More Players in Peer-to-Peer Lending
This article should be read before you delve into something like Zopa, as it gives a good summary of how the peer-to-peer market works and who the players are.
I think I’ll stick with Zopa for the time being.
40 Out and 34 In!
Changing trains at Ipswich gave me a chance to see how rail freight works at first hand.
I have commented before about how the amount of container traffic on the A14 appears to have dropped. The reverse seemed to have happened at Ipswich, where within minutes a 40 box train went towards London and a 34-box train went the other way towards Felixstowe. When I used to catch trains to London from Ipswich, you might see the odd small train, but not ones as large as these.
There was also a lot of shunting about going on at in the sidings towards Norwich, as engines attached themselves to the other end of the train to get to and from the Felixstowe branch. All this will be a thing of the past, when the Bacon Factory Curve is built to take trains directly between Stowmarket and Felixstowe.
The engine sidings by the station, were also full of Class 66, 70 and 90 locomotives waiting for trains.
I do think this is all moving in the right direction.
Where is the Camping Coach?
One thing I always remember about Felixstowe station in the 1960s was the camping coach. This was not someone, who taught Larry Grayson or Kennethy Williams how to act, but a real railway carriage converted for camping.
Suffice to say, it’s not there now!
But I think you can stay in some at Petworth.
A First Train Trip to and from Felixstowe
Despite living in the town for some years in the early 1960s, I think today was my first trip to the town by train. And also my first trip away.
I used to take my bike to Felixstowe by train from Liverpool Street, but I always got out at Ipswich and cycled the last twenty or so kilometres.
Today I had to go to the dentist in Felixstowe and as I can’t drive, I took a taxi to Dullingham and then took a train to Ipswich before changing for Felixstowe, arriving just under two hours after I left the first station. I was about forty minutes in the dentist and I was able to catch a suitable return train. Some don’t just connect, so you spend nearly two hours in Ipswich. But I only had to wait 45 minutes, so a coffee was able to fill the time.
Felixstowe station today, is little more than a halt at the end of the branch line in the car park of a shopping centre. But it has been converted out of the old station reasonably sympathetically.
It’s Gibbon Time
It was good to see the Goodies in all their glory on Saturday. C used to like them and was always amused by the references to gibbons, as were the children.
The Anonymous Widower 