Is it any good?

Not if you don't like rain.


Quite: the overall roof is gone, to be replaced by narrow bush-shelter roofing
for those wishing to stand in a strict straight line whilst queuing. For some
of those who post on thsi group who do not like queueing, they will find their
liberty to stand in a huddle near the bus stop severly restrticted in wet
weather (no bad thing perhaps) unless they don't mind getting wet.

For the rest of us, when trying to get from one side of the bus station to the
other, we just have to put up with getting wet. Some buses are also moved away
from the bus station altogether, like route 8, which now picks up at Stop H,
which is a few hundred yards away from the bus station altogether along Wilton
Road.

Red Arrow route 507 is now half way along the ranks of stops, i.e. no longer
nearest the mainline station, which will mean hordes of people dashing in front
of other buses on the stops nearer to the station. The only reason I can think
of them placing this route there is so as to allow a straight line maneouvre
for the articulated bus, into and out of the bus station. Form what I recall,
there is only single-file traffic allowed, so when one driver decides to have a
half-hour tea break (or a bus breaks down), no bus behind will be able to
overtake it.

Removing the overall roof must surely be a retrogade step, in view of our wet
weather and, even in the Summer, the unbearable sunshine for those of us not
wishing to acquire skin cancer (something those refurbishing Waterloo also
overlooked, with its new clear glass roof, creating appalling heat and glare on
the platform area).

In the words of the London Buses inspector on duty there yesterday, when I
asked where to find route 8 nowadays: "It's at stop H, till they decide to move
it AGAIN"!

Marc.