last couple of years are incredible - but they are just steps and much remains to be done. As a community, we need to inform and encourage "our own" to use public transport - providing help and information for residents, and infomation and encouragement to operators and specifiers and to those who influence them for us via local and central government.

There is no panic to reset next week or even next month - much of this is longer term stuff - but there is a need to keep our community input active to ensure we are not overlooked and left further behing than Melksham is already. And that's both by promoting and using current services, and working for better future ones.

The meeting on 13th May goes ahead - at 19:00 at The Campus (SN12 6ES) and all are welcome.  All are not only welcome but more than that - encouraged - to attend.  Not just a meeting for the sake of a meeting - an update on transport and travel and a rallying call and look forward.

This notice is circulated to several dozen friends and colleagues who have been / are working on this with me in interest and will also be shared wider

Graham

Graham Ellis - graham@sn12.net
Links via https://www.sn12.net
07974 925 928 / 01225 708225
48 Spa Road, Melksham SN12 7NY, UK

Personal note - I think I am more exhausted than I care to admit - perhaps due to what I have found to be pressures of four years as a Town Councillor - and I have let some of the public transport elements lapse. But yet there has been some excellent stuff going on and I look forward to a revival of my activities, though still looking to pass much of mante on to a wider group.  I’m styling this late spring and early summer as a recharge  / sabbatical - some envigourating updating already for anyone who follows me on social media, and Lisa an I are headed off physically a couple of days after next week’s meeting for both a recharge break and - knowing us - for learning more about transport issues in the land of far, far away.

A man has been arrested after a 16-year-old girl was raped and a 17-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in Exeter on Friday night.

The 19-year-old man, from Exeter, was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault and remains in police custody, Devon and Cornwall Police said.

Both incidents happened in the area of Digby and Sowton train station between 20:45 and 22:00 BST, the force added.

Det Ch Insp Dave Pebworth said officers are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incidents.

Police said the 16-year-old girl was raped at about 21:00 on Clyst Halt Avenue.

About half an hour later, the 17-year-old girl was sexually assaulted on the train platform, and further assaulted while on a train travelling to Exeter St David's.

Det Ch Insp Pebworth said: "We believe that there were lots of people in the area of Digby and Sowton last night and we are urging anyone with information which may assist us to please get in touch. A number of scene guards will be in place today as we continue our investigation and there is an increased high visibility presence."

08:44 Swindon to Westbury due 09:25
08:44 Swindon to Westbury due 09:25 is being delayed between Swindon and Chippenham.
This is due to a broken down train.

May be everyone no matter who their employer is should have legally mandated Sunday working  as part of their contract of employment ...................I can see that going down like a lead balloon, very Orwellian.

Will they have Sunday as part of their working week too?

I suspect that the issue may relate to access for staff to a live railway.   In older day and you still see it in other counties, trains run on adjacent lines while work is ongoing but in order to reduce / eliminate as far as possible casualties, it's very rare if at all these days.  So that means as nighttime stoppage ...

I feel for staff having to put a time on disruption and how long it will go on.  The honest thing to say is "we don't know" but that is not helpful without an estimate, and systems are not set up to say "probably" and "possibly" and "if we're lucky", and I'm not sure how such terms and information would be taken by members of the public who are less analytic than readers here.

Mark Carne CBE is a Scottish businessman who served as executive vice-president for Shell in the Middle East and North Africa and was chief executive of Network Rail.  Born: 25 February 1959 (age 66 years), Helensburgh

Mark Joseph Carney (born March 16, 1965) is a Canadian politician and economist who is the 24th and current prime minister of Canada since 2025. Previous offices: Governor of the Bank of England (2013–2020)

Bryson gets permission to challenge station Irish signs



Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson has been given permission by the High Court to challenge plans to have Irish language signs installed at Grand Central Station in Belfast.

He was granted leave to seek a judicial review into Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins' decision to approve the £150,000 scheme at the city's new public transport hub.

A judge ruled Mr Bryson had established a case that the move was so controversial it required agreement from the entire Northern Ireland Executive. The case has been listed for a full hearing in September.

