The second page explains my puzzlement when you said you'd passed through Catanzero station, as, there it is, on the line passing some distance east of the station and close to the University.

The satellite view shows the *new* and under construction line connecting Catanzero station, the University and the city - not at all straightforward though it must have been some time in the planning as the road system makes some passive provision for it.

'Catanzero-style', the new route involves a substantial tunnel and viaduct and it's not unreasonable to compare and contrast with the amount of sucking of teeth that happens when, say, thoughts occur of the much needed line north of Dartmoor and its requirement for a new route and viaduct close to the Meldon structures.

Mark

 
What else am I supposed to do now that AI is doing all my work for me?

Seriously, I used to spend 99% of my time writing/reviewing code. Since my employer gave me my Claude Code (Anthropic) license a month or 2 ago I haven't written a single line of code, and Claude does the reviews (of its own work!) as well.

So I'll probably be spending a lot more time on the forum before long...

 
Here we are, the complete line, and another page on developments for Catanzero itself. From Wikipedia (in Italian).

Mark


https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovia_Cosenza-Catanzaro_Lido

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servizio_ferroviario_metropolitano_di_Catanzaro

 

...and then went on the forum.   

 

The thunderstorm that hit Bath on Monday was more than just your everyday thunderstorm. In the space of just a few minutes, daylight seemed to have been replaced with darkness, and the torrential rain was accompanied by very sudden and violent gusts of wind. I read later that tornadoes had been seen in Devon and Somerset, and I wouldn't be surprised if what we had here was a tornado. With Bath's long steep hills, many roads at the foot of these suddenly found themselves being turned into lakes, and some suffered quite a bit of damage (a friend of mine witnessed Prior Park Road being broken up in front of her).

These sort of events are what we are going to have to get used to with the fast changing climate.

 

I was recently staying in an upmarket hotel by the Thames on the outskirts of London for a conference.   Apparently during the night someone got up for the loo and took a wrong turn and ended up locking themselves out of their room while naked.

He then had to make his way down two floors to reception to get assistance.

The bit I didn't understand was - he told everyone the next morning!

 
Only one train for Newquay (not a 175) and one on Falmouth and Okehampton, none on Looe. It has had the benefit of more 150's on  Paignton- Exmouth.

 
Don't get me going (today - I've not got time!) on hotel design. Interesting topic having done it, and learned from the experience.   

The article was more about guest behaviour.   Should you scoop up the freebies?  Should you take the towels home with you?  Should you notify the hotel of your expected arrival time?  What should you do with your rubbish?  Should you ignore staff, chat with them, ignore them?   Should you walk around in the public areas with bare feet?  In your jammies? In your Birthday suite?  If something's wrong, what should you do?

 
Ah, thanks, that explains it. (I also chased that narrow gauge line serving Catanzaro across Google's satellite view - it turned out to be a mistake to follow it to its terminus as every time I thought I'd found the last station on the thing, it turned out that the line left the station site in a tunnel and what I thought was a headshunt was not...)

Again, Catanzaro from the sky looks like a grand laboratory for transport schemes - from the 'Halifax on drugs' road viaducts to the recently built but out of use funiculars, 'Ebbw Vale on speed' that defy anyone to find an end point - or comprehend the strange structures that link the foot of the funicular to the site of the (out of use) station, and then, the impossible-to-follow narrow gauge line. I thought at first it was surely out of use and fading away, but it now appears that in 2025 various parts were under heavy repair. Anyway, timetables on the link below.

Mark

https://web.ferroviedellacalabria.it/orari-dei-trasporti/

 
Email from the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust https://wbct.org.uk/

 
.

13 amp sockets are often installed on the party wall separating rooms because it is cheaper, the same cable can serve outlets on both sides of the wall.
I change sheets once a week at home, and would expect the same in an hotel. In all but the very cheapest hotels sheets should be white, 100% cotton, and generously sized. NOT containing ANY poly-anything.
No i do not change towels every day at home.

 
The Grand Central Waterloo-Bristol rumour's now the subject of an article in Rail magazine. (Subscription required).

Mark

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/grand-central-planning-new-london-routes-from-manchester-and-bristol

 
This one did not fit neatly into any of our line boards - which rather confirms that it would be a useful new service.

