London's next dead bus 118: Morden to Brixton Location: south London Length of journey: 9 miles, 55 minutes 118. for decades. The 45 by contrast has been repeatedly beheaded over the years, most recently a significant chop in 2019 lopping off the northern end from King's Cross to Elephant and Castle. Its route is now just five miles long and follows several overbussed roads, hence it's become a prime candidate for extinguishment. The plan is thus to tack the 45's only useful section (Brixton to Camberwell) onto the northern end of route 118, starting on Saturday. And because the public tend to complain more when lower-numbered routes are withdrawn they've decided to call the extended route 45 instead of 118. Here's a useful graphic I've knocked up from diagrams in the consultation. withdrew it anyway but having renumbered route 82 as route 13, and everyone thought that was great. More recently in 2023 they binned the 16, a route with a century-long heritage, but got away with it by renumbering the 332 as the 16. Now the 45 goes the same way, which means TfL have successfully managed to kill the 13, 16 and 45 by pretending they've killed the 82, 332 and 118. 59, which has been drafted in to cover the 45's southern dogleg to Clapham Park. The 59 is no stranger to Slight Terminus Tweaking having been diverted at its northern end in 2023 to cover for the withdrawal of route 521. Now its southern end also gets to endure STT, but only for three stops so it's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things and existing 59 passengers won't be generally inconvenienced. There is of course a map to help explain the changes which has been posted up at all affected bus stops. It's from TfL's Let's Make This Bus Map Unnecessarily Complicated department and I'd like to imagine the conversation which led to its rollout. Boss: We've made this map to show the upcoming bus changes which I'd like you to post up everywhere. Minion: It's not a very good map though is it? Boss: It's an excellent map, it contains all possible necessary information. Minion: But it's so complicated. Boss: It is LMTBMUC policy to differentiate between withdrawn, extended and unchanged sections of all individual routes. Minion: But it shows both the before and the after and uses three different kinds of line in several different colours. Boss: Yes, we always do this, whether it's helpful or not. Minion: Also you've only shown the central section of the changes between Streatham and Camberwell. Boss: Yes, we only ever make one map and then we stick it up everywhere. Minion: It's going to confuse the hell out of passengers. Boss: It ticks all relevant policy boxes. Minion: In particular it's going to baffle passengers at the 35 bus stops south of Streatham on existing route 118. Boss: All the information they need is plainly displayed in a tiny box at the bottom of the map. Minion: I've made a better poster for these people, look. Boss: We can't possibly use that poster, it does not contain all possible necessary information. Minion: But it's all the information these people need... use the 45 instead. Boss: We cannot afford to make two posters, we only ever make one and use it everywhere. Minion: It's still not a very good map though is it? Boss: Please go and post it up everywhere, there's a good chap. I have of course been for a ride on London's next dead bus, even though it isn't actually being withdrawn only renumbered. Starting in Morden. Now for the grand tour of Mitcham. First we pass the fire station and the tram stop, then the abandoned White Hart and the charred timbers of the Burn Bullock. Beyond the cricket green we thread slowly round the gyratory between Lidl and Iceland, past the extraordinary four-armed clocktower that looks like a character from Beauty and the Beast. It's worth saying that if you really wanted to go to Streatham you'd catch the 201 which runs direct rather than take a deviating dawdle on the 118, so that map posted up at all the bus stops here is properly unnecessary. It's taken over 30 minutes to reach Streatham Common station and we still haven't reached the section of route depicted on TfL's bus changes map. The common itself is two stops away. Here we join Streatham High Road, allegedly Europe's longest high street and still brimming with retail opportunity. Here too we join an entire fleet of buses heading north, this being one of TfL's busiest double decker arteries, and by the time we reach St Leonard's we are but one of six routes heading Brixton-wards. That said only one route passes all three of Streatham stations and that's the 118, thus of course next week the 45. Next week the ex-118, now the 45, will continue to Camberwell so I then did that too. A slow crawl towards the police station, then back under the railway onto Coldharbour Lane. It says a lot about passenger demand that TfL chose to keep three buses on this busy corridor - conveniently the 35, 45 and 345 - rather than simply binning the 45 outright. Coldharbour Lane has a typical Lambeth mix of dense Victorian buildings, grey flats and multiple barber shops, plus a call at Loughborough Junction for those who prefer a train. I alighted at the new final stop at Camberwell Green, and thus ironically the only section of route 45 I didn't ride is the one section that's being truly withdrawn. Because London's next dead bus is the 45, not the 118, whatever the inadequate publicity might claim.

