KingEdwardII

Curious, since the current major developments around St Neots are quite near the existing station - Monksfield and Winteringham. Tempsford seems a long way from those. Meanwhile, future planning for the Tempsford area seems up in the air, at least according to this article in a local paper: https://www.biggleswadetoday.co.uk/news/politics/tempsford-could-be-surrounded-by-houses-as-plans-revealed-for-4000-homes-3752076 ...and uncertainty concerning EWR is put forward as one of the reasons for reconsidering the plans for Tempsford! Bit of chicken-and-egg going on there, I think. I suppose that if EWR can get an agreement that a new Tempsford station would also include Thameslink trains, then that might make some sense, although Tempsford is a bit of a drag from the main housing areas of St Neots. Yours, Mike.

As well as Cambourne, the other settlement EWR needs to take into account is St Neots. The old alignment crossed the Great Northern line at Sandy, but these days, St Neots is 3 times the population of Sandy and growing fast. So all the plans call for a route near St Neots, although as far as I can see, none plan to go via the existing St Neots station. This routing also chimes with the Cambourne requirement, since this requires a more northerly route than the original. Yours, Mike.

One of the sections of the old Cambridge - Bedford line now lies underneath a prestigious Cambridge University Radio Telescope. (It is the one used to discover Pulsars, for which a Nobel Prize got handed out) The chances of taking the new tracks through there are pretty well zero - the University long ago put up an effective campaign to rule out the idea and as far as I know, it has never been considered since that time. Also, the changed demographics around Cambridge, particularly the rise of the new community of Cambourne, have altered the requirements significantly, arguing for a very different route. Yours, Mike.

There is a general trend towards electronic payments only pretty much everywhere now. Covid definitely accelerated the trend, with many shops & restaurants deciding to drop cash payment and not resuming it once Covid declined. Quite a few of the local car parks are electronic only these days - it means that they don't have to pay to collect cash from the machines and theft becomes impossible. I volunteer in our local community shop and while we accept cash payments still, the vast majority of payments are by card. Even the youngsters buying their sweeties turn up with mum or dad's card... Cash handling takes time, effort and money - for the community shop, it's volunteers' time and effort going to and fro to the bank 3 miles away. We have had the debate about whether to end this and go 100% electronic - no decision as yet. Yours, Mike.

Superbly atmospheric photo - wisps of steam in the gloaming and light blazing out from the lanterns along the platform. Could almost imagine yourself back in 1906 - apart from the (hard to see) loco livery and the coaching stock...

That is pure volunteer fuel - keeps them coming back for more!

Great idea to have new stations to serve communities along the South Wales mainline. Finally addressing the growth of communities along the line over the past half century and more. I doubt whether they will have much effect on traffic along the M4, however. One drawback with the plans is that the introduction of the new stations is planned to involve lengthening the journey times for the longer distance services Portsmouth-Cardiff and Cheltenham-Maesteg. This will be damaging, especially for the Portsmouth-Cardiff services, which most definitely have aspects of long distance "express" type services about them. It might be better to think instead of having frequent commuter style services running Cardiff-Bristol, ideally electric units with their faster acceleration, if full electrification ever happens on the necessary lines. Could probably add an extra station at St Mellons on the eastern outskirts of Cardiff - a big newish community close to the mainline. Yours, Mike.

I moved to a Digikeijs DR5000 - it is a design based on a first-class computer connection (choice of USB, LAN, Wifi). Importantly, the LAN & WiFi offerings permit multiple devices to connect to the command station, unlike USB. It is no longer available: the Yamorc YD7100 is an equivalent although the soon-to-be-available YD7403 seems a better current offering. There are other pricier offerings with good computer connections also, such as the Z21. My thinking was to go for a moderately priced command station with computers being used for the smarts of the system. My main computer driving the DR5000 is a Raspberry Pi 400, to which the touch screen is attached. Yours, Mike.

Excusively Brighton Models have some etches for signal posts up to 45', which you can find here: https://ebmodels.blogspot.com/2022/11/

I also use a touchscreen to control turnouts, signals, etc although mine is a tad larger at 22". It works very well for me. I agree with Iain that if you are aiming for automation, then the computer connection of your command station is a vital consideration. I moved away from a GM Prodigy since its computer link is expensive and slow. Yours, Mike

GWSR runs trains most days from April to the end of October. No trains on Mondays & Fridays, partly to allow for maintenance - e.g. carriage washing & cleaning is done on Mondays. They are only fully closed in January and February. The number of trains involved is of the order of 6 each way, except on special Gala days. So moderately busy. Indeed, since it is a single line with passing only at intermediate stations, the number of trains possible is fairly limited, as is still the case on many similar lines on the main network. Getting some of the infrastructure work done has to be slotted in around the trains - and the major drawback is that volunteers only work during the day - so no overnight activity, unlike the mainline. Bigger works are targeted at the winter shutdown period. Specialized work can be beyond the capabilities of volunteers and this has to be contracted out to commercial operators. Many of the preserved lines still have restoration works going on in addition to maintaining infrastructure for running trains, which takes a lot of effort. So the GWSR is still in the business of completing Broadway station, with a building planned for Platform 2, plus an effort to make the (replica) signalbox at Broadway operational. There is also considerable effort on maintaining and restoring locomotives and rolling stock. All steam locos have to undergo major maintenance after 10 years due to the "10 year ticket" on the boiler. Diesels also require significant maintenance. Worth remembering that the preserved lines are generally dealing with vehicles 60 to 120 years old, with a need to ensure things look authentic while at the same time adhering to more recent regulations and dealing with the sheer unavailability of older technology. Simply sourcing authentic lamps for the platforms is a major effort, for example. Yours, Mike.

