RMT Moves The Tube Strike
It has been announced by the RMT, that the Tube strike has been moved from this week to the 10th and 8th of September.
Intriguingly, the new Labour Leader will be announced on the 12th of September.
There doesn’t seem to be any reference on the Internet, as to where the Special Conference is to be held! As the TUC Conference starts in Brighton on the 13th, that must be a possibility.
Or has someone forgot to book the hall?
Memorials On The Liverpool Pier Head
Liverpool is proud of its maritime heritage and the Pier Head on the Mersey is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site called the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City.
When Celia and I met in Liverpool in the 1960s, it was a simpler place, where we would walk to take the ferry across the Mersey.
These pictures show the Pier Head today.
I’d never realised that the road across the Pier Head, had been named Canada Boulevard in honour of Canadians, who lost their lives in the Battle of the Atlantic or the war against German U-boats.
Shown in the pictures is the memorial to Captain Johnnie Walker, one of the leading British commanders in the battle.
The scale of the battle is shown by the fact that according to Wikipedia the Allies lost over 70,000 sailors, 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships, whereas the Germans lost 30,000 sailors and 783 submarines.
One thing that wasn’t there in the 1960s is the canal that links the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to the Stanley Dock, so narrow-boats can visit the city centre.
What’s Gone Wrong With The Blackpool To Preston Electrification?
On Friday this news item appeared on the BBC web site. It is entitled Balfour Beatty pulls out of Lancashire rail electrification.
The article starts like this.
The main contractor behind plans to electrify the railway line between Preston and Blackpool has pulled out.
Balfour Beatty confirmed it was leaving the scheme after a review said the work was unlikely to be on time and budget.
Network Rail insisted the electrification was still due to finish by spring 2017 and a new contractor would be “appointed shortly”.
On the Saturday, on my route from Liverpool to Preston, I took a detour up the Blackpool branch and took these pictures.
The aim was to see, if I could get a clue as to what has gone wrong.
For a start, I saw a succession of bridges that appeared to have been recently replaced or refurbished. Often with electrification, the cost of getting bridges and stations ready for electrification is a major part of the cost.
Even Poulton-le-Fylde station appeared to have acquired a cafe from when I saw it in May this year.
At Blackpool North station crowds of people were leaving, as the weather was atrocious, so I took the next train back to Preston.
As to why, Balfour Beatty have given up the contract, there were no clues.
I think there could be two reasons for the delay.. In this section on Electrification for the Wikipedia entry for Blackpool North station, this is said.
This will result in the semaphore signalling at the station being replaced by modern colour lights controlled from the WCML North Rail Operating Centre in Preston and will also see the station track & platform layout altered (the current eight curved platforms will be reduced to six on a straighter alignment than at present). Work has begun to raise many of the intermediate overbridges to accommodate the overhead wires and the project was due for completion by May 2016, with the line onwards to Manchester following by the end of the year. This has since been pushed back to March 2017 so that the track remodelling & resignalling work can be carried out at the same time as the wiring, reducing disruption to passengers (as only one period of closure will be required)
So could an over-complicated project or lack of resources be the cause?
Look at other Wikipedia entries for lines in this area and it gets more complicated with aspirations to reopen the Fleetwood Branch Line.
Or could it be that there are so many ideas about what to do in Blackpool with the trains, the planners at Balfour Beatty can’t keep pace with all the changes? So backing out is the esiest thing to do!
I think there is a need to take a long hard look at all the possibilities, like the Fleetwood Branch and linking to the Blackpool trams and the way they actually perform any track changes and electrification.
Perhaps everything from the West Coast Main Line to Blackpool and Fleetwood should be devolved to an elected mayor or someone, who gets voted out, if the project fails.
I know Blackpool reasonably well and if ever an are needs an upgraded transport system, with an electrified line to nearby cities, it is Blackpool.
Crossrail Will Affect The Buses
This article from GetWest London is entitled Improved bus services for Hayes to prepare for Crossrail.
The article talks about how Bus Route 90 is going double-deck and buses through Hayes will be improved as Crossrail, with the new Hayes and Harlington station is constructed
Provision of improved and rerouted bus services will happen at many of the new Crossrail stations.