You know what TfL's We Can't Be Arsed To Print That Any More department is getting rid of now? Previously the timetable poster at Mile End station would have included details of the first and last trains from the station, information which can be very important if you're travelling late or early, but now they don't. Instead the new posters urge you to go away and look up the first and last trains online. The top suggestion is to download the TfL Go app and look there, and the second suggestion is to go to tfl/gov.uk/timetables. If you use the QR code it takes you to tfl/gov.uk/timetables, so that's essentially the same as the second option. But if you don't have an enabled device the times of first and last trains have effectively disappeared. This is a poster from the southbound Northern line platform at Bank station. Trains start around 6am and run until 0038, it says, except on Sundays when nothing turns up before 7.30am or runs after midnight. Potentially very useful stuff, particularly if you're now thinking "what seriously, they start that late on Sundays?" To be fair this is the current timetable poster at Bank station installed in 2021, they haven't yet replaced it with a less detailed version. But that's the direction of travel. What you get is how long it takes to travel to the other stations on the line and the fact trains run every 2-6 minutes. But that's now all you get, not the fact that trains run from 0518 to 0106. My hunch is that TfL no longer want to print a new poster every time they launch a new timetable, which isn't very often but in their view every scrimped penny counts. One of these sentences is correct - please let me know which a) What's more if you launch the TfL Go app it doesn't tell you when the first and last trains are either, only what time the next trains are due and how to plan a journey. b) If you launch the TfL Go app you have to dig a bit to find the first and last trains, but at least they're all there. c) Thankfully the TfL Go app displays first and last trains almost instantly. tfl/gov.uk/timetables, a top-level index page, rather than one level down to the specific Jubilee line page tfl.gov.uk/tube/timetable/jubilee. It's a QR code guys, it can link anywhere, and you know anyone scanning it is on the Jubilee line platforms at West Ham because this is a West Ham/Jubilee-specific poster. tfl.gov.uk/modes/tube/first-and-last-tube. It's excellent, it has actual pdf timetables for every tube line showing the first few and last few trains, and what's more it was updated as recently as 13th January. A QR code which linked directly to that would be a lot more useful than a QR code linking to an index of umpteen different lines, and beneath that atomised hourly departures. But as of a fortnight ago, according to a user on Reddit, even Chorleywood has been switched over to the new style QR-code-only design. That is a proper abdication of responsibility, even down to the wording that says "For Chiltern Railways times, visit chilternrailways.co.uk". See photo here. n.b. I haven't been out to Chorleywood to check, or to any similar stations, so if you're passing through any of the following today please leave a comment and let us know. Still has actual timetable posterSwitched to timetable-less posterNot sure  ChorleywoodAmersham, Chesham, Chalfont & Latimer, Rickmansworth, Watford, Croxley Roding Valley, Chigwell, Grange Hill Amersham and Watford branches of the Metropolitan line with every departure clearly listed. These days they're only available as pdfs online, the printed versions having ceased in 2016 to save money, but they explicitly show all the details the new posters lack. Heaven knows why TfL can't print a poster of the Croxley-related info and post it up at Croxley station, it's hardly rocket science, indeed I'd suggest it's a false economy. Interestingly Overground platforms all still have full timetables showing every departure, now shaded using the colour of the line. I suspect this is because National Rail stations follow different rules so TfL can't ditch them. But it is a tad odd that even part-time Windrush station Battersea Park has a bespoke timetable poster to show its occasional services, whereas posters at Oxford Circus won't even tell you when the last train goes. We Can't Be Arsed To Print That Any More department is increasingly in the driving seat these days, claiming all the information passengers need is available on the TfL Go app or online. But it's often not easily found, or only discoverable by trying to plan a journey, or sometimes no longer available even there. There's also an assumption that everyone has a smartphone, which obviously they don't, and that the TfL Go is a brilliant travel companion, which alas it isn't yet. We Can't Be Arsed To Print That Any More department has no intention of making things easier for you any time soon.

