Indeed! That was my latest, but yet which I forgot - Friars Junction to Greenford, taken on one of the last Chiltern parliamentaries into Paddington.

Also now I think about it, I was on the curve round from Old Oak Common to North Pole Junction that the old Brighton Cross-countries used to take. Short but sweet.

Oh, and does the original connection between HS1 and the Southern third-rail network (when Waterloo was international) count?

 
For me I think it's just Dover Marine, the Folkestone Harbour branch (on the UK portion of the Citalian Express no less) Holborn Viaduct, the Lincoln avoiding line, also Gunnislake (the station across the road, but perhaps that's wishful thinking). Bradford Exchange of course, and I recall zero publicity that it was to close - the replacement as first built was squalid. Also, Forster Square - the new station's just about off the site of the old, and for good measure shares with St Ives in that the new station's on the previous fish dock. Ah, and Ashton Gate from the harbour direction. Oh, and Gogarth, but it was a station and not an entire line. Ah, and Lincoln St Marks - which *was* on its own line.

Come to think of it, that last bit of the GWR line from Birmingham into Paddington at Old Oak Common as well. HSTs from Bath to London were sent to Oxford and then that way to Paddington. The train crawled the last few miles. That's now gone, hasn't it?

New lines include Tweedbank, and the Airdrie and Bathgate (though mostly asleep for that...)

Mark

 
From Bluesky.

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/eurostarjustin.bsky.social/post/3mkiurdqj322s

 
From the BBC



At least four people were killed and dozens injured when two trains collided outside the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Monday.

State media report that a stationary commuter train was hit from behind by a long-distance commuter train arriving on the same track.

The final number of casualties is still to be confirmed and rescue efforts are under way to free a number of passengers trapped, officials said.

Footage shown on local media shows passengers on medical trolleys near Bekasi Timur Station, with other images showing rescuers trying to free people from the train wreckage.

Confirming the four deaths, a spokesperson for state-owned railway operator KAI, Anne Purba, said 38 other people had been taken to nearby hospitals.

"KAI expresses its deepest condolences and condolences to the victims and their bereaved families," Purba added.

The death toll could rise, according to the Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, who visited the site - which is approximately 25km (15.5 miles) from Jakarta.

Some people screamed "hysterically" as the trains collided, one passenger told the BBC's Indonesian service. Other eyewitnesses said they had seen "many victims" injured in the crash.

Jakarta Police Chief Insp Gen Asep Edi Suheri said six or seven people remained trapped inside the carriages.

Indonesia's public transport network in general has a high accident rate, due in part to ageing infrastructure and poor maintenance.

In January 2024, several people were killed and dozens more injured when two trains collided in a rice field in Cicalengka.

A video shot by drone showed the derailed carriages of the express train and the commuter train involved.

 
Two that come to mind on the same University railway society tour: Preston to the Red Scar sidings on the old Longridge Branch over the M6 - the site of the line is now a slender footbridge. Plus Poulton-le-Fylde to Burn Naze on the old Fleetwood Branch.

As a youngster on a family trip to western Scotland we travelled into the old station in Fort William, with its lovely three road starting signals and the track that ran out along the quay beyond the station. Now truncated about 3/4 mile back towards Mallaig Junction.

Even younger - the Douglas to Peel line on the Isle of Man. Can that count as GB?

 
Your photo, the juxtaposition of cows and iep is excellent.

Mark

 

 
Minority opinion: the Bedwyns should terminate at Marlborough.

Mark

 
I was fortunate to travel between Cheltenham and Stratford-on-Avon on a railtour in '75.

Of course part of that route now is occupied by the G&WSR.

 

Yes!

 
"more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time" has now spread to Cross Country.

 
Was the work to extend the siding at Bedwyn so that the EMUs could cover the Bedwyn service?

 
The last two I have been on, only appear to have the new livery on a driving car.

The bonus, for most people, is a bar/shop which is possibly old. But it means the bike spaces, four, have been relegated to a gloomy little area backing one of the driving compartments. Don't know what the situation is with the large luggage area that used to be next to the bike spaces.