My nearest Crossrail station will be the double ended giant at Liverpool Street that will serve both the current Liverpool Street and Moorgate stations.
From close to my house I can get a 21 or 141 bus to just outside Liverpool Street station, although coming back I have to walk to Moorgate for a northbound bus.
After Crossrail is opened, I predict that when I use Liverpool Street station, I will get a bus to a stop that will be connected by weather-free subways to any of the existing lines in the area and of course Crossrail. Coming back, these or other subways will connect me to a northbound stop to get a bus home.
I actually suspect to get the bus, it might be best to be at one particular end of a Crossrail train, so that you use an entrance to the station, that is convenient for your bus. Getting the carriage right could save you quite a walk with a two-hundred ,metre long train.
If what is provided, is not better than the current interim arrangement at Liverpool Street/Moorgate, I will be very surprised and will complain like an irate rhinoceros.
Most of the stations on Crossrail are served by London buses, also under the control of Transport for London. So improving the buses, as at Hayes and Harlington will be a matter for Transport for London, with input from the appropriate London Borough.
But what will happen at places like Brentwood, Burnham, Iver, Langley, Maidenhead, Reading, Slough, Shenfield and others,which are outside of Transport for London’s influence.
So that Crossrail has one holistic design from East to West, buses at these outer stations must conform to the rules that apply in the London area.
- Buses must be cashless, with payments either by Oyster, contactless card, concessionary pass or an extension to an orange rail ticket.
- London-style bus spider maps must be provided at all stations.
- A state-of-the-art bus arrival system must be provided in the same manner as in London, either by display or text message.
- All buses must be fully-accessible to match the fully-accessible stations.
- In an ideal world, all buses must display the next stop and be front entrance and centre exit, to help blind and disabled passengers and speed the buses on their way.
Looking at text message bus alerts like TfL’s Countdown, allowing a sixth digit to the text system would probably enable every stop in the South East to be covered.
Incidentally, according to this article in The Guardian, there are less than 500,000 transport stops in the whole UK, so six digits and one text number would cover the whole of the country.
But would the Scots, Mancunians and the Cornish, embrace a system that was designed in and for London?
Crossrail is a rail system, but it is going to affect lots of parts of our lives.
Are We In For More Strikes On Tubes And The Railways?
Sometimes, I think that when I posted Après Bob, Le Déluge and asked this question.
Where else will this worrying new militancy turn up?
That I got things about right.
Transport for London, won the row about the closure of Ticket Offices and now contactless ticketing is used all over London, by virtually every passenger. You see very few orange cardboard tickets.
So the Unions lost that battle and then their friends on the left lost the much more important General Election in May!
This week, there are strikes on First Great Western over the introduction of new Class 800/801 trains and the Underground is being shut down by the strike over the introduction of the Night Tube.
On the First Great Western strike, I have a feeling, that these trains may not be all they’re supposed to be cracked up to me, after a brief conversation with a senior guy at FGW on a train.
I sometimes think that the Tube strike is all about the pay back to TfL on losing the Ticket Office issue and punishing passengers for not voting for Labour in the General Election.
The Night Tube is also a difficult battle to fight, as once it starts, because lots of people will depend on it, I suspect that it will be a very difficult service to stop. Like closure of Ticket Offices, it would be filed under things difficult to reverse like putting toothpaste back in the tube.
I do think though, that this is just the start of an Autumn of rail strikes. Especially, if Jeremy Corbyn is elected to be leader of the Labour Party and he decides to back them.
Although, if JC decided to be pragmatic, he could be the one person, who sorts out the Tube Strike. After all, he has no monetary responsibility, but he is a London MP, who if he becomes leader would be in debt to the Unions. If he got this right, then we could have a very Left Wing Labour Mayor or if he got it wrong, then, if the Tories put up a total nonentity, he or she would be home and hosed.
I do think that things will get a lot nastier and more angry before they get any better.
What Does The Left Know About The Economic Views Of The Man On The Dalston Omnibus?
London’s buses went cashless on the 6th July 2014, as was reported in the Guardian. The system has now expanded so you can use contactless payments on Buses, Underground, Overground, trams and National Rail in Greater London. And recently ApplePay has been allowed!
