It’s All Happening In Todmorden On Sunday
Where I live in London a few years ago they opened a new rail service called the Overground and the transformation has been dramatic. Not least in the rise in passenger numbers, but also it seems in the drop on the number of unemployed youth hanging around on the street. Perhaps, now you can get to that job reliably, you have got a better and well-paid one?
I don’t know, as it’s many years since I went job hunting!
But this Sunday the Todmorden Curve opens to passengers as is reported in this piece in the Lancashire Telegraph. If nothing, the locals certainly seem excited!
You do have to wonder how many other short rail lines like this could be re-opened?
Thames Tideway Tunnel Site – Victoria Embankment Foreshore
Index Thames Tideway Tunnel Sites Victoria Embankment Foreshore
The Victoria Embankment Foreshore is a site just to the west of Hungerford Railway Bridge on the North Bank of the Thames. The Thames Tideway Tunnel web site says this about the site.
The Victoria Embankment Foreshore site is on the northern bank of the River Thames. It comprises a section of the foreshore and a section of pavement and roadway on Victoria Embankment (A3211).
This is a Google Earth image of the site.
Victoria Embankment Foreshore
Note the two ships; the larger Tattersall Castle and the smaller Hispaniola. Moving the Tattersall Castle to a new mooring is going to be one of the first tasks on site.
This image from the Thames Tunnel web site, shows what the completed installation will look like.
Victoria Embankment Foreshore
It might look a bit like a Victorian memorial to an important Admiral, but it certainly could be made into an excellent garden with a unique water feature. I took these pictures as I walked over the Jubilee Footbridge on the Hungerford Bridge and then walked along the Embankment.
One of the pictures is of Whitehall Gardens. I’ve included it, as it looks like the finished feature over the works might be modelled on the Victorian gardens.
My only worry with getting the design of this site right, is that they have talked to those designing the Cycle Superhighway through the area.
This is probably one of those sites, where there are few residents to annoy, proving that the traffic isn’t disrupted too much. On the other hand, whilst the site is being worked, it would appear that the footbridge might make a good grandstand.
The Golden Jubilee Bridges In The Sun
I walked across the Thames on the the Golden Jubilee Bridges today in the sun.
I think it’s one of the first times, I walked across the upstream bridge on the House of Commons side.
I like this pair of bridges and to me, they are much better than the wobbly bridge.
They also don’t wobble!
Plus Ca Change
Soon after the last General Election in 2010, three big issues were Why isn’t Kevin Pietersen playing for England, the non-winning of the Premiership by Liverpool Football Club and the Leader of the Labour Party.
Have I been asleep for five years?
Railway Arches On The Greenwich Line
Wikipedia says this about the railway built between London and Greenwich Railway.
The railway was opened in London between 1836 and 1838. It was the first steam railway in the capital, the first to be built specifically for passengers, and the first elevated railway.
As it’s a line on a viaduct it has lots of arches.
And as the picture shows, many are good ones and seem to be being used profitably.
As I said in the piece on the Greenwich Pumping Station, the area between the blue bridge and the Pumping Station at Greenwich could become a quality leisure area, with waterside cafes and shops, overlooked by a hopefully-restored Deptford Creek Lift Bridge.
A Shy Church In Deptford
On my travels to see the site of the Deptford Church Street Work Site for the Thames Tideway Tunnel, I found a church hidden behind trees and high walls on the north or river side of the Greenwich Rail Line. Ypu can see it on this map.
Deptford Church Street
The church is at the top of the picture. Small it isn’t!
I did get a some pictures, but there seemed to be no obvious entrance.
I thought for a time, that it might be something like a monastery or convent, especially, as there was a Catholic School nearby.
But the church is Anglican and is St. Paul Deptford, of which Wikipedia says this.
St Paul’s, Deptford, is one of London’s finest Baroque parish churches, cited as “one of the most moving C18 churches in London” in the Buildings of England series.
So why is it so hidden away?
The Anonymous Widower 