A Few Hours In Okehampton
Today, I took a trip by train to Okehampton and spent a couple of hours in the town.
I took the 10:04 from Paddington and after changing at Exeter St. Davids, I arrived in Okehampton at 13:11
Coming back, I took the 15:24 from Okehampton and arrived in Paddington at 18:24.
So the journeys took about three hours.
These pictures show Okehampton station.
Note.
- The train was two Class 150 trains coupled together.
- I suspect the platform is long enough to take a GWR Castle train
- The bus in the pictures is the 118, of which more later.
- It looked like a buffet was under construction.
- The new train information displays.
I took the bus down to Okehampton, where I took these pictures, as I walked around.
Note, that the first three pictures show the museum and the cycle works cafe, where I had a coffee and a delicious gluten-free flapjack.
I have a few thoughts on my journey, both now and in the future.
The 118 Bus
The 118 bus runs between Tavistock and Okehampton station.
- It serves the villages in between.
- It meets the trains from Exeter and takes them to Okehampton Town Centre.
- It picks people up from Okehampton Town Centre and takes them to the station just before the trains leave for Exeter.
- It accepts contactless payment.
It is a well-designed bus route that links passengers with the trains to and from Exeter.
Many other towns could follow Okehampton’s lead.
Walking Between Station And The Town Centre
I could certainly walk down the hill, but one of the locals said that it rather a stiff walk up the hill that takes about fifteen minutes, if you’re up to it. He also felt a taxi would be about a fiver.
Could A Battery Train Work The Service between Exeter And Okehampton Station?
Consider.
- It is 24.8 miles between Exeter St. David and Okehampton stations.
- It is a rise of under 200 metres.
- The Class 150 trains climbed the hill at around 30 mph, but in places it was lower.
- Hitachi, Stadler and Vivarail are talking about battery-electric trains with a range of fifty miles.
- I was talking to one of the Great Western Railway staff and he said in the days of steam, the trains used to roll down the hill into Exeter.
- There is the 18 MW Den Brook Wind Farm close to Okehampton.
- With regenerative braking rolling down would recharge the batteries.
I suspect, that designing a battery-electric train to climb the hill is possible.
My rough estimate says that a battery of around 500 KWh could be enough.
Are The People Of Devon Going To Use The Train?
I took these pictures as I joined the train back to Exeter.
The people were a mixture of those arriving from Exeter and those returning to Exeter, but most seats were taken on the way back.
I can see Great Western Railway running Castles, like the one in the picture, for services on this route in the Summer, both to attract passengers and to cope with their numbers.
Local Reaction
I talked to several local people and they were all pleased that the service has been reinstated.
The only complaint was that it should have happened sooner.
Is A Day Trip Possible?
Suppose you live in London and your mother or other close relative lives in Okehampton.
Would it be possible to be able to visit them on their birthday for a good lunch?
Consider.
- At the present time, trains from London, connect to the Okehampton service about every two hours.
- The first connecting service leaves Paddington at 08:04.
- Trains take around three hours between Paddington and Okehampton.
- From probably May 2022, there will be hourly connections to Okehampton.
- The last London train leaves Exeter at 20:46.
If you wanted to be a real hero, you could always take the Night Riviera back to London, which leaves Exeter at 0100.
I would say that if they planned it properly, a day trip from London to Okehampton by train, is feasible for a special occasion.
Will Great Western Railway Ever Run Direct Trains Between London Paddington And Okehampton?
I doubt this would be a regular service but I do believe that it is technically feasible.
- Trains would need to reverse at Exeter St. Davids.
- Trains would probably be limited to five car Class 802 trains.
- Okehampton station could probably accommodate a five-car Class 802 train.
- I estimate that the journey time would be a few minutes under three hours.
It should be noted that Paignton gets around three trains per day (tpd) from Paddington.
It might be that if the demand was there, a few trains per day could be run to and from London, by splitting and joining with the Paignton service at Exeter St. Davids.
- If both services were run by five-car trains, there would be a ten-car service to and from London.
- It certainly looks that GWR wouldn’t have to spend a great deal to implement the service.
- The extra capacity of the five-car train might help commuters into Exeter.
