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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 30/09/2026

If I understand it correctly, Stena Line.

The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 30/09/2026

We appear to have wandered into a world of subatomic fuzziness where the exact number of stations is a range of probabilities depending on assumptions. Glasgow Central existing simultaneously in two quantum states (it’s one station and/or two) until you visit it and the wave function collapses.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 30/09/2026

The National Rail website reckons 2,613. Geoff Marshall reckons 2,599. I'm not sure whether either of them include in their counts LU-owned stations or non-Network Rail stations like Stranraer or the three at Heathrow. And I've seen other counts too. Nothing's simple, is it?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 30/09/2026

There are records now for 596 stations on the site (although those records might not be complete). That's 22.8% of all British mainline stations, so it's closing in on 25% in less than a year. That's - not too bad? It does depend a bit how many stations there actually are, though...

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Hugo von der Thüsen @hugovdthusen.com · 29/09/2026

The future Grand Paris Express station Villejuif - Gustave Roussy is a masterpiece. It connects metro line 14 (already operating) to the future line 15 in this massive station. I counted a total of 24 escalators. It was eerily quiet since it’s not yet an interchange station.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 29/09/2026

How state ownership of GBR will mean that land use planning and rail service provision can be properly joined up? How GBR can provide policy answers to social issues now that fares, railcards, timetables etc are all clearly being overseen by government? Er, no.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 29/09/2026

Which I absolutely agree with; I shouldn't be writing about GBR's garbled visual identity, branding and signage standards... except that's nearly the only thing the DfT is giving me. Are they telling me *how* tickets will be simplified by GBR? How bike/rail or bus/rail integration will be improved?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 27/09/2026

😃 (And you are still quite sure that yours is Not A Transit Blog?)

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 27/09/2026

Have you actually posted this somewhere yet? Because, yes, I agree, with the slight caveat that government doesn’t seem to have noticed. (But I am burned to a cynical crisp through professional contact with DfT in a previous life, which always colours my view.)

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 24/09/2026

The only image I have been able to find is this one on Facebook (www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...). The station building is lurking in the background but obscured, and the resolution is low. There must be at least one photo/postcard/local history book showing the front of the station, surely?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 24/09/2026

Just on the off-chance... does anyone know of a picture of the front of the station building at Filey Holiday Camp? The National Transport Trust website has this good one of its rear elevation but the web seems to have no good ones of the front. And neither does any book I've ever found.

Station building at Filey Holiday Camp, rear elevation. From https://www.nationaltransporttrust.org.uk/heritage-sites/heritage-detail/filey-holiday-camp-station

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doublearrow.co.uk @doublearrow64.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Lovely running-in board at Warrington Bank Quay, complete with Rail Alphabet 2 and Rail Symbol 2

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 22/09/2026

(That said I remain rather fond of the clock)

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 22/09/2026

A workthrough of the latest crop of railway station departure boards by @ryanbate.bsky.social on his Now Let’s Be Clear site. Have someone explain why you’re vaguely discomfited by them in ways you can’t explain yourself. nowletsbeclear.substack.com/p/lets-not-b...

nowletsbeclear.substack.com

Let’s not be clear.

I think they got a bit carried away...

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 21/09/2026

Yes! It is extremely fantastic. Love it.

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Tim Hedley-Jones @timhedleyj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Enjoying the design vibe of the Prague Metro system

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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

How lucky am I? I’m now custodian of this fabulous (and huge) Ronald Lampitt painting - artwork for 1940s Railway poster 😊

Framed oil painting of a view looking down into a village in County Clare surrounded by hills and trees

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 17/09/2026

Were you playing with the idea of a similar all-Britain map at one point? I might be misremembering... but if you were, did you get anywhere with it?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 17/09/2026

It's available from all good bookshops (they will order it for you and if you need the ISBN it's 978-1-9997596-7-4), from various online retailers, I think it might be in the odd museum bookshop or two, or you can get it direct from us at philipbutler.bigcartel.com/product/pre-...

philipbutler.bigcartel.com

Trackside Transformation - The Evolution of British Mainline Stations 1923 - 1947

"A remarkable book.... It is rare to encounter a book which so thoroughly enlarges understanding of railway topics, as this does. Everyone interested in station architecture will want to acquire it." ...

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 17/09/2026

This is Trackside Transformation, a book which is the first attempt (as far as I can tell) to fully catalogue British mainline railway station architecture of the Grouping era (1923-47). It's written by me to accompany photographs by @artdecomagpie.bsky.social of all the significant survivors.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 13/09/2026

Hang on, what? Leaving aside the swooshes/glitches pointing in different directions (wonder if points the same way both sides of the loco) - is the main body of carriages 1 and 3 plus the driving trailer in the lighter blue, with carriages 2 and 4 in the darker blue? What on earth?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 13/09/2026

Further thanks to @rclongauthor.bsky.social for a name sign at Dawlish, Hazel Nicholson for splendid poetry roundels at Coseley (who knew?), and my Dad (won't read this, doesn't do social media) for a magnificent collection of Southern Railway benches at Rye. Photos © their submitters.

