The opportunity has arisen to spaff your brand across the Waterloo & City line. Bring your dosh, share your collateral, own the journey. To be clear you don't get to rename the line. TfL's commercial mavens would love to do that, prostituting their most iconic assets to the highest bidder, but instead killjoys embedded in reality always kick up a fuss at the thought of deliberately inconveniencing the travelling public. But substantial tangible assets remain for full-on brand takeover, from all the platforms and trains to all the experiential spaces (which is the posh name for every possible surface we can smother). Please note that the Network South East branding on the edge of the platform will remain in place, so if you run a train company or if your corporate colours clash with blue and red this may not be the opportunity for you. A true prize in this takeover will be the opportunity to rebrand the interior of the trains. Passengers are often crammed in like cattle staring at the walls for six minutes at a time, so imagine the cut-through of your message on a twice-daily basis. Also don't underestimate the impact of reupholstering a bespoke moquette throughout the train. Nobody will see it during peak times because every patch of fabric will be arsed-over, but rest assured that influencers will descend en masse during quieter periods to share fawning reels of seating with a global audience. Also this is nothing new. The travelator at Bank has long been a fully-stickered brand tunnel, replaced every few months by another financial company in need of wider visibility. Nobody who uses the line regularly will blink if another all-encompassing message appears instead, it's been their everyday experience for years. Also this is really nothing new. TfL rebranded an entire tube line last year as part of promotion for a new smartphone feature, earning £830,000 for a two week takeover. This limp splash has been the exemplar for tube line renaming in TfL's Commercial partnerships Opportunities catalogue since April 2024, so don't look all surprised when it's suddenly proposed to do this to the Waterloo & City. Remember that every penny earned in sponsorship is ploughed back into London's transport system, which has often been used as a reason to do a lot more of this kind of thing. However it's worth remembering that a million quid is peanuts in the world of London transport, not even enough to keep the cheapest Superloop bus route on the road. Also a lot of the money effectively pays the salaries of TfL's commercial flunkeys who churn out brand-obsessed bolx and social media posts sprinkled with emojis, so is essentially wasted. And if you do decide to go ahead with a bid, remember that smothering a few platforms with sloganed vinyl with isn't always the word of mouth success your planners hoped. Nobody recalls last year's rebrand of the Circle line, nor the underlying campaign, nor dashed out to buy a new phone as a result. Sponsor the Waterloo & City line and you may just end up pouring millions down the Drain.

The most visited attractions in each English county Visit England) [data is for 2024] Bedfordshire: Whipsnade Zoo, Wrest Park, Shuttleworth Collection Berkshire: Windsor Great Park, Windsor Castle, Basildon Park Bristol: Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol Zoo, Wake the Tiger Buckinghamshire: Cliveden, Stowe, Bletchley Park Cambridgeshire: Fitzwilliam Museum, IWM Duxford, Anglesey Abbey Cheshire: Chester Zoo, Tatton Park, Chester Cathedral Cornwall: Eden Project, St Michael's Mount, Tintagel Castle County Durham: Beamish, Durham Cathedral, Locomotion Cumbria: Windermere Lake Cruises, Ullswater Steamers, Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway Derbyshire: Chatsworth, Calke Abbey, Hardwick Hall Devon: Plymouth Aquarium, RHS Garden Rosemoor, Killerton House Dorset: Kingston Lacy, Corfe Castle, Tank Museum East Riding of Yorkshire: Beverley Minster, Bayle Museum, Wassand Hall East Sussex: Brighton Pier, Sheffield Park Garden, Knockhatch Essex: Adventure Island Southend, RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Southend Pier Gloucestershire: National Arboretum, WWT Slimbridge, Dyrham Park Greater London: British Museum, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern Greater Manchester: Manchester Central Library, The Lowry, Manchester Museum Hampshire: Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Marwell Zoo, Mottisfont Abbey Herefordshire: Hereford Cathedral, Croft Castle, Berrington Hall Hertfordshire: St Albans Museum, NHM Tring, Verulamium Museum Isle of Wight: Osborne House, Blackgang Chine, Carisbrooke Castle Kent: Canterbury Cathedral, Leeds Castle, The Beaney Lancashire: Mrs Dowson's Ice Cream Dairy, RSPB Leighton Moss, Pendle Heritage Centre Leicestershire: National Space Centre, Leicester Museum, Leicester Guildhall Lincolnshire: Belton House, Rand Farm Park, Skegness Natureland Merseyside: Museum of Liverpool, World Museum Liverpool, Knowsley Safari Park Norfolk: Blickling Hall, BeWILDerwood, Wroxham