It’s Open House Weekend!!
I’m following an engineering theme this weekend.
Saturday
- Bond Street Crossrail Station
- TUCA – London’s University of Hole Digging
- Limehouse Accumulator Tower
Sunday
Obviously, I may add some more.
Walking From Manor House To Harringay Green Lanes
According to Wikipedia this is considered to be a walkable interchange between Manor House and Harringay Green Lanes stations between the Piccadilly and Gospel Oak to Barking lines.
Yesterday I walked it from the Manor House end and took these pictures.
It was a reasonably easy walk, as it’s all downhill. It was also very pleasant going into and out of Finsbury Park and past a cafe and a nursery, that sold plants.
Note the Manor House Pub, which was famous in the 1960’s for its rock music.
Coming back, I took a bus from Harringay Green Lanes to the Angel to do some shopping.
The Designers of the New Bus for London Missed a Trick Here
This picture shows the roof detail downstairs on the New Bus for London.
Roof Detail on a New Bus for London
The strip is just a moulding and design detail, but on some buses in the sixties and seventies, this strip was soft and if you pressed it the bell rang to stop the bus.
London Uses The Train Model For 600 New Buses for London
London has just ordered 600 New Buses for London from Wrightbus, according to this article on the BBC website.
Boris’s political opponents say he is wrong, but they would anyway, wouldn’t they?
On the other hand, what Transport for London (TfL) are using is exactly the same purchase model, as that used for trains in this country.
The trains are ordered by the Department of Transport, owned by leasing companies or ROSCOs and then hired by the train companies like Virgin. In many cases, the maintenance is arranged by the manufacturer or ROSCO and they guarantee to provide so many trains each day.
When applied to London’s buses, this must give similar advantages.
- Although, TfL are buying 600 buses, I suspect that this package includes maintenance and guarantees a specific number of operational buses. In fact, on the 38 route, there are nine in service, but usually one is kept as a spare, in case of failure.
- Are TfL selling the leases on to a third party? How many of those, who are against the deal, have never bought something on hire purchase or a lease?
- The buses can be used, where and when they are needed. Most routes need about 20-30 buses, so batches of the New Buses can be moved around, according to need. For instance, the passenger pattern may be very different according to the seasons, so buses might run on one route in summer and another in the winter.
- These buses will change as time goes on and owning them outright, gives TfL the opportunity to update the older ones to the new specification.
- I think too, that the single ownership, should mean that the buses will have a longer service lifetime, just like the old Routemasters and the Inter City 125 trains.
- It will also give TfL time to do a full analysis of bus design, operation patterns and costs.
So all things being well, I think this could be a good decision, that saves money in the long term.
Paying For Plastic Bags
There is talk this morning, that we’ll all have to pay five pence for a plastic bag.
I’m not against the charge, but a total ban, as some are proposing, would create problems for me.
I usually shop once every day and never take a bag with me, as that is just something else to forget, when I go out. As too, I have a gammy hand, I find carrying an empty bag difficult and have dropped a couple on occasion.
But the biggest impact on me would be on my kitchen rubbish system. Here’s my waste basket.
My Kitchen Bin
It’s actually a large plant-pot from IKEA. As you can see in the next picture, it’s the ideal size for the standard Waitrose plastic bag.
My Fuller Kitchen Bin
The trouble with bought bags is that they are far too big or too small for my bin.
I have designed my own bin and sometime, I’ll get round to making it.
The Anonymous Widower 