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 no 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 noticed on Thameslink the other day the announcing 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 forgotten 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 toilets, 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 point 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 Albans 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
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
BusAndTrainUser 
Staff on the barriers are employed by the train company, not Network Rail, if at London Bridge it will be SouthEastern if downstairs, or Southern upstairs on the Low Level platforms
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I must say at London Bridge suburban platforms South East staff were most helpful during revised services operated when engineering works were taking place.
The Route 24 service has a most odd set of timetables , I was going to say decent return times – I assume Monday was Market Day in one place, but the 5pm main return time a bit odd despite early seats cinema times being decent plus the late evening weekend bus.
The Newport Cardiff fare must be challenging the Bus Service prices. To me the standard train fare looks a little too high, and the contactless one a little too cheap (3.70s 5.70r being more reasonable with a fiver for a GWR or cash fare).
Is it the May timetable that sees service enhancements from Moorgate or is that still a longer ambition from the present operator ? The odd 10/20 min interval to London is a bit irksome from to WGC.
Taunton Bus Station always seemed Ideal in its Design and the re vamp looks good for the C21st
For the 502 just arrive at the earlier time as the other way is just 2mins behind
JBC Prestatyn
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Monday was indeed Market Day in Hadleigh hence the different service on the 24 on that day. Wednesday was market day in Bury St. Edmunds and all available resources would be required in that direction hence the 24 not operating on that day.
Eastern Counties timetables had more to do with operational convenience than passenger demand – Roger’s review of “Muddle and Get Nowhere” from October 2023.
Nigel Turner
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In the network card area while I did a fair bit of reverse commuting ( Romford to Chelmsford for Example ) need to be in existence unless to reduce passenger numbers on the concourse clashing with each other.
JBC Prestatyn
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you have a similar situation on TfL. Was looking at Burnham to Reading single and it is cheaper tap in / tap out than buying a ticket with a railcard. However, if the two ticketing sites checked only one offered this saving up.
Steve
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should have added at peak time
Steve
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Very happy to hear and see that the bus station in Taunton is being brought back into use and looking forward to your forthcoming article on the Route 99 there.
Should it be ‘St Alban’s bus garage’? (If it is, I’m intrigued as to why there was a trolleybus standard there….)
Paul.
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I too am mystified about the trolleybus pole in St Albans, especially as trolleybuses never operated in the city.
The only places in Hertfordshire that had trolleybuses were Waltham Cross; and of course Barnet, which was a Hertfordshire town until 1st April 1965 when it was swallowed up by Greater London.
Julian Walker
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Spare trolleybus poles were often installed at odd places by LT’s Works & Building Dept as lighting columns – eg in Chiswick Works and at station car parks. They were also used for air raid sirens in London.
Kim Rennie
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£6.30 is the single fare. TFW must have a death wish, this is probably the most popular journey on the network and to reduce the fare by so much seems madness. Last year despite a significant increase in passengers TFW rail loss increased, and that’s before the operating costs of the massive increase in Valley Lines services kick in.
It seems to be money no object for Wales rail, whereas England rail is making some attempt to reduce its deficit.
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Some typos.
In the bit about phoenix one “know” should be “no”.
Later, there’s an “annouing”,
then a “toiletsm” which should be “toilets,”
Sadly, what was known as the “Network Rule”, which allows early starts from within the Network Railcard area on off-peak tickets, is no longer universal, and we have to rely on the individual restriction codes. Ticket barrier staff not understanding those is rather too common!
Paddington barrier staff are in fact notorious for not allowing anyone onto the platforms between 4pm and 7pm on weekdays who has an off-peak ticket. Those that are valid are not common but they do exist and are backed up by the restriction code on the ticket.
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Many thanks. Typos now corrected.
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You were close to the mark when you mentioned the controls between seats on the Voyagers. They played pre-recorded music and headphones were also available to buy in the on-train “shop” as it was then called. I remember it was an OK standard and you could still hear the announcements and not turn the volume up to an unacceptable level to annoy everyone else!
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On the Pendolinos the system attempted to provide live radio – but sadly Radio4 would drift in and eventually out as the train tilted its merry way up the west coast mainline through tunnels and cuttings.
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With mention of the pretzels being overpriced. £3.2M for a few bus stops and a bit of tarmac aka the new Taunton transport hub. At that price it is probably worth more than all the bus operators in the combined.
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To answer the query raised by Paul and Julian, the road in which I was standing used to be the run in for buses to access the bus wash and fuelling point. It was also the point where the power supply entered the garage. Note the transformer to the right of the pole. To prevent buses being driven over the power cable, a redundant pole from the trolleybus operation was used to carry the power cable above the buses entering the garage.
