North Of Piccadilly Circus
I don’t really know, that you should call that area north of Piccadilly Circus, between Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, but I went there yesterday and a run-down set of streets has been transformed by pedestrianisation and some new construction.
Even Regent Street itself, seems better, with the Diamond Jubilee banners and refurbishment. I suppose this pedestrianisation follows on from the scheme done for the Olympics around the Circus itself.
The Hackney Downs Information Board
I’ve used Hackney Downs station twice in the last few days, and on Friday, I noticed this information board for the first time.
The Hackney Downs Information Board
There doesn’t seem to be any information on the buses on it, but the stops are obvious and as is typical with Transport for London, they have all the bus information you need. There was also at least one bus spider map inside the station.
This board is also placed in such an obvious place, that you can’t miss it.
I wonder how many stations would score less than Hackney Downs on their information?
Merrily We Roll Along
I came back from Walthamstow on Friday on one of Greater Anglia‘s ubiquitous Class 317 trains.
A Greater Anglia Class 317 Train
They may look to be scrapheap-ready trains from the 1980s, ripe for replacement with shiny new expensive trains. Incidentally, the train in the picture is one of the last ones built in 1987, so it’s a comparative youngster compared to some.
But underneath the tired paintwork and uncomfortable seating, there is a legendary Mark 3 coach struggling to get out. These coaches used in the InterCity 125 and in many other trains, were made as early as the 1970s and most are still running in 2013.
The Class 317 is closely related to the Class 455, some of which have been refurbished by South West Trains to a very high standard. I talked about them here.
It looks like these 317s are going to get their own version of the Class 455 refurbishment. it is reported here in Wikipedia. Work is ongoing to create a prototype with new and more efficient traction equipment and a new interior to test passenger reaction.
So yet again, it looks like more Mark 3 coaches will be emerging from their chrysalis. The Wikipedia article talks of increasing the life of the trains by twenty years. Not bad considering that many of them are over thirty years old now!
The InterCity 125 is well-known as a design classic of Kenneth Grange. But who’d have thought that the humble coaches in the middle, would still be having a laugh at everybody’s expense nearly fifty years after they were designed.
A Blue Plaque In Stepney
I found this blue plaque as I walked back to the Overground from the river.
A Blue Plaque In Stepney
Sir William Henry Perkin, FRS 4 July 1907) was an English chemist best known for his discovery, at the age of 18, of the first aniline dye, mauveine. So it is not just today, when people create something amazing before their twentieth birthday! But how many today do such work, when they were born into relatively humble circumstances?
He was certainly one of the world’s greatest chemists. He is even commemorated by the Americans with the Perkin Medal.
The Beach At Wapping
In the sun on Friday, I went for a walk by the river.
The Beach At Wapping
It was a surprising large and clean beach at Wapping.
Manchester In The Slow Lane
An article published in The Times today says that a survey has shown that Coventry is the speediest city in the UK.
It also says Manchester is the slowest!
Could it be that Manchester has a terrible bus system, with little information and single door buses, that take forever to load and unload passengers? So buses waiting at stops, slow everybody down. I commented on the public transport system in Manchester here.
A Day Not To Be Alone
I’m not moaning, but I don’t think today, is going to be a good day.
I quite like my own company, but on a day like this when it’s only 16°C, overcast and the sun is on strike, there isn’t much to do. You can only go round your favourite museums and galleries so many times and it’s not the day to explore parts of London, I don’t know well at all.
My son and his partner are both working and where my three grandchildren I never see are, I know not. Two I’ve never seen and I’ve not really seen the only granddaughter since the death of my son.
There isn’t even any decent football or cricket on the television. Although after cricket yesterday, I would probably give that a miss if it were on. I won’t be watching the Derby on the television, as it’s on Channel 4 and I don’t do adverts. I’ll probably go down the betting shop at the corner to watch the race, if I’m at home.
I’ve even done all my household chores, washed my smalls, tested my INR and had my weekly bath. The last is actually a lie, as I do bath more frequently than that!
We’ve also had a run of distinctly poor films over the last few weeks, so going to the cinema is probably not an option.
I’ve a choice of things to do for the rest of the day.
I can go and have lunch in Carluccio’s at the Angel and do a bit of food shopping for tomorrow. But I was there last night with a friend.
I will have to go and get a few things at the shops anyway. The most pressing is probably two boxes of man-sized tissues for my permanently running nose. At least, I’m probably down to a box a week now!
At least this evening, I can watch a program on BBC3 called England’s Worst Football Team. Now there’s a program for the lonely and miserable if ever there was one.
I could really put the cap on the weather, by giving up on one of my principles. I’ve never had a raincoat since I was about twenty or so. As I can afford it, I should perhaps go and buy one that I could wear over my favourite jacket. I can at least afford the best!
I think, it’s probably a good idea to do some cooking. I need to make a pie on the one to eat and one for the freezer basis. My only problem is to decide on the flavour to make. Should it be fish, fish, shepherd’s or sausage? Or perhaps a new variety!
Are Google Adverts Sometimes A Waste Of Time?
I buy a lot of things on-line.
Three companies I deal with this way are East Coast Trains, John Lewis and Southern Railway.
As when I want to go to any of these companies web site, I know where to look, surely displaying their embedded adverts in other web sites is a waste of time for me and that advert won’t get me to use their company, as I would anyway.
So they are just preaching to the converted!
Interestingly, I’ve only ever got train company adverts from companies that I use.
So how much of the money paid by companies to Google to promote companies and products is wasted?
Incidentally, I think, I’ve only ever bought one product because of an advert on a web page. I have though thought, that I won’t use that company or product because of their intrusive adverts.
But then i like to think I’m not susceptible to advertising. Or at least in the way that advertisers want me to be!
Belgians Give Up On Fyra
The Belgian government has pulled out of the Fyra project to run high speed trains between Brussels and Amsterdam. It’s reported here.
This sorry story has a lot of lessons for governments, who try to implement large projects.
Building railway lines and in particular high-speed lines is not difficult, except for the odd local political and environmental problems, as HS1 found in Kent and HS2 is now finding. But the actual line generally works well from an engineering perspective, with the possible exception of the Wenzhou crash in China, where signalling may have been at fault. None of the high speed train crashes in this country, were caused by engineering problems on new lines.
The main problems with Fyra are all about using new unproven trains. No sensible project manager would ever use unproven technology at the heart of a new project. You could argue, that Boeing used an unproven battery system on the Dreamliner. But look what happened there!
The other major problem with Fyra is that they discontinued the traditional services between towns like The Hague and Brussels, thus alienating a lot of their target market.
So when you do a large project, make sure that it fits the aspirations of your customers.
If we look at HS2 to Birmingham, the technology to be used to build the line will be very much proven, as hopefully will be the trains, which will probably be derived from something that is working well in the UK or Europe.
The line too, will be an addition to the current services between the two cities. This in itself removes a lot of risk from this line, as say there is a problem that cuts capacity on HS2, you don’t have only one basket for your eggs. I also believe the competition from such as Chiltern and Virgin trains and their successors, will make sure that HS2 is competitive and reliable. Those two services, will also act as valuable feeder services to HS2, as say you live in Banbury and want to go to Leeds, you’d hop to Moor Street station in Birmingham and then take HS2 to Leeds, when that section of the line is completed.
The Anonymous Widower 