Seen Around

Tuesday 29th September 2026

I’m beginning September’s round up of miscellany with a mini Book Review….

Another book from Timetable World

I write ‘mini’ Book Review as I’m struggling to do justice to this latest book produced by the wonderful people behind the amazing Timetable World website, as although they very kindly sent me a copy a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t got anywhere near to finishing reading it – it’s just so voluminous – an incredible 368 pages, with the vast majority all text.

It follows the seminal John Davies book ‘The Rise and Demise of the Bus Map’ published at the beginning of the year. Called ‘Changing Times’, this one is by Conrad J H Smith and covers ‘A History of the Transport Timetable’. And the word ‘History’ is definitely the correct descriptor. It really is a comprehensive analysis of how (particularly railway) timetables have developed since the days of the stagecoach (that’s the original stagecoach mode of transport from centuries ago, not the Brian Souter incarnation from the 1980s).

After reading the Introduction, I initially skipped over the chapters detailing the early history of timetable compilation, presentation and production to read chapters 8 and 9 looking at ‘Competition and Consolidation’ followed by ‘Timetable Twilight’ both of which resonate with my living experience of how printed railway timetables have moved from some wonderful publications covering the various regions of British Rail and the much missed National Rail timetable to individual timetables leaflets for each route, to … nothing.

However, I’ve now returned to studying the earlier chapters and they certainly provide a fascinating account of how early timetables were not only compiled but also printed, published and distributed. There are descriptions of ‘Train Times in Town Guides and Directories’ and, of course, a lot of coverage and explanations about the Bradshaw era – “the standard to which all others were compared”.

Going even further back in time, Conrad chronicles how the “gradual adoption of both London Time and Dublin Time for their respective parts of the United Kingdom” came about. Because, of course, “timetables played their part in process”. When the London and Birmingham Railway opened throughout its length a table of local times as observed at each wayside station was published in the form of ‘minutes fast from Birmingham’ and ‘minutes slow from London’ because standard time in those cities was different.

It’s fascinating to reflect on that early period as train travel was becoming established and if you like timetables and enjoy a long and comprehensive historical read over 368 pages, then this is definitely the book for you.

‘Changing Times’ retails at £40, as does ‘The Rise and Demise of the Bus Map’, with a bundle comprising both books available at a huge discount of £50 for the pair. And, in addition, BusAndTrainUser blog readers can use a coupon valid until 31st December giving 15% off your purchase meaning each book costs just £34 or £42.50 for the pair. Purchase from timetableworld.com entering the discount code batu. Postage is free, but do warn your postie it’s a weighty volume!

Botley Road reopens at last

It was April 2023 when Oxford’s Botley Road was closed to allow Network Rail to carry out major works to the railway bridge just south of Oxford rail station as well as a precursor to extensive works to expand the station with a new western entrance/exit.

As we all know things didn’t quite go according to plan and what was originally a six month closure to divert utilities followed by a seven month closure to replace the bridge in 2024 ended up as a three and a half year continuous closure leading to huge inconvenience (and cost) to everyone living, working and visiting the area, not least Oxford Bus and Stagecoach Oxford.

But that’s all now in the past and I popped over to Oxford on Monday last week, just after the road reopened on the Sunday, to admire the £237 million worth of improvements (up from the original budget of £161 million). As concrete bridges carrying railway track and a pedestrian footbridge go, it does the job, with the latter looking particularly smart and a great improvement on what went before.

Key to this project is there’s room for expansion with more tacks to enable trains to run on the branch line to Cowley and there’s more room down below with wider tunnels for pedestrians on both sides of Botley Road.

Stagecoach buses are now back on their line of route and Oxford Bus has introduced a number of improvements to its network as well as returning route 400 to the Seacourt Park & Ride car park further west along Botley Road.

But, also important are the new Traffic Filters which replaced the temporary congestion charge from yesterday. Drive through one of these filters without being authorised and you’ll cop a £70 fine (reduced to £35 if paid within 21 days or increased to £105 if not paid within 28 days). The Traffic Filters will be in place for the next 18 months and it’ll be interesting to see how motorists continue to react to this.

Meanwhile back at the station, work is beginning on that new western entrance.

Hopefully it won’t take another three and a half years.

Spalding’s delight

I was impressed when alighting at Spalding’s Platform 2, towards Lincoln, seeing the wonderful display of shrubbery with more planting underway…

… obviously cared for by dedicated supporters…

… and even including this fascinating ‘bug house’ to attract nature’s visitors.

The modern looking waiting shelter and lift tower presented an interesting contrast…

… with the more traditional layout of a platform on the Peterborough bound Platform 1.

