GOBLIN stations gaining ticket machines

In preparation for the handover to London Overground, ticket machines have been appearing at stations along the Gospel Oak to Barking Line. Since most stations are unstaffed halts and only a fraction of trains have conductors, it means you'll finally be able to pay for journeys on the line. Stations where the two platforms have separate street entrances are getting two machines, even where they aren't far apart.

The machines aren't switched on yet. The operator details card says Silverlink, so presumably they're not going to be left rotting until November. The circle on the right looks to be an Oyster reader for topping up, but there's no sign of separate Oyster readers for touching in and out.

West London Tram officially dead

Ken has admitted defeat on the West London Tram scheme:

Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, today joined Councillor Jason Stacey, Leader of Ealing Council, to announce that, on the assumption of a positive government decision on the construction of Crossrail, the Mayor and the local boroughs will work together to address the problem of improving public transport on the Uxbridge Road, between Uxbridge and Shepherd’s Bush, via a bus-based solution rather than the tram originally envisaged. This is because Crossrail would significantly increase public transport capacity in the area reducing the need for a tram and making a bus solution more practical.

It gives a Crossrail completion date of 2015, so presumably they think it's practical for it to be under construction at the same as the Olympic site and Thameslink.