Working Around The Victoria Line Closure
Today, I wanted to go to IKEA and a decent B & Q, so as both are close to Tottenham Hale station, it required a trip to that station or thereabouts.
The problem is that the Victoria Line is closed past Seven Sisters in August, so they can remove the bottleneck at Walthamstow Central that was part of the cheapskate design of the 1960s. Click here for the full story.
So I couldn’t take my usual route of an Undrground train to Tottenham Hale and a 192 bus.
I decided to go to IKEA first, which is just an easy trip all the way on a 341 bus from perhaps a hundred metres from my house. But as I got to the stop, the 341 whizzed past. Luckily it was followed by a 476 bus, which joins up with the 341 at Northumberland Park and hopefully because of the route it takes will get there first.
So I got the 476 and sat upstairs. I was watching to see if the 341 was behind us as we turned off Tottenham High Road and saw the 341 appear behind.
At the next stop I got off the bus to get the 341, only to see that bus go straight past. Luckily, I was able to get back on the 476, so in the end, I went all the way to Northumberland Park, a couple of stops short of IKEA. The bus information saif I’d haveto wait twenty minutes for a 341, so I walked over the level crossing to the Marigold Road stop for the 192. Again my luck was in, as a 192 had just turned up and they were changing drivers.
Coming back, I was carrying a full IKEA bag, and wanted to get to B & Q at Tottenham Hale for a couple of small bits, so I needed a 192 bus. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a gap in the service, but after about twenty minutes, I’d done my hopping and needed to get home.
So I walked back to Tottenham Hale station, hoping that there was a Hackney Downs train due.
Remarkably there was one in a couple of minutes and I just had time to climb over the bridge to catch it.
At Hackney Downs, the train dropped me on Platform 1, so I could either go down into Hackney Downs station and get a 56 or 38 bus, or use the new walkway to Hackney Central, from where I could get a more numerous 38 bus.
As it was a warm day and there was a lift in the walkway, I decided to take the newly-opened route.
I’m glad I did, as it turned out that due to the wire mesh at the top of the sides of the walkway, it was remarkably cool.
I’d surmised it would have been good in wet weather, but I’d never thought I’d be pleased to use it because of the heat.
According to one of the staff to whom I spoke, the walkway is staring to be increasingly well-used as passengers discover it.
I think that we’ll see this type of walkway in other places on the UK rail network.
One thing that helped this morning to get around the Victoria Line closure, which removes a bit chunk of my usual routes to Tottenham and Walthamstow, was London’s superb text message-based bus information system, which like any good system is designed to work on any device that can send and receive text messages.
And it does it all without using any dreaded app.
The West Midlands Day Ranger Ticket
For my trip around Birmingham last week, I had decided to use a West Midlands Day Ranger Ticket.
I had hoped to purchase one in the Booking Office at Lichfield Trent Valley station, but it was closed and only with difficulty was I able to purchase one on the train into Birmingham.
But I didn’t get a map with the ticket, as I have had in Lancashire before, where Northern Rail have a leaflet detailing all their Day Ranger tickets. There’s one here on the National Rail web site.
On the Thursday, I walked to New Street and bought a ticket, but the only map they had was a photocopy.
The area covered by a West Midlands Day Ranger is large and covers the area bounded by Crewe, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Worcester, Stratford-on-Avon, Leamington Spa, Northampton, Rugby, Nuneaton, Lichfield and Stoke.
As trains are generally frequent between all stations, it was an ideal ticket for my purposes and I got good value on both days in Birmingham. Coming back to London on the Thursday, I used my Day Ranger Ticket to get to Northampton, where I bought a ticket for Watford Junction and travelled back on a virtually-empty London Midland train.
The Overground from Watford Junction wasn’t empty, as I caught the aftermath of the rush hour on the day of the Tube stroke.
The two possible disadvantages of the West Midlands Day Ranger Ticket, is that it must be used after 9:30 and isn’t valid on the Midlands Metro.
Next time, I want to visit several places in the West Midlands, I’ll go to Leamington Spa or Northampton and then use a West Midlands Day Ranger.
Young People Increasingly Turning To Trains
This was the headline on an article on the RailNews web site. This short extract is typical of the article.
One ‘dramatic finding’ is ‘a more utilitarian attitude to car ownership’ with greater weight being placed on alternatives.
Younger people are also ‘particularly concerned’ about the high cost of using a car – including insurance, parking and learning to drive.
I wonder if the study is mirrored in countries like Germany and France!
Who Is CB?
If you use Anagram Genius to find an anagram of “Jeremy Corbyn”, you get the following result.
Enjoy Merry CB
So who is CB?
At least his anagram wasn’t rude, unlike some other politicians!
The Anonymous Widower 