How To Redesign An Everyday Object
Electricity pylons in the UK are generally made to a design that dates from the 1920s. So National Grid, who are responsible decided to have a design competition in partnership with RIBA.
According to this story on the BBC, National Grid are putting up a test line of the winner to teach engineers how to put them up.
They certainly look to be an improvement, but after nearly a hundred years, you’d expect that!
National Grid has also put up a blog.
I like the new pylons and hope to photograph them soon!
Disconnected Croydon
Connected Croydon is a programme of public works to improve Croydon’s streets, squares and open spaces.
On Tuesday, I had a simple need to go to IKEA Croydon, which is served by the Ampere Way tram stop, to meet an e-friend, who’d seen my musing about creating a new IKEA Kitchen. We’d agreed to meet at 13:00 and as I knew the journey well, I took a timely train from Whitechapel to get to Croydon about 12:30, which would have given me time to walk through Croydon to one of the tram stops like George Street that are served by trams going to Wimbledon.
But there had been no warning that the trams weren’t running through Croydon town centre and an Overground employee told me, I must walk to Reeve’s Corner tram stop.
But I don’t know Croydon at all, except from on a tram or train passing through, so I got lost and walked to East Croydon, where a sensible man told me that there were no trams and I would need a 410 bus to get to Reeve’s Corner. But the bus information system didn’t call out Reeve’s Corner, so I ended up two stops down the line at Wandle Park, where the information system said that I’d hjave to wait twenty-seven minutes for a tram to IKEA.
Luckily, the display was wrong and a geezer with a clipboard, said that was par for the course, so I eventually got to IKEA at 13:30 or so, after my friend had had to give up.
I didn’t muck about coming home and avoided Croydon by going the long way round via Wimbledon.
Connected Croydon? Pull the other one!
Or at least put up some signs that can be understood by visitors! And a Tram Replacement Bus would have helped this simple soul!
On the other hand, perhaps, they don’t want visitors!
My mother was right, when she told me not to go south of the Thames, as you get lost!
Alliance Rail Are Thinking Big
In the UK, there is provision for allowing what are called open access operators on UK railways. This is Wikipedia’s definition.
An open access operator is a train operating company that is not subject to franchising, instead purchasing individual slots on the mainline from a railway infrastructure company.
The three most well-known open access operators in the UK are Eurostar, First Hull Trains and Grand Central Railway.
A new company called Alliance Rail, who incidentally are the parent company of Grand Central is trying to join them.
They are proposing to have two train companies Great North Western Railway and Great North Eastern Railway running on the West and East Coast Main Lines respectively.
Services which would be run using six-car Class 390 Pendolinos are proposed as follows.
GNWR
London Euston – Blackpool North (six daily)
London Euston – Leeds (six daily)
GNER
London King’s Cross – Edinburgh – (hourly)
London King’s Cross – Bradford/Ilkley – (two hourly)
London – Cleethorpes – (up to four daily)
In addition towns and cities like Dewsbury, Eccles, Grimsby, Huddersfield, Newton-le-Willows, Scunthorpe and Stalybridge will get direct services to London.
It is an ambitious plan and I suspect that Virgin and Stagecoach will use everything in their power to strangle this upstart before it starts.
Wytch Farm And Horse Hill
I couldn’t resist looking at the Google Earth images of the two sites.
This is Wytch Farm
Wytch Farm
The processing plant for the field is the two squares in the bottom-left or south-west corner of the map and the wells fan out for upwards of 10 km. The field even goes under the upmarket area of Sandbanks, so if anybody would complain, the residents from there would.
And this is the area of Horse Hill
Horse Hill
It is marked by the yellow circle. Note the sprawl of Gatwick at the bottom.
Both sites are surrounded by a lot of green field and woods, so I feel that a similar camouflage job could be done in Surrey to that done in Dorset.
Although as Wytch Farm is now forty years old, I suspect we’ll do a better job today of hiding it. It might be that directional drilling is used from a site near the railway through Gatwick, so that the processing plant could be well hidden and oil could be removed by train.
The New Stairs at Whitechapel Station
In a few weeks time, the main entrance at Whitechapel station will be closed and all entry will be from Durward Street at the other end of the East London Line platforms. At present there is just an Emergency Exit there. These pictures show the current stairs and the half-assembled new ones.
It looks like the stairs will lead up to the walkway, which goes across the line.
The Oil Find That Will Settle The Result Of The Election
I’ve believed for some time, that which ever party wins the election in a few weeks time should win the next election in 2020.
This belief is based on the fact, that so many large rail and other transport projects are due for completion in the later years of this decade.
The report on the BBC of the large oil find at Horse Hill in Surrey, is one of many that describe the find as of national significance. This is said in the BBC’s report.
“We think we’ve found a very significant discovery here, probably the largest [onshore in the UK] in the last 30 years, and we think it has national significance,” Stephen Sanderson, UKOG’s chief executive told the BBC.
Many will worry that developing an oil field in rural Surrey could be an environmental disaster.
A friend of mine had a lot to do with the development of the last major onshore oilfield in the UK at Wytch Farm, which is the largest onshore oil-field in Western Europe. The new field could be bigger, but all reports get their millions and billions mixed up.
Wytch Farm is not your average oilfield, as it is in the heart of rural Dorset by Corfe Castle. Wikipedia says this about the environment of the field.
Most of the field is protected by various conservation laws, including the Jurassic Coast world heritage site, Purbeck Heritage Coast and a number of sites of special scientific interest, areas of outstanding natural beauty and nature reserves (including Studland and Brownsea Island), so the gathering centre and most of the well sites are small and well screened by trees. Directional drilling has also contributed to reducing the impact on the local environment, with extended reach drilling from the Goathorn Peninsula attaining distances in excess of 10 km.
But the field would appear to have been an impeccable neighbour, more conspicuous by its absence in the media.
So I think the UK has good form in the development of oilfields in sensitive areas and there is no reason to expect that the development of Horse Hill will be any more disruptive than that at Wytch Farm.
The field’s biggest effect will be on the UK economy, if as reports are saying, production will start in a few years time, it will be producing revenues and cutting imports by the next election in 2020.
Circumstances have left the incoming government with a very large dowry.
They will have to be really stupid to lose in 2020. But then that’s normal for politicians.
The Slow Demolition Job At Highbury And Islington Station
I went past Highbury and Islington station yesterday and they’re still demolishing the old Post Office.
Has any other demolition job taken so long? Original gossip in the newsagents and at the station, said it would take a week. I first posted that work had started on the first of February.
I can only thing that the building is built with lots of asbestos.
An Historical Side-Effect Of The London Gateway
This story from the Southend Echo, tells about the excavation of HMS London. They say this.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC exhibition detailing the excavation of a shipwreck off Southend pier has opened to the public.
HMS London was first rediscovered in 2005 during works to build the London Gateway superport.
Mary Rose it is not, but HMS London would appear that it is starting to give up its secrets.
I shall certainly go to the exhibition of photos at the Beecroft Gallery in the town.
The Anonymous Widower 