Is This Building Too Good For A Shop?
The Ancient House is one of Ipswich’s eleven Grade 1 Listed buildings.
The Ancient House, Ipswich
But is it too good to be shop?
The tenant incidentally is Lakeland, so it must be their grandest shop.
Ipswich To Felixstowe Has Improved
Over the last few months, I’ve travelled half a dozen times between Ipswich and Felixstowe by train.
I can’t remember a train being late at all, since the Bacon Factory Curve has been opened.
And here’s why!
A Freight Train Waiting On The Bacon Factory Curve
Note the freight train waiting for our one-coach Class 153 to pass. Before the curve opened the freight train would have had to go into Ipswich yard and the locomotive would have had to run-round to the other end, causing all sorts of disruption to the Great Eastern Main Line and especially the Felixstowe Branch.
Also now I noticed that trains coming out of Felixstowe and going South towards London, now sometimes seem to get their diesel locomotive changed for a Class 90 electric one.
The next improvement will come when more of the Felixstowe branch line is double-tracked and the whole branch is electrified.
It’s all a far cry from when I lived in Felixstowe in the 1960s, where the most reliable way to get between the two towns was to cycle along the A45 or A14 as it is now! There were only a handful of trains every day.
How many other places on the UK network need smaller improvements like the Bacon Factory Curve to be implemented?
First Class On Greater Anglia
I needed to go to my dentist in Felixstowe and then on to the evening’s match at Portman Road, so I took one of Greater Anglia’s Mark 3 services in mid-morning.
The coaches don’t have the style of the new First Great Western First Class, but I did get a large table to lay out my paper, unlike on Saturday’s Virgin to Manchester.
The trolley also came round twice and I had a welcoming cup of tea.
Incidentally, I had bought the First Class Off Peak Return at Dalston Junction from the ticket machine, the previous evening for £35.40.
That is the same as the best Internet price from Greater Anglia’s website. The return half has a validity of a month too, so you get the best value, if perhaps you’re going away for a few days.
We need ticket machines, like the ones on the London Overground all over London and the rest of the UK.
Improvements Needed At Essex Road Station
Travelling to Liverpool Street, because of the rush hour, I had to use Essex Road station.
What a dump!
The lifts weren’t working and everybody was having to walk down a deep spiral staircase , which very much felt of Kafka.
The Class 313 trains despite approaching their forties are nowhere near as bad as the station.
Manchester To Get a Borken or Kenbor?
In my view the London Mayor has been a success. And I don’t just mean one of them!
They have fought for London and have won the battles to get improvements to London’s transport system.
Two years ago, I put forward my reasons why Manchester needs a mayor, with responsibility for the wider area.
Yesterday, George Osborne said he’d agreed that Manchester should have a mayor.
I’ll believe it when it happens!
But it is certainly overdue and also overdue in Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham and Newcastle.
I would also add cities and towns with a large population and transport system and probably major strengths or weaknesses.
So that would include at least Blackpool, Brighton and Cambridge!
Platform Action At Willesden Junction Station
As I came back from Watford, I had a choice of going all the way to Euston or changing onto the North London Line at Willesden Junction.
In the end I chose to do the latter, as I needed the toilet and I know that Willesden has one of the few toilets on the Overground. As ever it was clean and welcoming.
I couldn’t hope noticing though that there seemed to be substantial work in progress on the platform faces on the line through the station.
Platform Action At Willesden Junction Station
Normally, the platform extension work for the five-car trains is much less than this. Checking on Wikipedia, this is said.
In October 2014 the DC line was closed temporarily between Wembley Central and Queens Park reportedly to allow platform 2 to be extended further west as a through platform.
Platform 2 is on the left in the picture.
So it would appear that the Overground/Bakerloo lines to the South are getting an extra platform. Looking at the Google Map view of the area shows the layout.
Note the three platforms for the Bakerloo and Watford DC Lines at the left and the two North London Line platforms at the right. Just above these is the double-track link to the West Coast Main Line.