45 45 Squared 4)MORTGRAMIT SQUARE, SE18 Borough of Greenwich, 130m Though much of central Woolwich has been redeveloped, a lot of the west end of the town centre remains relatively unloved. The far end of Powis Road is particularly desolate, including an outdoor car park, a row of deserted shops and a former Art Deco Co-op with boarded-up retail frontage. It's here we find the unpromising entrance to Mortgramit Square, a street descending beneath some flats, headroom 4.0m, guarded on my visit by a discarded Tesco trolley. The walls look modern but glance underfoot and half the width of the street is a stripe of cobbles, or as a tedious pedant would say "I think you'll find they're setts". Things don't get any more normal down the bottom. Please Do Not Use This Drive As A Toilet! written in red marker pen. I guess this isn't a great place to come after the pubs shut, or even before. Tucked back a bit is an electricity substation with 1932 inscribed above the door, from an era when municipal utilities took a bit more pride, and up above is a fantastic little enclosed bridge allowing free passage from one building to the next at top floor level. And all the time still cobbled underfoot, and still nothing looking in the least bit square, so what on earth is going on? Back in the 18th century when Woolwich was all about artillery and armaments this was the site of the Dog Yard Brewery, purveyors of ale to a willing military clientele. The owners in 1782 were the Powis brothers William, Richard and Thomas, three brewers from Greenwich, after whom Woolwich's main shopping street is still named. The western part of the site was repurposed as housing in 1807, a dense cluster of three barrack-like buildings known as Mortgramit Buildings and occupied mainly by low-paid labourers. The peculiar name came from the three co-founders of the site... John Mortis, a paintmaker based on the High Street Graham, a builder based locally Mitchell, a corset-maker based on Powis Street ...and I cannot tell you how long it took me to find that out. Despite the development plainly having three sides it became known as Mortgramit Square, and despite being demolished in 1883 it gave its name to the whole dogleg cut-through that was formerly Dog Yard. The new occupants were carters who needed sheds and stables, themselves replaced in 1938 by John Furlong who built a four-storey garage. The first floor was a car park (accessed via internal ramp) intended to accommodate customers of the two large cinemas recently opened a short walk to the west (both of which survive as hives of fervent evangelicalism on the Lord's Day). The remaining floors were mostly for maintenance and the caretaker lived on the other side of the road above a separate workshop, hence the bridge across the street. forecourt selling petrol, and their retro frontage seemingly still offers MOTs, auto repairs and a car wash service. Meanwhile Mortgramit Square duly doglegs on, still cobbled, acting mainly as a service road for the rear of the surrounding businesses. Chief amongst these is Rose's Free House, a proper corner pub, where I doubt the clientele often order the Fine Old Bottled Sherry etched into the back window. Rather larger is the First Choice Cafe, recently revamped from overfussy yellow to a more palatable black. But for the most evocative ye olde Woolwich experience try the narrow pigeon-splattered alley down the side of Plaisted's Wine House, now a Nigerian takeaway, squeezing beneath extractor fans and an old glass lantern for a grimy glimpse into when dockers ruled Dog Yard. 2018 proposal stepped things up somewhat by adding a 23 storey residential tower, but fell foul of affordability criteria and the intended demolition of a locally-listed building. Now there's a fresh scheme which retains the lovely brick garage and also the grain of the old backlane, but would erase the rest of Furlongs, the overbridge and a row of decanted properties on Powis Street. The tower stays. latest plan has passed a public consultation stage, whose documentation was rife with meaningless bolx about "a destination people are proud to call home" and "creating a sense of place and unique identities". If you're the minion who wrote "The unique and dynamic setting will greet people from the town centre welcoming all to the new sustainable community" I hope you sleep uneasily at night. But if all goes to plan there'll be 269 rentable properties on site, new retail frontage and a concierge's lobby where mechanics once greased axles. Woolwich would also get a new 23-storey landmark building in layered brick looming above the leisure centre and the ferry terminal, somewhat tantalisingly with an 8-sided cross-section. Although called Mortgramit Square it will thus be Mortgramit Octagon built on the site of Mortgramit Triangle, but then they never did name things obviously round here.