There's. a photocall from our MP (Brian Mathew) and the mayor of Bradford-on-Avon (Sam Blackwell) who asks

 
South Western Railway (Or is that now Great British Railways | South Western) are re-doing their whole timetable for December 2027 and are looking for inputs from knowledgable parties (Stakeholders) to help inform them.

1. One of their (SWR / GBR|SW) current services runs from Salisbury to Waterloo Station in London, with calls / onward connections at Clapham Junction, Waterloo and Woking for trains to destinations in South London, Kent, Surrey and East Sussex

2. Great Western Railway (to become Great British Railways | Great Western in December) now run services on the "Bristol Metro" from Bristol as far as Salisbury, serving Bristol, Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bath Spa, Freshford, Avoncliff, Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, and Warminster along the way.

3. The SWR services are run using class 158 (and 159) trains, and the GWR services often are class 158 - they are run from a pool of class 158, 165 and 166 trains. SWR terminate in Salisbury's platforms from the east, and GWR services terminate - often at the same platforms - from the West.

4. My "Rumour Mill" suggests that Grand Central (an Arriva owned Open Access operator) have applied for rights to run a Waterloo, Salisbury, Warminster, Westbury, Trowbridge, Bradford on Avon, Bath Spa, Bristol Temple Meads service.  Which rather confirms a view in the industry that there is a demand for such a service worth backing up by serious investment, and that (under Open Access license terms) it is not "primarily abstractive" of traffic of other services, and that there is capacity for it.

5. The distance between London Waterloo and London Paddington where current Bristol and Bath to London services go is about 4 miles (6.4 km), putting them into different walking and cycling catchments.  London is a huge city and onward public transport from both is good, but underground and bus are daunting / difficult for many occasional passengers.

6. Suggestion - why not join up the Bristol -> Salisbury and the Salisbury -> Waterloo service from December 2027? Trains arriving in Salisbury from the west already join on to extra carriages before they continue to London, and 2 or 3 carriage trains of class 158/159 from Bristol (there are already a couple from Westbury) could do that, up as far as 8 or 9 carriage trains onwards

*** To be noted amongst the major benefits:
* A whole raft of popular new / restored service for which there is significant identified demand.
* Economic benefit of through London services from Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge and Dilton Marsh
* Operational improvement - efficiency at Salisbury
* An easy early win for Great British Railways

*** Previous services along the length of this corridor

Through services on this route ran preCovid and I summarised why they should remain - to no immediate avail - documented at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/16-reasons-continue-through-trains-london-graham-ellis/ and http://waterloo.savethetrain.org.uk (link is an old one - http not https!). Here are some updated / comments on issues at the time

* We had two operators under commercial contract from Bristol and Bath to London, and our dominant operator to Paddington wanted rid of the competition which undercut them, all be it with a less frequent and slower service.  They would now be complementary services

* As SWR and GWR were separate organisations, each needed their own drivers and route knowledge for the Bristol service for SWR crews was hard and expensive to maintain.  Under GBR, all staff are under the same banner and would be changed along the way.

* Train paths were being cleared for MetroWest between Bristol and Bath (Bathampton). Fair enough - those paths have been taken up by the MetroWest service which is the very service we are asking to link on to Waterloo. No problem any more

* HMG were looking to save money by thinning out services in the postCovid era.  But we are back up to 1.83 billion journeys a year (to March 2026) versus 0.99 billion journeys which was the latest data when the previous service was cut.  The strongest regrowth, you will note, is in the occasional traveller / leisure / personal business (such as students to/from Uni) markets which are the very market that this service will address.

 
From the BBC:

 
Melksham-Bristol commute not too bad - the Plan A 05:11 Gloucester-Southampton (to Trowbridge) was cancelled (train fault), but the plan B 06:35 Salisbury-Worcester (to Chippenham) was ok.

Then the 06:28 Paddington-Weston was delayed by 23 mins at Chippenham (speed restriction), but the official connection of the 07:00 Oxford-Bristol was only a minute late (07:48) so got to the office on time (for plan B).

I could claim for the plan A cancellation but not going to bother. I could/should have worked from home today, but I had to do that for the other 2 days I was supposed to be in the office this week (not due to weather), so felt I should show my face.

 
Pretty bad day for anyone needing to (rather than choosing to) travel

Graphic on front page currently has
Cancelled 225
Part route 97

Rare to be over 300

 
Stayed in many Travelodge hotels over the years,so these are my comments.

