...and it's always a lovely sunny day!  It's much more important for prospective users to see what it will be like on a wet and windy day, or a cold and drizzly night.

Yes, the number of stairs is a pain.  There are lifts of course but they're slow and primarily for those who can't easily use the stairs.  It does seem more convoluted than it need have been starting below track level and going up to come down again, but I assume the more direct option of a much widened or totally new subway was ruled out on cost grounds.  Denham nearby has a similar arrangement with an even longer climb from ground level.

New purple roundels seem to have appeared at various stations along the line in the last week or so.  There may be problems with access, working at height on operational platforms and so on which have meant some signs getting missed.

It would be interesting to know if the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) text number goes to a central control room or somewhere more specific based on location which might actually have the local knowledge needed. Certainly I've had a similar experience on the London Underground of sending enough detail about line/direction/time when reporting beggars only to be asked for a train number which I can't see when on the train I'm reporting from.

I'm not surprised railway staff do little.  They have no authority in law and risk being assaulted if they do try to take action.  That's a wider issue for our leaders and for society as a whole rather than the railways trying to address it in isolation.

I think the point being made is that boundary extension tickets are often infernally difficult to buy from some ticket machines.  This may mean Travelcard holders aren't aware of them (though you might expect people at least to ask "do I have to pay twice when I've got a ticket covering part of the journey?") or that even those who know about them can't buy one.

I do wonder what's behind this and why Justin Gutmann is taking it on.  There's no mention of having previously attempted to get the Train Companies to increase awareness of these tickets or make buying them easier, either by direct pressure or via watchdog bodies.  I suspect the main beneficiaries will be the lawyers.

For me a big consideration would be the environment I had to wait in - a station with decent roomy waiting room, toilets and refreshment facilities and maybe some interesting architecture, or a bleak windswept platform with a bus shelter/unofficial urinal.  I'd also be less worried if I was changing onto a train starting at the interchange if I could get on at leisure well before the departure time.

As it's now only a Condition of Carriage, the most the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) can do is assist LU staff if they decide to bar the offender from travelling.  The various exemptions, the lack of any need for proof, and the frequent reminders via PA^▸ (Public Address) announcements that there are exemptions and that they may not be visible does mean that there is little realistic hope of this happening with any regularity. The level of mask wearing in crowded places often seems to be minimal, and there is little sign of peer pressure or just being considerate of others having much impact.  Nothing will change unless the law does, or cases rocket hugely and people perhaps start to reconsider.

All looks good, and contactless does seem your best option and it's valid equally on TfL^» (Transport for London - about) Rail and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), though GWR don't seem over-keen to promote it.  There's a page on their website (search for "contactless") which links to the detail on the TfL website but I've failed to find it though the website menu.

As you are presumably starting in the morning peak the only relevant Travelcard is the Anytime one which is overpriced for your purposes but if you did later happen to make enough extra journeys you'd be capped on contactless and not charged any more than the paper ticket price.  The charge won't be split at Paddington (that's why you were able to look up a fare for the whole journey) unless you clearly split it into separate journeys by doing something such as ...er... stopping for a meal en route. The times are rather buried on the TfL website as most people don't need to worry about them, but for interest they are 20 minutes into the Underground but 40 minutes the other way which allows for a wait on the concourse before going through the gates to the TfL Rail or GWR train.  Breaking your journey part-way without paying extra is one of the benefits of paper tickets that you do lose with pay as you go, but against that there is the flexibility of not having to know in advance if you will make enough journeys for a Travelcard to be worthwhile, or even where you are going!

Just to be clear as the one who started this post, I deny being "in a froth" about the use of Routemasters, and have not resorted to writing to the Sunday Times to vent my spleen!

There's been a trolley on most of the handful of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) trains I've been on lately; only exception was quite late evening. Is longlife milk in those little sticks that are impossible to open without squirting half of it up your sleeve a pandemic thing, or have they always done it? Some TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) seem to manage to provide fresh milk that they pour in for you.

After all the reports of infighting and power struggles, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found on a recent visit for a gala weekend.  Plenty of keen and helpful volunteers of all ages, well organised including the Minehead bus, and everything apparently well-maintained in contrast to the lines of rusting stock and the faded paint on the carriages in use that you see at many heritage railways.  It all looked very hopeful

Car share has probably fallen out of favour thanks to the pandemic and I suspect it will take some time to recover.

