[second attempt to post this, so 'yesterday' refers to Tuesday]
[cross-posted to uk.railway]
"Mizter T" wrote
Martin Petrov wrote:
I took a look at the Westfield in Stratford tonight, and other than
marvelling at the size of the place, (which really is enormous) the
overriding memory was how busy it was trying to get out of the Stratford
City area on the 97 bus - tough to tell if it was directly related to the
opening of the shopping centre, but it took an absolute AGE to get from
the shopping centre up to Leyton. The roads from Leyton through to
Stratford aren't really of the highest quality, and I wonder if Leyton
High Road could be at a standstill at weekends.

(Orient were also at home - and this was 30 mins before kickoff, but I
can't believe this made much of a difference....)

Interesting - I was going to ask on here about how extensive the
associated bus route changes have been.

You're right - it is enormous. (And no, I haven't been there today!)

The half-hourly 12-car rail shuttles which ran from St. Pancras to Ebbsfleet
yesterday for the Westfield opening (they run again on Saturday) seemed to
be a bit of a flop. On one of the trains I used, Gensheet members (five of
us) seemed to outnumber 'normal' passengers. Of course, the interest for us
was the (first-ever?) use of platforms 1 and 4 at Stratford International by
passenger-carrying trains. Platform 1 seemed not to be set up with any
expectation of passengers arriving from the Ebbsfleet direction; the 'way
out' signs led me to an escalator going the wrong way, so I trudged up the
metal staircase to find myself outside the station (without having passed
through a barrier) just opposite the entrance to Westfield.