Walking To The Eynsham Drive Bridge At Abbey Wood
My walk yesterday to take the pictures of Crossrail at Eynsham Drive and Abbey Wood station started at Plumstead station, where I crossed the High Street and then found the end of the Ridgeway, which is on top of the Southern Outfall Sewer. I took these pictures as I walked to Harrow Manor Way, that led into Abbey Wood, where I turned off into Eynsham Drive..
It is mostly, a typical estuarial industrial landscape with a quantity of uninspiring housing, although the space between the Ridgeway and the rail lines is going to be transformed, as Crossrail sidings are being built here.
You can understand why Stanley Kubrick shot Clockwork Orange in the area.
Lottery Grants To Museums And Heritage
This article on the BBC web site details the grants to various museums and heritage organisations.
I am pleased that one local to me; the Geffyre Museum is getting a grant.
The Geffrye Museum in London, which specialises in the history of the English domestic interior, is being given £11m.
The funding will allow the development of a new entrance from Hoxton station, accessible spaces for the collections, library and archive, new learning facilities and a new cafe.
The second entrance from Hoxton station is to be welcomed and I hope they make sure that the cafe serves gluten-free offerings.
One thing I feel strongly about is that all lottery-funded attractions, should have good access for those like me, who can’t or don’t drive.
Obviously some on today’s list like the Geffryre and Science Museums and Lincoln Cathedral are accessible by rail, but this isn’t always the case.
Jodrell Bank is a place, I would like to visit, but on looking up travel information on their web site, it has to be a taxi from the nearest stations. That is just not good enough and a real pity considering that Jodrell Bank lies virtually alongside the rail line between Manchester and Crewe.
Jodrell Bank And The Manchester-Crewe Railway
A station would be expensive, but I’m certain that many European countries would have provided something better than expecting visitors to take a taxi, especially as the nearest station at Goostrey is only served by one train an hour. It would be interesting to see what would happen, if the service was twice an hour and there was a free shuttle bus to Jodrell Bank.
In my view anything that makes science more accessible and also puts Jodrell Bank on a sound financial footing is to be welcomed.
HS2 And The General Election
In some ways the impact of HS2 on the General Election was more noticeable by its absence. I have only found one serious article in Rail News, that even discusses the subject. This is the first two paragraphs.
Ahead of the general election campaigners against HS2 made much of the opportunity for opponents to vote for parties that wanted the project scrapped. But the final election results suggest HS2 had little impact.
Only UKIP and the Greens put scrapping HS2 as a core issue in their manifestos. And a lone single-issue candidate also campaigned against HS2 in the Westminster North constituency but came bottom of the poll with 63 votes, or just 0.2 per cent of the total cast.
Ukip are a law unto their own, but why are the Greens against HS2?
I do wonder if HS2 is going through a similar popularity as Crossrail, where parts of London were against the building of the rail link in the early days of the project. Now Londoners seem to be getting enthusiastic about their new railway.
Northern Electrics Increase Services
Today the Class 319 trains started running services from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria and Wigan North Western.
I took the pictures when I rode the 07:20 train from Liverpool to Manchester and some later when I returned to Manchester.
When I was travelling to Preston on the Sunday from Liverpool, my Class 156 train on the slow line between Wigan North Western and Preston was passed on the fast line by a Class 319 doing about a hundred. I estimated it was going fast as a couple of minutes later a Class 390 Pendolino roared past.
So it got me thinking, as to why some of the Wigan North Western services from Liverpool don’t go to Preston, as the tracked are electrified.
Then today, a student in Burnley asked me the same question, because as he said, it would make travelling from Burnley and Blackburn to Liverpool a lot easier.
There’s probably a very good reason, why they don’t!
I also asked a driver how they liked the Class 319s. He replied by saying they were waiting for more services to start out of Manchester.
He also said they were a bit bouncy on Chat Moss, where Network Rail had had trouble putiing up the overhead wires.
I have a feeling, that as Northern Rail get a few more Class 319 trains, they may do a bit of reorganisation of services around Preston.
Suppose :-
1. All Northern Rail trains between Liverpool Lime Street and Preston were to be run via Wigan North Western to a frequency of at least twice an hour by Class 319 trains. This might release some Class 156 trains.
2. The Blackburn service via Accrington, Burnley and Todmorden is extended to Preston and possibly to Blackpool North to connect with the Liverpool trains.
3. The Colne to Blackpool South service would also connect.
4. As more lines get electrified, the services would be optimised.
There’s also probably a good reason, why during the closure of the Farmsworth Tunnel, that the service via Todmorden isn’t extended past Blackburn to Preston. It could probably be something as simple as that when they planned the closure, the Todmorden Curve didn’t exist.
Coffee And Seats At Manchester Victoria
The upgrade at Manchester Victoria station is approaching completion and as I passed through yesterday, the refreshment room was open and their were extra chairs everywhere in a Northern Rail promotion.
It’s just a pity that the coffee shop, just had to be those tax-avoiders; Starbucks.
Walking Between Burnley Manchester Road And Central Stations
Burnley is unique in British medium-sized towns that I know in that it has three rail stations in the town centre.
