Westbury not surprised as on local groups the car park being full comes up as an issue from time to time despite its major extension a few years back.

But yes, a good thing to have on JourneyCheck if this is a new feature to highlight when station car parks are full.

 
Seasonal - or just something I haven't notice on JourneyCheck before?

 
First warm day of the year so of course the railway melts down........

Cancellations to services between London Paddington and Reading

Due to a speed restriction because of high track temperatures between London Paddington and Reading fewer trains are able to run.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until 17:00 30/04.

 
"Hottest day of the year"

 

I guess this one will be disruptive.  I doubt it's happened because of "cold weather" though

 
Cash is important

Whatever your politics, everyone needs to be wary of those who seek to rule.  Maybe you're okay with the present government.  But it needs to be remembered that those we elect, if they were so minded, could introduce digital ID and/or a central bank digital currency.  It would be only a small step from there for a malign government to decide that, for example, you cant travel for more than 15 minutes from your home, or that your carbon allowance has already been used this month and you can't travel at all.

Fanciful?  Conspiracy theorist stuff?  Well, who would have foreseen that, just because Boris Johnson's government (and he one who purported to lean towards individual freedoms) told the nation to stay indoors for months except for "permitted purposes", there was almost universal meek compliance

Cash is important

The government has no right to decide how you should legally spend your legally gained earnings.  Giving up cash yields too much power to authority.

 
That made me laugh, thanks! I fear that what we'll get though is interminable repeats of an explanation that includes phrases like 'Track stones' - Network Rail's curious need to provide an expansion for the word 'Ballast'.

Mark

 
Driving the bus, managing the other traffic on the road, managing the public, dealing with cash transactions, handling a float, balancing the books and putting the takings into the system - and all that with little opportunity for physical exercise. One of society's more taxing jobs, and underappreciated too.

Mark

 

I'm not suggesting it for every delay / change. No explanation needed - IMHO - as to what "train crew" are, and the explanations for why there aren't enough of them is a well played and worn record which would increase that ratio.

 
It's the piers for the useful but closed rail line, part of the shortest route between London and the West Country, and which had at least one bridge of an uncommon design, not sure if the canal crossing's bridge was another, but the piers certainly got beefed up at some stage.

Mark

 
I'm intrigued by the 3rd photo, which reminds me slightly of the intimidating anti-terrorist barriers we sadly see a lot of nowadays, here apparently intended to stop a large warship ramming the lock in the distance.  I'm guessing they are just some old and hard-to-remove bridge supports, though if the bridge was as substantial as the supports look then why is it no longer needed?

 
As a now ex bus driver, most of us hated cash!
Have to pay in the exact amount every night when your shift ends.
A large queue at the paying in machine many times.
On some very popular summer routes, a driver could easily pay in upwards of £500, frequently £750 plus.
Drivers didn't get paid overtime for paying in such amounts.
A few of us claimed!

 
I suspect that other than very small outlets they would probably throw in the towel and shut up shop anyway.  Their stock control systems and tills would rely on that same power supply, few staff members would be able to add up prices in their head or even on paper, and they probably wouldn't have the capacity to store/bank large volumes of cash.  Then there's the lights and heating/cooling not working and so on.

 
Those that refuse cash shouldn't then be allowed to accept it during power outages - either you do or you don't, 100%. No changing to suit....but I voted that everyone should accept cash 100%

 
I am surprised at the number of customers who take cash out of a brown envelope to pay for their goods today.

 
From the BBC

 
Journeycheck's signal to noise ratio isn't good. It feels as though that approach risks boosting the noise.

Mark

 

There is some concern with Grid systems that rely heavily on renewable generation of the lack of inertia that spinning mass generation provides.  In the event of a fault on the transition system the Voltage takes longer to stabilise with  renewables based generation, Power Factor is also something more challenging the manage.

Black starting power stations ie a power station that has no live Grid takes time even natural gas fuelled.

It will be interesting to see the finding of the instigation[

quote author=broadgage link=topic=30210.msg361041#msg361041 date=1745947316]
I have long held the view that ALL new electric trains should be equipped with either a diesel engine or a battery able to move the train at a much reduced performance for a reasonable distance.
In stating this, I was thinking primarily of UK conditions, but it looks as though it would be prudent overseas also.