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Many thanks for clarifying this – very interesting and amazing that such an unusual remnant of the garage is still in existence.
Paul.
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There are peculiarities and anomalies applying to certain types of One Day Travelcard, out boundary at Esher and beyond. A holder cannot be barred from using it between Waterloo and Surbiton as it is a One Day Travelcard, the only time restriction that can be applied is the out boundary section of the journey. On 10/11/2025, starting from Hersham, I visited the LTM Shop and the new JDWs at Paddington and London Bridge, buying an Evening Out Travelcard for £17.00 at 1341. I shot round Central London quite quickly and left Waterloo for Surbiton at 1853. Neither at Waterloo nor Surbiton was I challenged. I visited the Surbiton JDW and left for home at 2016. I may very well have been on “thin ice” aboard that last train.
Hersham Station is of a similarity to Berrylands. I wonder whether Hersham shall be closed for a refurbishment at some future juncture. It acquired concrete platform extensions at the London end ages ago to accommodate 12 car trains in the 4VEP era.
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I’m not surprised at Berrylands being rebuilt … I was astounded that ‘elf’n” was still permitting passengers to use that platform … “mind the gap” became “mind the jump”!!
Might that be the last London trolleybus traction pole?? If so … perhaps a preservation order??!!
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I guess Berrylands platforms are gradually sliding down the embankments, hence the need to rebuild the station. That’s all very well, but here in Wool we’re fearful that our similar “CLASP” prefabricated station building may become the last of a kind, prompting some fool to get it listed …then we’ll be stuck with it forever.
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Do my eyes deceive me looking at the picture of the southbound Berrylands platform, where there appears to be a huge gap at one point, and enough for “those-glued-to-their-phone” to disappear into if not paying attention? Perhaps the camera angle?
At least the unhelpful bus stop timetable was in a position to be read, and the ridiculous situation still exists in Folkestone, where a huge bus information and timetable frame is literally situated ten feet high on a building wall and thus totally useless (I recall being mentioned in an earlier blog).
What a pity the over-vigilant Barrier staff member isn’t employed by TfL, where I witnessed streams of young people alighting from trains in Uxbridge yesterday afternoon, simply barging through the wide-entry barrier with ease and clearly the routine exit from the station as I heard no alarm bells. Single staff member, always at the other end and not even looking! Followed by a short ride on a TfL bus where similarly, four out of ten likewise walked past the Driver as if he didn’t exist!
Very good to see the promise to re-open Taunton bus station is actually happening, although the current arrangements, with toilets only a few yards away seem to work reasonably well. Sadly, I assume there isn’t going to be an Enquiry office where you could once buy/obtain timetables for most of the South-West. But guess we can’t have everything.
Terence Uden
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Whilst you and I might hope that a member of staff would be an adequate deterrent against blatant fare-dodging, the top priority for any employer towards their staff is to ensure they go home unharmed at the end of their day’s (or night’s) work. With that in mind, should a member of staff put themselves at risk of assault?
Those who think they can use the system without paying do need to be lucky every time they evade the fare. The transport provider only needs to get lucky once to catch them (and if police are involved, they might find that the person is of interest to them for more than just an unpaid fare).
Malc M
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I was amused to see that the village called Finborough in the Eastern Counties timetable became Finningham in the service withdrawal notice. Or as Finningham is north of Stowmarket and the timetable shows a route southwards from Stowmarket, had the route been extended northwards in the meantime to Finningham (and already withdrawn beteen Bildeston and Hadleigh)?
Ian McNeil
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To clarify, Eastern Counties Service 24 Stowmarket – Finborough – Bildeston – Hadleigh only lasted a short time before being truncated to run between Stowmarket and Bildeston only. The extension northwards to Finningham happened later and, to be honest, there would have been zero passenger demand for cross Stowmarket journeys, it just saved Eastern Counties the onerous task of thinking up a new service number for the Finningham section.
Nigel Turner
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Re barriers being programmed properly – breaks in journey are also a problem here. I needed to go London – Milton Keynes – Birmingham last week, and as I needed a flexible ticket, bought the anytime London-Birmingham single, and exercised my ability to break my journey at MK Central. This caused issues both ways, as the gates rejected my ticket and I needed to speak to staff, and with the relatively narrow gate line on the bridge at MK it only takes a couple of people not going through smoothly to create chaos at peak times.