It is likely that this service wouldn’t run until Okehampton Parkway station is opened, which would attract travellers from the West, who would arrive at the station along the A 30 dual-carriageway
I can certainly see a service leaving Okehampton at around seven in the morning and getting into London about ten, paired with a late afternoon/evening train home.
It should be noted, that First Group with their Lumo service between London and Edinburgh, seem to negotiate for paths that create revenue.
But I do wonder, if one of the reasons , that Great Western Railway, Network Rail, Devon County Council, the Department of Transport and the Government were all very much in favour of reopening this route, is that it creates a valid alternative route between London and Plymouth and all places to the West, should the main route via Dawlish be breached again by the sea.
Okehampton station and the future Okehampton Parkway station are both close to the A30 which would allow express coaches to Plymouth and all over West Devon and Cornwall to bypass the trouble.
Hopefully, because the alterative route has been enabled the worst won’t happen.
Conclusion
Exeter and Okehampton is a well-thought out reopening, that will be welcomed in the South West of England.
A Dreadful Hot Chocolate At Woking Station
On my trip to the Isle of Wight today, to ride on the new Class 484 trains on the Island Line, I got on a Portsmouth & Southsea train, rather than one to Portsmouth Harbour station.
I was told be the guard, that it would be convenient to change at Woking station, which I did.
I took these pictures at the station.
Note.
- I alighted on Platform 5, where there is a Starbucks.
- I bought a hot chocolate in the Starbucks.
- I then moved to Platform 4 to catch my train to Portsmouth Harbour.
- It was a bit of a precarious platform transfer as the lifts are at the other end of the station.
- Where there was a Pumpkin.
It’s a pity, I didn’t wait to get my drink, as it was one of the worst Hot chocolates I’ve ever tasted.
Later I had a much better hot chocolate in another cafe at Ryde.
Michael O’Leary On Sustainable Aviation Fuel And Food Prices
This article on Hydrogen Fuel News is entitled Ryanair CEO Predicts Cost Of Hydrogen Fuel Will Spike Food Prices.
Logically, this could happen to foods with a high quantity of food miles, such as peas and beans from Kenya.
But surely we can replace these with products grown in places like the Fens.
But still O’Leary got his name in a news article, which was the purpose.
He doesn’t bother me, as I don’t fly much and there are several airlines, I use in preference to Ryanair.
I also don’t fly in Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, in which O’Leary has made a large investment.
Street Burger – Islington
Regularly in pre-pandemic times, I would go to Carluccio’s at The Angel in Islington for a quick lunch after doing my shopping on a Saturday.
But unfortunately, Carluccio’s is no more!
Now there is a Street Burger by Gordon Ramsay between Marks and Spencer and one of the bus stops, from where I can get a bus home.
Before I continue, I should say I have form with Gordon Ramsay, as I once talked to him on Radio 5 about gluten-free food in a restaurant.
He said that if you book at least 24 hours before and say you want a gluten-free meal, the restaurant has no excuse for not giving you what you need.
He also said that if they think they’re a good restaurant and can’t offer gluten-free food, then they’re not a good restaurant.
Since then, I’ve eaten a couple of times in his upmarket restaurants and he’s not broken his own rules.
Today, I broke his rule, by just turning up. But I did know, they did gluten-free options.
Note.
- I forgot to take a picture of the burger before I started to eat it.
- The decor is simple and practical.
- What car did the seats come from?
- You can have as much soft drink as you like.
The pictures don’t do the meal justice, which was upmarket for a burger.
I shall use the restaurant more often, as it’s so conveniently placed, close to Angel tube station, which is one of my routes home.
Is Lumo The Ryanair Of Rail?
Someone had to draw the comparison between Lumo and Ryanair and it was The Times, that used a headline of Lumo, The Ryanair Of Rail, Gets The Green Light On East Coast, for their article about the new London and Edinburgh rail service in their article today.
But how alike are the two business models?
Standard Planes And Trains
The Boeing 737 and the Airbus A 320, as used by Ryanair and easyJet are the two workhorses of short haul airlines.
It can also be said, that Hitachi’s AT-300 train is becoming the workhorse of long-distance rail services in the UK.
Customised Interiors
Ryanair and easyJet do customise the interiors of their aircraft to a certain extent and from pictures on the Internet Lumo appear to have done the same.
