Seen Around: Part 2

Saturday 2nd May 2026

Welcome to Part 2 of the end of month round up of miscellany, and first up is a journey with South Western Railway to visit…

Berrylands upgrade ahead

If you like experiencing ‘before’ and ‘after’ images when railway stations get a makeover then head down to Berrylands station on the South Western Railway network – the station after Surbiton towards Waterloo.

It closes for four months or more from next weekend for “upgrade works”. It’s one of those stations with a lot of wooden structures…

… including the platforms…

… and the entrance areas…

… the sides to the stairs…

… the platform shelters…

…. and even a wonky platform edge.

Keep posted for ‘after’ photos later this year and thanks to Damon for letting me know about this upgrade.

Back at Clapham Junction I was interested to see at long last (since being installed in January 2025) one of the new retail outlets on the congested footbridge (the one passengers are advised to avoid at busy times due to congestion) has at last been let.

So if you like over priced pretzels, this is your place to be.

Moreover it looks as though another unit is about to be let with people sizing it up a couple of weeks ago.

And then in Waterloo, another interesting thing caught my eye…

… seeing SWR has named one of its Arterio Class 701 trains ‘Phoenix’. I wonder how many people like myself had know idea of the relevance of this but thanks to Google I now know this is “in honour of Aldershot Town FC and their 2025 FA Trophy triumph” and “Phoenix” is relevant to the Club as “it symbolises the club’s rebirth from the ashes of the original Aldershot FC which liquidated in 1992”. The things you learn.

Still in Waterloo I was grateful for the prominent sign on the side of the escalator letting me know the balcony is ‘up there’.

It would have been concerning if it was in the other direction. Which reminds me I notice on Thameslink the other day the annouing See It, Say It Sorted announcement has been changed. Yes. Instead of “if you see anything that doesn’t look right…” it now says “if you see anything that looks unusual…”. I wonder how long that change was being discussed for.

And back on Waterloo’s concourse it looks like the extensive ticket office is being changed round, no doubt creatring more retail units with fewer windows now needed to sell rail tickets.

Meanwhile on a busy Wednesday lunch time part of the concourse and one of the access points was cordoned off for a film company

Apparently there was a famous film star in there somewhere but no one I recognised.

Cross Country refurbs

It’s good to see some of Cross Country’s refurbished Voyagers out on the tracks but I have still to get used to the somewhat glaring contrast between the bright red liveried front and rear coaches/‘engines’ and the rather dull grey on the rest of the coaches making up the train.

I was also on an unrefurbished train travelling up from Exeter to Bristol a couple of weeks ago…

… and was reminded of the controls between the seats which I’ve now completely forrgotten what they were intended for. Was Richard Branson going to make Virgin Radio available to passengers?

I assume these have been dispensed with at the refurbishment.

Tantalising Taunton

I was in Taunton the other day (for the next instalment of my route 99 explorations) so took a look at the brand new Taunton Transport Hub now well under construction. Any resemblance to the former Taunton bus station is purely coincidental in that it IS the former Taunton bus station closed in 2020. It’s now being remodelled in a £3.2 million Government funded project in a joint initiative between Somerset Council and Taunton Town Council. Due to open later this year the new Hub will include six bus stops (with two more for coaches), five layover bays, modern bus shelters with solar power, real time displays, waiting room and toiletsm cycle shelters, parking and repair stand with tools, disabled and taxi parking bays and not forgetting the inevitable public realm.

Error with the error message

Another thing Great British Railways will obviously sort out when it gets off the ground (sarcasm alert) is the anomaly whereby passengers can use off-peak tickets taking them via a London terminal beyond the Network Card area, to start their journey at their home station (if it’s within the Network Card area) at any time during the morning peak. The off-peak time restriction only kicks in when leaving the London terminal heading beyond the boundary rather than the home station.

It’s about time the ticket gates were programmed accordingly and, even better, staff on the ticket gates briefed about validity.

My Hassocks to Stowmarket off-peak return ticket was met with the usual Error 108 message at the gates at London Bridge as I alighted from my Thameslink train at 08:50 prior to walking to Liverpool Street to catch the first off-peak departure for Stowmarket at 09:30.

This time the Network Rail staff member on the gates refused to let me out showing me on his phone that “Error 108” means invalid time (or in NR speak: “Time restraint applied to this TOC passenger type”) and wrongly told me I shouldn’t have left Hassocks until the off-peak had kicked in.

I had to resort to looking up the restriction code printed on the ticket(“nre.co.uk/9A”) which clarifies the times you’re allowed to leave London termini, but he was still not having it. After about ten minutes of intense debate he relented and let me pass through and I recommended he ask for some training in ticket acceptance.

Generally, I find staff at St Pancras and Paddington are indifferent to any restrictions and just let you out and this was an exception but it would be helpful if the tickets and gates could be correctly programmed. Incidentally that “nre.co.uk/9A” caused some confusion for a passenger on a GWR train the other day when boarding at Paddington and finding me seated in seat 9A – she reckoned I was in her reserved seat as that was what her ticket stated. I politely explained that was not the case.

TfW’s ticket stamping

Talking of ticket gates brings me to a recent exit I made at Pontypridd railway station (for yet another instalment of my route 99 explorations) and noticed inserting the ticket into the fancy gates TfW now have around the ‘Metro’ network, rather than retaining it (which usually happens with a ticket for which the journey ends there), it returned the ticket (and opened the gate) and had included a stamped receipt with the date and time printed across the ticket.

