Looks like a 5 car IET left Penzance around midnight and arrived in Paddington 0515

 
21:45 Penzance to London Paddington due 05:07

21:45 Penzance to London Paddington due 05:07 has been cancelled.


This is due to a fault on this train.

Further Information
Sadly, the 21.45 Penzance to London Paddington service is broken down near Penzance. Maintenance are on route to attempt to fix this train. ETA 23.00 at Penzance.
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Passengers who do not need to travel this evening can attempt to travel tomorrow. Tickets will be honoured.
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Road transport has not been organised. Transport in the area is extremely limited at this time of the evening.
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In March, the Times reported that the new GBR branding and logo would be appearing on trains this month (May); that must be SWR. But yesterday the Sunday Times had a story that GBR's branding will not be used until services are of sufficient quality. ("Train firms must be travelling in the right direction to earn Union Jack logo.") Nothing was said about how "Limbo Rail" trains would look in the interim, nor on whether SWR has met this standard.

I also got an e-mail from SWR today about the transition, but that was on the subject "Important information - How we'll look after your data post-nationalisation". I guess that's down to statutory requirements. There is just this short bit at the start about running trains:


I understand that one of the "new" 701s will be done up for a launch of the new livery next Monday. I don't see that as contradicting what was said by SWR or the ST article - it's just PR.

There was another. longer, article in the business bit of yesterday's ST. This was a general piece about the difficulties still to be overcome in creating GBR. It quoted a number of individuals in the industry, but I didn't see anything really new. There was a list of "expected" reversion dates not yet announced, though the dates given are the current contract end dates (core, or extension if taken).
WMT   20/9/26
EMR    18/10/26
AWC   18/10/26
CC       17/10/27
Chilt    12/12/27
GTR     1/4/28
GWR    25/6/28

Those don't fit with the government's stated plan of doing about three a year, which they see as what the team setting up OLR management organisations cane manage. The last date in 2028 even contradicts the other article, which says the last one will be in October 2027.

 

This would only work with LED lighting, and then only if the lights are specified as being dimmable.
Sodium or metal halide lamps cant realistically be dimmed, fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps can only be dimmed at considerable cost and complication. Incandescent lamps are readily dimmable but little used on account of energy wasted.

 

Here's another picture from today - I'm seated in the train from Rostock, carrying on beyond Bad Doberan and waiting there at the eastern end of the platform as the train headed to Rostock has pulled in to the western end.  We left once it had passed us by on the loop.

 
Don't feel too bad about it, Johnneyw.  I missed the reference as well - and I should have been alert to it, knowing how JayMac enjoys catching me out on Taunton.

 
Some are certainly motion activated. St Erth is one such. It's not a favourite feature of mine, though a couple of tweaks in the implementation would improve it i.e. a five second ramp when they switch on and a 30 second ramp when they go down.

Mark

 
About 20 years or so ago, when travelling on the Night Riviera most stations had their lights switched off when passing through in the early hours of the morning but recently I noticed that all stations now seen to be lit (although many towns now switch off street lights overnight).  Is everywhere now lit through the night or is lighting triggered by the approach of trains?

 
Steve Marsh was at Zwolle having gone from Aachen to Zwolle in a day. He was very taken with the place. At the moment he is living it up in style on the QM2.

 
The only HS2 train running in this decade is an enormous gravy train

This nation has "complianced" herself into an incapability to run infrastructure projects.  See also Hinckley Point, etc.

A nation, once full of energy and zeal, that built railway lines all over the globe, is now unable to build a 140 mile railway between two of her great cities

 


Ah yes.  I saw what you did there but I clearly was in halfwit mode and the Tone didn't click!

 

5 Furlongs and 13 yards would be 3339 ft.  5 furlongs and 13 chains would be 4158 ft. 

 
Sunday May 18

1W49 15:45 London Paddington to Great Malvern arrived Worcester Shrub Hill +5 and was cancelled thereafter "due to disorder (VA)".
1W51 16:45 London Paddington to Great Malvern was held Evesham (+14) and arrived +19.

