Seen Around

Tuesday 31st March 2026

As we march into April, here’s the usual round up of this month’s unblogged miscellany and we begin with some….

…Great news from Arriva

Arriva has announced it’s launching a brand new website and app “with improved functionality and exciting new features”. At last, the baffling and nonsensical timetable presentations I’ve been highlighting in these blogs over the last few years will be a thing of the past with the “new and improved” website “coming soon”. Hopefully First and Stagecoach will follow suit! And in another piece of good news Arriva has applied a wonderful Green Line heritage livery to an ADL Enviro200 MMC to mark the 60th Anniversary of route 724 as seen (above) on the Watford Running Day on Sunday. And the good news keeps on coming with a fleet of brand new Volvo MCV eVoRa vehicles on the way for both the 724 and 725 which will join the flightline brand now used by other routes 102, 446, 555, 703, 730 and 731 serving, and supported by, Heathrow Airport.

Another one bites the dust

Norfolk County Council has launched a consultation on a proposed replacement of its Flexibus branded DRT in Swaffham with a fixed route from September. The Council are proposing to combine it with the Swaffham Town Service route 10 and rationalise the number of villages which are served. The Council explains both routes “are fully subsidised by Norfolk County Council but are struggling to attract enough passengers to ensure they are viable long-term. The Flexibus started in 2022 after a successful bid to the Department for Transport and this funding recently ended. We want to serve people in these areas with public transport but need to bring in more revenue to the services to do this.” (My thanks to blog reader Jeff for this welcome news.)

Hatch End’s architectural delight

I passed through Hatch End railway station during the month and was reminded of the lovely station building on the northbound London Overground Lioness line platform. This was built by the London and North Western Railway in 1911 and was served by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (aka Bakerloo line) from April 1917. It really takes you back in time to another era especially passing through an old style ticket office with its rather odd juxtaposition of ticket barriers, mega-size ticket machine and original ticket office window behind.

Just up the line towards Euston, the next station is Carpenders Park, which is hidden at a lower (below track) level beyond this more contemporary shopping parade…

… but with a modern ticket office bathed in sunlight where open ticket gates greet you before ascending up a long ramp to an island platform.

Hanborough station’s café and waiting room

Another oddity for station facilities is this relatively modern café and waiting room on the platform of Hanborough station – the first station north of Oxford on the Cotswold line – on the single track.

It’s got a delightful ambiance inside and a very helpful member of staff with tables and chairs to sit at…

… as well as some rather plush (relatively speaking) GWR seats to sit and wait for your train.

It’s a rather lovely facility for a station that only sees an hourly service in each direction and includes a plaque unveiled by David Cameron in 2015 to mark the 50th Anniversary of the arrival at the station of the Funeral train of Sir Winston Churchill.

Outside, a short walk away, on the main road there’s a recently installed smart looking bus shelter with the help and support of GWR, by the look of the sign. But it’s a pity the timetable case has been left empty and perhaps a bus stop flag would go nicely on the top of the pole.

Botley Road update

Passing through Oxford on the train it was hard to believe a recent blockade had seen the full replacement of the railway bridge over Botley Road with everything back together again.

Here’s a photo from Network Rail showing the work in progress during the blockade. (the railway runs north-south)…

… and here’s a photo at ground level showing the continuing blockade on the road. Less than six months to go now until the road reopens much to everyone’s relief.

Do Not Disturb the driver

I was amused to see this Thames Travel bus on layover at Witney’s Market Square with an explanatory display stating “Driver on Break – Please do not disturb” together with an image of a piping hot cup of tea.

It’s difficult to capture the display with a digital camera – but here’s a photo of the lower line for completeness.

Remembering WAGN

It’s 20 years since the Train Operating Company West Anglia Great Northern (also known as simply WAGN) lost the franchise for local services out of King’s Cross, Moorgate and Liverpool Street but it’s good to see the name lives on through this rather delightful huge poster/painting on the wall of Broxbourne station promoting the Lea Valley.

No point to this information point

There was a time local authorities had a craze for installing computers, monitors and keyboards on streets where passengers could find information about “timetables, maps, journey planning and more.”

Most have now been removed as being impractical and unreliable and are nowadays supplanted by the widespread use of smartphones but I spotted this relic still in situ at Hoddesdon’s Clock Tower this month but I don’t think you’ll be able to print out an itinerary or map very easily from it.

Liverpool Street downgrade

It’s impressive to see the extensive opening hours of Liverpool Street station’s ticket office including a start as early as 03:10 on Monday, Friday and Saturday and amazingly even 03:40 on a Sunday (but not until 04:10 mid week – which seemed a bit puzzling), but it was the fact the relative recently relocation caught my eye – the office is now to be found in a side corridor off the main concourse in a rather cramped outlet beyond Pret a Manger…

… with just four windows.