Proceedings were issued after Ms Kimmins announced in March that Irish signage were to be installed at Grand Central and on ticket vending machines. She said the decision was based on a commitment to promote the language and the importance of the station reflecting all citizens.

Representing himself in the case, Mr Bryson contended she unlawfully breached the ministerial code by failing to refer the issue to the Executive Committee for discussion and agreement.

Under Stormont rules any controversial or cross-cutting decision should be tabled for consideration by the full power-sharing executive.

Mr Bryson argued the test was met based on publicly expressed views by a number of senior unionist politicians.

Disputing that assessment, counsel for the minister said a TUV petition in the assembly against the dual language signage attracted no signatures of support from any other MLAs.

Tony McGleenan KC told the court the mechanism deployed by Timothy Gaston in an attempt to have the issue referred to the executive "registered a nil return". But according to Mr Bryson, the petition could not have achieved anything more than a discussion about the planned Irish signage.

Mr Justice Scoffield was told that the issue has already been raised at an executive meeting last month. Granting leave following submissions, Mr Justice Scoffield held that there was sufficient merit in Mr Bryson's arguments to distinguish it from other "hopeless cases". With no planned work to install Irish language signage at the station set to begin for at least six months, the case was listed for a full hearing in September.

Speaking outside court, Mr Bryson stated: "It is unfortunate that so defiant is this Sinn Féin minister that it's going to require the court to uphold the law and her legal responsibilities which she has not complied with in this case." He added: "The end result, it is hoped, is that Irish language (signs) will not feature at Grand Central Station."

HS2 tunnel machine breaks through for milestone

A giant HS2 boring machine has broken through to complete the first section of a three and-a-half mile (5.6km) tunnel on the route's approach into Birmingham.

The 125m (137yd) long, 1,600-tonne machine emerged on Friday morning after 652 days and nights of construction work.

The device was named Mary Ann by the local community in a nod to the Warwickshire-born writer George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans.

The tunnel is the first of two bores of the Bromford Tunnel, running from Water Orton in north Warwickshire to Washwood Heath in Birmingham, passing under the area's motorway network and the River Tame. The breakthrough - HS2's first in Birmingham - was described by officials as a "significant milestone" for the line.

About 31,000 people are employed on the programme across the 140-mile (225km) route.

An HS2 spokesperson estimated that the second bore of the Bromford Tunnel would be completed later this year by another tunnel boring machine, this one named Elizabeth, after the social reformer and activist Dame Elizabeth Cadbury.



Following the excavation, teams will begin fitting out the tunnel with cross passages, concrete finishing works, base slabs and emergency and maintenance walkways.

At peak production, Mary Ann advanced at about 30m (98ft) each day, with teams reinforcing the tunnel with more than 20,000 pieces of concrete.

"Today's breakthrough is a significant milestone for the project and I'm immensely proud of the men and women who have worked day and night to bring Mary Ann and her crew home safely," said Mark Wild, HS2 Ltd's chief executive. "Washwood Heath is set to become one of the most important sites on the entire HS2 network - the point at which the railway will be operated, controlled and maintained using the very latest digital technology."

Mary Ann dug out about a million tonnes of soil to create the structure, which will become the longest railway tunnel in the West Midlands. The earth which was excavated will be reused to support construction of a nearby network of 13 viaducts, officials added.

Would someone please fix the bl**dy thing or split a couple of carriages off another train?    You could even split 5 cars off a London to Plymouth evening service now as they get quieter when they get past Westbury.

I feel for staff having to put a time on disruption and how long it will go on. 

... judge from The Great Pottery Throwdown.