Barns North Yorkshire: National Railway Museum, York Minster, RHS Harlow Carr Northamptonshire: Canons Ashby, Wellingborough Museum, Lyveden Northumberland: Alnwick Castle, Wallington House, Cragside Nottinghamshire: Wollaton Hall, Nottingham Castle, Newstead Abbey Oxfordshire: Blenheim Palace, Ashmolean Museum, Bodleian Libraries Rutland: Barnsdale Gardens, Lyddington Bede House, Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue Shropshire: Attingham Park, RAF Museum Cosford, Blists Hill Somerset: Roman Baths, Tyntesfield, Bath Abbey South Yorkshire: Cannon Hall Museum, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Millennium Gallery Staffordshire: Trentham Estate, National Memorial Arboretum, Shugborough Suffolk: Abbey Gardens, Ickworth, Sutton Hoo Surrey: RHS Wisley, Polesden Lacey, Bocketts Farm Park Tyne & Wear: BALTIC Centre, Great North Museum, Sunderland Museum Warwickshire: Shakespeare's Birthplace, Charlecote Park, Baddesley Clinton West Midlands: Midlands Arts Centre, Black Country Living Museum, Dudley Zoo West Sussex: Wakehurst, Nymans, Chichester Cathedral West Yorkshire: Royal Armouries Museum, Ogden Water Country Park, Nostell Priory Wiltshire: Stonehenge, Longleat, Stourhead Worcestershire: Croome Park, Hanbury Hall, Severn Valley Railway I've counted and there are only seven counties where I've been to the full top three. Meanwhile there are twelve counties where I haven't visited any of the top three. Must try harder.

What's the best thing TfL ever did? anniversary poster series highlights several major achievements across the last 25 years, but they haven't released one for each year, not yet anyway. So I had a go at selecting annual highlights. 2000  Tramlink 2001  Bus Saver tickets 2002  Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003  Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004  Legible London 2005  Accessible buses 2006  Baby on board badge 2007  Overground 2008  Priority seating 2009  iBus / New Routemaster 2010  Pedestrian Countdown / Tube aircon / Cycle Superhighways / Cycle Hire 2011  DLR Stratford International 2012  Olympics / Dangleway 2013  150th Tube anniversary 2014  Contactless 2015  Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016  Night Tube / Hopper 2017  Night Overground 2018  - 2019  Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020  Essential Travel / TfL Go 2021  Northern line extension 2022  Crossrail / Barking Riverside 2023  ULEZ extension 2024  Superloop 2025  Silvertown Tunnel But which TfL thing is best of all? Let's take five years at a time and see if we can narrow it down. 2000  Tramlink 2001  Bus Saver tickets 2002  Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003  Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004  Legible London We can discount Tramlink because that opened two months before TfL was formed. Pedestrianising one side of Trafalgar Square was radical by 2002 standards but feels tame now. 2003 is clearly where it's at, and I'm going with the introduction of Oyster as the revolution that made travel so much simpler and still does to this day. 2005  Accessible buses 2006  Baby on board badge 2007  Overground 2008  Priority seating 2009  iBus / New Routemaster 2010  Pedestrian Countdown / Tube aircon / Cycle Superhighways / Cycle Hire 2011  DLR Stratford International 2012  Olympics / Dangleway 2013  150th Tube anniversary 2014  Contactless This is a tough selection from which to pick a favourite. Air-cooled trains were a revelation in 2010, as we've learned again this week. Cycle hire arguably kickstarted an active travel revolution that continues to grow. I reckon 2012 pips them both though, not the eternal irrelevance of the Dangleway but the fear that transportation would be the Achilles heel of London's Olympics whereas instead it greased the wheels nigh perfectly. 2015  Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016  Night Tube / Hopper 2017  Night Overground 2019  Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020  Essential Travel / TfL Go By rights Bus Stop M should be the highlight here, certainly given the paucity of some of the opposition. The new Woolwich Ferries were a floating disaster and rebranded Cycleways remain a confusing tangled web. I nearly picked 2016's Night Tube for the way it fired up the weekends, but I really have to go with TfL continuing to run a comprehensive transport network for not many passengers despite minimal fare income during a two year-long pandemic. 2021  Northern line extension 2022  Crossrail / Barking Riverside 2023  ULEZ extension 2024  Superloop 2025  Silvertown Tunnel This is a really strong list, as if Sadiq's TfL was finally getting into its stride and opening everything. And there can only be one winner here, 2022's utterly transformative Elizabeth line, which despite being ridiculously late Londoners can no longer live without. 2003  Oyster 2007  Overground 2012  Olympics 2020  Essential Travel 2022  Crossrail Oyster is the best thing TfL ever did. (unless of course you know better)