Back on the concourse, Britain’s busiest station has always offered a long bank of Ticket Vending Machines, which is just as well, although I’ve never seen more than a few in use..

By contrast, passing through Inverness station last week it was interesting to see the ticket office with three windows all open and staffed…

… and a display of promotional leaflets to promote Scotland’s Great Scenic Rail Journeys which includes a map but sadly not the timetables which would have made the booklet so much more useful.

But what caught my eye was another display of promotional leaflets including one for citylink’s services and in particular promoting the fact those Scottish residents aged 60 and over travel free on its routes.

Even more strange for a ScotRail office was a whole display promoting citylink but it looks as though that company has now given up producing printed timetables as none were available – the display being filled with promotional leaflets for other attractions.(Update: see comments below where Roy clarifies printed timetables are still produced,)

Pre-registration at STP

Back in London, it looks as though new arrangements for International travellers to Europe are about to open at St Pancras where a former retail unit has been converted into a hall with new electronic readers of some kind.

I’m not sure why they’re currently bathed in a red glow…

… but no doubt all will be revealed imminently – maybe even by now with Easter this weekend.

Why eight coach trains?

The weekend before last saw another closure of the Brighton Main Line south of Three Bridges for engineering work on the tracks and having a commitment in London on the Sunday morning I decided the easiest and quickest way would be to drive to Coulsdon South, easily accessible just north of the end of the M23 (where there’s parking at £3.10) and catch a Thameslink train into the city from there. It all worked well (I saved an hour compared to catching a rail replacement bus from Hassocks) but I was surprised and even astounded to see Thameslink using eight coach trains on its Horsham-Gatwick Airport-London-Bedford service that day when it must have had many spare 12 coach trains available thanks to the line closure and also not running from Peterborough that day. Even at 09:00 on Sunday the train was very busy heading north from Gatwick and I dread to think what it must have been like later in the day.

Metropolitan seat preferences

When travelling on a Metropolitcan line S stock train passengers can easily tell which are the preferred seats to travel on. Not surprisingly the forward/backward facing pairs sport a very worn seat covering (probably not helped by passengers putting their feet up when sitting opposite). The contrast with the inward facing seats is particularly noticeable.

Spark in Cornwall

Thanks to my friend Paul who sent me the above photo from which I see Transport for Cornwall has added a Cornwall brand message to its Spark branded buses now relocated from Plymouth which nicely covers up the suburb names previously on display.

Seat reservations on Thameslink

Can someone at GWR update its online booking software so it no longer erroneously states “you must reserve a seat for this (part of the) journey” when travelling on Thameslink to and from Sussex. You patently mustn’t (reserve one) as you can’t.

Refunds are changing

From tomorrow we’ll no longer be able to get a refund on an unused Anytime or Off-Peak flexible ticket once the day of validity has arrived. In some ways I can understand the logic of this move but I also see it as a ‘sledge-hammer to crack a nut’ change to conditions when the story goes it’s to stop fraudulent claims by passengers who’ve used the ticket and then claim a refund which must be a very small percentage of refund applications. With the increasing use of QR codes on tickets (both paper and on smartphones) this problem will go away as a record is kept of any QR code enabled ticket that’s been used. And I’d have thought the answer is for tickets to be checked and validated as being used just like in the old days when ticket inspectors clipped a little nick out of your ticket when checking it, or used a stamp, or scribbled something in ink. Once again it comes across that honest passengers suffer inconvenience because of the railway’s inability to sort out a small minority of miscreants.

Bus shelter vandalism – problem solved

Over the last few years I admit to obsessing over a number of things out of all proportion to their importance. One in particular is the bus shelter in Hawkesden Road, St Neots, immediately opposite the town’s railway station. I first noticed this in 2021 when trying out the newly introduced DRT service branded as ‘ting’. What particularly drew my attention was the fact that when standing in the shelter you couldn’t see out.

Originally I thought this was because it was unclean and had had years of road dirt thrown up at it, but more recently travelling around the area to sample route 65 I spotted many other shelters with this same design feature obviously specified by someone who’s never waited for a bus in a bus shelter.

But, back to the shelter in Hawkesend Road, it also struck me just how unpleasant it felt with out of date timetables and litter making for an unattractive and unwelcoming place to wait.

When I was next there in 2023, I noticed that some vandals had smashed a hole in the side panel…

… but the upside was you could now see out and spot whether a bus was coming, which was quite handy especially in the wind and rain. I also noticed the out of date timetable display had been removed, which was probably just as well.

