Wessex Main Line

The Wessex Main Line is the railway line from Bristol Temple Meads to Southampton. Diverging from this route is the Heart of Wessex Line from Westbury to Weymouth. The line intersects with the West of England Main Line at Salisbury, and with the Reading to Taunton Line at Westbury.

Places served

The places served are listed below.

Passenger services are currently operated by Great Western Railway local services, supplemented by South West Trains between Salisbury and Bristol Temple Meads, and Great Western high-speed express services between Bristol and Bath. Some services start at Swindon also. Many services continue beyond Southampton along the West Coastway Line to Portsmouth Harbour and Brighton, and beyond Bristol to Severn Tunnel Junction, Newport and Cardiff Central along the South Wales Main Line. Strong passenger growth meant that Wessex Trains increased train lengths from two carriages to three in 2004, but the new franchise specification reduced them back to two carriages, with inevitable chronic overcrowding and passenger protests. As of 2011, the service now regularly runs with three carriages, but significant overcrowding continues at peak times.

Main Line (Columbus to Indianapolis via Bradford)

The Columbus to Indianapolis via Bradford Main Line was a rail line owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the U.S. state of Ohio.

The line ran from Bradford on the Columbus to Chicago Main Line southwest to New Paris on the Pittsburgh to St. Louis Main Line, forming part of a route between Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana. It is now completely abandoned.

History

The line was built by the Richmond and Covington Railroad and opened in 1863. It was eventually leased by the Pittsburg, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway on February 1, 1869, placing it under Pennsylvania Railroad control. The PC&StL and its successors, the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway and Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, operated the line until January 1, 1921, when the PRR began operating it under lease. The line passed to Penn Central Transportation in 1968 and Conrail in 1976.

References

Main Line (Long Island Rail Road)

The Main Line is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. It begins in Long Island City and runs along the middle of Long Island about 95 miles (153 km) to Greenport. A mile east of Long Island City (east of Hunterspoint Avenue) the four tracks of the East River Tunnels join the two tracks from Long Island City; most Main Line trains use those tunnels rather than running to or from Long Island City.

Continuing east, five branches split from the Main Line; in order from west to east, they are:

Buffalo Line

The Buffalo Line is a railroad line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway in the U.S. states of New York and Pennsylvania. The line runs from Buffalo, New York southeast to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania along a former Pennsylvania Railroad line. Its north end is at Seneca Yard in Buffalo, with no direct access to the Lake Erie district, and its south end is at the Pittsburgh Line at Rockville, Pennsylvania.

History

The Sunbury and Erie Railroad opened from Williamsport, Pennsylvania south to Milton in 1854,Northumberland in 1855, and Sunbury in 1856. Extensions west from Williamsport opened to Whetham in 1859,Keating (as the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad) in 1862, reorganize in 1895 to Western New York and Pennsylvania Railway, and finally reaching Emporium (also as the P&E) in 1863. A cutoff bypassing downtown Williamsport to the south, from Allen's west to Nisbet, opened in the early 1870s, and is now part of the Buffalo Line.

The Northern Central Railway opened a line from Dauphin, Pennsylvania north to Millersburg in 1856, extending it north to Herndon in 1857 and Sunbury in 1858. In 1882, the Pennsylvania Railroad opened their Rockville Branch from Rockville (on their main line) north to Dauphin on the Northern Central.

Morningside Place, Houston

Morningside Place is a subdivision located in Houston, Texas, United States.

The subdivision is not to be confused with Morningside Place, a development in southern unincorporated Harris County, Texas outside Beltway 8 which uses "Houston" addresses.

History

The subdivision began in September 1999 when the Bliss Court, Brantwood, Carolina Place, Wessex, and Windermere subdivisions joined into one organizational entity.

In 2001 the civic association received $5,000 matching grant funds from the Matching Grant Program of the City of Houston Planning and Development Department. The funds were used to install a decorative lighting system on Morningside Street, consisting of several wrought iron, old-style light poles. The association obtained the poles from Houston Lighting & Power for $12,000. Patrick Reynolds of the Houston Chronicle said "[t]he globes will cast a soft, frosted glow onto Morningside."

Cityscape

The community, located east of Kirby Drive, is located between Southgate and the City of West University Place. It is in proximity to the Texas Medical Center, Rice University, and Rice Village. In 1999 Katherine Feser of the Houston Chronicle said that the location was one of the "selling points" of the Windermere community.

Thomas Hardy's Wessex

The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the Norman Conquest. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in The Mayor of Casterbridge. In an 1895 preface to the novel Far From the Madding Crowd he described Wessex as "a merely realistic dream country".

Wessex Bus

Wessex Bus is a bus operator in the West of England.

History

In June 2007 the bus side of the South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach was purchased by Rotala subsidiary Flights Hallmark trading as Wessex Connect. The purchase included 68 buses and was completed in stages until 31 March 2008, this being dictated by Bristol City and South Gloucestershire Councils needing to approve the transfer of the routes.

In September 2011 Wessex moved into a new depot which was a specially converted former timber yard on St Andrew's Road, Avonmouth. The move allowed Wessex to set up a new regional head office for the south west operations where all the maintenance requirements could be met. The previous depot, which was owned by South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach, was operating at near full capacity following the growth of both businesses.

Wessex Star

A major contract included with the purchase of South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach was the University of the West of England (UWE) Student Shuttle services. The UWE Flyer service was one of the first routes that Wessex Connect ran for South Gloucestershire, and soon after the Student Shuttle and Bower Aston shuttle. From September 2007 UWE in conjunction with Rotala developed a network of routes based around linking the satellite campuses of Bower Ashton, St Matthias and Glenside, with Frenchay campus and student accommodation on a cost contract basis. The services were branded as Ulink, to provide a new high-quality low-cost bus service for students and staff.