Could it be that London Overground are just making sure that all the work they are doing to make the Overground ready for five-car trains, they are future proofing as much as they can? This section in Wikipedia talks of a reorganisation of the Bakerloo Line and the Overground DC Line to Watford, so with all the uncertainty and variability around Old Oak Common, this is probably a good approach.
I think the only certainty is that anybody using the Overground or Bakerloo Line through Willesden Junction in ten years time will find the station very different, with probably more connections and longer and more frequent trains.
Looking For The Croxley Rail Link
After my delays at Moor Park station, I eventually got a train and a bus to Croxley station, where I started my walk. The aim was to walk from there into Watford, have a snack lunch at Carluccio’s and then come home on the Overground from Watford High Street station. This Google map shows the general route.
The Metropolitan Line to Watford, which will be closed when the Croxley Rail Link is built is shown in purple, with the Overground in orange and Watford High Street station indicated by the red arrow. Note that the Wikipedia entry for the Rail Link has good schematics and maps.
The Rail Link will leave the route of the current Metropolitan Line around the edge of this map.
The Current Watford Branch
It crosses a bridge there, just behind the Harvester pub. It will then cross the dual carriageway on a viaduct.
The Rail Link Will Cross Near Here
The line will go across somewhere here, where a new Cassiobridge station will be built on the West side of the road. There would appear to be a rail bridge over the Grand Junction Canal, which was used for the old Croxley Green Branch.
Over The Grand Junction Canal
Another Google map, shows the area in more detail.
Note the canal and the bridge in the picture and how the line crosses two roads to continue towards Watford.
I then walked towards the Watford Hospital and the football ground and crossed the line on a bridge on Vicarage Road.
Over The Future Croxley Rail Link
It had been a walk of about an hour between Croxley and Watford High Street stations. Luckily I was on the warm dry train into Central London before the rain started in earnest,
A Wait At Moor Park Station
I was trying to get to Croxley station to look at the area of the new Croxley Rail Link.
Unfortunately, there were signalling problems on the line so I had to wait to get to Rickmansworth for a replacement bus. So I took these pictures.
It is an attractive well-maintained station, but it doesn’t seem to have any regular bus links or step-free access.
Should UKIP Supporters Be Called Kippers?
Matt Ridley has an opinion in The Times entitled Spare me the selfishness of the eco-toffs. It is well worth reading, He says this at one point after looking at the profiles of green and UKIP supporters.
In Downton Abbey terms, Greens are a lady upstairs in the dining room; kippers are a footman downstairs in the servants’ hall.
Does this mean you have to be kippered to vote for UKIP?
Whatever it is, it’s a good choice of a word.
It should help Farage with his choice of neckware!
Who’d Be A Clothes Retailer?
According to the Daily Mail, winter clothes aren’t selling as it’s still warm. Here’s the first paragraph.
Indian summer hits M&S and Next clothes sales: Stores unable to shift winter boots and coats because of warm October temperatures.
It doesn’t bother me, as I wear almost the same clothes all year round. I’m always in a short-sleeved shirt, with or without a cashmere jumper from M & S. I do swap cords for chinos if it gets too hot, but I rarely wear shorts. And for nearly eight months now, I’ve worn the same lightweight bomber jacket, as it keeps me dry and has the right format of pockets.
If I’m going somewhere smart, I might wear a 25-year-old sports jacket, which is so unstylish that it gets admired all the time. I wore it at CERN.
I am finding that I’m spending less and less money on clothes. I did think that I might get some new expensive Daks cords for the winter, but when I went to try them on, I found that trendy designers had ruined the design. The fastenings were so complicated, if you had got taken short, you wouldn’t have been able to get your trousers down quick enough. So I decided to buy another pair from M & S.
Because of this inability to buy clothes, I now tend to be ruthless in taking unwanted ones to Oxfam and then buy a replacement in probably M & S.
The only thing I spend money on are belts and bags. I’m still searching for a perfect one of the latter. The trouble is they’re not designed by real people.
The Anonymous Widower 