Barracks – A small single-platform halt on the East Lancashire Line
Central – Another small single-platform halt on the East Lancashire Line
Manchester Road – A modern station on the Caldervale Line
To make matters more difficult, all of the stations are a walk uphill from the pedestrianised town centre.
So Burnley is one of those unique places, where the going is a lot easier than the coming back.
If you look at passengers numbers for the three stations in 2012-13, they were respectively roughly 20,000, 150,000 and 240,000, but these probably don’t show the full pattern of usage, as I suspect with the hard walk uphill to the station, that those coming to the town to use the shops, probably use an alternative method to get home, if they are heavily loaded.
I took these pictures as I walked between the Manchester Road and Central stations taking in an excellent cup of chocolate in the centre.
It wasn’t the hardest drag up the other side, but I timed it so that I just missed the train to Blackburn. So I wouldn’t think the service on from Central station, isn’t the most customer-friendly.
When I go to Burnley normally, it’s to see Ipswich play their football team at Turf Moor. This Google Earth image shows the town from the Central station to Turf Moor.
Burnley Central Station To Turf Moor
Normally I come in at Manchester Road station, which is off the map at the bottom. It’s a long mainly-downhill walk to the match and a long mainly-uphill walk back to the station. At least now there now are a few more trains and I could return to Manchester and London by taking a train to either Todmorden, Blackburn or Preston.
But is it possible to walk the contours of the hillside from the ground to Burnley Central? But then that only gives you one train an hour and you wouldn’t want to miss it on a pouring wet and cold day.
What Burnley needs is a better connection from the town centre to the Central and Manchester Road stations.
In an ideal eco-friendly modern world, there would be a free electric town centre mini-bus between the two stations, stopping on the way in the town centre and the bus station, which is not an easy walk from either rail station.
Providing better access to Manchester Road station, will always have to rely on vehicles of some sort. There is also the problem that the station despite being brand-new is not step-free from passenger drop-off to the Blackburn-bound platform.
On the other hand, the access to Burnley Central station, could possibly be met by creating a well-contoured path from the town centre and then using a lift to bridge the height gap to the platform, which is on the viaduct that carries the East Lancashire across the town.
At present the East Lancashire Line has an hourly service in each direction as far as Colne. But as I said in this piece on tram-trains and their use in Blackpool I believe that they could be used to extend the line to Skipton in the east and Central Blackpool on the coast.
But that will never happen, as where is Skipton? In Yorkshire and Burnley, Blackburn, Blackpool and Preston are in Lancashire.
On the train, through Todmorden yesterday, I heard the odd comments about how the countryside wasn’t as pretty, as we passed the town.
The old parochial attitudes refuse to die.
Rounding The Todmorden Curve
I took these pictures as my train rounded the Todmorden Curve.
I was sitting on the left hand side of my train, which was going from Burnley to Todmorden and it did a sharp slow right turn to arrive in Todmorden station. This Google Earth image shows the location of the curve, but unfortunately, there is no image with the new curve.
Location Of The Todmorden Curve
Both lines to the east join and then lead to Hebden Bridge station. The line that goes on the top of the triangle leads off to the west and Burnley Manchester Road station and the line on the bottom of the triangle, that leads to Todmorden goes off to the South and eventually Rochdale and Manchester Victoria stations.
I think it is true to say, that this five hundred metres or so of new track, at a cost of just over eight million pounds has been designed and executed to a high standard and it will be interesting to see how the new curve effects the prosperity of this area of Lancashire.
Catching The Todmorden Train At Blackburn
These pictures are from Sunday and Monday, where I caught a train at Blackburn station for Manchester Victoria via Accrington, Burnley Manchester Road Todmodern stations.
As the pictures show it has recently been rebuilt to an island design, with a separate platform 4, which is generally used for the services between Blackpool and Colne.
I met a reporter from BBC Radio Lancashire today and said that there is no information at the station on how to get to the football ground. I then asked him about getting to the hospital from the station and he said it was difficult, especially as parking at the hospital isn’t the best.
Towns like Blackburn should have a frequent bus that calls at the station, that visits the important places in the town where visitors might want to go. From personal experience of getting to Ewood Park from the station, Blackburn is not one of the best and a bus service should be provided on match days, that is well-signposted as to how it is used at the ground and the station.
Track Laying At Abbey Wood
The Crossrail contractors have started laying the track between Abbey Wood station and the Plumstead portal.
The first picture was taken from the bridge at Abbey Wood station looking towards Plumstead shows the kink in the North Kent Line, as it shifts to the right.
It would appear that the new Abbey Wood station has two island platforms, with the one on the Southern side serving the existing North Kent Line and the other on the Northern side giving two platforms for Crossrail. So it looks like the current platforms 1 and 2, will become 2 and 3.
Correct me, if I’ve got this wrong!
It will be an interesting site to watch in the next few years.
Ukip Founder Calls Party BNP-Lite
I was listening to BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday, when in a fascinating interview, Alan Sked, the original founder of Ukip, called the party BNP-Lite.
I certainly wouldn’t touch either toxic bunch of ists with a bargepole; mine or otherwise.
The Anonymous Widower 