Seen Around

Thursday 31st August 2023

Welcome to August’s potpourri of miscellany that’s caught my eye during the month and hasn’t warranted a full blown blog.

Flying visit to the Bluebell

It had been a long time coming – tickets went on sale in May 2022 for an originally planned visit in August that year, with mechanical problems resulting in a year’s postponement but the Flying Scotsman certainly arrived in style at the Bluebell Railway last week for seven consecutive days running on the line between Sheffield Park and East Grinstead between 23rd and 29th August with a static display at Sheffield Park for the rest of this week until Sunday.

When the train last visited the Sussex attraction in 2017 it certainly drew the crowds, and this year’s visit, coinciding with the iconic steam engine’s centenary, has been the same and more with hundreds turning out to ride and watch it pass by each day including when I took a return ride with friends on Monday.

It’s quite incredible how this steam engine, which can truly be labelled ‘iconic’, attracts so much attention and provides such obvious pleasure and enjoyment among all ages: young, middle aged and old.

Many thanks to the Bluebell Railway for its superb organisation and it’s good to know the visit was a resounding financial success too in these difficult times for heritage railways and locomotives.

Swanley Garage’s new lease of life

I had a fascinating visit to the former London Transport Country Bus garage in Swanley – code SJ – earlier this month and was very impressed to see how Austin Blackburn and the team have renovated the premises but kept its charm and heritage now the Go Coach Hire base has moved there from Sevenoaks.

It’s great to see the touches of nostalgia that have been added to the refurbishment of the offices on the left hand side which were so typical of the layout of London Transport’s Country Area bus garages of the day. This includes a fantastic reception area where the admin staff are based and a training room.

Austin uses the garage, which now contains a modern pit and facilities, to carry out body refurbishment work for a range of operators including contractors to TfL as well as looking after his own fleet.

Enjoy these before and after photos with the former courtesy of the London Transport Museum collection.

Bollards to Didcot

Following my recent blog about Bus Lane fines in Brighton, I was impressed by the three bus activated bollards that protect Didcot’s Station Road (adjacent to the town’s main shopping centre) from extraneous traffic.

However one of the bollards wasn’t working during my visit, staying down in the road resulting in buses passing by without having to wait for the bollard to fall. But then two high-viz wearing officials came along and fixed it and all was well again.

Days out in the South

I was impressed to see Stagecoach South has produced a very informative leaflet promoting its significant inter-urban network of bus routes in West Sussex this summer, and all the more so that it was available on board the bus I caught from Chichester to Singleton.

Looking online I see two other similar guides have been produced for the Blackwater Valley and Surrey and also Hampshire.

Each contains a very helpful map and information about places to visit including discount offers.

Well done Stagecoach South. This is great to see.

A bad week for Chiltern Railways

The above announcement caught my eye on social media the other week. I’m glad I wasn’t caught up in that lot. It certainly ticked off a fair number of entries on the Bingo Card of Rail Disruptions.

GWR’s book of stats on ticket offices

While waiting for my Witlshire Connect DRT at Pewsey railway station I had a look at the rather lovely waiting room…

… which in addition to its classy magazines for passengers to read while they wait …

… also contained a rather substantial book which listed every station on the GWR network with facts and figures about ticket office usage.

It’s an absolute treasure trove of statistics and what a shame other Train Operating Companies haven’t produced something similar so there could be informed debate about the future of individual ticket offices rather than the generalised “only 12% of tickets are sold from ticket offices” which is a meaningless average.

For example Pewsey only sees 7.7% of tickets (10,361 pa) sold from its office amounting to 34 tickets per day (open six days a week for 51 weeks a year) working out at five per hour (open for six and a half hours)….

…. whereas Paddington sees a significant 38.4% of tickets sold or collected (702,519 pa) from its ticket office – interestingly the percentage isn’t shown in the table – amounting to 1,930 per day or 120 an hour or two per minute.

That’s an awful lot of passengers to shut up shop for and I couldn’t help notice a substantial number preferring to queue rather than use one of the small number of Ticket Vending Machines at Paddington.

