Good morning, it's early.
I'm standing by this house
and this plain yellow wall of this house.
And you're thinking, why are you doing that?
The reason is I'm about to do a dramatic reveal.
Dog barking.
I'm in Saltash in Cornwall,
and there are some days when you just need to start a video
by suddenly revealing Brunel's Bridge (laughs)
right behind you.
(train brakes squeal)
So with Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge just there,
Road bridge, and of course the railway bridge.
Didn't notice this before,
it looks like the railway bridge actually goes
to a single track and that's Saltash.
Hello, good morning.
I'm going to Menheniot and Dockyard request stops,
except for the fact that I don't think
that Menheniot is actually a request stop anymore,
but that's the reason why I'm going there,
to go and check it out and investigate it.
And after which, we'll just do a quickie
at Plymouth Dockyard station,
which I know definitely is a request stop.
Why is my hair all,
I haven't been wearing a hat.
Why have I got hat hair already?
(door alarm sounds)
[Announcer] The next station is St Germans.
So Menheniot is on the Great Western Main Line,
west out of Plymouth going down towards Penzance
But as we'll see from the timetables when we get there
it gets a very limited service.
And I think after I get there at 9:42 this morning
there's no trains for like four hours
until about one o'clock.
(door alarm chimes)
Now I should just point out, that it's raining.
It's June, it's summer.
Why are you raining?
Can you see these gents in orange Hi-Vis?
The contractors are out and they're going all around
the local stations in this area.
And they're like giving them all a lick of paint.
So if you see the workmen there,
they're actually painting up the waiting shelter
which is where I wanted to sit to escape the rain.
But now it's, they're in there working, doing painty things.
Is Menheniot a request stop
is the question we need to answer.
I've come inside the shelter.
There's drops of, rain droplets, honestly.
I'm gonna fire up Wikipedia.
I invite you to do the same at home.
This is what the Wikipedia entry says
about Menheniot station.
"Menheniot is served by a limited number of GWR trains."
True, it only gets about four or five services.
I'll check out the timetable shortly.
"On the Cornish Main Line between Penzance and Plymouth.
Most trains only call on request,
which means that people wishing to alight
need to inform the guard
and those wishing to join the train here
need to signal clearly to the driver.
There is one train per day,
every morning to London Paddington
with Menheniot being a compulsory stop for this service."
I don't think that's true anymore.
I think a year ago, or maybe two years ago,
trains just started stopping anyway.
And on my map, which I'll throw on screen now,
and you can download,
I need to update my request stop map
because certainly back in all the stations 2017, 2018,
Menheniot was a request stop.
But I think now sort of slowly became not a request stop
and I'm pretty sure
that right now it is not a request stop at all.
So I need to remove Menheniot from my request stop map
and update my total of request stops.
I just wanted to see if there's any posters
or any evidence that said it's a request stop faded
or any sign saying it's now not a request stop.
I can't see any at the moment.
All I can see at the workman's gloves and pain tin.
I'll go for an explore just as soon as it stops raining.
So remembering that the letter X
denotes a request stop on a time table,
you can see here at the Dockyard where I'm going later
has got an X by it.
There's an 8:15 there.
If you carry on through though,
I just arrived on the 9:42 at Menheniot
and there's one early at 7:38, there's a seven o'clock,
there's one at nine, there's one at two,
one at four something, five something and seven something.
So there's only six westbound trains per day.
Going east, I think it's a very similar pattern.
If I want to wait for the next train here
I'm having to wait until two o'clock
which is why I can't do that.
Now, when I leave in a minute,
Menheniot Village is like a 10 minute walk to the north
but I think my better bet,
from looking at the onward travel information poster
is to walk five minutes to the south.
That's where the 8:38 is, the main road.
And there's a couple of bus stops down there
that I reckon I can get a bus from.
Before I exit, I've just noticed something really strange.
GWR, Hi,
why doesn't Menheniot have you have any station signs?
Looking along the length of the platform, both sides,
there is no signage.
There is no sign that says Menheniot.
Why are there no station signs?
There's a double arrow outside
but there's nothing on the platform
to let you know where you are.
It's just occurred to me,
what I should do is just call someone that I know will know.
So do you remember
if you've ever watched Least Used Station,
Redcar British Steel and Rob that came with me.
I'm just going to call him and ask.
(phone ringing)
- [Rob] Hello? - Rob?
- [Rob] Hello mate.
- You're live on YouTube, don't swear.
- [Rob] Hello YouTube, I won't swear.