All aboard for a one-of-a-kind journey by train to some of the most obscure parts of BritainOn the 200th birthday of the world’s first passenger-carrying railway, Nige Tassell sets out to ride Britain’s railway network all the way to its lesser-travelled-to corners, its seldom-visited outposts. From Wick to Penzance and many points in between, he stays on until the end of the line. He is the last man sitting.The sixteen final destinations he visits offer sixteen different stories. By delving into their histories, by speaking to their people and by having a good old-fashioned nose around, Tassell reveals much about places that rarely have light cast upon them – from ferry ports to abandoned resorts, from tiny hamlets to towns being reclaimed by the sea. It''s a journey that takes in Harry Potter, Muhammad Ali, goths, Alan Bennett, Vera Brittain, Viz comic, Alex Horne, Nigel Farage. Vikings, John Betjeman, Aneurin Bevan, Tyson Fury, Charlotte Rampling''s dad and the weepy judge from The Great Pottery Throwdown. All human life is here.So grab yourself a window seat for an odyssey that tells us much about Britain today. All aboard, all aboard.

I have a funny (peculiar, not haha) feeling that trains get swapped around and "fault on this train" is reported because an old crock or a train someone was doubtful about was assigned to the service.  The feeling is boosted by the reaction when I made a comment at Westbury about waiting for / catching the Swindon train (I forget the comment exactly) and eyes were rolled in such a way that indicated the staff see it as the flakiest that runs from there.

18:37 Westbury to Swindon due 19:21
20:14 Swindon to Westbury due 20:57
21:16 Westbury to Swindon due 21:58
22:31 Swindon to Westbury due 23:12

22:31 Swindon to Westbury due 23:12 will be cancelled.
This is due to a broken down train.

Quite often news stories are based on press releases from Network Rail, local councils or other bodies who are actually quite keen to spread the word on what they are up to.

Very good question, certainly the habit of routinely forecasting disruption "until the end of the day" seems quite a recent development.

I too do find the idea that there is no-one available from Network Rail to react to this type of incident for 12 hours incredible, especially given the significance, and state of the infrastructure in the Paddington-Reading area - these are hardly isolated incidents.

The first new road bridge across the River Clyde in nearly two decades has opened to traffic.

The Renfrew Bridge, linking the Renfrewshire town with Yoker and Clydebank on the north bank, is part of a £117m project to improve connectivity and regenerate waterfront areas.

The 184m (604ft) bridge is the first road crossing on the river capable of opening to allow large ships to pass. As well as a two-lane crossing for drivers, the bridge offers access to cyclists and pedestrians.

The Renfrew Bridge is the second new bridge over the Clyde in a year, after a pedestrian crossing opened between Govan and Partick. It is the first vehicular crossing over the river since the Clyde Arc, nicknamed the Squinty Bridge, in 2006.



A ceremonial opening event took place on Thursday which saw children from primary schools on both sides of the river meet in the middle. Pupils from Kirklandneuk Primary in Renfrew, Our Holy Redeemer's Primary in Clydebank and St Brendan's and Clyde primaries in Yoker waved flags and shook hands, accompanied by a pipe band.

Members of the public, cyclists and dogwalkers then streamed across the bridge for the first time, ahead of the full opening.

The leader of Renfrewshire Council, Iain Nicolson, said the bridge would bring major benefits for businesses and people living on both sides of the river. "It will connect all the communities around with regards to employment and economic development," he said. "They'll be able to travel across it, reach where they want to go - employment, Braehead shopping centre, Glasgow - quicker and faster. It will bring the communities together."



The completion of the bridge marks the culmination of the £117m Clyde Waterfront and Renfrew Riverside project which also includes new roads and cycling routes.

The project received funding from both the Scottish and UK governments through the Glasgow Region City Deal. A major benefit is improved access to the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District being developed next to Glasgow Airport.

Construction was carried out by civil engineers Graham, and the large bridge sections were manufactured in the Netherlands before being transported by barge.



Until now, the only way to cross the river at Renfrew was by using a small ferry that carries pedestrians and cyclists for a small fee. The Renfrew ferry has been operating, previously with larger car carrying vessels, for a century and is located closer to the town centre. The ferry will continue operating although the impact of the new bridge on its usage and future has yet to be established.

Is the absence of crew that are able to make the repair during daylight hours a new thing or a recent (past 5yrs) thing?
From a non-expert/passenger perspective it seems remiss not to be able to fix problems for 12+ hours after they occur, but is the logic that the disruption to fix during daylight hours is => than managing the closed line for a day?

16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05 has been cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.