Did I note the Scillonian III retiring the other week?

 
The first is not AI, and the second isn't either....


If a train is stuck at a platform or red light, it is marked "delayed" after being 3 minutes errr....delayed. Until it gets on the move, the computer knows not how much longer it will be errr....delayed, and so sticks a service as marked "delayed" until such times that it moves again and is picked up at the next sensor, then it can calculate how late or On Time it might be, and update displays. AI doesn't come anywhere near it.


That's competition for you. One driver who isn't listed removes the list so that everyone stands an equal chance. Often they leave their own business card attached instead. Occasionally, a passenger nicks the page for their own use - a lot less often now in the days of phone cameras though.

 

Don't see why not.....................this one appears to run from Salisbury !

 

Please pardon my confusion, but is there really a direct service through Frome to Glasgow Central (GLC) ?

 
Every time I'm at Frome, which isn't often, there's a train calls, full of fresh air, and heading for Waterloo, and I think it's done to annoy me.

 

Would staff be looking to use uo their holidays before the end of the year and while it's still nice?  Are a lot staff PSPS members off on their annual excursion?

 
If I recall correctly the Cambrian service pre-158s was maintained by first generation 150s which had the 3+2 tight seating and no corridor end connections. All very cosy. 

 
Yes the information systems are far from perfect at the moment. Many will know that the track through Frome Station is single. At around 09.00 each weekday morning there are three passenger trains scheduled to call within 11 minutes - a tall order. In order - up GLC, up PLY-PAD and down WEY.  The PLY - PAD service nearly always loses time somewhere from TAU onwards (for no obvious reason).

So the service rarely works as advertised with the up PAD and the down WEY invariably late. So the information display can show some quite interesting and unachievable predictions during this time and either remaining inaccurate or offering last minute corrections which can "surprise" some of the unfamiliar passengers. Naturally the express tends to get priority unless it is significantly late.

The timetabling is very optimistic and maybe AI will assist with the infomation systems in future. The express service is one of the more recent enhancements in Frome with now 3 morning through services to PAD and the SWR services to WAT.     

 
All cancelled (one or two in part) due to crew shortage with more being added to the list it would seem - why the crew shortage on a Friday/Saturday?

Some of these look to be on the Devon/Cornwall routes which have already been slashed back due to the hopeless situation with the 175s

14:39 Bristol Temple Meads to Worcester Foregate Street due 16:20
15:37 Didcot Parkway to London Paddington due 16:49
16:55 Worcester Foregate Street to Bristol Temple Meads due 18:28
17:20 London Paddington to Didcot Parkway due 18:24
17:22 Liskeard to Looe due 17:50
17:52 Looe to Liskeard due 18:21
17:56 Liskeard to Plymouth due 18:28
18:47 Didcot Parkway to London Paddington due 19:51
19:05 Didcot Parkway to London Paddington due 20:22
19:08 Bristol Temple Meads to Gloucester due 19:57
20:08 London Paddington to Didcot Parkway due 21:10
20:38 London Paddington to Didcot Parkway due 21:50
21:12 Gloucester to Bristol Temple Meads due 22:03
Sat, 19 September 08:07 Plymouth to Penzance due 10:12
Sat, 19 September 08:16 Par to Newquay due 09:02
Sat, 19 September 09:20 Newquay to Par due 10:11
Sat, 19 September 12:25 Plymouth to Gunnislake due 13:11
Sat, 19 September 13:14 Gunnislake to Plymouth due 14:00
Sat, 19 September 14:24 Plymouth to Gunnislake due 15:10
Sat, 19 September 15:14 Gunnislake to Plymouth due 16:01
Sat, 19 September 06:41 Plymouth to London Paddington due 10:29
Sat, 19 September 10:30 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids due 13:06
Sat, 19 September 10:48 Penzance to Exeter St Davids due 13:53
Sat, 19 September 11:50 Penzance to Plymouth due 13:53
Sat, 19 September 16:30 London Paddington to Taunton due 19:03
Sat, 19 September 17:40 Swansea to Carmarthen due 18:30
Sat, 19 September 18:00 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 19:36
Sat, 19 September 18:02 Weston-Super-Mare to London Paddington due 20:05
Sat, 19 September 19:19 Carmarthen to Swansea due 20:04

 
Today the 0722 was the usual two 150s. 166s on the other two services. Six three car turbos and a three car 158 on Paignton.

A three car 158 could be coupled  to a 150. I think I have seen it at Paignton.

The 175 is expected to operate 3+2 on the 0722 and a method of working cutting out a complete unit at the smaller stations.

 
Yes I've noticed the predicted train platform concurrency issue a few times, including yesterday (at Trowbridge).

