If you ever fancy a cheap excursion into Surrey by train, all without travelling beyond zone 6, try the Banstead Loop. It's not technically a loop, you have to get off and walk in the middle, also that's not an official name (it just passes through what used to be Banstead Urban District). But the Banstead Loop does spin by the finest racecourse near London, also it only takes an hour and ten minutes from Purley to Sutton, like so. Purley: This zone 6 metropolis needs no further introduction. Reedham: One of London's 10 least used stations (being quite near Purley). Coulsdon Town: Used to be called Smitham prior to 2011. Even fewer passengers than Reedham. Woodmansterne: Still in London, just, by 500m. Not in the village of Woodmansterne, more Coulsdon West. I blogged about the station and its hinterland in some depth in 2018. Chipstead:: Full bloggage two months ago. In short, the railway arrived in 1897 and a commuter village grew up in the valley. It's just the right side of posh, thus sadly no chip shop. Its finest feature is Banstead Woods, an expansive ancient woodland on the chalk escarpment. If you have the time it's probably the nicest place on the loop to stop off, but best carry on. Kingswood Kingswood is a sprawling non-nucleated village of ancient origin which was transformed by the railway. It's also almost relentlessly posh, with swirls of arcadian housing on large plots behind mighty hedges. The man who sold the local manorial estate to the housing developers was Cosmo Bonsor, a brewery manager turned Conservative MP who moved fast. He bought Kingston Warren in 1885, joined the South Eastern Railway Board in 1894, encouraged the development of a railway to Kingswood (arriving 1897) and then disposed of 640 acres of land in 1906. The turreted manor house was eventually bought by the BBC to house its Research & Design department, making Kingswood Warren the birthplace of stereo radio and Ceefax, but they evacuated in 2010 and the big house now does luxury nuptials full time. You'll see none of this from the station. impressively large 'kiss and ride' loop, a turnaround where cars can drop off stockbrokers on the way to the office, or wait to pick them up again on the way back. For a village where most houses own multiple vehicles there's no decent-sized car park, only a recognition that nobody wants to walk home if they can possibly avoid it. The sole watering hole hereabouts is The Kingswood Arms, another sturdy Tudorbethan mock-up, and beyond that a short parade where hair and beauty solutions proliferate. Until 2017 the biggest local employer by far was Legal and General, a short hike up Furze Hill, but their building's currently being turned into "a vibrant later living community with 270 specialist age-appropriate apartments", or old-people's home in the old vernacular. Money talks in Kingswood, always has. Tadworth Tadworth, once a hamlet on the Reigate Road, now a substantial suburban village for all the usual railway-related reasons. It's also the furthest you can live outside London and still travel in from zone 6, at least south of the river, such are the historic vagaries of the fare system. It feels like a proper community as soon as you step outside the station, or at least after you've schlepped up the ramp, with a couple of short shopping parades to either side of the cutting. The smallest outlet does repairs and alterations in a delightfully retro cubbyhole, and the largest is an actual travel agent with two staff ready at their desks to coax pension overspill into funding a short hop to the Channel Islands or the safari of a lifetime. Most notably the old station building has been taken over in its entirety by a meze bar called The Bridge, this being its location, with live crooning from Martin on offer every Friday night. We still have one more stop to go. Tattenham Corner Tattenham Corner, less than 200m from the grass that horses thunder round, where once seven platforms were needed to cope with passenger traffic on race days. Today there are only three, much of the surplus having been replaced by a long cul-de-sac called Emily Davison Drive, she being the Suffragette who threw herself under the King's horse at the adjacent bend. The austere terminus would have been rammed last Saturday for the Derby but is otherwise anything but, so heaven knows how the member of staff in the modern ticket office fills their time from (gosh) before 6am to (blimey) after 10pm. Just outside the station the main road actually crosses the racecourse, or at least the starting spur for the five furlong dash. It's amazing to stand there looking down across the entire course, the grandstand and the Mole Valley beyond, plus all the downland in the centre has public access should you fancy a wander. A huge pub called Tattenham Corner is elevated alongside, a true moneyspinner last week and with plenty of room on the front terrace otherwise. If you've ever been to the races here you'll know how glorious the location is, and if not be reassured you don't need a top hat or fascinator to soak in this scenic corner of the North Downs. Epsom Downs nine-platform terminus was needed to meet peak demand. Even the opening of Tattenham Corner didn't initially lead to a slimming down, and only in 1969 did British Rail finally cut the number of platforms to two, then in 1989 to one. What exists today is a runty platform with minimal facilities, the 1980s station building having since been converted to a kindergarten. What's more the last 400m of track has been converted into a redbrick cul-de-sac of about 80 homes called Bunbury Way. As a cunning way of alleviating housing pressure it's brilliant and as an additional labyrinth which passengers now have to negotiate before catching sight of a train it's pure masochism, indeed I only reached my departing train with two minutes to spare. Much more about the Epsom Downs branch here. Banstead: A single-platform halt beside a timber yard, accessed down glum stairs, not close enough to the centre of Banstead to be properly useful. Very nearly in London but not quite. I'm due to write about it as part of my 'One Stop Beyond' series so I won't say more now, not that there is much. Belmont: A single-platform halt with no redeeming features, essentially austerity writ large, just over the Greater London boundary. Sutton: This zone 5 metropolis needs no further introduction. It's not "the most scenic railway lines you can enjoy with an Oyster card" as MyLondon once dubiously attested. But it has its moments, the Banstead Loop, and you may never have been to any of it.

