London Waterloo - station, services, facilities, incidents - and some quirks / odd facts (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[JontyMort]

from Get Surrey - a list of "11 unusual things about Waterloo station you probably didn’t know".  I am sufficiently sad, old and fully read to rarely be surprised by things in these lists - but in this case 4 were new to me ... so sharing in case there are some new to you too.

I see the section about it being the last terminus to use steam is illustrated by a Bulleid Pacific. Note to sub-editors: this is incorrect, next time use a Class 91. 🙂

[Clan Line]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63175951

[eXPassenger]

So it's a dead end with a bit of old stock in it?

[Surrey 455]

I took a look a few weeks ago. It's a very long walk from the concourse to the Brewdog pub with only a handful of shops occupied in between. I wish I had used a stopwatch as when I got to Brewdog, I decided I then didn't have time to go in as I had to walk all the way back to the concourse and then walk from the twenty something platforms over to platform 1 to catch my train. The pubs outside the station are nearer.

Oh and I previously read somewhere that a pint in Brewdog is about £7. It's supposedly the largest bar in London and may be the only bar currently open in the station.

[Marlburian]

"There is an eerie silence in a shopping centre beneath London Waterloo, the station from which Eurostar trains once whisked people from the capital to mainland Europe."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

[ChrisB]

See Waterloo - the sidings thread for the same info

[ChrisB]

Duplicate thread started in the SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) board

[plymothian]

As per most 'new articles' others got there first.  Ian Visits wrote about this back on 4 October

[grahame]

See Waterloo - the sidings thread for the same info

Duplicate thread started in the SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) board

Now merged into this single thread

[Surrey 455]

As per most 'new articles' others got there first.  Ian Visits wrote about this back on 4 October

Some of the photos in that article make me think of 20th century BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) science fiction spaceship interiors.

[Surrey 455]

I took a look a few weeks ago. It's a very long walk from the concourse to the Brewdog pub with only a handful of shops occupied in between. I wish I had used a stopwatch ......

I am going to retract this comment as I took another walk there last week and it didn't take anywhere near as long as I remembered the first time. I think the first time I also explored the lower level before I reached the entrance of Brewdog which probably explains why I thought it was a long walk.

This time I started from the National Windrush Monument on the concourse, pressed Start on the OutdoorActive app and walked to Brewdog and pressed End. The app tells me that this time I walked 0 metres. That's probably due to a lack of a GPS signal down there. It also tells me I walked less than a minute which also doesn't sound right. I'll try again next week using my phones stopwatch

[CJB666]

Roll on when they get Sainsburys finished. They’ll beat M&S in prices hands down. Meanwhile am really pi$$ed off that both M&S and Pure refuse to take cash payments. What’s wrong with our British money?

[CJB666]

Brewdog’s £7 a pint of beer-flavoured water is outrageous. When Spoons can do pints of real ale for £3.50’ish Brewdog’s greed is unacceptable.

[Clan Line]

Brewdog’s £7 a pint of beer-flavoured water is outrageous. When Spoons can do pints of real ale for £3.50’ish Brewdog’s greed is unacceptable.

If I could make a little plug here ? Just over Waterloo Road is the Union Jack Club: Cheap beer (£2.90), excellent food, superb value accommodation and first class general surroundings. If you are an ex member of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) armed forces (non-commissioned) it is well worth its annual membership fee, just for a couple of visits a year to break even.

https://ujc.org.uk/

[grahame]

Brewdog’s £7 a pint of beer-flavoured water is outrageous. When Spoons can do pints of real ale for £3.50’ish Brewdog’s greed is unacceptable.

If I could make a little plug here ? Just over Waterloo Road is the Union Jack Club: Cheap beer (£2.90), excellent food, superb value accommodation and first class general surroundings. If you are an ex member of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) armed forces (non-commissioned) it is well worth its annual membership fee, just for a couple of visits a year to break even.

https://ujc.org.uk/

"The MOD has estimates there are 2 million armed forces veterans in the UK".  I understood at one point it might be possible for the other 58 million of us to stay there - not all at once, of course.