But, on my latest visit a couple of weeks ago a revolution has happened. You can now easily see out…

… because the upper side panels at both ends have been completely removed.

Problem solved. Except it’s a bit of a wind tunnel.

Elderly?

I know I’m getting on in age now and need to accept I’m “elderly” but when buying my Park & Ride day tickets from Central Connect and First Essex to experience the competitive battle described earlier this month I was a bit surprised to see the classification of the latter stating “P&R Elderly Conc Day”. The Central Connect description was perhaps more diplomatic as “ENCTS P&R Day” (ENCTS standing for English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.

Timetable book praise

This month’s Gold Star for timetable books go to Devon County Council for continuing to publish it’s series of six timetable books for the county and impressively copies of four of the areas were available to pick up from GWR’s ticket office at Exeter station on my recent visit, even though the booklets have not much validity left before this summer’s timetables begin.

And secondly with grateful thanks to blog reader Trevor, who kindly sent me copies of the wonderful booklets Stagecoach have produced for the summer season promoting their services in the Lake District.

Trevor explains there are many improvements this year with the fantastic network map in the Lakes booklet now covering all of Cumbria and Lancaster as well as Morecambe, giving a much larger geographic reach than previously. On top of this there are new booklets covering Carlisle & Solway and another for Carlisle City services and country services running into Carlisle and a third booklet covering West Cumbria all with maps. Well done to Stagecoach for this very welcome initiative and we can only hope other parts of the country follow this great lead.

And finally for this celebration of printed timetable booklets segment, comes news of more attractive guides from the Oxford Bus/Thames Travel/Carousel/Pulhams stable of Go-Ahead companies once again showing the great benefit of booklets over individual leaflets. And great covers too (well done Ray).

A Bus Gate too far?

It’s always nice to see effective bus priority in action, but I did wonder about the need for this ‘Bus Gate’ on the exit from Huntingdon railway station. Although it leads into a lay-by where there’s a bus stop…

…it just seemed a bit superfluous.

A Stop too far

Another strange road sign was spotted in Clarendon Road, Watford letting passengers know a bus stop had been suspended due to roadworks and in addition to a cover over the actual bus stop flag the ever resourceful highway people had added the word STOP on a small strip of sticky tape to repurpose a Bus Lane Closed sign to emphasise the STOP really is closed. (With thanks to blog reader, Chris, for the photo.)

Book plug – London’s earliest motor buses

Blog reader Richard got in touch to tell me about a new book he’s just self published. It’s the first in a series of books Richard aims to produce covering the fascinating subject of how motor buses were first introduced into London prior to the standardised X and B types.

This first volume covers the period up to 1905 with work on the next volume covering 1906 already well underway. A quick scan of the contents pages of this 212 page, A4 size, softcover book gives a good resume of the detailed coverage Richard has included.

The book costs just £15 and will be available for an introductory price of £14 at the South East Bus Festival, Detling on Saturday 14th April where Richard will have a stall. Readers can also buy a copy by post direct from Richard for £17 by contacting him on his email address richarderosa@aol.com.

Happy retirement Paul

And finally for this month, a few ‘shout-outs’…..

First up is a mention of Paul Llewellyn who retires this Saturday hanging up his bus driving gloves after working for my local bus company, Compass Bus. Paul usually drives the Saturday operation on route 261 between Uckfield and East Grinstead and in his spare time looks after a beautifully preserved former Southdown Leyland National which he takes to various bus rallies together with the occasional route reenactment. Have a great and well deserved retirement Paul.

Thanks Mandy

Next comes my thanks to Mandy who works in GWR’s Ticket Office at Paddington station. It’s nice to be able to redress the balance of recent critical comments about GWR’s customer service with a plaudit for the great help Mandy gave me on a recent journey down to the West Country when, with the ticket office at Hassocks closed (again) when I arrived to catch a train, I had to fumble with the Ticket Vending Machine with its almost-always-non-reactive-screen-to-finger-pressing syndrome to buy my ticket including the need to change the date/time display (to after 09:00) so it would allow me to get the Senior Railcard discount. (The things you have to do!). Without realising until I came to pass through the ticket gates at Paddington from the Elizabeth line, I’d inadvertently bought a return ticket valid for the following day. Thankfully Mandy was able to resolve this for me with the minimum of fuss by issuing an Excess ticket with the correct date at no charge. Thanks Mandy for the excellent ‘can do’ service you provided.

SWR’s Liam and Alex cushion the impact of a wait

And finally for this month a shout out to Liam and Alex at Axminster station ticket office for making the waiting area alongside the ticket office window and book lending library so welcoming.

It must be the most comfortable place to wait for a train in the whole of the country.

Well done to you both.

More miscellany at the end of next month

Roger French

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