I think televisions MIGHT be on a timer(not sure if they are and how long it is)so the telly switches its self off after a certain time that it has been on.

Plastic water cups,glad they don't have these any more or even glass tumblers,we can use the china cups to have a drink.

Always put the kettle on the floor to have a hot drink which reduces the noise  level during the early hours of the morning.
Always take our own coffee,and what benefit do guests  get from taking the milk tumblers and also the sleeves of coffee and tea?

When hotels are being built and fitted out,13 amp plug sockets should be fitted to an outside wall,which reduces the "smack" from those 13 amp plugs next door.
Don't like carpets in the rooms,it can stink of literally any thing

If you are staying for a long time,how often should you have the sheets changed? how often do you change your sheets at home.

Do you change your towels at home every day

Rubbish bins,always take our rubbish into the reception area for disposal.

What I don't like is they allows dogs in any of their hotels.

Smoking can be an issue

Finally, toothpaste we always remember to take our tooth brush but forget the paste.,
just wish they would supply those small toothpaste tubes,but without those small temporary tooth brushes 

 

If you look at the timeline the Signaller would not have had sufficient time to do anything once 1H46 was in the auto signal area, even if the Signaller had picked up a handset to call 1H46 the crash would have happened; the Signaller see a track circuit block showing occupied a train can be anywhere in that block so they do not know exactly where a train is.  I do not know if there is ARS (automatic route setting) in the Bedford area, I'm not a signalling engineer, but once the path has been accepted by the Signaller the Signaller moves onto another signalling task, they may even have been talking to the driver of 1B67 about the AWS fault

RIAB may ask why 1H46 was crossed over onto the UP Main behind a failed 1B67, but in normal circumstance that is a performance issue and not a safety of trains issue.

 
...and unsurprisingly "This journey has been cancelled because of more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time".

 

Here to help is the map from my journey planner.  From Catanzano to Sibari we did a clockwise semicircle crossing from south to north coast and then back, rather than following the bulge via Crotone in a counterclockwise loop.   These maps suffer from crow-flying syndrome - direct lines shown between calling points even when the actual route is far from direct.

 
The 05:11 Gloucester - Southampton Central is 'delayed', or over 35 mins late if it sets off as I'm writing this.

 

The train did get somewhat busier and dragged into Brindisi around 45 minutes late.  A bit like a Cross Country or Cardiff - Portsmouth train, with end to end traffic (and I got off one stop short of Lecce) rare. 

I had warned my guest house I would be about an hour late, and had also allowed 30 minutes to find the place from the station but it only took 15.   Result in my standing outside pressing a call button that went to a phone and it did not answer.   There's a whole non-rail story in that.

Many, many places along the way - all the way from Melksham to Brindisi - worth further exploration. I wake up this morning of the first time single leading home knowing I am staying inn the same place for a second night - that I am not packing my bags and moving on by 11 (or 10) a.m.

 

From past reading an understanding, there is a cutoff and different system for trains cancelled/changed well in advance (48 hours?) and those which change shortly before they were due to run.  We've seen what I believe to be the effect of this on things like the closed-for-too-long Looe line where the first days made it to Journey Check and the feed we use for our disruption map, but then it became planned-further-ahead and did not flag in the short term changes.

Having a cutoff makes sense in that it avoids flooding the system at times of planned engineering works

I suspect that for this week, many changes were put into the system at or near the cutoff.

 
Thanks for that detailed and illustrated local update, Mark. 

 
The road reopened by 8pm and buses back to 'Normal for Bath'. An electrical fault beneath the pavement outside Bath's Guildhall had dumped enough energy to lift paving stones. Staff were awaiting the arrival of a technician to assist with a fix - there being eight cables beneath the pavement there. The fault might be a product of Monday afternoon's unbelievable weather event.

Mark

 
I'd thought that too. I would hope the final report will make clear that the 810's driver acted totally correctly.

On a separate point, the RAIB appear careful to say that the train passed a red signal, rather more neutral wording than referring to the driver passing it.  Not just semantics; the latter could be interpreted as assigning blame already when that is far from certain.

 
When were those thunderstorms?

 

I don't know if they get an alarm in the signalling centre, but I've been in an area where another train passed a signal at danger and the signallers sent me an emergency stop message. I suspect the RAIB will look at the workload of the signallers covering Bedford.