Recent content by Bishopstone

Easyjet know who's flying with them. The railway often doesn't know who's travelling with them on flexible fares, season tickets, rovers etc.

That would require a member of staff to issue the vouchers, a second member of staff to audit/account for the issuance of the vouchers, and someone else to negotiate and oversee contracts with the third party catering outlets who'd be accepting these vouchers. This is a disproportionate way to...

Maybe. I'm not a huge admirer of the Mayor, but I have some respect for decision-makers who crack-on and deliver schemes like Superloop at pace, versus appointing committees or consultants to agonise for months/years over ten alternative ways of spending the money. And if the objective is to...

Leytonstone to the Rainham area via Eastern Avenue (A12) and Upper Rainham Road would be relatively swift. A promising proposal, albeit with quite a lot of abstraction from the existing route 66, I expect. Stratford to Barnet sounds like a long journey, whichever routing is chosen - I hope the...

I think people should be careful what they wish for. If you get offered nothing on the Highland Chieftain, end-to-end, and you've paid £400, then I think a claim is in order. If you get biscuits instead of an advertised cheese sandwich on TPE between Manchester and Huddersfield, and you've...

The judgement sounds fair in the circumstances, but I hope the complainants didn’t expect the consequences to include an extension of first class catering facilities.

Towards the rear of the old concourse, where the First Class lounge used to be (briefly), is a gallery-style chronological history of the Gatwick area and the various stations in the vicinity, including Racecourse and Tinsley Green. Plus content about the development of the airport. The posters...

My default is to pass on the inside, and waft along the nearside lane encountering very little stress, and often little traffic. The speed differential between the Honda Jazz in the middle lane (constant 53mph) and the Audi S3 in the outside lane (119mph) means it's got to be safer to pass the...

My era of vagueness is the 80s, around the time of tendering but before the 346 route number was established. I recall routes heading to Corbets Tey and/or Cranham (via St Mary's Lane), from the station, with numbers 248A, 246/246A and 446, at various times. EnsignBus had some of these contracts...

Took a ride on the revised 346 on Saturday, which subsumed the prior (and short) 346 routing (Upminster Station - Upminster Park Estate) and that of the demised 497 (Harold Wood station - Harold Hill), in March. As a matter of trivia, Upminster Station rearcourt no longer has a TfL bus...

Whenever I travel on Greater Anglia (the three weekends each year when the main line is open in its entirety), I comment to myself how excellent the entirely new fleet of rolling stock is. It always feels a pleasure to do a Liverpool Street - Norwich - Ely - Cambridge - Liverpool Street circuit...

A big ‘ouch!’ for any parent who arranged the schooling of their child on the basis of the existence of this financially precarious ferry service: feels like a high risk strategy. How reliable was the service lately, in respect of cancellations due to weather and mechanical issues etc? I’d go...

Not good for the OP or others caught-up in this, but when there were a spate of stories circa 2021 about folk having sold-up in London and moved to Somerset/Yorkshire (etc), relying on bargain Advances to commute back to the capital two days per week, I thought it was a risky strategy, and so...

I’m still of the opinion that if people are travelling widely and then giving feedback that ‘all modern train seating is uncomfortable!’, they should consider seeing a doctor or physio about underlying issues with hips, backs, hernias, weight etc. I know the IET seats aren’t HSL armchairs, but...

If bus travel were free, would it encourage short hops of two or three stops that would otherwise have been undertaken on foot or by bike? I think this is a relevant consideration given the obesity crisis, and the slow average speed of city bus services. I wonder if TfL or academics have...