The magic of armies of volunteers! See the GWSR blogs for an insight into all the sheer bloody hard work they put into maintaining their lines and infrastructure - the lineside drainage blog in particular shines a light into a mostly forgotten area that is of vital importance. They too have viaducts that require TLC - and lots of cash, on occasion. Yours, Mike.

The north vs south issue will not go away until the transport issues in the north are fixed. It is staggering how bad the rail connections are between the North West and Yorkshire. Not a single electrified line. Slow as a snail. Compare that with any of the major routes out of London. And I live in the (deep) south! Yours, Mike.

My own recent experience says that DCC is a great choice if you're going to build a new layout. Yes, you will have some outlay to buy a suitable controller and you will have to upgrade any existing locos that you have. But it is very worthwhile in my experience. Yours, Mike.

There really is no direct bus service to Plymouth. Or Bristol. But there is a twice daily National Express bus to/from London Victoria, which is routed nowhere near Plymouth - takes over 6 hours. Train from Barnstaple shows between 3h 30 and 4h to Paddington. Add up to 30 mins for bus from Bideford. Yours, Mike.

Try the timing from Winchester - and even that is being generous, since my plane journey usually goes from Soton airport, next to Parkway station, which is nearer to where I live. Using a small airport like Soton also means much less time required for check-in and security, etc, compared with Heathrow. Security to the gate: 1 minute if you dawdle. `The road journey for me is 425 miles (Edinburgh) and takes ~8 hours of driving. Only worth it when travelling for leisure when I need the car in Scotland. On business, I would fly & rent a car locally if needed. We've used the train into Edinburgh from Northumberland when staying there with relatives - a nice hassle free 1 hour journey. Yours, Mike.

Apart from all the folk who choose to fly. I've not used a train to get from the south to Edinburgh or Glasgow for over 30 years - business or leisure. It is simply too slow. I have driven - usually when Edinburgh or Glasgow are not the final destination and I need a car to travel to places in the country. It's not much slower than the train. Yours, Mike.

Indeed - the Harwich - Hook of Holland ferry takes more than 8 hours, by which time a plane could have whisked you clean out of Europe!

Yes, but you would not dream of using that as part of a journey to get to Harwich! I checked and if you use the Liverpool - Norwich train to start your journey, it takes about 6 hours 25 mins to get to Harwich and there are 3 changes... The National Rail app recommendation is to go via London and the journey then takes about 4 hours 30mins. Even the trip up from London Liverpool Street involves a change at Manningtree, except for one direct service @ 21:02. So much for "boat trains". Yours, Mike.

The statistics for Heathrow for November 2022 show a total of 5,646,134 passengers of which 383,365 were "domestic" - i.e. to UK locations. Of these 54,214 were for the Manchester - Heathrow route. So for Heathrow, domestic is less than 10% and the Manchester route is about 1%. Yours, Mike.

Misses the point - what these projects do is to enable getting to the airport by train easier. The vast majority of transport to/from Heathrow is by road. That's because for many folk, the train journey is pants. To/from central London is OK - as also the journey from Essex along the Elizabeth line now. From many other places, the journey takes forever. Result: people go by road, as I have done and still do for over 40 years. The link to Reading and the south & west is the most obvious one to complete. It's relatively straightforward and will enable practical train journeys to Heathrow from a large swathe of south & west England. The link to the south makes some sense, although I think the number of journeys potentially affected may not be as large as the Reading link. As others have pointed out, the southern link is much more involved than the link to Reading. Yours, Mike.

Congratulations on the GWSR blogs, including the steam department. They are all very good and give an excellent insight into the behind the scenes activities at the heritage line. Keep up the good work! Yours, Mike.

After WWII, the 4700 2-8-0s were used on the heavy summer Saturday expresses, especially to the West Country, particularly "The Royal Duchy" and Paddington - Kingswear but also the Cornish Riviera. Some of this is detailed in David Maidment's "Great Western Eight Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives" book, with some great photos. We can only hope that the Heavy Freight group at the GWS at Didcot succeed with their new build 4709 and that we get to see a suitably long train hauled by one of these magnificent steeds. Yours, Mike.

Unlikely unless the designer was a nature lover and wanted a garden pond. The wildlife you would get in an open topped tank would not go down well in the average boiler. Yours, Mike.

Forget Worcestershire Parkway for a moment - the service from Bristol TM to Worcester (e.g. Shrub Hill) is a bit of a mess. There are direct trains, but these are way slower than the journeys that involve a change at Cheltenham! 1hour 14mins vs 1 hour 30+mins...even allowing for waiting on the platform at Cheltenham. So the journeys from Bristol TM to Worcestershire Parkway don't look much different to the fast trains to Worcester Shrub Hill! I agree that the service to Worcestershire Parkway is a bit of let-down. Yours, Mike.