Welcome to the latest edition of the On Our Lines periodical newsletter, The Traffic Circular! You can find the entire archive of past Circulars here, and you can also sign up to receive the newsletter direct to your email inbox here. For those of you on our Discord server, we’ll also post every edition in #public-address as it’s published.
September round-up
This month’s news was dominated by the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which led to us having to cancel our planned edition of London's Transport Race on Saturday 10th September at the eleventh hour! We’d just finished all of the preparation as the news broke, so this was a huge blow for all of us. A decision not taken lightly, it was the only one presented to us for the safety of all those due to take part – as expected, London was extremely busy (and unpredictably so) on the Saturday, and it would have been a challenge to keep track of all those participating.
Happily, we can confirm the date of our next Transport Race, on Saturday 26th November. This will be our last of 2022 whilst we take a winter break, but we’ll be back in Spring next year! Tickets are available now via Eventbrite, and we hope to see many of you there!
If you’re interested in getting involved in the running of our Transport Races, don’t forget that we’re always on the lookout for new helpers – just get in touch with us via [email protected]. We’re also in the process of trialling a new version of the event in a different city, and hope to announce more on this soon – again, if you’d be interested in taking part in a trial version in a city away from London, please do get in touch.
More positively, we were able to hold our On Our Metropolitan Line meet-up on Sunday 4th September to coincide with the outing of the London Transport Museum’s preserved 1938 stock unit. It was lovely to spend time out and about in Metro-land with community members, as well as show some behind the scenes at a couple of the Met’s historical signal cabins – they won’t be forgetting the stairs at Harrow-on-the-Hill in a hurry!
We also held our first SimSig Session for a little while on the 18th September, with Exeter and Westbury simulations in use. This was well-attended, despite world events, and we hope to start running these fairly regularly again as we head into winter.
Stations of the Month
Our Stations of the Month challenge continues to run - full details of how the challenge works can be found here. If you don’t know how it works, then each month we randomly select one National Rail station from each region of the country, one London Underground / DLR, one light rail/tram and one heritage railway station every month to be the Stations of the Month.
To earn points, just take a selfie at one or more of the Stations of the Month and at the end of the year there will be a prize for the person with the most points in each category - and maybe some bonus prizes too, so be creative with those selfies!
During September, we have had submissions for Shelford (@jarley#2168), Peckham Rye (@jarley#2168, @Thryduulf#8980, @SharpSpiral#8351), Reddish North (@dlpb#7369), Aylesford (@jarley#2168, @SharpSpiral#8351), Birmingham Snow Hill (@SharpSpiral#8351), Halifax (@jarley#2168), Wood Green (@jarley#2168, @Thryduulf#8980, @SharpSpiral#8351, @Cheeky#1617) and Basford (@jarley#2168). Full details can be found here.
At the end of September the leaderboard looks like this:
The stations for October have been chosen and are listed below and in the October 2022 Stations of the Month thread in #challenges-on-our-lines, where you should post your pictures. Full details are also on the Stations of the Month page.
The Stations of the Month for October 2022
RailMiles
As of 2359 on September 30th, here's what the On Our LinesRailMiles league looks like this:
Discord username
RailMiles username
Points
@laurencec123#3791
laurencec123
29503mi 30ch
@SharpSpiral#9351
Slaffter
23599mi 9ch
@jarley#2168
jcmg
14322mi 8ch
@BipedCroissant8#9479
KcEdwards
11428mi 02ch
@Minion_Josh_#8802
minion_josh_
11154mi 74ch
@casimmons#3091
Girlonrails98
8253mi 42ch
@J_Finney#8905
J_Finney
7254mi 73ch
@Lcawte#2212
lcawte
5216mi 39ch
@penguin#4444
penguin8967
4828mi 25ch
@NickBrunning#8155
Nick_on_Platforms
3732mi 4ch
@deadly#3721
deadly
2984mi 34ch
@gsnedders#1742
gsnedders
2392mi 35ch
Be sure to keep logging your journeys and see how you stack up in our On Our Lines league! Just ping @jarley#2168 if you would like to be added to the league on RailMiles.
You’ve Got Mail?
Want to stay in touch by email? If you'd like to receive future editions of The Traffic Circular by email, you can now sign up to our mailing list here. We’ll send our monthly newsletter straight to your inbox, as well as other occasional emails about upcoming On Our Lines events. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Picture of the Month
Don’t forget that you can enter up to three photos each month for our Picture of the Month competition! The winning photo, as chosen by our Patreons (@Ticket Holders) and Staff team, will be shared across our social media platforms for the following month, and immortalised here in The Traffic Circular forever!
