Seen Around

Saturday 31st October 2026

Another potpourri of miscellany from the past month’s travels…..

Slow going on the main lines

You couldn’t travel anywhere on either the West Coast or East Coast Main Lines very quickly on the weekend of 17th/18th October, as I found when travelling from Euston to Warrington on the Saturday and back south from Eaglescliff to King’s Cross on the Sunday.

Network Rail’s orange army was obviously hard at work as passengers enjoyed a change of scenery to avoid the closed line between Rugby and Stafford adding an hour to the journey time with trains running via Coventry and Tame Bridge Parkway as well as lines closed between Doncaster and Peterborough with an extra hour to enjoy the delights of travelling through Gainsborough and Lincoln. It all helps to avoid the hassle of rail replacement buses and coaches but it does mean less trains and those that do run being overcrowded, bearing in mind weekends are now a hotbed of leisure travellers as I recently featured in a blog about GWR. Sadly the Midland Main Line doesn’t offer much comfort (literally)as an alternative with five coach trains struggling on just an hourly service between each of Sheffield and Nottingham and St Pancras.

Still, it could be worse. And indeed, it is ….. this weekend … when the East Coast Main Line is closed between Doncaster and Darlington with rail replacement road vehicles.

I know the tracks have to be maintained and the work has to be done, but these line closures must do great damage to the otherwise booming market for weekend leisure travel by train as captured in the above photo showing passengers alighting from an inbound train at Euston on Saturday 17th October.

New Information booth opens at Euston

While patiently waiting on Euston’s busy concourse I noticed another improvement recently introduced in the form of a combined Avanti West Coast/London Northwestern Railway information counter has been introduced. This is much better than the previous arrangement of two separate mini-type desks each operator had in separate parts of the concourse.

There are also new Information Screens available…

… but, as always, I find them all a bit too OTT in what they’re trying to do…

… and far better to speak to a human being.

Happy 90th to the OS NWYB

I was heading up to Warrington to join members of the Omnibus Society marking the 90th Anniversary of the formation of its North Western & Yorkshire Branch and it was a delight to meet everyone there as well as give a presentation in the afternoon to members who’d also enjoyed the hospitality of Ben Wakerley and his team at Warrington’s Own Buses depot in the town in the morning and later also hearing interesting presentations from OS President David Lee-Kong and Giles Fearnley.

And while congratulating those celebrating anniversaries, take a bow, Reading Buses for its recent 125th Anniversary display in Broad Street, Reading and thanks to Richard Windley for sending me some photos (above and below) which he took of the event which looked to be enjoyed by many local people as well as enthusiasts.

Thirdly, many congratulations to Philp Ayers and the team at Cuckmere Buses for marking its 50th Anniversary last week with a celebratory dinner in Alfriston which sadly, I was unable to make but was very grateful for the invitation. It’s a fantastic achievement to reach the Golden milestone for a community run bus company.

Crawley’s new look bus station

Work has begun to enhance and improve the bus station alongside Crawleys’ County Mall shopping centre. The plan is to create a central island on which passengers will wait with buses using stops on both sides ‘saw tooth’ style.

Passing through recently I was able to see the impact of the recently commenced works which are due to continue until 2028. So far it’s the north side by the entrance to the shopping centre which has closed, of what had been a two-way bus station with an impenetrable barrier down the middle, with buses temporarily dispersed to adjacent roads.

Passengers seem to have adapted well to these temporary arrangements and plans showing how the new layout will eventually look are available on Crawley Borough Council’s website.

Looking forward to seeing the completed project in due course.

Hereford’s Hub is nearly there

Passing through Hereford a couple of weeks ago I was able to see the fevered activity to complete the city’s new Transport Hub alongside the railway station which will replace what has been known as the ‘County Bus Station’ located in Commercial Road.

The new arrangement includes an L shaped covered waiting area for passengers with buses using drive on and drive off stands on one side and on-street stands on the other,

The artists impression (above) shows how buses will be further away than both taxis and the drop off/pick up area compared to the currently located bus stop right outside the station…

… which is a shame, but it looks like there’ll be plenty of trees and greenery to make for pleasant public realm, as they say,…

… on what was otherwise a rather barren area. And it was the case that some buses departed from exposed bus shelters much further away from the station…

…pedestrian exit/entrance.

It does look like the facilities will be better than previously available both at the railway station…

… and the old bus station on Commercial Road albeit the latter was closer to the city centre.

Hopefully there’ll be enough space and stands for buses in the new ‘Hub” too.

Bluewater’s real time bus information is due in …..

Meanwhile, over in Bluewater, the lack of information to advise passengers where to catch a bus has been commented on in previous blogs, but on my latest visit earlier this month I saw even the real time departure sign doesn’t show when the delayed provision of real time information is due.

Although, to be fair, another sign is working albeit your departure must be within the next eight buses to leave otherwise you won’t know when it leaves – and sadly there’s no stand number information displayed for each entry.

However, I did notice work is now well underway on reopening the hidden tunnel behind the trees in the above photo which will make a direct connection to the busway through Castle Hill saving a bit of time and bus miles for FastTrack B and C buses heading to and from Ebbsfleet.

I’ve shown the above image of the disused tunnel from the area’s quarrying days in a previous blog as well as the plan (below) indicating where the new bus only road will link into the bus station.