Walking the England Coast Path Eastbourne → Bexhill (10 miles) England Coast Path is a massive project to open up and waymark a right of way around the country, as yet incomplete. In most cases you could have walked it anyway but the signposts are a reassuring sight in areas where the route isn't as simple as merely walking along a cliff or beach. The most recent section is the 28 miles from Eastbourne to Rye Harbour which gained official status last month, creating a continuous path from Chichester Harbour to the Medway Towns. I chose to walk from Eastbourne to Bexhill because it's one of the longest stretches of the Sussex coast I've never walked before and because rail tickets to the towns at each end were briefly £3.50 apiece. These ten miles follow the shingle arc of Pevensey Bay where William the Conqueror landed in 1066 and are virtually all beachside walking, there being nothing resembling a cliff until you reach the Bexhill end. [14 photos] finest walk in southern England, so it was a bit of a wrench to stand on the pier and look east instead. My destination seemed very distant at the end of a long low curve, substantially undeveloped, with none of the excessive chalk undulations I was more used to. The start of the walk was all typical seaside resort, a promenade faced by elegant vanilla-toned Victorian buildings, not many of which are still operating as hotels or guest houses. One modern intrusion is a rotatable beach hut based on a telescope, the Spy Glass, though it's looking somewhat shabby ten years on with its colourful cladding missing. Being January it's hard to tell whether kiosk-owner Jon has stopped selling fish tacos or whether he's just closed for the winter. The first significant building is Eastbourne Redoubt, a circular Napoleonic fortress 68m in diameter, which for many years has been used as a military museum but is now closed pending longstanding repairs. Disappointed visitors may end up in the Glasshouse restaurant newly-opened in the bandstand gardens, or more likely in the less pretentious Splashpoint cafe on the far side. We're now far enough from the town centre to find a few sailing boats and fishing boats at the top of the shingle, which'll be Fisherman's Green, plus enterprising sheds selling the catch of the day. Eastbourne's bowls clubs also have to go somewhere, as does the town's last financially-endangered swimming pool, and of course the Wastewater Treatment Works which in this case have been cunningly disguised as a postmodern seafort with unnecessary crenelations. Best keep walking. On Eastbourne's eastern outskirts is Sovereign Harbour, a luxury marina development begun in 1990 and now (checks notes) northern Europe's largest composite marina complex. The outer harbour is all you see properly on this walk, a gouged-out tidal rectangle fronted by flats on three sides, not the three inner harbours and the inevitable retail park. Pedestrian passage is shortened if the lock gates are closed allowing you to walk across the top. I imagine residents pay a premium to live here but the apartment blocks are relentlessly unimaginative, a full mile of stacked boxes each with their own sea-facing balcony and a strip of communal shingle in front laughingly described as a private beach, so it's a relief to finally leave all that behind. And then everything changes, an abrupt switch from serviced real estate to a strand lined with fearlessly individual homes. The promenade stops too and those who wish to continue are cast out onto the shingle. The Coast Path appropriates a brief unkempt back lane past a caravan called Scuzzy's but then it too admits defeat and points towards a bank of pebbles because it's that or nothing. It was at this point I realised my onward progress might not be as fast as I'd intended and regretted having had to book a timed train home. I scrunched along the upper ridge, flattened by some vehicle with thickly ridged tyres, while to my right the pebbles sloped down semi-steeply to the sea's edge. There are only seven places on the South East England Coast Path with warnings that the path sometimes vanishes at high tide and six of