If you look at the widths of the planes and trains on Wikipedia, you find these values.
- Airbus A 320 – 3.95 metres
- Boeing 737 – 3.8 metres
- Class AT-300 train – 2.7 metres
Dividing by the number of seats across, which is six for the planes and four for the train gives these figures.
- Airbus A 320 – 0.66 metres
- Boeing 737 – 0.63 metres
- Class AT-300 train – 0.67 metres
I know there is an aisle down the middle, so let’s say that it is 0.60 metres. This gives these spaces for each seat.
- Airbus A 320 – 0.56 metres
- Boeing 737 – 0.53 metres
- Class AT-300 train – 0.53 metres
I think that is adequate space for a designer to do a good job.
This picture shows the interior of a Great Western Railway Class 802 train, which use a similar body shell to the trains used by Lumo.
Note.
- The aisle looks to be similar in width to a seat.
- There is a bag shelf above the windows and lots of coat hooks.
As both Lumo and Great Western Railway are both First Group companies, is it likely that the interior dimensions are similar, so that standard trolleys could be used and training could be eased and shared between companies in the group.
This picture shows a trolley fitting in between the tables on a Great Western Railway service.
I suspect, if they design everything together, Lumo could make best use of a narrow aisle to give the seats a bit more width.
This last picture shows TransPennine Express Class 802 train at Willesden Junction station.
Note how the lower part of the side of the train is curved. Is this to get a bit more room for the seat squab?
Passengers Per Metre
This is only a rough calculation and shows typical passengers, fuselage or car length and passengers per metre.
- Airbus A 320 – 164 passengers – 37.57 metres – 4.4 px/metre
- Boeing 737 – 160 passengers – 37.0 metres – 4.3 px/metre
- Class AT-300 train – 96 passengers – 26 metres – 3.7 px/metre
Passenger density in the train is about fourteen percent less.
Toilets
In The Definitive Seating Layout Of Lumo’s Class 803 Trains, I said this.
This article on Economy Class and Beyond is entitled Enter Lumo – The New East Coast Railway Competitor.
It contains a drawing from Lumo, which shows the layouts of the seats on the train.
-
- Coach A – 44 Standard seats – 8 Priority seats – 2 Wheelchair spaces – 2 Tip up seats – Accessible toilet – 56 Total seats
- Coach B – 84 Standard seats – 12 Priority seats – Bike store – Toilet – 96 Total seats
- Coach C – 84 Standard seats – 12 Priority seats – 96 Total seats
- Coach D – 84 Standard seats – 12 Priority seats – Bike store – Toilet – 96 Total seats
- Coach E – 52 Standard seats – 8 Priority seats – 2 Tip up seats – Accessible toilet – 62 Total seats
Note.
-
- This is a total of 406 seats.
- Judging by the position of the tip-up seats they are for staff and perhaps emergency use, if say a coffee gets spilled on a seat.
- Each car has a pair of tables, where four can sit. As Lumo’s business model allows early booking, if you and your partner want to take the kids to see granny on her birthday, you should be able to get a table, by booking early.
- There are two bike stores in Coaches B and D.
These are some further thoughts.
Toilet Provision
I was on an LNER Class 800 train earlier this week and needed to go to the toilet.
-
- I wasn’t sure which way I needed to go, as I couldn’t see a sign pointing me to the toilet, but in the end I struck lucky.
- You don’t have that problem with Lumo’s trains, as there appears to be a toilet at both ends of the three middle coaches, either in your car or the next.
- If you’re in one of the driver cars, there is an accessible toilet at the blunt end.
I don’t think anybody will argue with the toilet provision on Lumo’s trains.
Typically a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320 will have two toilets for about 160 passengers.
Lumo’s trains have two accessible toilets and two ordinary ones for 406 passengers.
Ease Of Boarding
If you want to catch a train at virtually any station in the UK, in most cases, you just turn up something like fifteen minutes before the departure time, present your ticket and get on the train.
Planes used to be like that in the UK, but they aren’t any more.
Catering
In the article in The Times, Matt Lee, who is Lumo’s customer experience director, said they have been free to develop their own systems. He says this about the catering.