In April 2024 Sadiq Khan proposed introducing an express 'Bakerloop' bus route in lieu of a Bakerloo line extension. It was part of a proposed doubling of the Superloop network. BL1: Waterloo → Elephant & Castle → Burgess Park → Old Kent Road → New Cross Gate → Lewisham January 2025 TfL launched a consultation for the Bakerloop route and also covered a double decker with brown vinyl to promote the occasion. Yesterday TfL revealed the consultation results and confirmed that the BL1 will start in the autumn. • The northbound stop outside Lewisham station has been removed to help speed up the route. This leaves three stops in central Lewisham, one at Loampit Vale which is 150m away from Lewisham station, so it's no great loss. • Route 453, which shadows the BL1 between Elephant & Castle and New Cross, will have its frequency reduced. We don't know by how much. It currently runs 8 times an hour for most of the day. The press release doesn't mention a start date, only "the autumn", but it's almost certainly going to be Saturday 27th September because a separate announcement yesterday confirmed that's the day the contract to operate the BL1 begins. Subject to consultation, the next phase of the expansion would include a new SL13 service, travelling between Ealing Broadway and Hendon; a new SL14 service, travelling between Stratford bus station and Chingford Hatch; and a new SL15 service travelling between Clapham Junction and Eltham station. This is the map of 'Superloop 2' that the Mayor tweeted in April last year as part of his election campaign, but I've recoloured it. In grey are the ten existing Superloop routes, SL1-SL10. brown is the new Bakerloop route, BL1. (I've had to extend it to Waterloo because that wasn't the original plan) blue are the five proposed Superloop routes that now have a number, SL11-SL15. SL11: North Greenwich → Woolwich → Thamesmead → Abbey Wood 472. It will in fact replace route 472 but only stop in select locations, with other routes picking up the slack at unserved stops inbetween. Introducing it will actually save TfL some money. The consultation for the SL11 closed in April. SL12: Gants Hill → Romford → Elm Park → Rainham 66, which from experience is already pretty speedy as it hurtles along the A12. The eastern end will be a very welcome north-south link in a borough whose railways run west-east and where existing bus routes have a tendency to meander rather than run direct. Most innovatively the Rainham terminus will be at the remote estuarine Ferry Lane industrial estate. The consultation for the SL12 closed in May. SL13: Ealing Broadway → Hanger Lane → Brent Cross → Hendon 112, and quite what it means for the frequency of that route remains to be seen. SL14: Stratford → Walthamstow → Chingford Hatch 69/97 corridor out of Stratford and then entirely replace the 357, but only the consultation will tell us that. SL15: Clapham Junction → Eltham I see we've abandoned all pretence that Superloop routes are numbered in a logical way. The first ten were supposedly numbered clockwise starting in the north, whereas these five are numbered all over the place in order of introduction. yellow routes, notionally SL16-SL20, which could/should follow on later. • Harrow to Barnet (via Edgware): There are many possible routes from Harrow to Edgware so the chosen path is hard to call but I suspect it'll follow the 186, then the 384 from Edgware to Barnet. • Barnet to Chingford (via Enfield): This outer orbital will probably shadow the 307 to Enfield, then 313 to Chingford, maybe. • Richmond to Wimbledon (via Roehampton): This'll head round the east side of Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common, most likely shadowing the 493 and then the 93. • Ealing Broadway to Kingston (via Richmond): This is plainly an express 65, a busy frequent route on roads often clogged and slow, so it's not clear how it'd be much faster. • Hounslow to Hammersmith (via Great West Road): The clue here is 'via Great West Road' which strongly suggests an express H91, potentially also using the A4 to skip the traffic in Chiswick. maybe twenty, and even less of a Loop than it ever was.

We were saddened to learn that Kimiko Nishimoto, known for absurdist self-portraits, passed away on June 9, 2025. She was 97. Nishimoto’s creative journey began, unexpectedly, at the age of 72 when she decided to take a photography class. She immediately fell in love with the medium and began taking humorous, comical and sometimes surreal […] Related posts: 89-Year Old Kimiko Nishimoto Loves Taking Humorous Self-Portraits Immerse Yourself in Cyberpunk Tokyo with this Visual Project by Cody Ellingham Speed Sketched People of Tokyo by Hama-House