The exterior and entrance to the station is also very traditional and dates back to a time when the station had seven platforms including two terminal bays for the line to March.

It’s a very pleasant and well kept station except my experience of using the waiting room on Platform 1 became a living nightmare when I came to leave and couldn’t open the door. It was locked shut by an automative mechanism and luckily I was rescued by a passenger on the platform who heard my yelling to summon help.

It turns out the door is controlled by a video entry system with a call button but when I entered the door was wide open, presumably from someone who’d exited before I arrived and the door had not had a chance to close and self lock.

The Class 170 train that took me to Spalding from Peterborough had benefitted from an upgrade as part of East Midland Railway’s £23 million refurbishment programme for its fleet of 44 such trains.

The new seats and decor look very smart…

… and offer a noticeable improvement in comfort and ambience.

Gatwick Express from Farringdon

What’s the best way to travel from Farringdon to Gatwick Airport?

You’d naturally take one of the four Thameslink trains an hour taking 40 minutes.

But it would seem Thameslink want you to make your way over to Victoria and take the half hourly Gatwick Express currently being promoted with posters all over the station at Farringdon. It costs more and takes longer (23 minutes just to get to Victoria) with half the frequency. Why on earth are they promoting it like this?

Fleet Buzz lives on

A number of commentators explained how the Fleet Buzz company used to run between Farnborough and Yateley (and on to Reading) in the recent blog about Stagecoach’s new route 8.

Indeed there are still bus stop flags marked up for Fleet Buzz I spotted both in Farnborough and along the route.

Help Karen finish her jigsaw

Back in Farnborough Main railway station’s waiting room Karen who runs the coffee stall there has a jigsaw on the go as I found when I featured the station last November in last year’s ’places with two stations’ series…

… although that one must have got finished, as this is a different one

Why shorten these names?

One thing that always puzzles me about interior electronic displays in trains (and sometimes buses too) is why the names of stations are shortened when there’s plenty of room to show them in full?

For example Worcester Foregate Street. Why do West Midlands Railway shorten Foregate to display just ‘F’!

Or Birmingham to B’ham?

Just wait for the door to close

I was impressed with the friendly informal notice stuck inside a GWR Class 165 train on a recent journey from Gatwick to Farnborough. It’s refreshing to see someone take the initiative to ‘keep the wheels turning’ rather than close down a facility because everything isn’t exactly as it should be, or even withdraw the train from service.

Sutterton’s mega size shelter

I was intrigued by this extra large shelter at the bus stop in Sutterton, Lincolnshire when changing buses from Stagecoach’s route 3 to Brylaine’s route B3 recently and much to my surprise…

… there were no seats inside it. What a missed opportunity.

Boston’s swing rail bridge

When passing through Boston I spotted the swing rail bridge which connects the short branch line to the ‘Port of Boston’ as can be seen on the map extracts below…

… I’m not sure how much, if at all it’s used but the track ballast looked as though it had been recently renewed and the tracks looked in good condition. There aren’t many such bridges around, especially one you can see from the top deck of a bus.

Water Tower’s over Spalding bus station

Another interesting structure I spotted in Spalding was the imposing Chatterton Water Tower which towers over the town’s bus station…

… as can be seen in Google’s satellite image below.

And talking of imposing strictures, while taking a ride on TfL’s route SL12 I had to take a photograph of the country’s most extensive bus shelter outside Newbury Park Underground Station.

What an amazing structure.

How busy is my train?

My eye was caught by this poster on an Elizabeth line train the other day, as it’s the first time I’ve seen TfL acknowledge so publicly the line is indeed part of National Rail, rather than block any reference to that association.

Using the QR code takes you to an annotated full timetable for the service which colour codes every journey according to its busyness in the previous week.

The problem being on a smartphone you only get space for three journeys per screen so to find, say, an afternoon peak journey entails scrolling through dozens of pages. Nice idea though.

GREENLINE Holidays

With all the fuss over the use of the Green Line brand in the Heathrow Airport area it was interesting to see Greenline Holidays alive and well while in Monmouthshire recently. The Stourbriddge based company offers an extensive programme of day trips, weekend breaks and holiday tours including a day trip to Windsor. (Don’t tell Arriva!).

Abergavenny Delight

Another lovely station to visit is Abergavenny where the Whistle Stop café on the northbound Platform 1 is an absolute delight…

… with the most wonderful retro style furniture including a radiogram straight from the late 1950s…

… as well as some delicious food and drinks.

