Reflections At Stratford Station
I took these pictures from the low-level DLR platforms at Stratford station.
It has become an impressive station over the last few years. It certainly performed well in the Olympics.
A Surfeit Of Ice Cream At The Cable-Car
If you like ice cream, they had lots of it at the north terminal of the cable-car today.
There’s also a stall at the southern end.
Is It Best To Go North-South On The Cable Car?
The Emirates Air-line does seem to be slightly antisymmetric, with more steps on the south side than on the north.
So this means it might be easier to use the cable-car going from the north to the south! Although, there are lifts both end to get you up to the gondolas.
A Too Polite Society
There were about six of us at the bus stop this morning waiting for a bus, in a rather loose queue.
I wanted a 38 or 56 and one duly turned up.
However, we were all being so polite about who should go first and not pushing in, that the driver shut the doors and pushed off. It didn’t matter as after a laugh about what happened, another 38 arrived and two of us got on.
St. Pancras: Gem – Gare du Nord: Dump
The title is not my words, but those of the BBC’s respected correspondent, Hugh Schofield, in this piece, about the differences between Britain and France. This is a typical paragraph.
Now, I am not going to draw any too-facile comparison between France and Britain on the basis of a pair of 19th Century railway termini.
But I will say this – never in 16 years of living in France, and making pretty regular trips back and forth across the Channel, have I ever felt a greater disparity in national moods.
There’s a lot more in the same vein.
As ever with what Hugh Schofield writes, it is a good and thoughtful read.
The Lawyer Likes The New Bus For London
Lawyers get everywhere these days. They’ve even got an article in The Lawyer magazine about the New Bus for London.
Sorting Out Highbury Corner
Highbury Corner is one of London’s busiest interchanges, which is being restructured to make it easier for all users. The picture shows the terminus of the 277 bus.
277 Buses At Highbury Corner
I regularly get a bus from here to my house and the stop is badly placed for the Underground. It is also a very busy stop, just off the roundabout towards Dalston and not the nicest place to wait for a bus.
I think that whatever you do, you’re not going to make a great improvement, unless the 277 route was extended a bit towards Holloway. But then there probably isn’t another suitable terminus.
Traffic was particularly bad last night, as Arsenal were playing at home and people will insist on driving to the Emirates.
A Stupid Tourist
I was getting a Circle line train at Monument station, yesterday, when I was approached by an English-speaking tourist, who asked if the Ealing Broadway train at the platform went to Camden Town. I told her that she should walk up the platform and take a Northern line train. As I left a couple of minutes later on a train to Notting Hill Gate, she was still standing there asking the same question and I suspect getting the same answer.
All I can assume, is that she’d never been to a city with more than one train line and therefore she believed that all trains used the same platforms.
The London Underground may be a bit daunting, but staff and passengers will generally give you the correct advice.
What Do We Do With The Henry Moore?
Tower Hamlets council have a problem about what to do with a Henry Moore sculpture that they own. It’s all here on the BBC.
In some ways, the problem has been brought on, by the success of public statues. Look at most big stations these days and they have large sculptures. St. Pancras has two. So there are a lot of them about and because many are made from valuable bronze, they are just too tempting for thieves. But I’ve never heard of one being nicked in even a moderately-sized railway station, as the security is just too high. Or even it actually isn’t high, railway stations tend to be busy places with a good mobile phone signal and someone would probably call the police.
So perhaps, one of the first places to place a valuable statue is in a suitable railway station. but there are only four stations in Tower Hamlets. Only Shoreditch High Street station would probably be large enough. But it would probably be impossible to place a very heavy sculpture now, the station is built.
So it’s a real problem.
A practical idea might be to keep it indoors in a special museum, paid for by the money, that would otherwise be used for insurance. I have a feeling that some of the famous statues in Florence and other places in Italy have been moved indoors, not to protect them from vandals and thieves but the weather. This happened to Michaelangelo’s statue of David.
But whatever happens, we must make sure it is not stolen and melted down.
Roger Ford Was Right
For years in Modern Railways, Roger Ford has been questioning statistics and information from the Department of Transport. It emerged today, that three civil servants got their sums wrong and cost taxpayers a total of £40 million, over the Virgin Trains/First Group row about the West Coast Main line.
It is another failure of the Department, that in many peoples’ view, finds trains a rather historical method of transport.
Thpse involved have only been suspended. They should have been fired. But then I suspect they have all got a First from Oxford. If they’d got a Third in engineering from Sheffield or Exeter, they’d have got the sums right.
The Civil Service needs an Admiral Byng moment.
The Anonymous Widower 