This struck me as a good way of cancelling the ticket and also giving the passenger a receipt and confirmation of the time, particularly useful for Delay Repay claims. Great idea, TfW.

PAYG TfW style

Back in Cardiff passengers are being encouraged to use “Pay As You Go” by tapping in and out across the South Wales Metro network using contactless debit and credit cards or smartphones. This guarantees “the best value fare” and comes with some stunning savings funded by TfW…

… except it would seem GWR isn’t part of the deal and has refused to take part – hence the reference to “Valid on TfW and Cross-Country services only”. I’m not sure why GWR isn’t involved but Cross Country is. It must make it confusing for passengers travelling between Cardiff and Newport.

Interestingly it makes use of a Senior Railcard redundant in South Wales with the abiove highlighted prices. It’s better to use Pas As You Go without the one-third discount than have the discount on the Non-Pay As You Go price.

This way and not that way

The footbridge with lifts at Exeter St Davids is undergoing refurbishment work at the moment meaning anyone with accessibility needs or heavy luggage is marshalled across the ‘barrow crossing’ over the tracks at the southern end of the station and meanwhile the other footbridge with stairs is busier than ever. And I noticed how the signs for platforms arbitrarily piont passengers to either turn left or right for either the odd numbered platform or the even numbered one (as shown above).

But they both lead to the same place.

No more Jurassic Coaster

My thanks to blog reader Peter who emailed me a photo of the new First branded bus stops that have been installed along the popular Jurassic Coast.

Like myself, Peter is mystified at the decision to do away with iconic branding linking local bus travel with a UNESCO World Heritage site in favour of a bland corporate brand which is meaningless to everyone other than those who sit in a Group corporate head office marketing department hundreds of miles away. Peter put it more succinctly: “I was horrified to see money has been spent replacing every single bus stop between Lyme Regis and Dorchester with new flags in the corporate image, with not a mention of the services on offer. And the few that I passed in the town and village centres that did have a timetable frame, there was a generic message encouraging people to use their mobile phones to find out about routes and timings! But the vast majority were naked of any helpful information for the would-be customer – like the one (photographed above) on the approach to Bridport.”

Buses are local. Forget that at your peril. Those were the days.

WCML Rocket Rail Replacements

Meanwhile blog reader John was mystified over the Easter weekend when Network Rail had commandeered much of the West Coast Main Line for “improvement works” and he looked up the National Rail information for Rail Replacement Buses between Watford Junction and Harrow and Wealdstone.

As John remarked “the ‘rocket’ bus from Watford to Harrow was doing the journey in an incredible five minutes.” Even more bizarre TfL was operating a replacement bus for its non-operating Overground trains but National Rail’s information didn’t mention this, instead referring to standard TfL buses including the 346 and R17 (both non “London Buses” routes) and, as regular readers will know, route R17 only runs on Wednesdays so wasn’t operating over the Easter weekend.

Joined up railway – don’t you just love it.

Sign of the times

John also kindly sent me a nice photo of an electronic departure sign in Welwyn Garden City bus station which impressively clearly shows up coming departures for both buses and trains so well done Hertfordshire County Council for this. A pity more “expected” times aren’t shown, but an excellent example of ‘integrated information’ nonetheless.

And one more from John this month is a better image he’s recently taken of “the trolleybus standard at St Allans bus garage”.

Mind reading in Ashford

My thanks to Chris who sent me the above photograph of Stagecoach’s departures on its route 502 outside Ashford railway station. The problem is knowing which departure time is going in which direction since buses going to both Bridgefield and Kennington now use the same bus stop and the times are included in a composite listing with no distinction for direction of travel. Doh!!!

A phantom number in Britwell?

Zak sent me the above photo wondering if passengers in Britwell might be befuddled where route 77X goes. (It should be routes 7 and 7X).

Stowmarket to Hadleigh postscript

Thanks also to Nigel for sending through these wonderful nostalgic images proving, as he says, “there’s nothing new under the sun” in respect of when Eastern Counties last ran a bus route between Stowmarket and Hadleigh (now resurrected in Central Connect’s route 51 as featured in a blog last week) including the timetable below from 1928 (that’s 98 years ago!).

Nigel also included a clipping he cut from a 1971 newspaper observing “it just seemed so odd to pay to advertise the end of a route when they never paid to promote services” as Eastern Counties announced the withdrawal of the route (which had been renumbered to 224 forty years earlier).

And finally a couple of follow ups to recent blogs….

I’m pleased to report no sooner had I uploaded Seen Around Part 1 on Thursday, then the ‘up’ escalator at St Pancras from Platform B was opened and back in use following its refurbishment. Horray. And secondly good old First Bus, following Tuesday’s blog, I thought I’d give its National Contact Centre another call yesterday morning to see if I could find out the fare from Glasgow to Cumbernauld. They are still experiencing “high call volumes” and are still “prioritising mobile app and contactless” calls so you still get cut off when pressing option 5 (queries about fares and tickets). I also tried option 8 (anything else) but got cut off from that too, so gave option 6 (lost property) a go but that met with an automated response advising we unable to deal with your call “due to technical issues” and I got hung up on. It all makes we wonder whether it wasn’t just me and perhaps its Tap & Cap scheme is having significant problems and whether First Bus is being over run with queries and complaints about it.

More miscellany at the end of next month.

Roger French

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