According to the Left and the Greens, this was going to result in all sorts of problems for passengers. But from what I can tell, the only thing suffering is the Oyster Card, as those on the Dalston Omnibus, would prefer their spare cash sitting in their bank account, rather than on an Oyster card, they will probably mislay.
I have extensive Google Alerts trying to locate problems with the system and I can’t find anything.
So so much for the competence of the economics of the Left Wing of British Politics!
I am surprised that we haven’t seen more special offers with contactless ticketing like Fare Free Friday to promote Mastercard.
Supposing someone like Highland Spring, wanted to promote their water and gave you say twenty pence every time, you used your contactless card on the system. This might appear on your credit or bank card statement as.
Keep hydrated on the Tube with Highland Spring.
It could be coupled with water vending machines all over the place.
I think if the prices and rewards were got right, it could be a winner.
A Wet Morning In Liverpool
Everybody likes to view places in the sun. But it was wet in Liverpool, as I walked around.
Liverpool’s town centre is almost unique, in that the whole area is mainly traffic-free and the new shopping centre of Liverpool One has been designed as an extension to the existing main shopping street. The main centre is also ringed by four railway stations, two bus stations, car parks and a three-lane dual carriageway, which separates the shops from the waterfront. Crossing between the waterfront with its attactions, museums and hotels, and the shops, is not by some dingy urinal-soaked subway, but by one of several light-controlled pedestrian crossings.
What is missing from Liverpool is the Overhead Railway or a modern replacement. This Google Map shows the Waterfront, the Albert Dock, where I stayed and the dual carriageway.
Liverpool Waterfront
Note how the dual carriageway has a wide central reservation. Surely Liverpool could run a tram or perhaps even a tram-train linked to the Northern Line down the Waterfront?
Glasgow Bin Lorry Driver Should Have Been Charged
According to this article on the BBC web site, a former prosecutor has said that the driver of the Glasgow bin lorry, that killed six people should have been charged. The report starts like this.
A former senior prosecutor has strongly criticised the decision not to charge the driver at the centre of the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy.
Brian McConachie QC said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Harry Clarke.
He said the Crown Office had “jumped the gun” in not pressing charges.
I feel very strongly about this. After I had my stroke, my eyesight was terrible and I decided that to start driving again would not be a responsible thing to do.
My current GP, who has seen me for three years, feels that if I wanted to, I could get my licence back.
But quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered. And I have a lot of backing from my healthy bank account.
What worries me, is how many other Harry Clarkes are there driving around?
In the last four years, I had lifts from other drivers a few times and quite frankly with two of them my eyesight seemed better.
My eyesight problem incidentally, is that I can’t see moving objects low down on the left. So one nightmare on the street, is meeting a crocodile of young children, say being led by their teachers. Luckily I haven’t done anything I shouldn’t! A few times though, people wheeling cases have pulled in front of me from the left and I’ve bumped into the case. Only once have I ended up on the ground, as usually my balancing skills which are still tip-top have got me out of trouble.
Harry Clarke was extremely irresponsible, in not reporting his failing health problems!
Incidentally, if say I was fifty and had got my eyesight problem, as I live in London, I would get a Freedom Pass, entitling me to free public transport in Greater London. I get one anyway as I’m over the qualifying age.
Dementia Has Stabilised
According to this report on the BBC web site, research from the University of Cambridge has shown that dementia levels are stabilising.
A few years ago, Oxford University proved a link between having low B12 levels at 50 and dementia, if you had dementia in your family.
Could it be, that GPs, who now check out bloods regularly are having an effect?
When first tested at 50, my B12 levels were non-existent. Now at 68, they’re spot on!
And what is one way to help your B12 levels? – Go gluten free!
As other studies at other world-class universities, like Nottingham, have shown that a gluten-free lifestyle lowers your changes of getting cancer, I think that going gluten-free because of my coeliac disease, wasn’t one of the worst lifestyle decisions I made.
Could The Gospel Oak To Barking Line Be Extended To Ealing Broadway?