Yours unimpressed of Reading

 
The "local" of my youth:
Havant, Langston, North Hayling to Hayling Island

Moat Lane Junction to Llanidloes, having changed from the Cambrian Coast Express

 
Yes, that's what I was looking for, but it ain't there, yet...

 

 
...but can't see a corresponding (direct) return trip for the commute back...

 
Ah yes - 07:00 Oxford - 08:20 Bristol direct via Swindon, Chippenham & Bath (no Keynsham).

 
From Oxford? In which case, a 5car IET

 
Just spotted that from Mon Jun 1 the official 07:21 Melksham - Bristol option is scheduled to arrive at 08:20; it's currently 08:39. As you say, it looks like they're squeezing a new 07:47 service from Chippenham between the existing 07:33 (unofficial connection, risky) and the 08:09 (official, safe due to long gap). Woohoo!

I think it's originating from Swindon; pretty sure it's not from Paddington anyway. So I guess it's not an IET?

 
Thanks Mark. Looking forward to reading that, although probably not on the train - the way it's presented doesn't appear to encourage reading on a phone

 
Ah, this may be a link to the Melksham book.

Mark


https://images.wbct.org.uk/index.php?%2Fcategory%2F4494

 
Outstanding quality of the trip: end-to-end in safety and without adding to the traffic on big city roads or the pressure on parking.

Even Portishead and back the other Monday involved the bus picking its way past a four vehicle suburban road traffic collision. Not sure how they managed it but police and ambulance in attendence, vehicle occupants in various states of disarray on the pavement and a chap with a breakdown truck already winching the first vehicle onto the ramp. With difficulty as one of its front wheels was pointing at 90 degrees to the direction it should have been.

On to the train at Bristol and off three and a half hours later at Leeds was a pleasant change.

Mark

 
The author takes a position, certainly. A major issue with public transport is the people who would never use it. (And the following issue would be that if they did, they'd promptly swamp the system, and there'd hopefully be an outcry for the enhancements on which she's touched and that Melksham needs)

Mark

 
April 2026, and the through service Bradford** and Trowbridge to Waterloo gets a mention as it's a renewed aspiration. [Edit: the strapline beneath the photo isn't particularly useful]

Mark

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/26048069.boost-plans-build-three-wiltshire-railway-stations/

** That's Bradford-on-Avon, not Bradford, Yorkshire of course. Next, someone will propose the introduction of a train service between Waterloo and Manchester, which would be silly.***

*** Not silly, as that service, the butt of jokes from newspaper hacks, provided a whole shopping-basket-full of interregional travel opportunities that grew railway business and in the case of Bristol to Hereford, loaded embarrassingly well.

 
Is there a rather huge dollop of irony in that article, or is just genuinely awful!

 

 

It was very much a crossover time.  Like with the entertainment carriage on Class 180s the spec was designed in the latter part of the last century when to listen to music on the move you basically took your Discman, complete with 3.5mm headphone jack socket.  Portable MP3 players were just starting to be introduced, but were very niche until the iPod came along in 2001, and it was of course long before smart phones were around.

Also, reservation displays were a very new thing.  Were the Voyager fleet the first?  And that has quickly been refined into much better displays with the excellent IET/Azuma 'traffic light' system the most fundemental change.  It will be a shame if XC haven't upgraded them with some of those developments, even if their less-than-ideal positioning would be tricky to change due to the carriage design.

{Quote altered to remove the 'Mark' - we can see it's you!}

 
Returning through Bristol on Saturday, and alongside a platform there, a refreshed set. I didn't have the chance to look at the interior, and Geoff Marshall's video from the launch event involves a train with temporary lighting in the carriages.

There's a rumour that the reservations displays haven't been renewed, but that cannot be the case as the originals have pretty well faded into obscurity in the way that those magic eye valves from 1950's radios did. OK that was a long time back but, looking it up, I was surprised to read that the Voyagers were introduced as late as 2001 - something that makes the built in and fragrant little headphone sockets even more surprising, but I suppose that that idea was being borrowed from aviation. (The 3.5mm jack socket and plug has been around from the 1950s I read, so it does thoroughly overlap with the mainstream existence of the magic eye indicator valves that the designers didn't specify for the Voyager seat reservation displays...)

Mark

 
Have gotten used to it not being there already, second nature now for the detour