them are on this next stretch. Ahead is the linear village of Pevensey Bay, not to be mistaken for the historic settlement of Pevensey with its Norman castle a mile inland (been there, blogged that). Here a long flank of cottages and newbuilds faces the sea while less hardy souls live a street or two back with the A259 as a spine road and a proper parade of shops including Rose's Fish Bar, the Ocean View Bakery and the 16th century Castle Inn. Scattered along this stretch are three Martello Towers repurposed for residential development, ideal if you want to live inside what looks like a fortified sandcastle with a glass rotunda on top and limited illumination below. Only about 50 such defences survive on England's coasts and this walk boasts half a dozen of them, including two derelict towers back by Sovereign Harbour and one more to come at Normans' Bay. For the next couple of miles I stepped down onto the lower beach and walked along that, it being substantially less pebbly, so started to make up time. I'd been careful to check it was low tide when I booked my train tickets and was now reaping the rewards. This was more like it, the English Channel lapping to one side and ahead a seemingly endless sequence of groynes to stride between. So steep was the shingle that I could only see the upper storeys of the beachfront houses, this because the bank of stones had been piled here as part of a massive multimillion pound flood prevention scheme... hence the caterpillar tracks I'd seen along the upper ridge. I passed very few other people, mostly those exercising dogs, and noted how the incoming waves gradually grew stronger as the bay curved round to face the prevailing wind. Initially I was thrilled to think that somewhere along here I'd be passing the point where the Norman armies landed, then thought again and realised not. This shingle beach didn't exist in 1066, the coastline instead indented to form a considerable inlet stretching all the way back to Herstmonceux. Only after longshore drift inexorably blocked the entrance with an arc of pebbles did this sheltered haven silt up to create the Pevensey Marshes, so now if you walk along the top of the beach and look inland you can see vast areas of lush grazing (and the inevitable golf course) beyond the railway. The hamlet of Normans' Bay is perhaps at greatest risk from rising sea levels, an isolated cluster of residential defiance whose beach huts and red phonebox may one day be unfooted by the waves. The longest uninhabited section crosses two sluices, their outfalls passing beneath the shingle and marked with red warning markers. It's so remote that two motorbikers had parked up on the coast road and walked down to the water's edge to unzip their leathers for relief, perhaps unaware it's Southern Water's job to discharge into the Channel. Eventually a finger of beach huts reappeared signalling the approach to Cooden and the tyre tracks in the shingle wall became deeper, this because one plank of the flood prevention scheme is to scoop up lorryloads of pebbles from here and drive them back to the foot of the cliffs in Eastbourne. Beyond the station a gentle cliff edge begins to emerge, an elevation which inevitably encouraged developers to build houses on top, so best stick to the beach if you want to follow Bexhill's promenade which starts abruptly beneath someone's back garden. I confess to speeding up at this point because I still had two miles to go and a train to catch, edging past well-wrapped retirees, determined families and dozens and dozens of dogwalkers on the promenade. I skipped past the illuminated stage where they were setting up for Bexhill After Dark, the town's annual winter lights festival, and strode on to the finest building in TN40, the artsy modernist De La Warr Pavilion. Alas I only really had time to walk up the spectacular staircase, inhale the grandeur, wait for cafegoers to get out of shot and take some photos before heading off to the station for my timed train. My walk might have been flat but I'd underestimated the effects of shingle underfoot, so I'd suggest allowing six hours if you try Eastbourne to Bexhill for yourself. Achievement unlocked: I've now walked all the way from Littlehampton to Hastings, approximately 60 miles 2024→ Shoreham →2011→ Brighton →2011→ Newhaven →2018→ Seaford →2009→ Eastbourne →2025→ Bexhill →2018→ Hastings