In their article on the future of the Gospel Oak to Barking Line, Railfuture has a section entitled Benefits for passengers and train operations. It says this.
Electric trains have better acceleration and an Overground fleet of 4-car electric trains would be able to carry many more passengers, relieving overcrowding. All-electric extensions of the service at each end of the route, which TfL wants to run, become possible, such as to Barking Riverside in the east and/or to Willesden Junction/Clapham Junction (even Ealing?) to the west. Some other works would be needed, such as new platforms and subways at Gospel Oak on the through lines.
I agree with the point about extensions at either end of the Gospel Oak to Barking Line (GOBlin), but where in the West should the line go?
Railfuture suggests three choices and there are other plans in the pipeline that could decide where the GOBlin could go!
All options except four have a possible problem, in that trains would have to merge at Gospel Oak and share the North London Line to Willesden Junction.
1. Willesden Junction
This is the easy choice, as there is already a bay platform at Willesden Junction station and space for another.
2. Clapham Junction
Extension to Clapham Junction station would mean the trains going down the West London Line.
I think there are two major questions over extending to Clapham Junction.
Clapham Junction is a crowded station, which probably couldn’t cope with more than the four London Overground services each hour without building a new platform.
But it has to be asked, if the longer trains and better interchange at Willesden Junction would make it easier for passengers along the West London Line to get to the North of the City and thus obviate the need to increase services on the West London Line.
Another important question that has to be asked about the West London Line, is would it benefit from more stations, especially one to serve the new housing developments at Earls Court.
3. Ealing Broadway
The theory goes that because of Crossrail, the Central Line will see a decrease in passenger numbers from Ealing Broadway and that one of the Central Line platforms could be taken over by the GOBlin. This diagram from carto.metro.free.fr shows the layout of lines in the area from Ealing Broadway to the West London Line.
Ealing Broadway Station To West London Line
It is certainly possible to drive a train along the route and I suspect freight and Network Rail maintenance trains do it all the time.
But is it worth doing?
There is a discussion on District Dave’s web site, which kicks the extension to Ealing Broadway around, that probably comes to the conclusion it might cause all sort of operational problems for the Great Western Main Line and Crossrail.
4. Transport for London’s 2050 Plan
Transport for London’s 2050 Plan envisages some trains from the GOBlin linking via the Carlton Road junction to reach the Midland Main Line and Thameslink. I talked about this in Electrification of the GOBlin.
Doing this has two main advantages; GOBlin trains would not have to travel on the North London Line and there are plenty of places, that could be destinations.
As Gospel Oak’s sole terminal platform would now not be so important, as trains went around the station on existing lines to the South, Gospel Oak station could probably be redesigned and converted into a comprehensive high-capacity step-free interchange between the two Overground lines. This map from our French friends shows the layout of lines in the area.
Gospel Oak Lines
Note that in the top right of this map stations at Junction Road and Tufnell Park are shown, which could be joined together in the future.
5. Old Oak Common
The development of an interchange at Old Oak Common will be a big game changer, as it will line so many lines in the area.
So it is a possibility for a destination of GOBlin trains, but if there was a good interchange at Gospel Oak would it just be putting another service into the mix at Old Oak Common for the convenience of a few passengers.
So what would I do?
It is obvious, that electrification of the GOBlin, Crossrail and the developments at Old Oak Common would prompt a sort out of the various lines and services in the West of London.
I would possibly do some station improvements to improve connectivity for a start.
- Willesden Junction is not an easy interchange and could be rebuilt to be much better.
- Gospel Oak is not a proper interchange and if the GOBlin starts to use the Carlton Road junction, then it will need to be rebuilt.
- There have been plans to connect the North London Line to the Central Line at North Acton.
- Central Line platforms could be built at Park Royal station.
There are also questions to be answered.
- Where does the Dudding Hill Line fit in all this?
- Will Crossrail make the western end of the Ealing Broadway branch of the Central Line less important.
- Could the Piccadily Line and the Central Line be simplified?
There are so many possibilities.
Conclusion
I doubt that the GOBlin will ever go to Ealing Broadway, although going along the Dudding Hill Line is a serious possibility.
The Anonymous Widower 