Seen Around

Saturday 31st January 2026

We’re at the end of January already. That means it’s time for another round up of unblogged curiosities observed on recent wanderings.

Bigging it up in Biggleswade

It had been a while since I’d passed through Biggleswade so when sampling new route X75 to Cambridge I was impressed to see the town’s new £2.3 million ‘Transport Interchange’, which opened in 2023, was in fine form including its five bus stops…

… each with a smart shelter complete with individual electronic real time departure sign, poster case and bright green bench style seat.

There’s also a large electronic departure sign as you exit from the adjacent railway station.

It’s all rather lovely, but you might be thinking it looks a little on the large size for a town the size of Biggleswade. And when you count up the number of bus departures at 27 across a 12 hour day (ie just a tad over two per hour) you realise that perhaps Central Bedfordshire Council may have gone somewhat over the top.

In fact the two journeys per hour both leave from the same stop rendering the other four smart new stops and shelters completely redundant. Shades of a Barry Docks Transport Interchange fiasco.

Meanwhile over in the station itself a new accessible footbridge was completed at the end of last year together with lifts to both platforms. It involves quite a trek from the ticket office…

… but is obviously a great improvement for those with accessibility needs than the fold footbridge, which is also still in use for those who want to minimise the walk but can still do stairs.

Inside the ticket office itself, there’s a rather nice old style window to buy tickets as well as a bookcase and three seats.

Sneak preview of Transport for Wales new livery

Members of the Omnibus Society who tuned into a recent online meeting of the South West and Wales branch were treated to an interesting update of developments from Transport for Wales and Powys County Council staff including a preview of a new TfW national livery which is now being applied to buses being refurbished as well as expected new deliveries in the coming months. These also gave the Powys logo and presumably in other parts of Wales others will have the local authority name that’s working with TfW

Powys has also launched a much improved website with a new “interactive map”, shown above. It’s to an “interesting” design which takes some getting used to, especially trying to following the coloured lines, but the good thing is all the route numbers have hyperlinks to the timetables. A great improvement on the paucity of information previously available.

Eastbourne’s bus network on display

I’ve previously highlighted East Sussex County Council’s good practice of displaying bus maps in large on street advert style cases at bus shelters and was impressed to see this multi coloured network map in Eastbourne on a recent visit. How great it would be if this kind of information provision became standard all over the country.

Hastings too

When I arrived at Hastings after my ride on the 99 I was pleased to see Southeastern proudly and prominently displaying a large network map and, even better…

… some lovely period photos from the past…

… of the station…

… and a rather nice replica lozenge style Southern station name logo.

DO NOT USE this map

That’s what I thought when I first saw this display at West Croydon bus station – ie TfL had realised its spider map was out of date so wanted to warn passengers not to use it. But then I noticed the next poster case was similarly treated…

… so it must be something to do with the glass in both being smashed, rather than the out of date info!

STP ticket buying woes

I’ve commented before about the crazy situation at St Pancras where there used to be two ticket offices side by side – one run by Thameslink and one by East Midlands Railway. Then the latter was changed into a Gail’s leaving just Thameslink which often has just one window open resulting in a tedious queue for passengers to endure. Meanwhile on the upper level by platforms 1-4, East Midlands Railway has its own desk where you can buy tickets but I reckon very few passengers realise that (despite a notice) and instead queue up on the ground floor.

Newcastle’s ticket office back where it belongs

Meanwhile up in Newcastle I was delighted to see LNER has reinstated its ticket office in a sensible location – ie just by the entrance to the station concourse, where passengers enter and expect to find it. Quite why it was banished to the far end of the concourse baffles me. That erstwhile location has now become a “Station management centre”.

It’s a pity the Gents toilets are still located in this far away location.

Don’t look in here

I was puzzled to find the end Coach M on an Azuma five coach train opposite the accessible toilet had been given the frosted screen treatment on a recent trip. Normally that’s only used on the doors marking the dividing point between First and Standard Class on Coach K/D on five coach trains.

Could this be the new official GBR uniform hat……?