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Ticket barriers are always programmed point-to-point as the software can not cope with all the various combinations now thrown at them – especially all the Cubic gate around the London area which have to interface with the TfL system even in C-Pay.
There’s also the Revenue Protection element to avoid someone entering or leaving a station on a cheaper ticket from a nearby station
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In regards to ‘WCML Rocket Rail Replacements’ and TfL running extra buses over the Iverground service – what will have happened there is that ‘pooling’ will have happened and Overground – via TfL – will have procured buses on behalf of all operators ie LNWR and Southern – which is standard practice.
As an example at MKC the intestine shuttle of a bus every 10 between MKC and BDM was resourced by LNWR.
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Pooling may not be standard practice.
A recent weekend closure of the lines through Southampton resulted in an SWR-procured replacment service between Eastleigh and Bournemouth (with “fast” services calling only at Southampton Airport Parkway), and a separate CrossCountry-procured service between the same two points, also calling only at Southampton Airport Parkway.
Malc M
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The replacement of the Jurassic style bus stops with corporate First bus stop flags is a retrograde step. Furthermore, is this a prelude to the buses themselves losing their dedicated Jurassic branding?
The suits at First Group need to get off their backsides & travel around the country to see how dedicated & local marketing works. For example, visit Dorset & see how Go Ahead market their Breezer network. If they can’t be bothered, then offer their Hampshire & Dorset business to Go Ahead, who in turn, would surely improve the overall travel experience.
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As an aside to this, the Breezer brand is now being expanded to routes in the New Forest. Existing routes X1/X2 (Lymington <> Bournemouth) and 6 (Lymington <> Southampton) are gaining “New Forest Breezer” branding with a green-based livery. The routes are also being renumbered (to 81/82/86) later this month.
Malc M
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First Bus dropped the Jurassic Coaster brand last year. There is now no acknowledgement by First Bus of the brand existing. The newish national livery and brand is replacing all local liveries and brands.
Steve
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A variant on the validity issue described in the article is a failure of online journey planners to process correctly the clause “A connecting service can be used to complete a journey begun at a valid time.”. I once had to argue this (very politely) with a ticket office clerk who, initially, refused to sell me the relevant category of ticket, because the journey planner showed my planned journey as invalid, probably because the connecting service started during an afternoon peak restriction (but the initial train did not). Upon asking her to look-up and read the text of the restriction herself, she relented and agreed with my interpretation that my itinerary was valid for the ticket I wanted to buy, but it did take a couple of minutes…
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IIRC when Virgin introduced their trains onboard WiFi wasn’t a thing but it came along soon after. And they found they could commandeer the passenger music system channels for it somehow. Or I may be wrong, they used it for something else anyway
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Nothing positive to say, I fear.
I can barely believe the Taunton bus station. Six separate shelters wide apart in what will be at times a rain- or windswept desert, and passengers crossing the apron. What’s wrong with a single building and conventional stands? This one’s the current Bishop Auckland one reborn.
“Phoenix” applies to all too many football clubs failed due to near-criminal financial mismanagement, leaving creditors unpaid by the reborn version. Not just unpaid tax, but local builders, caterers, joiners and the like.
It was generally felt that First had to improve after the Blockhead era but nothing described here suggests as much. Could customer relations be any worse?
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Well it’s good to know that it may be easier to get to Hadleigh to attend the midsummer formalities of the “Clopton rose rent” (arguably the oldest continual rental agreement in the UK).
milest
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A minor typo – the trolleybus standard pictured above is at the site of the former St Albans garage, not St Allans.
Paul.
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Many thanks, Paul. Now corrected.
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I think the bus journey’s with no expected time at WGC all start at the Station, so the system doesn’t have any way of tracking where they are on the road.
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North Somerset have refurbished their bus stop signs, using the ‘West’ branding on green to match the new electric buses recently introduced in their area. Its ironic that that North Somerset, which is currently not part of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) are using the ‘West’ brand at their stops, but Bristol City, South Gloucestershire and Bath & NE Somerset who are part of WECA, are not using the ‘West’ brand on their scruffy bus stops, which are in desperate need of refurbishment.
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Getting ahead of the curve as North Somerset are joining WECA!
BW2
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In Lewes East Sussex ctla operate a Sunday only town service 132. It did used to run bank holidays also. That was stopped and the change was announced on East Sussex County council’s website I think 2025. As of the last bank holiday in England it was still showing as operating on Google Maps and on the time you download on their website. I know people at bus stops that day and they said they never saw the bus only B&H Routes.
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Timetable on Ctla website.
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Will Arriva retain the Colchester P&R. The current contract expires sat the end off August
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