Off To Scotland
I’m off to Edinburgh today by train to see an old friend. Then it’s over to Glasgow and on Saturday down to Bolton to see Ipswich play.
I’ll be having a good breakfast at Leon in Kings Cross, as it would appear that gluten-free food on East Coast is a bit thin. I may be wrong, but we will see!
No Directions To Kings Cross Square
I took a Piccadilly line train to Kings Cross today, from where I got a 30 bus to my home.
But there were no signs to the Kings Cross Square and the buses that stop alongside.
The interchange is working well and if I’m coming home on a Piccadilly line train say from Heathrow, I now surface at Kings Cross station and get a 30 bus home or a 73 to the Angel, where I change at the same stop to the 38 for home. It solves the problems of the lack of Underground stations in my area of Hackney.
This interchange will get better, when the second entrance to the Underground opens and the bus routes in the area are improved. The 390 for instance is getting New Buses for London.
Today, the big light was on too, so I was able to bathe in its warmth, as I waited for my bus.
Obviously, not everybody has an energy problem!
Three Visitors Inspecting A Lith
I took this picture of the lith outside of Russell Square station.
Three Visitors Inspecting A Lith
I also talked to one of the staff inside, who liked the lith, but they said, they still got people asking them for directions.
Most stations now seem to have these Legible London liths outside. I now never carry a map, or use a map on my phone, as I walk around London, as the liths and the maps on bus stops and stations, will get me where I want to go.
Little Bits Of Italian Paper
One slight irritant in Italy is that the law says you must have a receipt. Unlike in the UK, Italians seem very reluctant to bin them for you.
Buying Tickets To Scotland
Next weekend, I’m going to Edinburgh and Glasgow and then down to Bolton to see Ipswich play.
All journeys were booked on-line in First Class and purchased using my Senior Railcard. It cost me £64.31 for the trip up using East Coast on Thursday and £57.45 for the split journey down using Virgin.
The journey down is probably cheaper, as it is effectively a typical Premium Economy journey in First Class on Saturday.
As I can now collect tickets from my local station at Dalston Junction, I was able to collect the tickets, whilst taking a constitutional walk to the pub in the evening.
Would people use the trains more, if it were easier to pick up tickets?
Liverpool Tries Scrapping Bus Lanes
It is being reported on both BBC Breakfast and their web site, that Liverpool is scrapping bus lanes in a nine month experiment to see if it reduces congestion.
What Liverpool really needs is better information on how to use the buses and walk around the city, as I said here in this post. I didn’t get a reply. Unlike from Birmingham after this post.
Closer to home, I’m being seriously inconvenienced by road works in a bus lane, which has resulted in the closest stop to my house being closed. This means that when I return from the Angel with my shopping, I have to walk several hundred metres further. In a couple of cases, I’ve taken taxis home, to avoid the walk.
Hopefully, in a few days, we’ll be back to normal!
Does The RMT Care About Passengers?
I travel on trains a lot and I’ve never had anything but courtesy and fair treatment from railway staff in the UK. I’ve even had one or two, break the rules in my favour, when perhaps I’ve made a mistake. One actually said, that it was his company’s policy to put customers first, when the rule breaking was minor.
But today, there is a story on the BBC about the RMT protesting about the possible closure of the Underground ticket office at Whitechapel. Here’s the opening paragraph.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) are protesting at Whitechapel Tube station against the possible closure of ticket offices.
Now I’ve just returned from Palermo to London by train and I only used a ticket office once. And that was in Geneva, where I couldn’t find a machine to sell me a ticket for Paris!
i’ve only used a ticket office, once in the last three years on the Underground and that was to get a free ticket wallet.
If we’re honest, I think it is true to say that ticket offices are virtually redundant, but station staff definitely aren’t. Stand by the barrier or on the platform on any Underground station and you’ll be surprised at how many people ask questions or request help as they pass along.
Bob Crow is reported as saying this.
The threat to the ticket office at Whitechapel is a line in the sand as far as RMT is concerned and we will fight this plan tooth and nail.
I don’t think many of those on the overcrowded Dalston Omnibus on a day, when the RMT call a strike, will agree.
The RMT has also got into the stupid row about a possible third class of travel on trains. The story is reported here in the Daily Mail, who are very negative. This is in the article.
Bob Crow, left wing leader of the RMT transport union said: ‘Now we know, the door is open for the train operators to introduce third passenger class as and when it suits them.
Incidentally, I travel third class regularly on trains. It’s called Premium Economy and very good it is too, on Eurostar.
You could also argue, that First Class at the weekend, is much more of a Premium Economy class, than a true First, on many trains.
Will We Get HSW Before HS2?