…. probably not, as the yellow is too prominent, but the passenger was definitely on ‘brand’.

Keep apart

Hopefully Slough Borough Council will get round to taking down the Covid-19 posters at its bus shelters one day soon.

Go has gone in Sevenoaks

Go-bus does a good job in making the bus station in Sevenoaks branded in its colours, but it could do with a new ‘g’.

Thameslink graffiti update

Sad to report the out-of-control graffiti in Thameslink train toilets is now spreading not only to the exterior of its trains (above) but also to Southern trains too (below), which until now have escaped this disgraceful vandalism inflicted by criminal low lifes.

I feel sorry for the hard working cleaning staff at Three Bridges who are definitely doing their best to clean up the toilets as I’ve noticed a few trains in a graffiti free state, but sadly it doesn’t take long for the vandals to return and inflict more damage.

BTP, I’ve seen it, I’ve said it, now please sort it.

BREAKING NEWS…. after typing the foregoing earlier this week, I was on a Thameslink train the other day and BINGO – they’re obviously trying what looks like it might be a new grafitti resistant surface for the toilet walls…

… and doors.

I do hope it works and can be rolled out across the fleet as soon as possible.

Worst bus shelter of the month

This month’s award for the worst bus shelter I’ve come across in recent travels goes to this specimen at the popular stop outside Sainsbury’s on the eastern edge of Chichester.

West Sussex County Council has used £3,3 million of BSIP funds to install over 400 real time signs across its patch, but sadly not at this stop…

… nor is there any sign of any investment in a decent place to wait. With broken panels…

…in-growing foliage…

… and an inability to see what bus is coming while waiting inside due to the disgraceful condition. I understand Sainsbury’s is responsible for this bus shelter. It’s about time it did something about it. Can you imagine the supermarket tolerating this kind of presentation actually inside its store?

Halesworth roosting

I quite often see bright yellow markings on platforms extolling passengers “Do Not Stand Here” for some safety reason or another, which is often not explained, but passing through Halesworth station on the East Suffolk line this week I noticed a clear explanation of the reason not to stand there…

… but not markings on the actual surface – so be sure to always read the notices.

Luton needs a revamp

Passing through Luton railway station the other day made me realise what a sorry state it’s in. The ticket office and ticket machine area is very cramped…

… it’s a very small gateline for the size of station…

… and the retail unit has given up, the situation is so dire.

Down on the Thameslink platforms another retail unit closed…

… with no sign of the “essential maintenance” being carried out.

Stairs down to, and up from, the platforms look very uninviting…

… as does the one covered in waiting area with a bench style “seat” on the platform.

The only bright spot was the footbridge with its colourful artwork.

And good to know “Carlisle Support Services proudly supporting love Luton”.

I wonder if ‘Luton Support Services’ supports Carlisle?

Gatwick lines up information

Back at Gatwick Airport station (or is it just “Gatwick Station” – see above) there’s a nice clear brightly lit line diagram showing the various options for arriving passengers to travel onwards by train either to London or Reading or south to Brighton, Hove or Lewes and the south coast. I just wonder why the names of the rail companies have been left off. It would have been helpful to let passengers know which is the Gatwick Express as being the one to avoid by being the most expensive, and the least frequent.

Arnos Grove’s heritage

Another nice footbridge display can be found at Arnos Grove Underground station outlining its proud heritage.

Down at platform level, it’s one of the few stations on the Underground network with a “middle” track which can be accessed from either the northbound platforms 1 and 2 (photographed below)…

…or the southbound platforms 3 and 4. However I’m wrong to give them that directional description as I assumed the next southbound train would leave from 3 and 4 but when I arrived down there the departure sign was showing a departure to Rayners Lane in one minute from platform 1 so I hot footed it back up the stairs, over the footbridge and back down to platforms 1 and 2 and just caught an empty train which all the other passengers waiting on 3 and 4 had missed. I wonder if that was a rarity. I’ve never known that before, but am obviously not a frequent Arnos Grover.

