I Wonder What The Duke Thought Of It!
Glasgow has got past the first hurdle, by opening the Commonwealth Games without any obvious hitches.
It will be interesting to see how the Duke of Edinburgh rates the ceremony amongst the dross, he has watched in his lifetime.
I would rate it fairly high up the scale, but Glasgow had two big advantages over say the Olympics in Beijing or Athens.
All the proceedings were done in a language that we and most of the spectators understand perfectly.
But perhaps more importantly, Glasgow had one of the first uses of a 96m. wide video screen, which meant instead of training masses of drummers, dancers and musicians, you just set some good programmers and video editors to work to weave some magic. You then prayed that you didn’t get a blue screen of death like Beijing did in 2008.
Perhaps it was just to save money on costumes and performers, but Glasgow kept it simple and colourful. Which worked!
But will Rio do the same for the 2016 Olympics? I hope so.
They’ll certainly use the screen or perhaps two! Without doubt it was impressive technology.
Redesigning The Ugly
There are lots of everyday common blots on the landscape, that are just downright ugly.
Take the electricity pylon. In all my years of travelling, I’ve never seen any that could be described as beautiful. If we didn’t want them to spoil the landscape, we’d bury them, as happens in most towns and cities.
However, there was a competition a few years ago with a £5,000 prize to find a better pylon. It’s all described in this report.
I’ve not seen any better ones yet!
So now it is time for the designers to look at the overhead lines used on railway lines. The thoughts and ideas are detailed here.
How many everyday objects can be improved by better design and materials?
Liverpool Gets The Puppets Out Again
In 2012, Liverpool staged the Sea Odyssey: Giant Spectacular to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
On Friday, they’re staging another giant puppet show to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Great War. It’s reported here in the Liverpool Echo.
I wish I could go, but I’ve got to be here for my builders on Friday, which would be the best day.
You may question, if a free show like this is a good idea, as surely it costs a lot to setup. This is what Wikipedia said about the financial benefits of the Sea Odyssey.
An independent report into the impact of Sea Odyssey concluded it was the most successful event in Liverpool’s history. The report showed that 800,000 people took part in the event, which resulted in an economic impact of £32 million.
So it would appear that spectacular events are a good idea financially.
How much did Leeds, Cambridge and London benefit from the Tour de France? And after the Commonwealth Games, how many people having a holiday in Edinburgh, will now take the trip across to Glasgow?
What odds will I get on the French puppeteers turning up in Liverpool again in a few years time. Perhaps they’ll bring a puppet of Red Rum to the Grand National!
What Will A Reopened March And Wisbech Railway Mean?
It was mentioned in the blog on Rail News, that a study will look at the reopening of the route from March through Wisbech.
The main reason is that it will allow freight trains between Felixstowe and the North to totally bypass the East Coast Main Line by using the upgraded GNGE.
But will it create better opportunities for passenger services around East Anglia and the Fens?
Getting between Ipswich, Norwich and Cambridge and the North of England and Scotland is not easy, as it means a slow train across East Anglia to Peterborough or a long detour via London.
As an example, going from Ipswich to Manchester takes over four hours and routing is via London. I know a lot of keen Ipswich fans use that route to get to away matches, as the cross country routes are totally inadequate and very crowded.
In a few years time, the TransPennine routes will be electrified, so to get to Liverpool and Manchester from Ipswich, it might be quicker to travel via Doncaster, perhaps changing at Peterborough.
Opening up the route from March to the GNGE would allow direct passenger trains from Ipswich and Norwich to go via Ely and Lincoln to Doncaster.
Lincoln is getting better connections to Nottingham according to the blog in Rail News, so these direct trains might give East Anglia better connections to the East Midlands as well.
But of course, all of this thinking is pie-in-the-sky, as where is the money for shiny new trains?
On the other hand, there might be a glut of hand-me-down InterCity 125s from the Great Western and East Coast Main Lines, as they get replaced by Class 800/801 trains.
So will we see these trains working cross country routes and giving much needed extra capacity out of East Anglia and the Fens?
It’ll be a bit like your mini-cab company saying we couldn’t send the new Nissan, so we sent this immaculate 1970s Jaguar instead. Although the lines wouldn’t be high speed ones, they wouldn’t be slow and mountainous ones, like those through the North of Scotland, where these trains show how good they are.
Repening the line through Wisbech could be unlocking a real box of delights for the East.
Full Steam Ahead On The Railways
As they say the devil is in the detail and this blog post on Rail News has pulled together all of the announcement about rail projects over the last few weeks and especially those concerned with the Local Growth Fund. Here’s the introduction.
Rail and Metro developments in several parts of England are among the principal beneficiaries of Local Growth Fund deals announced by the government on 7 July, it has emerged.
Note that this post only deals with England, so Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could have extra projects to add, like this one for Glasgow.
Britain has seen nothing like this since the Railway Mania of the 1840s.
So what are the key points detailed by Rail News?
1. Birmingham gets extensions to the Midland Metro to link it to Curzon Street station for HS2, Adderley Park station and Edgbaston.
2. Wolverhampton gets a transport interchange.
3. There are further extensions and upgrades to stations and lines in the West Midland.
4. Freight interchange and distribution is to be improved at Daventry and near Cannock.
5.Manchester will get more trams and a busway in Bolton.
6. The article includes the improvements in Cornwall and Blackpool that I’ve already noted.
7. There is money for station and transport improvements in the Thames Valley to link to Crossrail.
8. There has been a commitment to link Reading to Heathrow directly by 2021 and also to look at southern rail access to Heathrow.
9. Reading will get improvements as the line to Basingstoke get electrified, including a park-and-ride station at Green Park.
10. Worcester, Bristol, Nottingham to Lincoln will get serious improvements.
11. The last one in the article is one I wholeheartedly support. It is suggested that the March and Wisbech route might be reopened. This would help freight between Felixstowe and Doncaster completely ignore the East Coast Main Line. I talked about it in this article.
If you look at the projects most are about providing better connections to outlying and forgotten parts of England to the present and future main rail network.
It looks like the Local Growth Fund awards total about £6billion.
The Anonymous Widower 