The Barbican Entrance To The Elizabeth Line – 10th June 2022
This series of pictures shows the route between the Westbound platform at Barbican station to the Elizabeth Line at Farringdon station.
Note.
- There is only a single lift between the Western end of the Westbound Platform 2/3 at Barbican station and the lobby between the two banks of escalators and inclined lifts, that give access to the Barbican end of Elizabeth Line platforms.
- Currently, there is no access between the Elizabeth Line and the Eastbound Platform 1 at Barbican station.
- If you lived in one of the towers of the Barbican estate, if might be a marginally shorter walk to walk along Platform 2/3 and up the stairs to the street.
When C and myself, lived in Cromwell Tower in the Barbican, in the 1970s, we must have walked that route with our three children hundreds of times. It really isn’t very different.
I have a few thoughts.
Is The Route Really For Passengers?
Consider.
- A journey, where you might need to use the route could be one like Barking and Heathrow.
- But you have a wide choice, as you could alight at Whitechapel, Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Farringdon and Ealing Broadway on the sub-surface lines and have step-free access to the Elizabeth Line.
- I suspect most customers will choose Whitechapel or Liverpool Street.
This picture shows the comprehensive control panel in the lift.
Could it be, that the main purpose of the lift is for staff access to hard to reach plant rooms?
Or perhaps it is designed to get a stretcher or wheelchair to the island platform at Barbican station?
Is The Connection Incomplete?
It could be that there is more work to do and the connection is incomplete.
There is a section, which is entitled Elizabeth Line, in the Wikipedia entry for Barbican station, where this is said.
Farringdon’s Barbican ticket hall for the Elizabeth line is just to the west of Barbican station along Long Lane. This construction involved significant changes at the western end of the station, including the demolition of the former signal box to construct a lift shaft from the Elizabeth line station to the westbound Underground platform only. The original plan of a new footbridge spanning the tracks to the eastbound platform was not proceeded with on the grounds of engineering difficulties. Work was anticipated to be completed in 2018, but was completed in May 2022.
It does look like, that the best that was possible was built.
Dalston Junction To Moorgate Via The Elizabeth Line
This morning to get my breakfast at Leon on Moorgate, I took the longer route via Dalston Junction and Whitechapel stations using the East London and Elizabeth Lines.
Note.
- I travelled in the last coach of the Overground train from Dalston Junction station.
- I travelled towards the front of the Elizabeth Line train from Whitechapel station.
- There are lifts between Overground and the Elizabeth Line at Whitechapel station.
- All the escalators have traffic lights.
- Using stairs and escalator, the change at Whitechapel station took around two minutes.
The total journey time was just over 25 minutes.
Monte To Purchase 100 FC Aircraft Drives From ZeroAvia
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on electrive.com.
This is the first paragraph.
ZeroAvia and Monte Aircraft Leasing will jointly market hydrogen-powered aircraft to regional operators. Under an agreement now signed between the companies, Monte will purchase up to 100 ZA600 hydrogen-electric powertrains from ZeroAvia to be installed on existing and new 5- to 20-seat aircraft.
Monte look to be an interesting company from their web site, which has this title.
Supporting The Transition Of The Regional Aviation Industry To Net Zero Carbon Emissions
The business model appears to be a well-proven and it is not that far removed from the one, colleagues and myself used to sell the project management system; Artemis.
In our case we took proven Hewlett-Packard computers and and other hardware, added our Artemis software and a custom-made desk and leased the systems to those who wanted to do project management, with as much support as our clients required. Customers just had to supply operators, printer paper and a thirteen amp socket.
Finance was obtained by various innovative methods, often through a bank manager, who was a bit of a rogue. But he was a rogue, who was on the side of the angels.
Later he became a firm friend of mine, before he sadly died within a few days of my wife.
Monte Aircraft Leasing’s model would appear to take a proven aircraft like a Cessna Caravan, Dornier 228 or Dash 8, replace the turboprop engines with a zero-carbon powerplant and then lease the aircraft. Often this will just be an additional lease to the existing operator.
The great advantage of this approach, is that the reengined aircraft does not need to be fully re-certified. It can fly under a Supplemental Type Certificate, which is described like this in Wikipedia.
A supplemental type certificate (STC) is a civil aviation authority-approved major modification or repair to an existing type certified aircraft, engine or propeller. As it adds to the existing type certificate, it is deemed “supplemental”. In the United States issuance of such certificates is under the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Monte seem to have found a good way to make money from going net-zero.
Energy Dome Launches World’s First CO2 Battery Long-Duration Energy Storage Plant
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Renewable Energy Magazine.
This is the first paragraph.
Energy Dome, a provider of utility-scale long-duration energy storage, has successfully launched its first CO2 Battery facility in Sardinia, Italy. This milestone marks the final de-risking of the CO2 Battery technology as Energy Dome enters the commercial scaling phase, becoming the first commercial long-duration energy storage technology on the market offering a reliable alternative to fossil fuels for dispatchable baseload power globally.
I like their technology and you can find more about it on their web site.
They say this about how they use the unique properties of carbon dioxide.
CO2 is the perfect fluid to store energy cost effectively in a closed thermodynamic process as it is one of the few gases that can be condensed and stored as a liquid under pressure at ambient temperature. This allows for high density energy storage without the need to go at extreme cryogenic temperatures.
And it’s not that carbon dioxide is a rare and expensive gas.
This is certainly technology to watch.
The Anonymous Widower 