And finally – GWR’s awful customer service continues

An update for those following my regular problems getting GWR to respond to Delay Repay claims in a straight forward manner……(skip to the end now, if you’re in a hurry) ….. readers may recall my unsuccessful claim for a 30+ minute delay on my journey to Castle Cary on 20 November and subsequent appeal and discussion with Customer Relations got nowhere leading me to send an email dated 18 December which met with an automatic response I could expect to hear back “as soon as we can … but it may be up to 4 weeks before you receive a full response from us”. Suffice to say four weeks passed and no response so I followed up with a further email on 18 January which elicited a response on 20 January from Jennifer Brindley, an “Executive Correspondence Manager”. Jennifer explained “I am currently reviewing your claim with our auditing team, who originally processed it, to understand why it was not handled as expected. While I do not yet have a full response to share, please be assured that I am actively looking into this and will contact you again as soon as I have further information.”

Two days later comes an email from GWR Delay Repay with a new reference number thanking me for my “delay repay claim which we received on Wed, 21 Jan 2026. We are sorry that you experienced a delay to your journey…..we have confirmed that the delay you experienced was between 30 – 59 minutes and that you are entitled to £15.62 in compensation.”

Not having heard any more from Jennifer I sent another email to her on Tuesday asking for an explanation of why my original claim was turned down and asked for a response by yesterday so I could include it in this blog update. Thankfully a response came at 12:19 yesterday as follows…

“Thank you for your email regarding your Delay Repay claim. Your claim has been approved following the review I completed, I am sorry I wasn’t able to let you know this before you received the confirmation.  We carry out audits on Delay Repay claims to ensure they are legitimate. While I appreciate that your claim was genuine, we do unfortunately receive fraudulent claims, and auditing remains an important measure in protecting revenue. As part of the auditing process any claims which appear to have inaccuracies are queried. 

“Your original claim, submitted under reference GWR XXX, was submitted with the following journey details: Leg 1 – 08:50 Hassocks to Farringdon arriving at 09:56; Leg 2 – 10:00 Farringdon to London Paddington; Leg 3 – 10:36 London Paddington to Castle Cary. The time required to connect at Farringdon for this journey is a minimum of 8 minutes and this journey does not allow that amount of time, this is why your claim was queried. 

“You appealed and this was received on 3 December, under reference GWR XXX, however no new information was provided in your appeal. Without this the appeal could not be considered. You were therefore asked to contact our Customer Support Team to discuss your claim. I am sorry that the Customer Support Team were unable to directly help you when you called on 9 December. As the Delay Repay team operates separately from our department, it was necessary to contact them regarding your case. Nevertheless, I’m sorry you were kept waiting while that call was made.

“Following the call, our Advisor should have logged the details of your conversation on our systems, your claim would have progressed at this point. Unfortunately the call was not logged, and I am sorry for the unnecessary delay this caused in processing your claim. We will be arranging appropriate coaching for the Advisor concerned to ensure this does not happen again.

“Your email of 18 December was escalated to me for review, as part of a smaller team it can take longer for us to respond. A reply was sent to you on 20 January, I am sorry that you were not contacted sooner and that I was unable to provide you with a full response at that time. As mentioned in my email, I was in the process of reviewing your claim and once that was complete a further response would be sent to you.  Thank you for taking the time to escalate this matter. If I can be of any assistance with your future claims please don’t hesitate to get in touch.” 

I have thanked Jennifer and also asked her to clarify why the National Rail Journey Planner (and the GWR Delay Repay default submission) shows the journey I made listed as per the three legs as above if it’s not valid for a Delay Repay claim if eight minutes isn’t allowed for a change of train at Farringdon and it’ll be interesting to see the response.

It does make me wonder whether GWR’s software has been updated to allow for journeys on the Elizabeth line. Although, I also had cause to submit a Delay Repay claim to Greater Anglia this week and noticed that company gives two options for Farringdon – either Farringdon Underground with the familiar ZFD three letter code also used by Thameslink…

… or something called Farringdon (Crossrail) with an FAC code. Nice to see a train company retaining that name for what most people have now adapted to call the Elizabeth line – a bit of an outlier.

More ramblings at the end of next month.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS