Yep, 06:06 Swindon to Southampton cancelled due to shortage of train crew again. At least they gave a bit more notice this time.

And I see the next train through Melksham, the 06:35 Salisbury to Worcester has also been cancelled, for the same reason.

 
Wednesday October 8

This has now disappeared from the JourneyCheck 'Line Update' section.

The National Rail website is reporting

 

And Tuesday's 1W05 19:53 London Paddington to Hereford was short-formed with a five-car set, leading to

05:50 : The 06:43 will be operated by the (nine-car) set from last night's 1W36 18:57 London Paddington to Great Malvern (21:18). This set normally runs back to Stoke Gifford, but couldn't get there on Tuesday night on account of the oiver-running Gloucester engineering work, so it spent the night at Shrub Hill.

 

https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php/Darwin:Cancellation_reason_codes_and_text
https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php/Delay_Attribution_Guide

MS officially reads
"Planned underpowered or shortformed service and or vehicle, incl. exam set swaps"
and I suspect that the descriptions are recoded out of rail jargon by real time trains

 

2. London plane [tree] - the pattern on the bark gives it away.

 
On Realtime Trains it says

 This service is cancelled.
This service was cancelled due to the planned train being replaced with a slower train (MS).

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:P08654/2025-10-07/detailed

That’s not an excuse/reason I’ve seen used before.

 

Love the pun there. 

 
Er what a sparkling (or should that be sparky) career

 
From the BBC:

 

so, presumably tomorrow's 06:43 Worcester Shrub Hill to Paddington service will also be a cancellation.

 
From the BBC:

 
I've been watching the new Alan Partridge series. You can probably guess that he's against HS2.

Whilst looking back on his career he said, "It's summer 2023, Britain is sweltering in record temperatures, HS2 has just been cancelled, correctly, in my view - who wants to get to the north quicker?" 

 
Putting to one side imagining the sort of layout Salisbury would need to allow the two trains on the two lines to each exchange a portion so that both sets of passengers on each retained their seats to all destinations... <<<c o g n i t i v e ~ h a z a r d : do not attempt to think about that.>>>

From Bath, that 07:13 might be a bit peaky for passengers needing that combination of a cheaper option, a through train, and South London. The train after nine (and designated off-peak) to Waterloo was a sweet spot though.

Something new though, bargain advance fares in the morning peak on the GWR. Last time but one I checked, these were still rather aggressively priced, more than a bit 'Meh'.

More recently this has changed, the 07:13 to Paddington next Monday is currently available for £25.30, which must be close to the proportionate annual season ticket daily rate.

This is perhaps something that varies like wave heights on a beach, but that's advance fares for you.

Mark

 
Blimey!  That is a very impressive career history, Electric train. 

May I add my own personal thanks to you, for all of your clearly well-informed and authoritative posts here on the Coffee Shop forum over the years.

I wish you a long and happy retirement, and look forward to your (hopefully) continuing to post here, as we move towards more electricity on the railways.

Regards, Chris from Nailsea. 

 
From the BBC:


Well. I don't think that'll buff out!

I came to this story via social media. The amount of people stating, quite confidently, that this was an electric bus was astounding. It seems any vehicle fire these days MUST be an EV according to these luddites, who never read beyond the headline and just let their prejudices dictate their belief.

This bus was a decade old diesel engined Alexander Dennis Enviro400.

An internal combustion engine vehicle is 20 times more likely to go on fire than an EV.

 
It is - current tense a pleasure having you here. Always has been, and always will be too.  Make sure to enjoy your retirement; enjoy some of it here amongst friends.

 
Happy retirement ET and thank you for your 50 years of service to the railways.

 
ET stays home! 

Enjoy - life is about to get very busy for you - from mine and other's experiences.  Hopefully you will still be around to answer our technical questions regarding things sparky and rail-borne.

 

 
Enjoy your retirement ET. And thank you for your service!

 
In a few days time I will be retiring from Network Rail, I have not openly stated I work for NR but nor have I hidden it.

I started my railway career in September 1975 as a First Year Traction & Rolling Stock apprentice, the first year was spent in Swindon, I was an Old Oak Common based apprentice.  I finished my time working at Paddington as an electrician I worked on everything there from Station lights, office lights, general power, heating boilers, lifts, electric trucks ....... etc. I was also the High Voltage supervisor Old Oak and Paddington had a complex HV system.   

I was in 1990 head hunted into the DM&EE Electrification Group as a Distribution Trainer, during the time there I also worked as commissioning supervisor working of power supply up grade in Anglia, North London Line re-electrification also HEX.

Privatisation (dark days) I ended up working for GTRM (Carillion) as a Distribution Commission Engineer working on the WCML but mainly on the ECML on SCADA and protection relays also commissioning new 25kV buildings.

17 years ago I joined Network Rail as a Project Engineer renewing 33kV switchgear in Wessex Sussex and Kent, I became Senior Project Engineer and around 2012 move to Thameslink as a Designated Project Engineer for Canal Tunnels (the link between St Pancras and the ECML), and several traction power substations on the Thameslink route.

I moved to the Kent Route about 8 years ago as Distribution Senior Asset Engineer which basically acts as the asset owner for all the Traction power Distribution assets in the Route

I think 50 years is long enough

 

Salisbury connections are tuned for Portsmouth and Southampton to Exeter ... usually 5 to 10 minutes, so you'll have seen people doing that getting on the train you got off - except that it's now a Yeovil train so they can't do Exeter any longer.

Noting that the Bristolian was busy in the morning.  K-chink - good income for the rail industry with displaced people who might have use the lower cost service via Salisbury before it was [vandelised?] to make it un-attaractive to the extent that south London became easier via Paddington and the tube; noting your comments previously about how hard it can be to find the lower price fares too.

"I went in and spoke with the rail minister and raised the concerns with him" said our previous MP; she did not go on to say "we had a nice cup of tea, chatted about it, and decided to do nothing because it would blow over ..."; I have no evidence that was what followed at the meeting, which looking back was reported to me in such a way that it could have been the outcome.  Both protagonists in the meeting stood for re-election and I note that neither got in. Co-incidence I am sure.

 

I am an electrification Engineer to us a buffer section is a section of electrification traction power contact system that is bonded to the traction return system ........... for OLE section of the contact wire (typically a wire run) is Earthed by a cable bolted to the contact wire and Earthed structure for Third rail the conrail has a cable bolted to the conrail and to the traction return rail typically the section is longer than the length of the normal train set in the area.

The purpose of the buffer section is to allow for the equipment under construction past it not to be "under rules" ie permits to work are not required to work on it, usually a stage is reached where the construction area is declared as under rules but has yet to be energised this is to provide a safety margin for the construction teams.

On a progress point I noticed Monday that there are still wire runs to be completed in Acton Yard, whis also means there are still registration, hights and stager checks to be done and the final step is section proving

 
I have spent significant time today writing cover notes for each of the groups copied ... here is a follow up to a fellow community rep who was at Friday's meeting (slightly edited to be usefully read out of context)

 


HS2 eastern leg land holdings being sold off

A few months old, sorry if already noted elsewhere

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/hs2/government-to-sell-off-hs2-eastern-leg-properties-18-07-2025/

 

Yes ... some very interesting patterns at present; research ongoing.

 
I found this video entertaining !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSzJKs2muDk
Would never be allowed in the UK !
Poor little thieves could suffer mental trauma or even physical injury.

 
I guess the attached screenshot is a symptom of this sort of problem?

 
To and from travelcard zones 1-6 yesterday via Salisbury yesterday. Only a few on the bus to the station, but Bath Spa in the morning peak was busier than I expected. Announced as such, in came 'The Bristolian', from Weston Super Mare, but after Bath calling at Chippenham and Swindon only, and off it went with most of the people from the up platform, after which the down platform hosted the 7:24am through train to Penzance. There were a few people for that: whether any were heading for Cornwall, who knows. Then it was time for the 07:35 for Salisbury and Portsmouth.

The journey up to London worked well for the purposes of an unexpected bit of helping with preparations for, and later attending a, funeral. I bailed at Clapham Junction, where the lift took one look at me and expired.

The return journey involved use of the 19:20 from Waterloo. Pre-covid, this was an Exeter service that detached carriages at Salisbury for Bristol. It's now the 19:20 to Yeovil Junction, that detaches carriages at Salisbury which are taken out of service.

The xx.20 departures from Waterloo follow the old pattern of arriving at Salisbury a few minutes behind the hourly Portsmouth to Bristol service, with a 50 minute wait out of those for the next - and a quicker connection out of the xx.50s from Waterloo.

Both the 19:20 and the train to Bristol were running to time, so, no fortuitous connection for Bristol at Salisbury.

Sods law then dictated that the ensuing Portsmouth to Bristol train *was* around ten minutes late, so that one by chance made for a slick Bristol connection out of the 20:20 from Waterloo - but a bit of an extended wait for me at Saiisbury, which allowed a bit of thinking time about Salisbury's rail services - the stations loos and waiting room open at that time - very few passengers making connections - & the station frontage has seen a lot of work, with a sign alerting people hoping to park that there is a new rail-dedicated overflow car park '4 minutes' along the road beneath the bridge. The buses that leave from the station for the likes of Ringwood and Bournemouth now have smart new well positioned stops and a pedestrian crossing takes people half way to a couple of pubs and restaurants :-) at least one of which has a screen with a feed of train departures for the use of passengers taking refuge while awaiting some lengthy connection or other.

It was an unusual day for ticket inspections, with SWR staff doing a ticket sweep on the way up from Salisbury, and one of those groups of four revenue security teams on the suburban train out of Clapham Junction - mine visibly caused the guy's eyes to glaze over - but the sight, as a destination, of 'Zone 1-6 travelcard' reassured him. Unusually for 22:55 at night, the barriers were in operation at Bath Spa, which seemed to be a bit of a surprise to a few. Finally, having caught the first bus of the day of Bath's 6/6a/7 route I was in time to catch the last as well.

Thinking of Salisbury, the place looks to be about 85 miles from London, the train service, half hourly, now looks to be a mixture of semi-fasts that stop at major intermediate stations, and semi-stoppers that call at all stations west of Basingstoke, both varieties take around 1 hr 30 minutes, which all feels a bit pedestrian - until you compare that with, say, Googles times for driving from central London to Salisbury, which suggest around two and a quarter hours with a dark suggestion that it's like to take rather longer. The station, the area, the businesses, mid evening, though, came across as very quiet.

Even with travel by car being point-to-point, and, considering those timings, that only a minority will be travelling from Central London to the likes of Salisbury, perhaps if rail to Salisbury feels a bit 'Legacy transport system', road travel doesn't shine brightly either. But both eclipse water transport, Salisbury's 'Canal Head' being a record of unrealised ambitions.

Mark