- Rob, I've got a very simple question for you.
- [Rob] Okay. - Is Menheniot a request stop?
- [Rob] As of December 2020,
Menheniot is no longer a request stop.
So it used to be a request stop for a number of years,
but as of summer 2020, it got what I say unrequested,
so you don't need to request it now.
- Unrequested, and now it only gets
like five or six trains in each direction a day anyway.
It's a very sparsely served station, right?
- [Rob] Yes, but it's still a little bit better
than what we had.
A few years ago, the route was upgraded
between Penzance and Plymouth
which saw a half hourly service put in
between the two stations
and a lot more stations get a much better service now,
including Menheniot.
So it's not all that bad.
- No, it's lovely.
Have you been here, do you ever come here?
- [Rob] I've been a number of times.
I think while at the station, I especially like
the Brunel Shelter which dates back from 1859.
- Rob, you can't see this but I'm pointing at it right now.
So that shelter is an 1859 Brunel shelter,
is that correct?
- [Rob] Designed by Brunel himself.
- Rob, thanks so much.
Thanks for appearing in my video via phone.
- [Rob] You're welcome, hello Youtube.
- All of YouTube is now waving at you, Rob.
I'll link to the British Redcar Still video
if you want to be reminded of whom Rob was.
Okay, bye.
I didn't actually just come here, did I?
I could have just called him from home.
Not a request stop any more.
I was tempted to stick me arm out,
but I don't think he'd of stopped in time.
- [Announcer] This station is Menheniot.
- [Geoff] Yes, it is.
- [Announcer] There are no trains due to make this platform
within the next 60 minutes.
There is a timetable poster available at the station.
- There is indeed a turntable poster
on the eastbound platform as well
which saw three services this morning,
around seven, eight o'clock.
Yeah, the next one, the next train that stops,
bearing in mind it's only 20 past 10 now,
is at 20 past one, so in three hours time.
And going the other way, it's not until 10 past two.
So with a three hour wait until the next train,
I'm going to leave the station
and I've decided I'm going to go and get a bus.
Menheniot, it used to be a request stop.
It now isn't, tick, confirmed.
Thanks Cornwall.
(train rumbles)
I'm at Dockyard.
I mean, this is really just a brief coda
to the Menheniot request stop, slash,
now it's not a request stop video,
but as I was in Plymouth,
it seemed rude not to tick off Dockyard,
which I'd never ticked off.
And that means I could tick another request stop
that's on my request stop map.
The map, by the way, I threw up on screen
is downloadable in the description.
It shows where all the request stops are
minus Menheniot, minus New Clee, minus Bures
which have will become regular stops again.
But it shows all the other request stops in Britain,
in England, Wales and Scotland,
still about 120, 130 of them.
And we'll have a very, very quick look at Dockyard.
It does essentially get a two hour service
because it's on the Tamar Valley Line
which are the trains running up to GunnisLake and back.
But there's all about three or four,
maybe five mainline trains.
You get the HST Castle set, so the IET stopping here.
I think actually though there's one IET that stops here
around sort of seven, eight in the morning
and the rest are just little trains.
But, you know because the telltale sign.
I'm here, so I'm gonna get the 1357 there,
which has come out of Gunnislake
heading back towards Plymouth 'cause it's got the X,
the X next to the time on the timetable.
What I can't see, normally there's a sign saying
"This station is a request stop".
Doesn't say that.
I'm having trouble sitting on the bench
here in the waiting shelter,
mainly because they've removed the bench.
So it's just the metal supports.
I suppose you could perch on those.
And there's two ways in and two ways out.
So four entrance and exits in total to this station,
including at the western end,
coming down this path and these steps
which leads you to this fantastic bridge under the railway
and then up these steps back to the other side.
And up on the westbound side platform, you come to the end,
come to the western end or northern end as it is
and then you do a 180.
And you've got this rather fabulous view
of all the rows of houses across the suburbs of Plymouth.
(train passing)
Thinking that if you lived here in these houses,
you would hear the trains go by all the time,
every two hours up to Gunnislake,
plus the mainline ones.
Only a few of which of those of which stop at Dockyard.
It is a request stop.
Just a quick look at Dockyard.
I'm gonna put my arm out in a minute,
even though one other passenger has turned up
I will make my intent clear.
And slowly but surely get round all the request stops
in England, Scotland and Wales.
There's loads in Wales I haven't done yet.
So fingers crossed I can get around some of those this year.
Thanks for watching.
Train's coming as always.
(train brakes squeal)
(door beeps)