Unfortunately, for many years that was the smoking compartment, albeit removed in the 1990s, not that the lack of gangways stopped people smoking elsewhere in the train. Clearly not a problem now.
It is somewhat of an aberation that scrap gangways from other stock were never fitted to the 205s, particularly once they became the only non-gangwayed stock in the 1990s. I appreciate that there would have been some thought that replacements were on the way but nothing was ever properly planned for Uckfield and Marshlink as far as I can tell. Perhaps the point is that the four units for Marshlink were done and the 205s were seen primarily as a peak time only fleet on the Uckfield line.
Maybe the future owners of 205028 could see if they could fabricate a gangway connection from some other stock.
It was certainly the case in the early and mid 90s that the four gangwayed units were largely found on Ashford to Hastings, with the rest of the 205s doing Uckfield. They weren’t confined to the peaks, though Uckfield was always pretty empty during the day.
I wonder if there was some level expectation that one or both routes would probably have been electrified.
By the late 90s / early 2000s there seems to have been little or no effort to keep specific units on particular routes, though 205205 seems to have been rare to Uckfield for some reason. The 2 and 3 car units also seemed to be used fairly indiscriminately by this time, meaning the peak through services could often be 5 cars vice 6, though I don’t remember ever seeing it go as low as 4.
The sight of 207017 at London Bridge LL in the new millennium complete with its tungsten lighting and Trojan moquette was certainly an anachronism.