I made this graph to show how busy I was yesterday. 12-1am: In bed preparing to sleep [1] 1-4am: zzzzz [0] 4-5am: No, no need to wake up yet [1] 5-7am: zzzzz [0] 7-8am: Ah there's the alarm, wash, dress, breakfast, pack rucksack [3] 8-9am: Ooh Thames Water are coning off Bus Stop M, I could probably write about that later, buy newspaper, travel to central London terminus, flash my Rail Sale ticket, sit on train. [4] 9-10am: Watch the world go by, looks like I picked a lovely sunny day to go travelling [2] 10-11am: Approaching my destination an argument breaks out at the end of the carriage. A young couple, a beardy boy and a made-up girl, both maybe 17, he insisting he takes her phone, she crying that she didn't delete any messages and he should phone Terry to check, he increasingly suspicious, she increasingly anxious, louder and louder, an underlying vibe of menace/panic. Damn I'm going to have to walk past them to get off the train. The lady who gets to the door first turns to the girl and says "you should leave him", and this triggers the boy to further fury, "what business is that of yours?" Then he turns to me, eyes glinting, "are you her husband cos I'll punch you!" Oh bugger, I think, not again. I agree with the lady that she should leave him but I don't say this, I say "we're not even related", and he turns back to her and the doors open and the argument continues just as angrily as I head down the platform, shaken. [8] 11am-12: I've done the shopping centre, the viewpoint and the A road, now onwards on my chosen walk past the rescue centre, the sewage works and the over-regimented housing estate [6] 12-1pm: It's a lot quieter out here, take the high route, take the low route, properly remote now, lovely, this is why I came [5] 1-2pm: I only allowed myself five hours for this walk, I should get to the station on time, I need to get to the station in time, it's tough underfoot, keep walking [6] 2-3pm: Might have to speed up, will have to speed up, no time to dawdle, just time for a quick dash up the best staircase in town, my feet are complaining now, 12½ miles, phew [8] 3-4pm: Slump onto my appointed train, nice and empty, pour a cuppa from my thermos, look out at all I just walked, do the crossword. [2] 4-5pm: It always gets busier later, sigh, the guy in the seat in front is making phone calls then watching naff videos with the sound up, I daren't say something, the bloke opposite eventually says something. [3] 5-6pm: London's much busier now, hordes and streams flooding home, big crowds on the tube platform. A woman with a smart coat and a bag of gifts dashes for the train and her phone tumbles out onto the track below, a passer-by has to point it out, she's very grateful then absolutely aghast. Don't worry they have grabber things these days says her companion, he goes off to find a member of staff, she stands there utterly lost, even more so when he returns with bad news. She retrieves a card from her bag which says 'Happy 30th birthday' on the front, poor lass, her big day ruined. My second train is absolutely rammed, rush-hour crowding, Saturdays are the new peak time, long gaps in service aren't helping, I expect the sniffling student I'm scrunched up against will have gifted me some winter bug. Canary Wharf is ridiculously busy, huge crowds come to see the Winter Lights, the queue to see the big one in the dock oppressively long, seething walkways, thousands walking round like sheep, where's the fun in this, a sparse selection of artworks this year too, an increasingly blatant attempt to lure suburban families into local restaurants, stuff this I'm off home. [10] 6-7pm: DLR is busy, Bus Stop M is still coned off. Cup of tea, oven on, chicken and a lot of pasta in a mushroom sauce. [4] 7-11pm: Feet up, it's OK I know what I'm writing about tonight, tap away. [2] 11pm-12: Mug of hot milk, head to bed, I shall sleep well tonight. [1]