But something that might stretch AI a bit (but not much) more is something else I noticed yesterday, not for the first time. My Trowbridge-Bristol train was running late, and before it joined the Paddington-Bristol mainline outside Bath it was showing as arriving in Bath before the Paddington-Penzance service.

However I was pretty certain that priority would be given to the Penzance train, and sure enough we stopped to allow it to go ahead of us. A well trained AI would have had no trouble in predicting the correct outcome.

 
Been included on brfares for a bit now too if you want to see prices etc, and it does let me at least add a ticket to my basket and get to the checkout (though not actually going to waste money trying to actually pay!).

 
It's headline news today in France that SNCF (for the region of Occitanie) are trialling request stops at some stations in Lozère. My reaction to that is to  doubt they have never existed at all in France, even if they are not part of SNCF's standard operating repertoire. I suspect it was common at a lot of little stations until they were closed, many of them in the 1970s line closures.

I can even find its introduction as a trial making the national news in 2020 for Guingamp-Paimpol (but that's only Brittany) and in 2023 at Jassoneix (Meymac), Pérols-sur-Vézère et Montaignac-sur-Doustre in Corrèze. I guess that tells you as much about French journalism as trains!

 

Is that tape barrier really the only thing that prevents the dragon from escaping? 

 
That is one eclectic mixture of balance weights in the locking room, with one far from its native environment.

 
The Welsh part looks correct.

 

... unless your bus route includes a railway bridge - in which case you might not want to choose a seat upstairs ... 

 

The stock listed in the Working timetable

 

To me, that whole entry is just meaningless waffle.  It does nothing but bloat an already long list, confuse the occasional user, and provides no real detail for the expert.

I would not expect my bus company to list a whole load of alterations telling me that a bus on a given route is formed of a double decker rather than a single decker today.

 

Interesting.  It also shows up on the TrainSplit website but not on the GWR ticket app but I've not managed to find a date that the TrainSplit website will issue a ticket for as yet.

 
Until recently you could have added Pilning to the list !..

 

The ticket machine at Melksham Station was offering "Bristol Brabazon" tickets on Wednesday evening.

 
While at Bristol Parkway on Wednesday' I noticed that the on platform Live Track Diagram/Schematic Signal Map used by station staff now included "Bristol Brabazon".

 
Good. Not that the BBC wasn't being rational in fantasising the railway terminating at Braunton with connecting (electric) bus services over the hilly bit.

 

That would be a bus from Braunton to Barnstaple [Road/Junction] these days.

Looking back to 1965, there were trains from Braunton to Exeter at 07:23 and 08:28, with an extra from Barnstaple Junction at 07:05. They reached St David's at 08:10, 08:50 and 09:51.

By 1967, there was an 08:18 from Braunton into Exeter at 09:32 and the following train wasn't until 11:35.   There was an 06:50 from the Junction arriving in Exeter at 07:49

Today, no trains from Braunton.  From Barnstaple Junction at 06:25, 07:22 and 08:35 arriving St David's at 07:30, 08:35 and 09:43.

 
Artificial Intelligence / un-intelligence has been with us for years - though it's now multiple order of magnitudes more powerful and sophisticated.   I can look back to around 1980 and a research project at UMIST which was logging / registering lift usage (see, I was into guided transport in those days - all be it vertical) to help program for vehicles (lifts) to be at the optimum place to provide efficiency in numbers and speeds of wait times, loadings and journeys.   It is with us on rail, but still makes a laughing stock of itself from time to time - look at this from Wednesday evening:


That's two trains from the same platform at the same time - no, I don't think so!  I - predicted to the folks I was with - that the Swindon train would be 4 or 5 minutes late and, sure, it was.  Not a problem for any of us.

Here are two screen shots from earlier in the evening:



Really - the "this train is delayed by 1 minute" stuff is really a case of TMI (too much information) ... and by saying "DELAYED" without any qualification seems designed to worry.    Sure, that reverted a few minutes later to "On Time" ...

And look at this when we arrived in Trowbridge:


Nothing automated in there - just an out of date / missing notice.   Someone has clearly identified the need for people arriving to know how to call a taxi, but all the work / cost of putting in a notice board is of no presesnt use when the frame is empty.  "We know you need taxi numbers, but we're not supplying them".  Think that ONE sign saying "Taxi Phone Numbers" rather than three close to each other would have sufficed, and the cost saving could have been invested in supplying the actual data - or how about a dymanic screen that tells you which taxis are running at the time and with availability?  Or dare I suggest Uber, who have identified the market

 
I've got it. 

From the BBC:


 

 

That's the plan ... should include an [AI] tag:
  Post includes AI generated content (?)
but I have only just programmed that option in to the Coffee Shop.