From Canary Wharf To Walthamstow Central
On a quick examination, Canary Wharf and Walthamstow Central, are both important transport hubs in their parts of London and probably there is significant commuter traffic between the two stations.
After my trip on the cable car, I took the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf, where I had a coffee.
After looking at some other things, I found I was running a bit late for lunch in Walthamstow.
I suspect the fastest way is usually to take the Jubilee line to Green Park and then change to the Victoria line. Using my mother’s rule on seventeen stations and one change gives 39 minutes. but there was one flaw, the Jerrylee line wasn’t running past Waterloo. At least, I wouldn’t have to walk miles in the tunnels at Green Park.
The obvious choice seemed to be to take a DLR or the Jerrylee line to Stratford and then get a bus. I chose the DLR, as I was nearer, and after a few minutes wait, I was on my way.
It was then that I made the wrong choice. The first bus to arrive was a 257, which treated me to a mystery tour of Leyton and parts of Epping Forest.
When I arrived late at my lunch, I’d taken quite a bit over an hour.
So what does the Tfl Journey Planner say?
It did suggest one all Underground route via London Bridge and Kings Cross, which was fourteen stations and two changes. Or 38 minutes according to my mother!
the others suggested were verging on the exotic, in that they generally involved taking a Central line train to Leyton or Leytonstone and then getting a bus. One even suggested getting off the bus and taking the Overground.
I think all of this illustrates the problem of going north and south in East London, unless you can use the Northern line or the East London line.
Crossrail might improve the journey a bit, as you should be able to reach Bond Street a minute or two quicker. But will the change to the Victoria line, require superhuman stamina?
What might help though, is if the services to Walthamstow are improved, when the Lea Valley lines come under the control of the London Overground. If the Hall Farm Curve is rebuilt, services from Walthamstow to Stratford could be of the order of twelve minutes, giving a time of Canary Wharf to Walthamstow Central of about twenty five minutes.
Tfl have the figures for the traffic, but surely creating a good service between Chingford via Walthamstow to Stratford would relieve the Victoria line, by giving those in Waltham Forest, an alternative route to Central London.
TfL haven’t published any plans for the Lea Valley lines and I’m waiting to see what they propose. If I judge them on the current Overground, it’ll have a few surprises and innovations.
Is This Going To Be A Beautiful Roof?
The roof on the Canary Wharf Crossrail station is coming on, as these pictures show.
Is it going to be a beautiful roof, using some of the best technology at our disposal?
After all, when Barlow, Brunel and Cubitt created their grand stations, they used the best and created masterpieces for us to enjoy nearly two centuries later.
Will they be joined by some modern masterpieces from Crossrail?
Canary Wharf Crossrail Station From The Other End
I’ve taken a lot of pictures of Canary Wharf Crossrail station, but never from the eastern end.
Canary Wharf Crossrail Station From The Other End
It must be the only railway station in the world, that looks like a gigantic floating ocean liner, built mainly out of concrete.
Over The Cable Car In The Sun
I haven’t been over the Emirates Air Line for some time, but I’m glad I did today.
The visibility was pretty good, although hopefully, I’ll find another cold and sunny day when it is better.
Given the right day, it surely is one of the best camera platforms in a city.
It also helped that I caught the cable car at a quiet Sunday morning. This could have been, because many were expecting bad weather and just didn’t go! But remember it opens early in the morning and even starts at 09:00 on a Sunday. So on the right day weatherwise, get there early and choose your time. I got a cabin to myself by being lucky!
Custom House Station Gets Ready For The Flat Pack Station
There’s been a lot of preparation at Custom House station for the arrival of the flat pack Crossrail station.
The most striking feature is a bridge over the site to allow pedestrians to get round it. It looks like it has a temporary lift. That is really something, as many stations don’t have any lifts at all.
Does Everybody Cook With Teaspoons?
On the wall of my kitchen, I have one of those IKEA pots attached to my spice rack. It is full of teaspoons, that are used for all of those little actions, you do whilst cooking, like measuring, stirring and raking out tins.
Does every cook have a quickly accessible source of teaspoons?
Many years ago, I was told by someone, who worked for a cutlery manufacturer in Sheffield, that the number of teaspoons they make and sell was much larger and totally out of line with the number of knives, forks and spoons.
Miliband Has Another Crazy Idea!
After his idea of freezing energy prices, which I think, anybody with any knowledge of how the energy markets work, will think is a non-starter, he’s now had another idea, which although on the face of it looks good, will have far reaching negative consequences if it is implemented. It’s all reported here on the BBC and it is well summed up by the first paragraphs.
Firms would not be able to undercut wages by paying agency staff less than permanent staff under a Labour government, Ed Miliband has said.
Writing in the Independent on Sunday, the Labour leader said the party would close a loophole in the law that allowed for differing rates of pay.
Mr Miliband said he wanted to tighten the rules to “stop a race to the bottom with workers coming here from abroad”.
If you take an industry like farming, which relies heavily on bringing in agency workers to harvest fruit and vegetables, the resulting increase in price of the food, would probably mean we’d import more food from places like Kenya. Farmers would probably only grow food that could be harvested totally by machine.
Other industries would probably be similarly affected and their costs would go up, meaning more higher prices for consumers.
One point that he seems to ignore, is what happens in a company if agency workers and permanent staff are paid the same. A company would adjust the workforce to have the best one to meet its needs. So permanent staff might come under other pressures to perform as well as agency staff, be they from the UK or abroad.
It’ll be interesting to see how this argument develops. I’d love to see a breakdown of where these agency workers are employed by industry and region. I suspect that we’ll find some important public services wouldn’t run without them.
You can’t bring in these sort of policies immediately. You have to phase them in gradually over a period of time. It’s like trying to ride a bicycle slowly, by only turning hard left and hard right, instead of by small movements on the handlebars.
My only worry about these unworkable pronouncements from Ed Miliband, is that enough people might believe him and vote for him in 2010. His deputy may be called Balls, but Miliband talks it in spades!
The Anonymous Widower 