Longer-term though, car share is more flexible than public transport in terms of the route taken (it will generally be door-to-door) but less so re timing.  It needs two or more people who can work or have to work pretty much identical hours which is if anything becoming less common as working practices change.  Leisure trips (going to the same show) are more likely but that probably happens more generally already.

Just under 30, subject to judge's decision. Disappointingly I see the rhubarb loop isn't around the rhubarb triangle, and nearly got caught out by Platform 14..

Travelling on a train in Ireland  And the DART
Eaten a curry on a train  Hasn't everyone?
Been on a Mystex^▸ (Train on which passengers don't know where they are going)▸  Happy memories of the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) Merrymakers as a child, though my parents eventually decided we were going on too many when the Mystery trip went to the same place as the named destination trip the week before...
Dined in a Restaurant Car  Only on heritage railways and Orient Express
Travelled on a line that was part of the main network and is now closed  Swanage is the only one of any significance. Pleasingly I've been on more that have reopened.
Driven a train  Under heavy supervision
Caught the train to Barton-on-Humber  ...and over to Hull on the ferry
Had a train stop at a request stop for you  3 times in one day. Same guard, slightly embarrasing.
Ridden in a class 801 unit  Presumably. As noted elsewhere they all look the same.
Been to Aylesbury Vale Parkway Station  Only the once
"Bought" a zero cost excess  Duly stapled to the original so it wouldn't go through the gates
Travelled on the Lymington to Yarmouth ferry  With a bike
Left the station in TauntonLast weekend. Whose bright idea was it to move the Minehead bus stop from its convenient location right outside the station and hide it a 5 minute walk away?
Helped a fellow passenger lift their luggage on or off a train  Doesn't everyone unless they can't?
Done the gardening at a station  Guerilla weeding while waiting for a train
Used an easement  No proof, but must have done
Travelled on a Groupsave ticket  Though it may have been called something else then
Overslept your station  Most memorably on a strike day when I was on the only train running and it wasn't coming back for several hours.  Luckily only a mile or so to walk back again.
Gone the long way round to avoid a rail replacement bus  Good grief yes!
Used a split ticket  generally because I have a pass for one section rather than to take advantage of fare anomalies
Visited Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch  ...and Rye, Ash and Ore
Travelled through the Channel Tunnel  Shuttle and Eurostar
Caught a through train from London to Newquay or Tenby  Does from Tenby count?
Let your originally planned train go because it was too busy  Numerous times. Long-distance being able to see the next train already in the platform helps!
Used Plusbus  Must do it more.
Used a rover or ranger ticket  Best was the Yorkshire Ranger. Cost £10.45 for a week and I calculated I'd done 1,044.5 miles
Changed trains at Westbury  Can't think why not!
Travelled on the DLR^▸ (Docklands Light Railway)▸...and walked through several tunnels.
Been to Hainault on the tube  There's worse places

Anyone else feel the use of what was obviously a London Routemaster on last night's episode was a missed opportunity?  (I trust I'm among friends here and can say that without risk of too much mockery.)  The average viewer may not have consciously noticed, but I'd expect somewhere like the Oxford Bus Museum would have been delighted to supply a couple of authentic vehicles which would have given the right provincial feel.  A bit odd considering the use of what I thought was quite an evocative recreation of a bus station of the time (cue someone saying they were nothing like that!).

The railway station last week was odd as well, looking more like the stable yard of a stately home than any station I've ever seen.

I'd recommend switching to an LED lamp.  Choose the right one and you'd get decent light levels for that 100 hours, or a miserable light virtually for ever on a couple of D-size.

...which is the thinking behind the move to "single leg" pricing, where an out-and-back journey is charged at twice the single journey so you can be more flexible. 

Of course the crux of the matter is how the single leg price is set - is it based on half the old return fare, or the old single fare, or (probably) a compromise between the two to keep the overall income the same without deterring passengers too much?  Either way, it's a very different approach from how we buy most other things (fuel is an interesting exception); there's a general expectation that if you buy a multipack of something the unit cost will be less than just buying one.  Cheap Day Returns were marketed as good value because they cost hardly any more than a single ticket, but then people complained that it was a almost as expensive to go one way as there and back again.  It's a bit like supermarket meal deals which cost hardly any more than any one item, fine if you want the lot but you feel cheated if you only wanted one thing.