Could This Be From Where Crossrail 2 Is Dug?
As I trundled along the Gospel Oak to Barking Line (GPBlin) between Blackhorse Road and South Tottenham stations, I took these pictures.
As the reservoirs to the east of all this dereliction are going to be turned into the new Walthamstow Wetlands, could this be used as the site from where Crossrail 2 is dug?
This image from Google Earth shows the area.
East Of SouthTottenham Station
The orange line is the GOBlin and the light blue is the Victoria line. The red arrow indicates South Tottenham station.
The area I photographed lies south of the GOBlin. Note how it is bordered by railways, with the West Anglia Main Line in the east and the double-track curve that connects the two lines in the south. Slightly to the south of where the two lines join at South Tottenham Junction, the River Lee runs close to the site in a south-westerly direction.
So the spoil from the tunnelling could either be used to help create the new wetlands or barged down London’s other navigable river to the Thames. When I worked for Enfield Rolling Mills at Brimsdown in the early 1960s. their supplies of copper wirebars were delivered by barge from London Docks using this route. In those days, the river wasn’t as clean as it is now, and there was quite a lot of commercial traffic.
Britain From Above has some wonderful pictures of the area from the 1930s here. This image shows the River Lee as it goes under the railway.
This modern picture from Google Earth gives a good comparison.
Note how the tracks on the West Anglia Main Line have been reduced from four to two by the closure of the easterly pair of tracks. Proposals for the line include four-tracking from just south of here to Broxbourne.
The large East Warwick Reservoir is just off the picture to the right and the timber yard is now housing.
The GOBlin is shown in orange on the second image and you can just pick it out on the 1933 aerial photo.
Orange Army Sighted At Lea Bridge Station
I was on the top deck of a 56 bus today and took these pictures at Lea Bridge station.
Could this mean that work is about to start on the rebuilding of the station?
Walking Between Walthamstow Central And Queens Road Stations
Walthamstow Central and Walthamstow Queens Road stations are not far apart and are considered to be an out-of-station interchange. This means that if you touch out in one station and then walk to the other to continue your journey, you only get charged for one journey.
It used to be tortuous to walk between the two stations, but in recent months a link called Ray Dudley Way has opened.
It does make the walk easier, but it is still not properly signed.
Note too, that it would appear that the eastern entrance to Walthamstow Central has been closed.
Farewell To An Old Friend
I’ve finally given up on trying to shut up my thirty-year-old Workmate. What my builders had used it for to bend, I know not!
So I put it outside the house with an appropriate note.
I suppose the fact that it got bent was because I broke rule one of dealing with builders. I didn’t lock all my stuff up in a safe place.
At least now, I’ve taken the decision to only have a builder in my house, when the project is defined down to the last nail.
It’s not surprising news to me, that we have a shortage of habitable houses and apartments in this country. Many builders couldn’t put a up a shelf on budget and to an agreed time-scale.
What is the collective noun for builders?
I would put forward a never-on-time-or-budget of builders.
Carol Kirkwood Probably Isn’t Popular In Katesbridge
Carol Kirkwood, the BBC Breakfast weather woman seems to have got it in for Katesbridge. For a couple of days now, she has highlighed the place as being one of the coldest in the United Kingdom.
The hundred or or so people who live there must be hardy souls.
Assembling My New IKEA Kitchen
I like putting flat pack furniture together.
The pictures show some of the units as I assemble my new kitchen.
IKEA says that assembling the frames is a two-person job. But if you think about it, if this one good-handed pensioner can put it together, then everybody can, especially with a helper.
My rules for success in assembling furniture like this.
1. Assemble the furniture in a large space, preferably on a carpet, close to where the furniture is to go.
2. If like I do, you have to carry the parts upstairs, for the heavier units unpack them by the door, where they came into the house. I’m lucky, in that my integral garage opens onto the street, so IKEA just put all the boxes there. I unpack them there if needed.
3. Clear up all the endless cardboard packaging as you go.
4. Use little bowls to keep track of the screws.
5. Have a large pair of scissors handy to cut all the little plastic bags.
6. I also use a magnetic screwdriver, which is useful for picking up screws that get stuck in difficult places.
The only problem, I’ve had is that I put the wrong front on a drawer and couldn’t get it off. IKEA actually phoned me back within three hours of an e-mail, but I still can’t get the front off and in trying I cut a knuckle on my right hand. And of course, my left hand isn’t dexterous enough to put a plaster on it.
In the end I found that this drawer front problem is a common one and there a very good video. IKEA should put up an even better one!
Incidentally, after my cut knuckle, how many people end up in A & E with similar injury, because they live alone and there’s no-one to kiss it better?
Now here’s an offer to anybody living alone in the vague N1 area of Hackney and Islington. If you are thinking that say buying and assembling flat pack furniture is beyond you, why not contact me. Two brains and four good hands will be better than half the number.
It’s Not Just British Trains And Buses That Are Run By Foreign Companies
Some people, especially politicians, who’ve never run anything more difficult than an office with perhaps one employee, despair that a lot of our trains and buses are run by foreign companies. They think they should all be nationalised.
But then there’s this article from the Guardian entitled National Express To Run Nuremberg’s Overground Urban Trains.
This is the second such contract, National Express has obtained and the article talks about further contracts.
As an aside here, German trains have a lot of characteristics that we have long banished from our trains and buses, like bad customer service, as I experienced at Osnabruck.
Hopefully National Express will impose some of the excellent principles they use on c2c between London and South Essex.
The Anonymous Widower 