It’s now becoming a reality.

Eaglescliffe transformation

Something else that’s a reality is the recently completed works at Eaglescliffe station where the £14.5 million transformative project completed in July including the opening of a new footbridge (with lifts) which at 56 metres now provides for step free access and exit to the west of the station…

… as well as a new building on the island platform…

… containing a waiting room…

… and ticket office through the gap in the wall beyond that …

… which, impressively, was staffed and open when I passed through on Sunday before last…

… something the old office on the now closed footbridge never was.

So that’s a welcome improvement, and good to see, and I guess the old footbridge and waiting room (photographed below) will be demolished at some point.

The station is managed by Northern Trains working in partnership with Grand Central which I see has not been shy at getting its name displayed in a prominent position in the waiting area.

…even though its the minority operator compared to DfTO run Northern and TransPennine Express.

Like Heckmondwicke’s new bus station the toilet provision is only an accessible one, although in this case it’s good to see passengers are asked to leave the door open when leaving so those without a RADAR key can enjoy access.

It’s alongside a baby changing room which is RADAR key restricted – I didn’t know parents of babies needed a key for such access. Over at the new western entrance/exit there’s a car park…

… and a bus shelter, although at the moment no buses call here and it’s advertised as a pick up and drop off stop.

It was a shame to see one of the new lifts out of service on the day I visited.

… but otherwise some lovely new facilities and I’m sure the western entrance/exit will get busier as the area to the west is developed with a 54-acre industrial and logistics development planned for the area adjacent to the Durham Lane Industrial Park as well as new housing nearby.

Darlington’s unfinished staircase

Meanwhile back at the £140 million transformation of Darlington’s railway station and its new eastern entrance/exit and platforms 5 and 6, I noticed how the long flight of stairs (in four sections) down to the new island platform looked decidedly unfinished when I passed through again recently…

… and also how annoying that the new layout means five coach Azuma trains have to come to a stop at the very southernly point of the new platform 5 which is as far away from the lift and stairs bringing passengers down to platform level (at the northern end) as you can get.

I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog about stations at Grantham and Doncaster and commentators explained it’s to do with the positioning of a signal but I would have thought a brand new platform would have been built with the facilities such that trains don’t have to go furthest away from where passengers access the platform. Customer centric? Not this.

Another LNER ticket buying oddity

And while on the subject of LNER, I was returning home from Peterborough earlier this month having travelled on route 26 and at 11:50 called at the ticket office to buy a Super Off-Peak Single back to Hassocks at a cost of £31.50. I was intending to catch the 12:05 LNER departure to Hassocks via King’s Cross/St Pancras. The ticket office member of staff sold me an Advance Single for £30 for the journey including a connecting Thameslink service in London (from St Pancras). As that was my intended journey anyway, I accept the saving of £1.50 and bought the ticket which came with a reservation in seat A52.

Except that seat was shown as ‘Available’ when I boarded the train (not surprising to see it not updated) but my point is, why complicate things for passengers with seat reservations for such journeys?

Just sell me a flexible ticket for any journey (not morning peak) and don’t bother with a seat reservation for a journey of this kind as the system doesn’t for the Thameslink part of the journey. An unnecessary complication which doesn’t work out anyway.

St Pancras lifts and escalators update.

Work is continuing on the programme to replace the lifts and escalators at St Pancras and I noticed recently a completely new temporary structure has been installed to take passengers to platforms 11-13 used by Southeastern High Speed trains.

I guess it was a step too far to expect passengers to use the stairs or escalator with heavy luggage while the work continues, as happens to access platforms A and B for Thameslink where similar work is in hand but the distance is smaller.

Something to look forward to next year has just been announced and that’s a full closure of City Thameslink station for eight months to enable all the station’s ageing escalators to be replaced.

Musical chairs in Truro Bus Station

I was in Truro’s busy bus station on a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of the month and obviously the waiting room was closed but peering through the door I couldn’t help smiling at the line of seats down the middle which were laid out exactly as I remember as a child playing musical chairs at friends’ parties.

Delay Repay update

I’m delighted to advise within hours of last month’s update highlighting GWR’s refusal to pay the refund due for the delay I encountered returning from Bath on 22nd August being published in September’s Seen Around I received an email confirming the Delay Repay had been approved and a full refund of £60.60 was on its way. The only outstanding claim I currently have, therefore, is the delay encountered on 7th September involving a Cross Country train from Birmingham to Cheltenham … but an eight week delay in dealing with delay repay is pretty average for Cross Country so I continue to patiently wait.

Lewes launch for All Change!

It was great to attend the Lewes History Society’s launch of the just published book “All Change! Lewes Bus Station” and meet authors Ruth and Neil Thomson who gave a great presentation to around 150 people relating how they sourced all the material for the book as well as a history of the bus station itself. It was encouraging to see so much interest in the subject.

Don’t mention the price

And finally for this month’s round up I spotted the above full page advert in The Guardian newspaper during the month promoting First Class travel on the famous 07:00 Manchester to Euston journey (the one the ORR was insisting should be withdrawn until it was pointed out it would have to run out of service to get the crew and train to London). It seemed a bit over the top to take out a full page advert in a national newspaper promoting just one journey. And I noticed there was no mention of the £290 (single) fare. (£193 if you slum it in Standard Class.)

More miscellany at the end of November.

Roger French

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