Coryton

Well I thought that if you need to have a fence, that ought to imply an obligation to do your best to have gates remain shut (so self-closing where possible, and warning signs where not e.g. gates for vehicle access). But I'm pretty sure I've used foot crossings that have neither stiles nor gates, so perhaps not.

Indeed. I'm used to ones that have a strong enough spring to close themselves and hold themselves closed in the absence of a latch. Not any more. Transport for Wales now own the infrastructure on the core Valley Lines as well as running passenger services - resulting in a partial electrification scheme where they only electrify the bits they own (and even then just the easy bits). They seem to have a deal where their lines are covered by Network Rail's RHHTs, though.

Thanks. But....is that Network Rail? If so it's probably not appropriate for the Valley Lines. But it sounds as if I've just been spoilt with self closing gates before and this isn't unusual, even if it does seem to be a step backwards on this crossing.

These aren't, and weren't before either. The other level crossing near me has both road vehicle and pedestrian gates. The pedestrian gates aren't kissing gate style there either, but they definitely (and firmly) close themselves. Now I come to think of it I've used foot crossings that didn't have gates at all.

Interesting. Seems odd to me to replace self-closing gates with ones that are just going to get left open all the time (and indeed can't be shut properly as there's no latch).

Well these lead into a park popular with dog walkers...

A foot crossing near me was remodelled over the weekend (not sure why - perhaps to improve sight lines). The new gates don't self-close, and even if you think to close them yourself they open again slightly. Is this OK? There aren't any signs warning people that they should remember to shut the gates as you get with user operated road crossings. Can anyone in the industry tell me if this this is something I should report? (Though I don't know who I would contact).

The Rails of Sheffield advent calendar today has a Heljan 009 Lynton and Barnstaple tank engine (30190, as preserved, in early BR black) for just under £100. Not my sort of thing but this looks like a rather large discount on the normal asking price.

Probably sold almost twice as many tickets... There's the Valleys Nightrider ticket at £7.50. I don't know how popular it is. They don't seem to go out of their way to publicise it. (Available from the train "supervisor" if you can't buy it at the station - is what TFW guards are called now?)

No. I only found out recently that in the 80's you could get a weekly or monthly ticket valid for rail and bus services in Cardiff (and - oddly - by train but not bus to Penarth and Dinas Powys). Now instead you have the high bus flat fares penalising anyone trying to use two forms of transport for one journey. We seem to have gone backwards and plans for something better never seem to quite materialise.

Even for planned engineering they just send people to Cardiff Bus. It can't be an easy route to run a replacement bus on so I can see why they do it, though it would be nice if there was some provision for intermediate journeys. However, I think it would be good if they provided some information on which bus to catch and where from - and if journey planners could cope with the concept. Ticket acceptance isn't much use if you can't buy a ticket as there are no trains.

Well if you walk to where the 21 and 23 currently start from it should be fine...not many people seem to want to lurk round the back of the stadium to get on a bus.

I presume they could run a shuttle on the line now - a few years ago when the points onto the branch failed they ran it in two parts - one train up to High Level and back and one shuttling up and down to Coryton from Low Level. However, this didn't leave time to get between the two stations so you had to know to catch an earlier one to Heath...and even then there was no waiting to see if anyone was heading for Low Level. Once it was time to go, it went. Next one in half an hour... I think under the current circumstances one through train an hour is probably better than a shuttle every half hour with a fair chance of missing the connection. And yes the bus works for trips into/from town so long as you ignore the "nearest bus stop" instructions at Whitchurch to wait on Northern Avenue for a Cardiff Bus that will never come and instead walk to Coryton or Rhiwbina. But people do use the line for intermediate journeys and Birchgrove or Ty Glas to Coryton isn't so good by bus and it's a bit of a walk.

Well I'm not suggesting anyone at TFW is reading this (I'm sure they're not) but we have some progress. Journeycheck now has a line update: "Due to restricted platform availability, services have been reduced through the station. This means you may see alterations or cancellations to Cardiff Bay and Coryton services. Ticket acceptance has been agreed with Cardiff Bus for passengers traveling these routes." That's a lot more useful, though unreasonable person that I am I'd still like to know why they can support one train an hour during the day then in the evening when there are fewer services overall they can't find the capacity to get any trains to Coryton through the station. The Baycar only serves Cardiff and the Bay, but there are other bus routes that will get people to/from Cardiff to most of the other stations. Not so good if the centre of Cardiff isn't at one or the other end of your journey though.

As I said above, I phoned them up and they couldn't tell me any more so I doubt that asking on twitter would have been much more helpful. Commendably, I got through on the phone straight away and the lady on the other end of the phone was friendly, but even after making enquiries she couldn't provide any useful information. I'm not sure what I've said to justify that response. The cancellations for the evening were announced in the morning, so they had the best part of a day to try to make arrangements. They have certainly managed to find buses at much less notice than that before for more important routes. But in any case (and as I did say above) in the past they have arranged ticket acceptance on Cardiff Bus (often at much shorter notice than this would have required). But the storm is long over so that's certainly not the scenario here. Nobody is being told not to travel. They're just failing to provide trains or any alternative so that people can get home.

