Blackpool And Huddersfield May Get Direct Services To London
I’m leaving the may in the title, as nothing is cast in stone yet, but according to this article, Network Rail have found the space to squeeze direct services to Blackpool and Huddersfield from London into the schedule, by a new train operator called Great North Western Railway.
The services won’t be running until 2017 at the earliest, as trains have to be ordered and built.
And who knows what will happen in the negotiations?
The Project Manager’s Lot Is Not An Easy One
I found this article on the Rail Engineer site and it describes in detail how the project managers at Network Rail reinstated the Todmorden Curve.
This paragraph talks about the checks that needed to be done before a level crossing was eliminated.
And then there’s the new footbridge. Sorry, didn’t I mention that? Previous usage surveys suggested that Dobroyd crossing was visited only by occasional dog-walkers; nobody expected any great issue with closing it. But due diligence demanded that another survey was conducted, with the crossing being monitored by CCTV around-the-clock for ten days. Initially the team didn’t believe the results: they suggested peaks of 150 users daily, most of them being children. Only then did it become clear that an activity centre had opened at nearby Dobroyd Castle in 2009 and the chosen route to get groups up there was over the railway. This launched the crossing’s risk assessment score into the north-west’s top ten.
Nothing is as simple as it is first thought!
Liverpool University’s New London Campus Shows Itself
I walked past Liverpool University’s new London campus in Finsbury Square yesterday. The signs now show some details of the new tenant.
It is just round the corner from Broadgate and Liverpool Street station.
A Little Alone Time For Roy
This headline accompanied a picture of Roy Hodgson walking by the waterfront by the team’s hotel in Rio.
Managing footballers and especially those as well-paid as today’s England team, is probably not an easy job. I got to wondering, how the players were reacting to Roy’s apparent calmness.
So I looked up Sir Alf Ramsey’s obituary in the Guardian. Talking about his playing career, they said this of Sir Alf.
He was a calming and reassuring influence on the whole team.
So one could probably assume that he managed his teams in a similar way. We do know from the likes of Ian Callaghan, that Sir Alf fought to get the best for his players, and it was probably partly from Sir Alf’s pushing that the whole England squad from 1966 got winner’s medals. Even if he got his posthumously.
I don’t think that for the England team to get worked up will do them any good.
So is Roy doing his best to keep total calm in the camp? After all he has been to World Cup Finals before with Switzerland in 1994. So he probably knows more about motivating a side in the World Cup than any of the public! Or the pundits!
A Ticket Machine With A Canopy
I saw this ticket machine at Canonbury Road and Barnsbury Station yesterday.
A Ticket Machine With A Canopy
It’s certainly more customer-protective than those on the Edinburgh Tram
Is Molley The Runt Of The Litter?
I don’t know what the collective noun is for tunnel boring machines. But if it is litter, then surely Molley is the runt. According to this article in Construction Index she is the smallest machine used in the construction of Crossrail.
TBM Molley will build a new Thames Water sewer in west London. She is just 1.45m in diameter and 3.3m long. The main TBMs digging the train tunnels, by contrast, are 7.1m diameter and 150m long. Molley is too small to carry workers on board so is controlled remotely from the surface.
Molley is being used to build a new sewer, as the current one will be in the way of construction works for the tracks.
My Earliest World Cup Memories
The earliest World Cup I can remember is in a book I was given about football, which included a report of the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland. Looking at the pictures I remember I was puzzled as to why some players had numbers greater than eleven on their shirts.
But the first World Cup Finals I remember is Sweden in 1958. All four home nations qualified for the finals and it was the first World Cup to be properly televised. I think there was high sales figures for large nineteen inch black and white televisions. This fragment on Wikipedia says this about the coverage.
The 1958 tournament in Sweden saw a greater range of matches thanks to the new Eurovision Network; the BBC and ITV both screened matches, although the networks had to overcome opposition to the coverage from the Scottish FA, who were worried that attendances at Junior football matches might be hit.
Just imagine the uproar now, if the Scottish FA tried the same thing.
1962 in Chile wasn’t shown live, but I can remember the iconic pictures of Ken Aston, who refereed the infamous Battle of Santiago.
Reading his Wikipedia entry, there is this section, which describes how he invented the red and yellow cards, which referees in football and some other sports use today.
Supper In St. Neots
I went to St. Neots for supper last night.
The ticket I got on First Capital Connect must have had the most bizarre restriction I’ve ever seen. It was an Off Peak return ticket bought with a Senior Railcard for £15.65. When I bought the ticket the machine said that I couldn’t use it out of Paddington.
How do you take a train out of Paddington and end up in St. Neots?
Coming back, I came into Finsbury Park station from where I came home by using the Piccadilly line to Manor House and then a 141 bus.
If there is one station in London that should be loved by a demolition ball it is Finsbury Park. There is a plan mentioned here on Wikipedia, but nothing seems to be happening.
I’m Disappointed With My City
London is one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world, if not the most multi-cultural city.
And I live in one of the most multi-cultural boroughs in London; Hackney.
So you’d think that there would be a big screen somewhere to watch the World Cup.
But I can’t find a public one anywhere in London.
For the last World Cup in 2010, Hackney had a festival with a big screen close to me in Gillette Square. It’s reported here on the Hackney web site.
I’m very disappointed with my city.
The Anonymous Widower 