More Trouble With East Coast Main Line Overhead Cables
It doesn’t seem to be long between occurrences of overhead cable problems on the East Coast Main Line. There have been more problems today.
What the problem was has not actually been announced,but it won’t stop the speculation.
On one forum, I’ve seen privatisation, re-nationalisation, installation of a cheap system in the 1980s and both the Conservative and Labour parties all blamed.
As someone, who has taken an interest in the line for many years and have even analysed things like signal failures in the old British Rail days, I do wonder if a lot of the problems are down to the electrification in the 1980s. Wikipedia says this.
Rail services are vulnerable during high winds and there have been several de-wirements over the years due to the unusually wide spacing between the supporting masts of the overhead lines. This wide spacing was a result of extreme pressure from the Department for Transport (as proxy for the taxpayer) to reduce avoidable costs when the line was originally electrified between 1985 and 1990.
With all the electrification scheduled to be done in the next few years, let’s hope we get it right this time.
When you look at British overhead wiring, it always looks flimsier than say that on HS1 or railways on the continent. But this may just be a simplistic perception!
Barcelona Comes To London
I took these pictures in Trafalgar Square before the match.
Everything was very good-natured. It also seemed to be more about photography, singing and hsving a good time than excessive consumption of alcohol.
It was very busy in Charing Cross station, but where were the signs in Spanish/Catalan. There seemed to be a degree of crowding as fans tried to work out how to get tickets to Wembley.
London should get this right before the Olympics. But then we don’t need to, as all foreigners speak English. Don’t they?
Child Abuse Cases, Baby P and Sharon Shoesmith
I’m not going to comment on the recent judgement in Sharon Shoesmith’s appeal, as it would appear that we have all sorts of groups and interests colliding in a Court of Law, with everybody claiming the moral highground.
I have just looked at the timeline of the tragic case at the centre of it all, Baby P. As I thought he died a few months before my late wife, C.
I can remember discussing this case in particular and many others in general with C over the years.
She often despaired at the ineptitude and sometimes downright indifference of some social workers and police and sometimes suffered mentally, as she tried to sort it all out as a barrister. Not that she did many cases as tragic as Baby P. She always said that she was lucky and could come home with a clear conscience,unlike many front-line workers. Not that she didn’t worry about some of the really bad cases she handled.
She would have argued that a lot of the problems were down to constant changes in the law, with large amounts of retraining, were cutting the efficiency of the very services, the changes were trying to improve. She would always tell stories about how she’d been involved where yet another baby had been taken into care from an abusive family. Some families were costing Social Services hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
So now that money to these services is being cut, staff are further stressed and we have well-meaning politicians shoving their oar in, I think it unlikely we’ll see much improvement in the next few years.
Sorting Out Fifa!
With the Champions League Final going on today, FIFA have missed an easy way of sorting out their problems.
At the match or even at half-time, they could have a genuine shoot-out to see who prevails. After all, FIFA needs a strong person to sort out their problems and one who could survive a shoot-out would have a genuine advantage. On the other hand an innocent spectator might get injured by a stray bullet. But I suppose there is always Paintball guns, providing the gunk inside is indelible.
The shoot-out could also be linked to the match in the event of a draw. But then who’d want dear old Sepp? And some of those involved in the hoo-hahs at FIFA, are probably so bent they couldn’t shoot straight.
A Good Reason For Not Owning A Car
As I walked to get the paper today, someone had broken down in an almost brand-new BMW X-5. The service van had just arrived and the driver of the BMW had that About-Time-To look on his face. As I walked back the service van was leaving.
I suddenly realised that doesn’t happen to me anymore! It must be a good reason to not own a car!
If my bus or train breaks down, it’s not my problem! When a train was an hour late recently, they sent me some vouchers, which I might use for a trip to somewhere exciting like Margate or Brighton. It might actually be Birmingham, as that appears to be hay-fever free at the moment.
Am I About to Pay for my Olympic Tickets?
When I log in to my Visa account, transactions don’t appear immediately. I do find this a bit strange, but it is the way it happens. After all if I draw money out of a cashpoint and then look at my account on-line, you can see the transaction virtually immediately.
So this morning, it would appear that there are some transactions to be processed on my Visa account for about £800. I did order about £3,300 of Olympic tickets, which may seem a lot, but I’ll never see another one and I knew I’d only get a percentage. So it looks like I may get about a quarter!
FIFA In Meltdown
Hopefully! But accusations are coming thick and fast. Not even the president is immune, if this BBC report is right.
To me, Sepp Blatter lost all credibility, when he failed to back goal-line technology, which in a similar fashion works so well in rugby and tennis. Read his Wikipedia entry and make your own conclusions.
I particularly like this bit.
In the 2006 FIFA World Cup after a controversial second-round match between Portugal and the Netherlands, which saw referee Valentin Ivanov issuing a record 16 yellow cards and four red cards, Blatter was said to have lambasted the officiating referee, and said that Ivanov should have given himself a yellow card for his poor performance as a referee. However he later regretted his words and promised to officially apologise to Ivanov. This apology was never given, and the referee was removed from further officiating. Also during the 2006 FIFA World Cup final in Germany, Blatter’s absence during the prize-podium event was noted and criticized in international media. It was claimed that the reason Blatter did not attend was because he was upset that Italy won instead of France. Blatter later apologised and said the reason he had shunned the presentation ceremony was because he was afraid of being whistled.
Let’s hope that FIFA sort out all of the accusations to every real football fan’s satisfaction.
The Anonymous Widower 