RML2711 is alive and well

Following last month’s Great British Fudge Company’s bus strategically positioned outside Bath Spa railway station I came across former RML 2711 the other day parked up in the shadow of Centre Point alongside Tottenham Court Road station in its new guise as a sales point for SNOG frozen yoghurt together with a place to sit and enjoy your over priced desert on the upper deck with its raised roof.

And then last weekend I was in the centre of Plymouth and came across this former Bournemouth Corporation 1950 Leyland Titan PD2/3 with Weymann bodywork enjoying a new lease of life as ‘The Clippy’.

“At The Clippy, we’re all about bold flavours and fresh, feel-good food. From our signature Clippy Smash burger and crispy skinny fries to Gochujang-glazed corn ribs, loaded fries, butternut squash soup, and our festive turkey ciabatta, the menu is full of street food favourites and modern twists on classic comfort dishes. Everything is freshly prepared with care, using top-quality, locally sourced ingredients. Whether you’re after a quick bite on the go or a proper feast, The Clippy has something to hit the spot – dig in and enjoy!”

Permit to Travel

Another blast from the past caught my eye, this time in Didcot where there’s still a Network South East Permit to Travel machines alongside the GWR ticket machine outside Didcot Parkway railway station.

I couldn’t get it to work, and am guessing it’s location is to raise awareness of the Didcot Railway Centre, although that wasn’t clear through any signage.

Is Metro soon for the bin?

On current trends I don’t think it will be long before we’ll see the demise of the Metro newspaper. There was a time when so many were distributed from railway stations that two container bins were packed full of copies for commuters to take and read on the train. Now, as can be seen one early morning last week at my local station, Hassocks, there’s no more than around 20 copies made available. It’s not surprising really as on trains and buses most commuters are deep into their smartphones and no longer bother with a newspaper.

Teesside Airport to Polesworth

Blog reader John regularly sends me wonderful quirky snippets he comes across including the above wonderful item where he found a fare on brfares.com listing ticket options available in the National Rail database for a journey from Teesside Airport station (fully closed since May 2022) to Polesworth station – a station served by just one northbound West Midlands Railway train a day at 06:48 to Crewe. A snip at only £276 for an Anytime ‘Any Permitted’ return.

Delay Repay update

And finally for this month there’s just time for a Delay Repay update and I’m delighted to report following last month’s exposé, on 7th September, Cross Country finally got round to confirming payment for the Delay Repay compensation for a journey on 13th July from Wolverhampton to Stafford, so not bad for them at taking just eight weeks. The not so good news is I had another Cross Country delay when travelling down to Stroud via Cheltenham on 7th September so looks like a delay until early November for that one to be sorted. Interestingly that week was one of the worst weeks I’ve experienced for delays for some time with…

Monday 7th September – Avanti West Coast, Euston to Liverpool, delayed due to a broken down Pendolino at Watford Junction necessitating use of the slow lines for a stretch.

Monday 7th September – Cross Country Birmingham to Cheltenham delayed due to “congestion in the Derby area” meaning I missed the GWR connection to Stroud necessitating an hour’s wait.

Tuesday 8th September – Elizabeth line in meltdown due to arson and vandalism damage to electric cables outside Paddington.

Tuesday 8th September – Delays on Thameslink leading to my train running fast from Three Bridges to Brighton necessitating waiting for the next one. No reason given for delay.

Wednesday 9th September – Broken down train at Purley necessitating all London bound trains on the Brighton line using the Redhill line with consequential cancellation of Gatwick Express and Thameslink Brighton to Cambridge services and delays and overcrowding to all other trains on the line.

Wednesday 9th September – Person hit by a train at New Cross Gate with all trains through the station halted.

Thursday 10th September – A safety inspection of the track at Redhill necessitated my intended GWR train from Gatwick Airport to Farnborough being curtailed at Redhill so had to get a later one due to consequential delays.

I didn’t travel on Friday 11th September but similar delays and cancellations for a variety of reasons impacted travel in the following two weeks too. I’m now well on the way to collecting enough delay repay amounts for another 7-Day All Line Rover.

And, as usual GWR are playing their usual game of deeming delay repay claims for cross London journeys spanning the Elizabeth line as unsuccessful necessitating more time and energy in appealing. At the time of writing I’m still waiting for the courtesy of a reply to my appeal against an unsuccessful claim for a journey back from Bath Spa to Hassocks on 22nd August – an afternoon when signalling problems blocked the line to Chippenham for some time. Goodness knows why a claim in such circumstances is deemed unsuccessful when no trains were running for a couple of hours. But that’s GWR for you.

More miscellany at the end of next month.

Roger French

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