Ambrose Avenue, where?

John Crowhurst was puzzled by a Tweet from Arriva on 15th August wondering which Ambrose Avenue was closed – thinking it might be in Newcastle.

But, it was in Essex after all, in Colchester, which Arriva’s tweeters clarified in a follow up tweet the next day.

Sunshine Yellow School Buses

I spotted this poster in Portsmouth promoting the Coastliner 700 bus route and I’m sure it won’t be long before the photograph will be updated with the splendid new livery the new Coastliner buses now wear.

Open air wait at the Cathedral

Meanwhile in Chichester, I do hope West Sussex County Council use some of its Bus Service Improvement Plan funds to pay for a bus shelter at the busy north side bus stop in West Street opposite the Cathedral. It’s a lovely spot to wait for a bus on a sunny day but not so pleasant in the rain.

Stops on the south side of the road have two bus shelters.

Bus stop dirt

Please could Kent County Council find some funds from its Bus Service Improvement Plan to (a) clean bus stop flags and (b) remove out of date route numbers.

And in Basingstoke too

Meanwhile in Basingstoke I see that the “centre-shuttle” bus service was withdrawn two and a half years ago as explained in a notice on Stop Z opposite the station – where the new route 731 to Heathrow departs.

Yet on the other side of the road at bus stop X, the flag is still promoting the now defunct service.

But at least there’s no out of date information in the timetable cases.

There isn’t any information.

Where do I put my luggage?

Greater Anglia have done well to introduce an entire fleet of new trains but my attention was caught while travelling on a new Class 720 train with its 3+2 seating designed for commuters, except the same trains are used by holiday makers travelling to and from Clacton-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea as well as other popular resorts in Essex.

It left me wondering where passenegrs are supposed to put their lugagge. There are no luggage racks, the overhead rack isn’t very deep and nor is there much space between the seats fit suitcases.

Still, at least there’s a notice even if it’s instructions are completely impractical.

Jubilee at Stratford

There was a time when you could arrive at Stratford station and a train on the Jubilee line would leave within a minute or two. Nowadays following a reduction in the timetable in May, when five trains were withdrawn from the schedule, I’ve sometimes found no train standing in the three terminating platforms with a huge crowd waiting patiently for one to arrive and then leave with a choc-a-block full load (see above photo). It’s no longer a pleasant way to travel.

GWR’s joined up inclusive tickets

My eye was caught by this poster in the foyer of Didcot Parkway promoting combined rail, bus and admission tickets to attractions including Blenheim Palace and Legoland.

Excellent. And nice to see some bus timetable leaflets too – including a leaflet about the autonomous bus – which reminds me, whatever happened to the phase three full size bus I wonder?

Delay Repay updates

Finally, as promised last month, an update on my frustrations with GWR and Southern over delays in resolving delay repays (GWR) and overcharges (Southern). I’m delighted to report within hours of last month’s blog appearing online I’d heard from Simon Pritchard, Customer Relations Manager at GWR, who confirmed my three outstanding cases had all now been approved and Rail Travel Vouchers (my preferred compensation method) arrived in the post within a matter of days. My thanks as always to blog reader Lee (who now works for GWR) and ‘oiled the wheels’. And good news from Southern too, as within a couple of days I also had confirmation from them my promised Voucher was on its way.

I’m pleased to report this month has been all clear for customer service grumbles and even praise for Southern who I thought might question my Delay Repay claim for a missed connection to the Hoverbus at Portsmouth & Southsea station due to the train arriving 11 minutes late meaning I had to catch the Hovercraft 30 minutes later than planned. I thought the Southern Delay Repayers might baulk at the consequential delay on another mode, even though it’s advertised as a through connecting journey on Natonal Rail Planners. I’m very pleased to report the team approved the claim, albeit after a bit of a delay caused no doubt by the need for human intervention. Nice to end with some good news.

More miscellany at the end of next month.

Roger French

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