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That's pretty poor (but par for the course). Anyone checking early morning before setting off a little later would get no warning of a problem that TfL could have told them about.

Back on the main topic, I struggle to see how singling reduces costs except over a fairly short timescale (ie only needing to renew one of the previous pair of neglected tracks, or perhaps being able to avoid expensive work to shore up one side of a troublesome embankment or cutting along the...

Almost certainly an urban myth, though a magnetic catch on the cover of a phone case or bag, or creasing/crumpling the ticket could well make the magnetic code unreadable.

To be fair, it would be worrying if station staff on the ground couldn't explain what someone needed to do, but very senior staff aren't in customer service roles and don't need to know the detail any more than they know how automatic train control works. They're not the ones who negotiated the...

I seem to remember it also failed on the Watercress Line before Christmas.

That's odd; assuming it was a normal yellow validator rather than a pink one I can't think of any reason why a specific validator would behave any differently from any other. I wonder if it was just faulty?

It won't work, as the normal interchange is inside the gateline so no need. Break of journey for mag stripe "paper" tickets at LU gates has to be done by talking to a member of staff, though ironically a ticket stored on a smart card or validated using a bar code reader could be set up...

Aaargh! You're right, there's even a special vinyl saying just that to stick on the validator. Looks like it's been locally produced to address a perceived problem, given the incorrect spelling of travelling and the random selection of tenuously-related instructions.

Their ticketing policy is unusual. Annual Passes at museums and similar visitor attractions are generally a separate option, priced either slightly above a day ticket or some multiple, based on how likely repeat visits are actually going to be made. The Gift Aid tax refund rules are complex...

I saw The Three Guineas pub at Reading station a few days before the programme was shown. Oddly it proclaims "EST 1860", which doesn't seem to match the building of the station, the conversion into a pub or the founding of Fullers brewery which runs it. Possibly just a random date to give it...

Interesting to hear how things really were at times back in the day, rather than the assumption that rail travel was always so much easier. Out of interest I tried to look up times in an old ABC Rail Guide, but that's so London-centric that it doesn't allow a journey to be planned by the direct...

I seem to recall that the change to the rounding rules was not conveyed effectively to one of TfL's TVM contractors, though I can't remember where the missing link was. Looks like it still hasn't been sorted.

Maybe I'm not their target market but I'm far more likely to buy refreshments if a trolley goes past me than have to place an order and wait an uncertain amount of time for it, particularly if I'm leaving the train within the next half hour or so. If someone's trotting up and diown the train...

Politicians out west in Hillingdon are now pushing for express bus routes to feed in to Elizabeth line stations. The exact aim is unclear (and it's partly a way of having a dig at TfL and the Mayor) but it seems they think that's a better way to reach central London than using a nearby Met or...

Certainly in the past, people I've known who had relatives in the same company (in a couple of cases a parent who was an LT Director) had to work harder to prove their worth to avoid people thinking they only got the job because of nepotism. In one case someone languished in a rather lowly...

I've made a few leisure journeys I wouldn't otherwise have done at the full extortionate price, but I do wonder how the average person who doesn't follow niche public transport news is meant to be enticed aboard. I've seen no publicity, even on the back of my local First and Arriva buses which...

It's not the OSI that's done it; the fare would have been the same if you'd not gone through a gateline en route. As already mentioned, the official line is that you need to use separate cards for each leg as creating and updating special composite fares (part Priv part full rate) for what is...

My fault. Nowhere seemed particularly obvious so I followed the precedent of a previous similar post. Mine is very much an artefact rather than being used in any official capacity so I would describe it as Memorabilia. Polite suggestions of a better place to put it are welcome!

I've just had to replace the push-fit bulb in a Chloride-branded BR Bardic lamp. After pulling off the front lens it took a while (and some broken bulb glass) to work out that it wasn't just held by the fitting itself being sprung as on many torches, but by the separate centre of the reflector...

I do think us diesel enthusiasts will have to be increasingly careful about fumes if we are not to have restrictions on running older locos. Lots of clag once warmed up is mostly a sign of a poorly maintained engine, and a lack of fumes doesn't affect the sound they make.