1P81 18:57 Great Malvern to London Paddington was started from Shrub Hill (+29), was held at Norton (+43), arrived +47.

Later...
1W08 18:45 London Paddington to Hereford (21:54) departed +18, was held Great Malvern (+42), arrived +42.
1W73 19:45 London Paddington to Great Malvern (22:16) was delayed after West Drayton, held at Wolvercote (+14), arrived +25.
1W79 21:45 London Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill (23:59) departed +37 and arrived +33.

 

Ding ding ding. We have a winner!

Quite why it's called 'Taunton 5 and 13' I've no idea. Also listed as 'Taunton 5/13'. I thought maybe it was a distance from a certain point, perhaps the station. But 5 chains and 13 yards is only 369ft. The station is about 3000ft away.

 
Thanks for your updates and pictures, johnneyw - much appreciated by those of us who are not in that area.

CfN.

 

Butetown and just further north is the new allingement and junction being built for the link towards Cardiff Central

 
Good news that the 12.18 PNZ-PAD will now run as scheduled through to London.

 

Succinctly, because those at the upper reaches of GWR tend to be Managers rather than Leaders, and there are few better examples than this long running issue.

 
You missed this one TG:

Hence my concern early because the train before also only gets as far a Plymouth. Again, let’s hope for reinstatements or it’s going to be tough going for those heading back to London later.

 
All week people have been bewailing the loss of the Penzance - Aberdeen service.

Just getting out of Devon/Cornwall from that point of origin will be a struggle today.


10:10 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:27
10:10 Penzance to London Paddington due 15:27 will be started from Plymouth.
It will no longer call at Penzance, St Erth, Camborne, Redruth, Truro, St Austell, Par, Lostwithiel, Bodmin Parkway and Liskeard.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

12:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 17:30
12:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 17:30 will be terminated at Plymouth.
It will no longer call at Totnes, Newton Abbot, Exeter St Davids, Tiverton Parkway, Taunton, Reading and London Paddington.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

15:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 20:27
15:18 Penzance to London Paddington due 20:27 will be terminated at Exeter St Davids.
It will no longer call at Tiverton Parkway, Taunton, Reading and London Paddington.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

 
Not a great start to the new timetable is it. Let’s hope there are some reinstatements later in the day, particularly for up services from the SW as there are some nasty gaps between trains.

Cardiff-Portsmouth isn’t look great either, particularly south of Westbury later in the day.

 
0612 Gatwick Airport to Reading terminated short at Redhill (it's DOO between Gatwick and Redhill) then headed to Reading ECS, so it may be safe to assume it's the lack of a guard for that one which was a 3-car. The next train, the 0759 is a 2-car. Train faults/crew shortage seem to be creeping in regularly/daily on the North Downs' Line. With a relatively frequent frequency compared to some, may not be a problem. Not sure I'd be relying on it if I had a flight to catch, however.

 
Depressing 

 

With crew shortages all over the place, so far the Westbury to Swindon service is doing far better than most today, having said which even a single cancellation on that line leaves a huge gap.   I have to personally wonder at why, after so many years, crew shortages seem to be almost routine and look to the management and direction (from inside and outside the TOC) for having failed to avoid such issues being so frequent, or to cynically have passed them off as an acceptable lack-of-service level.

 
.......judging by today's map & JourneyCheck,  it would seem that GWR BBQ season is underway......

 
Harlington Haven and Amsterdam Centraal - both, yes.  For the afternoon, I took the train out from Amsterdam to Leeuwarden then a semi-random regional branch line which I lucked out on.  A part I have never seen / looked at before.    The flat picture with the cows is in this area - I don't have an exact locations.  The final picture is at Zwolle where I changed trains - would not expect anyone to have identified that.  Onwards today ...