Catering will be a Deliveroo-style service: passengers can order M&S or Pret sandwiches in advance and have them delivered to their seat. “We are a testbed for other FirstGroup train operators.
Will they do gluten-free?
Luggage
Lumo have a luggage courier service called LumoLuggage.
Service Expansion
Suppose an airline or a train operating company wants to run additional services to add capacity to a route.
With an airline, they will need to obtain additional take-off and landing slots to fly the route.
But Lumo are running five-car trains on a route, where all the stations can handle nine-car trains and possibly a pair of five-car trains.
So Lumo just add extra cars to the fleet, so that they match the number of cars running on the route to the demand.
The only costs to increase the capacity are those of the extra cars and a proportionate number of extra staff.
Conclusion
I can see this service model being copied by other train operators in other countries.
I’m looking forward to going North on Wednesday.
Basil Crop Hits The Roof At Scunthorpe Vertical Farm With Artificial Sun
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
It is a fascinating article about how basil is farmed vertically in Scunthorpe.
- Much of the crop goes to UK supermarkets.
- The grower has now teamed with Ocado to build the largest vertical farm in the world.
- The grower is also growing rosemary, chard and spinach. Although the latter looked a bit sad.
- He has also experimented with turnips and carrots and hopes to move on to soft fruits and cut flowers.
Surely, the only way is Up!
Is the farmer feeding the crops carbon dioxide captured from the massive Keadby gas-fired power-stations in the area?
That way we can generate our electricity with added CO2 and eat it.
I know of a tomato grower, who uses a gas-powered combined heat and power boiler to heat his greenhouses, where the CO2 is fed to the tomatoes and any electricity he doesn’t need is sold to local consumers.
If we can eat all the CO2, why not go fracking for the gas? The only losers would be the Qataris and Putin.
Who Stole All The M & S Gluten-Free Food?
Over the last few weeks, certain gluten-free lines in Marks and Spencer have started getting difficult to find.
Some of the things, I like that have been difficult have included.
- Ginger snap biscuits.
- Gluten-free pies
- Scones
- Bloomer slices
- Gluten-free muesli
Note that my supper is usually something I cook myself from scratch or one of the many M & S ready meals, that contain no gluten. It is usually washed down by a bottle of Adnams low-alcohol beer and followed by some fruit. Tonight, the fruit will be one of my favourites, which are strawberries and bananas.
I did think that the shortage of the lines I mentioned was due to a supply problem.
But then, there have not been shortages of other lines, that I buy, that are not specifically gluten-free.
So is it some gluten-free suppliers are having problems? Possibly.
But!
Regular readers of this blog will know that I believe that those coeliacs on a long-term gluten free diet seem to be unlikely to suffer a severe dose of the dreaded covids. There was no battle with the second dose!
I know for a start that my immune system gives short shift to any viral invaders, as it did with the AstraZeneca vaccine before they came to a truce.
So have others, including some with more medical knowledge than myself, come to the same conclusion about coeliac disease, the immune system, gluten and the covids and have gone gluten-free for safety?
For example, I’ve heard that those suffering from long covid have been tested for coeliac disease.
I’d love to be able to analyse the sales of gluten-free food.
An Unusual Find In My Food Cupboard
I found this can of Heinz Tomato Soup in my food cupboard.
What happened to it?
- It looks like a half-eaten tin of meat.
- It is dated March 2014.
I never usually buy tomato soup.
Is There Anybody Out There, Who’d Like To Share a Beef Bourguignon?
Recently, Marks and Spencer introduced a range of meat dishes, one of which was Beef Bourguignon.
So I bought one today.
- There is a range of about six dishes.
- All of the range seems to be gluten-free and is marked as such.
- As they don’t look gluten-free from the picture, they would be ideal for serving at a mixed meal, where some diners were gluten-free and others were not!
- They seem to be simple to cook.
- The Use-By date is the 27th October.
If I have a quibble, it is that they are only for two and they also say Do Not Reheat on the box, which means that coeliacs like me, who live alone have a problem.
Perhaps they need a single portion.
But to solve my problem, if there is anybody reading this, who is close to Dalston and would like to test the Beef Bourguignon, then get in touch before the 27th!
The Anonymous Widower 