I appreciate that even at the best of times replacement buses can't necessarily be found, but there are no actual weather issues to affect bus services (or indeed any other rail services) so if they haven't arranged acceptance on Cardiff Bus it's because either they didn't try or weren't able to agree something, not because there are no buses. Yes of course I checked the web site (and Twitter - nothing there). They are dealing with it by just listing each service as cancelled on journeycheck with no information on alternative provision. There is no "line update" explaining what's going on. I phoned customer enquiries and they got onto "head office" and the response was that the 18:26 is running so I should catch that. Not hugely helpful. I have however now realised my mistake. I should of course have looked under "station updates" (obvious, eh?) where they explain that due to platforms 3 and 4 at Queen Street being out of action due to storm damage, the Cardiff Bay to Coryton line has a reduced service and rail tickets can be used on the "Baycar" which runs between Cardiff and the Bay. Not so useful if you're trying to get anywhere else on the line. It explains why they're giving weather as the explanation, and I can appreciate they have a problem with reduced capacity (before platforms 1 and 5 came along they at least had platform 2 dedicated to Bay services and 3 and 4 for everything else,, and the Bay bay (platform 1) is out of action at the moment), and that if something has to give it makes sense for it to be the Coryton line as the most lightly loaded. But I still don't understand why if Queen Street has the capacity for an hourly service to Coryton during the day they can't fit anything through it in the evening, or why given they are down from one to two diagrams they then (almost entirely) cancel the other diagram due to "resource availability" when they are expecting a near full service on the rest of the network. There are probably good explanations but it would be nice if they had the time to give out a bit more information because at the moment it's coming across as if they don't care how people get home, which I hope is not true.

Hello. I've put this here as I'm not sure it's appropriate for prototype questions as it doesn't have much to do with modelling. Does anyone know if rail companies have any obligation to attempt to source alternative transport if unable to operate services, or if it's just done as a courtesy? Today all services on the Coryton line seem to be cancelled after around 3 pm apart from a single service leaving Queen Street at 18:26 (and that will start at Queen Street not Cardiff Bay). It is a little disappointing that with very few other cancellations expected on the network they have chosen to abandon one line completely, and without any provision for alternative transport, not even getting Cardiff Bus to accept tickets for the stations that have a bus service as they have in the past. It seems that everyone is expected to pile on to the 18:26 (which will probably a 153). Is this as much as they are obliged to do? One diagram is cancelled due to "resource availability" and the other due to "high winds" which appear to be affecting the Coryton line and no other part of the network. (Yesterday the Coryton line was unique in having "severe weather" which caused the evening service to be entirely cancelled but they managed an hourly service during the day). There's no "line update" on journeycheck or other generic warning/explanation - it's just that almost every train is individually shown as cancelled.

Indeed. Just for the record, I mentioned the American "explanation" because it was (I thought) obviously wrong and completely missed the point. Not because I agreed with it. Perhaps I should have spelled it out.

I read an American book once explaining that other countries use graphic road signs due to the high levels of illiteracy experienced outside the US. Tucson, Arizona, actually. Probably not the best known tram "system" in the US. Also probably one of the smallest.

Unusually graphic warning sign...

Isn't that when you want the bus to run? OK I admit that it went on to say:

Just seen this from TFW I wonder if the phrase "A fitter has been mobilised" is as generally meaningful as they think? (I think it's a 769 - might save them some money overall if they stuck a travelling fitter on all of them...?)

Talking of intercoms, I was on a flight once where there was a surprisingly technical announcement to the cabin from the flight deck - something like "United Niner Tree Fife, holding short number one for takeoff". It was repeated, then the voice enquired as to whether the tower was listening. This was followed by some silence and then an apology for the pilot's inability to distinguish between cabin address and radio. Not the most auspicious start to the flight, but if they got any buttons wrong after that they got away with it.

I was on a flight once where shortly after take-off there was an announcement from the flight deck that the low oil light had come on. They were pretty sure it was a false alarm but just to make sure we were going to turn round and let someone have a look at it. Apparently all was well and we took off again fairly quickly. But before that the passenger who had fallen asleep just after take-off was a bit surprised to find that we'd 'arrived' back where we started. Curiously, a similar thing happened not that long after (on a totally different type of plane). This time we got a sightseeing flight round Central Park in Manhatten before being taken off and put onto the next flight. Someone on the opposite side of the plane to me said we'd been met by an assortment of emergency vehicles, which fortuantely we didn't need.

Er....if they really had no idea of why trains had stopped and how long it was likely to be before they started again, presumably they could have waited long enough to make some phone calls, find out the situation, and write a more useful message? And the fact that the staff scarpered suggests that they knew something about how long it was likely to be before services resumed. Maybe I'm a bit odd but you will struggle to persuade me that a sign saying "No trains" and a lack of staff to find out more from is the epitome of good customer service. I may be reading a bit too much into an anecdote here though.