In this post about the BBC’s knocking of HS2, I jokingly referred to the Great Western Main Line as HSW, for High Speed West or High Speed Wales.
But is it that far from the truth?
A high speed railway is defined as one where speeds of 200 kph or 125 mph are possible. The fastest lines run at 320 kph or 200 mph.
So what speed can we expect to see on the Great Western Main Line, after it is fully modernised in 2017?
Currently the fastest trains in the UK are the Class 373 ( 300 kph) used by Eurostar, the Class 390 ( 225 kph) used by Virgin and the InterCity 225 (225 kph) used by East Coast. The latter two trains are restricted to 200 kph, due to signalling restrictions on their lines and because they have to mix it with slower trains.
It is also interesting to note that the Class 395, which bring the high speed Kent commuter services into St. Pancras run at 225 kph.
The new trains for the electrified Great Western Main Line are based on the Class 395 and are called Class 800 and Class 801. These have a design speed of 225 kph, but will be limited to 200 kph on traditional lines.
But Brunel built the Great Western for speed and a lot of the route it is pretty straight and much has four tracks. It is also going to be resignalled to the highest European standards with in-cab signalling. The latter is necessary to go above 200 kph. So it shouldn’t be one of the most difficult tasks to make much of the line capable of 225 kph or even more.
The only real problem on the line is the Severn Tunnel. But as Crossrail has shown, we have some of the best tunnel engineers in the world. So just as the Swiss dealt with their railway bottleneck of the Simplon Tunnel, all we need to do to improve the Severn Tunnel is give the best engineers their head and let them solve the problems, whilst the politicians sit around and watch and wait. After all it’s only a baby compared to the massive twin bores of the Simplon.
As an aside here, I do wonder if one of the most affordable solutions might be to use a modern tunnel boring machine to create a new tunnel alongside the current one.
Conclusion
So I believe that even if it still goes slower on opening, trains to Bristol and Wales will be doing 225 kph before the end of this decade.
If that isn’t a high speed railway like HS1, I don’t know what is?
But whatever we call it, it’ll be here several years before HS2!
I think we need to call for three cheers for Brunel, who got the route right in the first place.
Knock HS2 And It Might Go Away
I’m not a great supporter of HS2, but this story on the BBC, being spun as how it will damage other areas of the UK, is pure scaremongering and very bad journalism.
The areas, they say could be worst affected are Aberdeenshire, Norfolk, Dundee and Cardiff. On the television this morning they’re adding in Bristol and Cambridge.
Putting in Norfolk is a strange one, as obviously HS2 spending will also hurt Devon and Cornwall. These areas though will hopefully get improvement in the next few years, but this will come from using better train technology on upgraded lines.
West Norfolk for instance will be linked into the Thameslink system and electrifying and straightening the main routes across East Anglia and Ely to Norwich, would improve the area a great deal. A lot of this will happen, whether or not HS2 is built.
Devon and Cornwall is more problematical due to the geography and the scenery, but I suspect that Plymouth and Penzance will be a lot closer to London, when the electrification and new trains being planned for the Great Western Main Line are completed and delivered.
The Aberdeen and Dundee areas north of Edinburgh will always be badly served from the Scottish capital, until you build a new bridge or tunnel over the Forth of Firth. I can’t see anybody leading a campaign to replace the iconic Forth Bridge.
Cardiff and Bristol are interesting ones, as courtesy of Brunel, electrification and new trains, they will get their own HSW before HS2 is even started, at the current rate of progress. Once the Severn Tunnel is sorted, it would seem that services between the English and Welsh capitals could be around two and a half hours or even less. Having just been through the very problematic Simplon Tunnel at high speed,which is almost as old as that under the Severn, I’m certain, that a few world class engineers and tunnellers can sort out the bottleneck on the railway to Wales.
To suggest that Cambridge will be hurt by HS2, is like suggesting that the London Underground, will be hurt by Crossrail. Cambridge has recently seen an improvement of the line to London and in a few years, it will be connected to Thameslink, giving it better access to London and areas south of the Thames.
I suspect, that the overpaid BBC hack, who started this story, wants to kill HS2, as he lives in an area affected by the proposed route.
Or could, the journalist be fed-up with having to go from his home in the South East to his place of work in Manchester, so he might be very anti-train.
The BBC article is in any case unattributed.
And of course, remember it’s a much better story, if it destroys something!
The Damage To The Overground
Judging by these pictures I took, the train crash on the 15th caused quite a bit of damage.
You do wonder what would have happened if the container had fallen into the park below during the day. Luckily the wall held it on the track. But it did happen at three in the morning.
Let’s hope this accident is not a foretaste of the future, when a lot more freight trains from London Gateway will be using the North London Line.
There doesn’t seem to be any news about when the line will reopen.
The Anonymous Widower 