The best way to get to know new places is by actually doing the full route of a particular service you wish to photograph.Most of my repetitive shots are ones from Darlington Town Centre but many of these are when I've been in Darlington Town Centre anyway and something rare has come round the corner and to get to places like Middlesbrough I have to go through at least part of Darlington, also in 30 minutes on Friday I managed to get 3 Solos that had transferred from Belmont to Darlo plus some odd workings. I have plenty shots of Darts which I can upload when Darts have long been withdrawn.
What you've always got to keep in mind is, whilst you may want to achieve originality, you've also got to realise that the clock is always ticking and the next repaint, transfer or withdrawal in the region is right around the corner... If you want to keep on top of everything, you may have to get quite a few photos in the same locations too. I think it's all about balance.
At the moment I want some different shots and I often ride routes and make notes of where I could get photos on that route, I thought of places when I rode the Sapphire X21/X22 a few months back.