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Markonthemaps (Mark Ovenden) @markonthemaps.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

#OTD 100 years ago, 7 new #Underground stations opened serving #SouthLondon. With beautiful modern designs by #CharlesHolden and escalators to all platforms, it was a huge boon to southern suburbs and brought the #Tube to Morden. #TransportForLondon #TFL #Train #TransitSky

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 12/09/2026

AIUI they don’t, but GWR and LNER chose to add them anyway. Same goes for all Greater Anglia’s new trains. At the latter, GBR revinyling of the Class 720s has retined the yellow ends (even though not strictly necessary) so I assume the same will apply to ex GWR and LNER 80x trains. But who knows?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 12/09/2026

This is potentially going to lead to a strange situation on the inherited 80x fleets, which will wear identical GBR livery down the sides but with yellow ends on the ex-GWR and LNER fleets, and black ends on the ex-Avanti fleet.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026

I had not. Thank you. Demonstrates the awkwardness of the GBR livery with the swooshes all pointing the same way except the one on the loco which points the other way. Also the way the swooshes are just plopped across - and broken by - the doors on the carriages/driving trailer: jarring.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026

I think the briefing note (17 June 2026) by the Campaign to Elecfrify Britain’s Railway is a pretty good primer on the issues. Download from here: www.electrification-campaign.org/news/

electrification-campaign.org

News

New and downloads from the CEBR team

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026

Oh, definitely! Just seems like electrifying the track is less complicated than adding an extra power pack to the trains (deadweight when in electric wires sections of route), and also makes that section of track available to, for instance, railfreight operators with electric locomotives.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026

Used to be the case, safety standard has been superseded provided that the headlights of a train are bright enough. Some train operators have continued with yellow ends even when headlights are sufficiently bright (e.g. Greater Anglia, SWR), others have not (e.g. Avanti, TransPennine Express).

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026

As ever I appreciate this is probably the least important thing about this new train order (level boarding is ace, battery-electric rather than just wiring the non-electrified bits of track is very not ace) but you can get sensible experts for the important stuff. I just do what it looks like.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026

Ah - looks like we have an answer as to whether the GBR livery will include yellow ends on new trains, rather than just legacy yellow-end stock. I’ve never really understood why the default non-yellow option is black though. Feels like an all blue front would have been possible?

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 10/09/2026

Any other fans of weighbridges (is that a thing?) can run the following searches to find other stations at which they survive... Large (roadway) weighbridges: stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/category/wei... Small (usually on-platform) weighbridges: stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/category/wei...

stationheritageartefacts.org.uk

Weighbridges / roadway / Pooley / large with goods office – A Mainline Station Heritage Artefacts Collection

Posts about Weighbridges / roadway / Pooley / large with goods office written by Station Heritage Artefacts Admin and dwtransportwriting

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 10/09/2026

You know I love a weighbridge, so I will add it to stationheritageartefacts.org.uk as soon as I can. I am (a) delighted to find there are more weighbridges surviving than I suspected (though these large ones are still rare), and (b) slightly shocked no-one knew where they all were before.

stationheritageartefacts.org.uk

A Mainline Station Heritage Artefacts Collection

Celebrating railway history through sharing photos of heritage artefacts at British railway stations, old and new

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026

More Tube Trains in unusual places, this time Elstree, in By Tube Beyond Edgware (2002). Not the fault of a house move, just never quite got round to buying a copy until now. Fascinating diagrams and new artist’s impressions of the stations on the unbuilt Northern line beyond Elstree.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026

Hidden London (2019) completely passed me by. I knew the tours of course but seem to have overlooked that there was an accompanying book. It has really striking photographs of places on the Hidden London tours. A beautiful book.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026

A chance conversation with @rclongauthor.bsky.social reminded me that I had borrowed his fabulous Ryde Rail (2019) from a library while moving house. Now I have bought a copy at last! Definitive, copiously illustrated, highly recommended to anyone interested in the Isle of Wight’s Tube Trains.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026

From about 2017 I had a rather chaotic few years of house moves so my transport bookshelves were mostly in storage. Now I am settled again I am filling some gaps with books I would otherwise have bought at the time. Here then, are some (very) delayed book recommendations…

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026

One of many good reasons to move here.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 08/09/2026

I so very rarely have any regrets about moving to the most beautiful place in the UK (according to me); this might perhaps be one such occasion.

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 08/09/2026

I think @markonthemaps.bsky.social and @mrmappy.bsky.social talking about their new book sounds splendid. Unfortunately it's rather difficult for me to pop down from Orkney, so how about you go, then post about it and make me jealous? 18 November, 7:00pm-8:30pm www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mapping-br...

eventbrite.co.uk

Mapping Britain's Railways with Mark Ovenden and Andrew Smithers

This is a Stanfords, London event

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Gareth @gawuffy.co.uk · 07/09/2026

Gobowen railway station - once a key interchange for Oswestry and mid Wales on the GWR Shrewsbury to Chester branch - looking absolutely splendid, fully restored to its period paint scheme thanks to @railwayheritage.bsky.social. Bonus Rail Alphabet (I think 🤞) for @doublearrow64.bsky.social

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The Railway Heritage Trust @railwayheritage.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

We recently awarded a grant to the St Albans South Signal Box Museum to help them re-paint the listed building. That work is now completed and the box is open on the Heritage Open Days of 12 & 13 September 1000-1700. Do visit - they have a first class collection of exhibits.

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