Wetherspoons To Open A Pub On The M40
It looks like Wetherspoons will be opening a pub on the M40 according to reports like this one from the BBC.
I have no view on whether it would increase drink-driving, but surely it would be just as easy to drink in a pub just off the motorway, than one in a service area.
But what I would like to see is better rail interchanges on motorways! Very few railway stations are close to motorways with large amounts of parking. Personally, I’m not too badly affected, as I don’t drive, but sometimes when I want to meet someone driving along the motorway, finding a suitable station is difficult.
Should Tube Stations Be Sponsored?
It has been proposed that London Underground stations should be sponsored. The story is here in the Standard.
On paper it looks a good idea, but I doubt it would work as well as expected.
Look at the obvious example of Harrods, which effectively has its own entrance into Knightsbridge station. How would Harvey Nicks feel about being served by a station called Harrods?
Perhaps an idea that might work well, but probably would not raise as much money would be to allow the bus or train information system to say something like. “This is Knightsbridge. Alight here for Harrods”
But even then, how do you sort out the Harrods/Harvey Nicholls problem?
Summer Over Haggeston
The blue sky just asked to be photographed.
I wish I’d taken a few more. But then, if I had, the summer will end before it starts.
Still I did buy a raincoat yesterday and that will put the mockers on it.
Crap Dangerous Staircases Of East London
I have taken some pictures of the staircases in various railway stations across East London.
There is no alternatives to any of these, as they are lift-free stations. So just imagine, how the elderly, those in wheel-chairs and those with buggies cope.
The Hackney Downs Information Board
I’ve used Hackney Downs station twice in the last few days, and on Friday, I noticed this information board for the first time.
The Hackney Downs Information Board
There doesn’t seem to be any information on the buses on it, but the stops are obvious and as is typical with Transport for London, they have all the bus information you need. There was also at least one bus spider map inside the station.
This board is also placed in such an obvious place, that you can’t miss it.
I wonder how many stations would score less than Hackney Downs on their information?
Merrily We Roll Along
I came back from Walthamstow on Friday on one of Greater Anglia‘s ubiquitous Class 317 trains.
A Greater Anglia Class 317 Train
They may look to be scrapheap-ready trains from the 1980s, ripe for replacement with shiny new expensive trains. Incidentally, the train in the picture is one of the last ones built in 1987, so it’s a comparative youngster compared to some.
But underneath the tired paintwork and uncomfortable seating, there is a legendary Mark 3 coach struggling to get out. These coaches used in the InterCity 125 and in many other trains, were made as early as the 1970s and most are still running in 2013.
The Class 317 is closely related to the Class 455, some of which have been refurbished by South West Trains to a very high standard. I talked about them here.
It looks like these 317s are going to get their own version of the Class 455 refurbishment. it is reported here in Wikipedia. Work is ongoing to create a prototype with new and more efficient traction equipment and a new interior to test passenger reaction.
So yet again, it looks like more Mark 3 coaches will be emerging from their chrysalis. The Wikipedia article talks of increasing the life of the trains by twenty years. Not bad considering that many of them are over thirty years old now!
The InterCity 125 is well-known as a design classic of Kenneth Grange. But who’d have thought that the humble coaches in the middle, would still be having a laugh at everybody’s expense nearly fifty years after they were designed.
Manchester In The Slow Lane
An article published in The Times today says that a survey has shown that Coventry is the speediest city in the UK.
It also says Manchester is the slowest!
Could it be that Manchester has a terrible bus system, with little information and single door buses, that take forever to load and unload passengers? So buses waiting at stops, slow everybody down. I commented on the public transport system in Manchester here.
Belgians Give Up On Fyra
The Belgian government has pulled out of the Fyra project to run high speed trains between Brussels and Amsterdam. It’s reported here.
This sorry story has a lot of lessons for governments, who try to implement large projects.
Building railway lines and in particular high-speed lines is not difficult, except for the odd local political and environmental problems, as HS1 found in Kent and HS2 is now finding. But the actual line generally works well from an engineering perspective, with the possible exception of the Wenzhou crash in China, where signalling may have been at fault. None of the high speed train crashes in this country, were caused by engineering problems on new lines.
The main problems with Fyra are all about using new unproven trains. No sensible project manager would ever use unproven technology at the heart of a new project. You could argue, that Boeing used an unproven battery system on the Dreamliner. But look what happened there!
The other major problem with Fyra is that they discontinued the traditional services between towns like The Hague and Brussels, thus alienating a lot of their target market.
So when you do a large project, make sure that it fits the aspirations of your customers.
If we look at HS2 to Birmingham, the technology to be used to build the line will be very much proven, as hopefully will be the trains, which will probably be derived from something that is working well in the UK or Europe.
The line too, will be an addition to the current services between the two cities. This in itself removes a lot of risk from this line, as say there is a problem that cuts capacity on HS2, you don’t have only one basket for your eggs. I also believe the competition from such as Chiltern and Virgin trains and their successors, will make sure that HS2 is competitive and reliable. Those two services, will also act as valuable feeder services to HS2, as say you live in Banbury and want to go to Leeds, you’d hop to Moor Street station in Birmingham and then take HS2 to Leeds, when that section of the line is completed.
Crossrail And The Super Sewer
The two large tunneling projects in London at the moment are Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel or Super Sewer.
They both require long tunnels and will cost billions of pounds each.
But the public seem to have different attitudes to the two projects.
Nearly everybody seems to support Crossrail, whereas there is substantial opposition to the sewer.
I did ask a friend, if there had been any opposition to Crossrail and he said, there was a bit in the early days from places like Mayfair. People seemed to have been worried about dust and noise during the construction phase. But now everybody just gets on with life and hopes that Crossrail will be finished and walking and driving will get back to normal.
To be fair to Crossrail, they seem to have gone out of their way with green walls to minimise noise, using the river to carry tunnel spoil and being a good neighbour as at Stepney City Farm. They have also launched a well-funded and publicised archaeology program.
On the other hand, the Super Sewer, doesn’t seem to have done the same to allay the fears of a public, who don’t want all the problems of construction and the increase in water bills.
I do wonder, whether the difference is down to the fact that a new railway is something people can use and feel gives them tangible benefits, but a sewer, is something that they only use a few times every day and don’t want to think about. And it looks to me, that Thames Water have not done a good enough job to sell the benefits of the new sewer to the general public.
How To Recycle A Roof
This story on the BBC, tells how the old station roof at London Bridge station, is going to be given to the Vale of Rheidol railway in Wales to help build their new museum.
It wasn’t many years ago, when this structure would have been reduced to scrap, so Network Rail are to be congratulated. Hopefully, the new museum in Aberystwyth will bring tourists to the town and create some new businesses and jobs.
I think too, that this story illustrates how intelligent recycling might be slightly more expensive, but properly done, it can save lots of money elsewhere. The new museum in Wales is reported to be costing ten million, but how much more would it cost without the recycled roof.
The Anonymous Widower 