I'm hoping / expecting that First MTR will honour the Gold Service vouchers sent out to SWT^▸ (South West Trains) season ticket holders. These are one day tickets that can be used anywhere on the SWT network on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I've made the most out of them over the last few years with day trips from Bookham to the South West, often exploring 2 or 3 towns in one day and sometimes using local buses to fill in the gaps between towns.

Although they can be used all year round, I prefer to save them for the summer when the weather is warmer and there are more daylight hours. I will still have quite a few when First take over.

Oops...  I'm getting the changes to the names of cup/trophy competions and their sponsors confused.

I had to google the Checkatrade Trophy to find out what that is. It's also called the EFL Trophy but for most of us we will know it better by its old name "The League Cup".

That's football if you're still not sure.

I found out 2 years ago that there are no direct buses to/from Stonehenge apart from the sightseeing buses which aren't cheap.  I caught a normal bus from Salisbury to Amesbury and walked from there to Stonehenge. Unfortunately and I don't know why, I didn't research how to get from Stonehenge back to Salisbury or any other station. I ended up having to wait an hour or two for the tourist bus to get back to Salisbury station.

I have to ask about these new trains that First are talking about. How many of them were previously announced by Stagecoach SWT^▸ (South West Trains)?

I would say the vast majority of commuter journeys will be less than £30. Any above that can be easily be done by chip and pin taking 30 seconds or less maybe.

I remember reading last year that SWT^▸ (South West Trains) were introducing contactless to their ticket machines. Haven't seen it yet.

In the first picture what does the symbol for coach L signify?

I'm sure I recently read somewhere that at Kings X / St Pancras and some others TFL^▸ (Transport for London) deliberately route you along long corridors so as to avoid congestion on the direct quicker route. The story I read was that it was actually quicker to follow the Way Out signs and then change at street level.

This evening I took the 1834 train from Reading to Guildford. Just as we were leaving Reading I could hear a loud tone which could best be described as the sort of noise BBC1 used to broadcast when it shut down for the night. I couldn't work out where it was coming from but I noticed that it seemed to stop when the doors were open. I have a recollection of previously hearing this before on a 165 or 166. Any idea what it might be?

I managed to record it on my phone. The background noise is the sound of the engines and the annoying hum starts at 21 seconds in just as the doors have closed

Annoying hum

Did you mean to say that there are very few journeys that you can make in this country where you can buy an eticket of some sort?

I'm used to delays in the evening going home to Bookham. Normally on time or 2 or 3 minutes late but last nights delays were a little bit longer than normal but that was due to signal failures at or near Clapham Junction. Or so I thought.....


Incidentally Effingham Junction is the next station on the line from Bookham.

There is also the issue of how reliable the reporting is. I'm sure you will already have seen that Wikipedia has banned the Daily Mail as an unreliable source.

Or Crossrail as I will stubbornly insist on calling it.

The metro systems in many European cities commonly show up to date news, weather and upcoming events as well as advertising on their trains. All without sound. I would have no problem with that.

When you say leaky exits, are you referring to the lack of a ticket barrier? If yes then Waterloo has this problem as well. If you leave the main line platforms via the stairs on each platform to the subway you will come across the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) exit ticket barriers. Just past this is the Waterloo and City line which does not have barriers. You are supposed to tap out on the SWT exits and tap in a few seconds later on the W&C validators. I suspect a lot of people are being caught out thinking the ticket barriers are for the underground thus incurring extra costs.