At least affected passengers were allowed off the trains, in contrast to the UK policy of "keep them on the trains no matter what."

On a more general note, there appears to have been a regrettable lack of both battery emergency lighting and standby generation in public buildings.
[/quote].

In the case of UK electrified railways the loss of traction power results in the loss of power to signalling, normally not a problem as there are independent locally sourced DNO supplies; however should an Iberian Peninsular type of failure occur there would be no DNO available.  And no putting generators everywhere of UPS's large enough to run for hours is not economically practical ................... quite simply the travelling public are not willing to cover the cost for what is an extremely rare event

 
Journey check has recently been adding explanations of technical issue and, whilst the more experienced of us may give a wry smile and say "surely we all know that" ... actually some of guest readers may not.  I suspect these explanations are prepackages chunks of text - I may be starting a collection here

 
From https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/localtransportplan

 

These, and other, anecdotes suggest that wasn’t the case:

https://apnews.com/article/spain-portugal-power-outage-electicity-train-transport-8f22b5d7a760298773cd2659eb34a58a

 
It is forecast to be into the mid 20s today in Ústí nad Labem.

 

Too much information. 

 
Perhaps surprisingly, large grid systems are not well understood.
They are much too big and expensive to build a spare one for experiments. Only small and low risk tests and experiments can be performed on a working grid system.

Computer modelling is of limited use in view of the many variables, many of which change in unknown or unpredictable ways.

In recent years several factors have "conspired" to increase instability.
1) The increased use of switched mode power supplies. These draw roughly constant watts over a wide range of voltages, and can draw unexpectedly large currents during a supply voltage dip, this tends to increase the degree of voltage drop and may result in what would otherwise have been a brief voltage dip, now becoming a "fail to recover" event.
Note that variable speed motor drives and electronic lighting ballasts are all sub-species of switched mode power supplies.

2) Increased amounts of generation connected via static inverters rather than consisting of traditional rotating alternators.
Such sources CANNOT supply extra energy in a low voltage or low frequency emergency.

3)Increased geographical areas supplied by a common grid system. This tends to promote instability.

I expect more such outages.

 
I put the shorts on for the first time this year.

And Finn had his cooling mat for the car.

 
The Times this morning had a quote from "energy bosses" that a "very strong oscillation in the electrical network" led to disconnection from "the European system" - i.e. France. I have not heard that anywhere else, so either the Times is very good at digging out sources, or it's wrong. Since it's what such bosses would have said if asked in advance what was the most likely cause of a hypothetical transmission grid collapse, perhaps it was basically a guess - by someone.

At a more recent press conference, the start of the collapse was said to be the disconnection of five (I think) nuclear generators, supplying more than half of of the demand at the time. Now, something must have caused that, and oscillation (instability) fits that bill. After that, total collapse was almost inevitable - it could only be avoided if the links from France (and Morocco, much smaller) could supply most of that deficit (15 GW), which sounds pretty unlikely.

Those links from outside all overloaded and tripped, though for the south-west of France the split was within France. They had to break the connection at the Pyrenees before resupplying from the French aside. The powering up of Iberia was done starting from the areas that could be supplied from abroad, in he north and south.

That sounds like the process I would expect to see. Starting the generators in a grid involves them following a grid already supplying power, so that was done using the external links. As much of the grid as could be supplied by those infeeds, at the north and south, was turned on and the generators in that area started up. That gives enough surplus power to prime the next areas and get them going.

 
An on-the-ground account on this Substack blog. The conflict really is dismal.

Mark


https://martinrobbins.substack.com/p/i-visit-britains-most-expensive-farm

 
Back in the 90s I set out to walk the K & A in a series of stretches, usually around 12 miles. Living in Maiden Newton I set out using the train. The stages I embarked on were Bath to Bradford; Trowbridge to Avoncliff ( for the Cross Guns); Trowbridge to Devizes for bus to Bath; Pewsey to Devizes for bus to Bath; Pewsey to Great Bedwyn; Bedwyn to Hungerford; Hungerford to Kintbury. I never got round to the last section.
The walks were helped by there being an hostelry every four miles or so.
In addition these guides were very useful.

 
From the BBC: