The Anonymous Widower

Parking in Disabled Spaces

I took this picture today by the O2.

Parking in Disabled Spaces

It shows a row of cars parked in disabled spaces.  I did look but couldn’t see one disabled badge. Perhaps my eyes aren’t very good.

Next time I go, I’ll have another look and show number plates next time.

February 17, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | 2 Comments

A Mayor For Manchester?

Rochdale though sums up one of the problems of Manchester.  You have all these individual towns, that it would seem don’t talk to each other.  Some are proposing that there needs to be a mayor for Greater Manchester. There was a big article in The Times yesterday about a mayor for Manchester.

Recently,on my travels to the 92 football grounds in the UK in alphabetical order by public transport, I put England under a savage microscope. Some places like Exeter, Sheffield and Newcastle were no problem, as everything was signed and easy to understand.

But the biggest contrast was between Hartlepool and Manchester.  I’d expected a post-industrial dump in the first and a modern city in the second.

I was so wrong about the first and was surprised to see a town that had pulled itself out of the abyss, with the help of a mayor who fought for the town.  Manchester may have some nice new buildings and attractions, but it has the  most disintegrated public transport system in the UK.  Try turning up at Piccadilly station in a wheelchair and getting to Oldham hospital to see your mother, who’s fallen and broken her hip, without using a taxi! I know London isn’t perfect, but try getting from Euston to Barnet General.

Where was Manchester buses, welcoming booth at the station? Why didn’t the buses talk me through their route? Where were the street and bus maps at every bus stop? Where were the wheel-chair accessible buses with separate doors for entrance and exit?

London’s bus system has improved so much over the last few years and this is probably down to one person being in charge of the whole system, who reports directly to the mayor.

We are having a mayoral election in London in May.  Manchester could do a lot worse than ask the one who comes second to be their interim mayor, with a major responsibility to sort out their transport system and make it friendly and understandable to everybody and especially visitors and the disabled.

February 17, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 1 Comment

Rochdale

To illustrate how bad some of our town centres have become, BBC Breakfast is looking at Rochdale, where 1 in 6 of the shops are empty, today.

Surely the problems of Rochdale are going to get worse in the next couple of years, when they open the Metrolink to Manchester.

As it opens in Summer 2012, it looks like some of the rats have left before the ship sinks, making the problems worse. Dorothy Perkins, Mcdonalds and The Body Shop were named in the program.

It looks a classic case of planning a city bit-by-bit in isolation. The new Metrolink will bring people into the centre for their shopping. But it seems, they haven’t thought about Rochdale.

On my travels I did go to Eccles and that town surprised me.  So what have they done right in Eccles and wrong in Rochdale?

February 17, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 2 Comments

Olympic Tickets

What has happened here is that the organisers got their sums wrong.

They based the number of tickets on what had been sold for previous games in places like Athens, Sydney and Barcelona.

But they forgot some things in their calculations. How about these?

London has lots of residents, who have families who live abroad.  So what better time to have a family reunion?

Lots of those who work in the City are highly paid EU citizens.  So what better time to buy a lot of tickets so all your friends and family from Ireland, Germany or Spain can see the Olympics?

London has lots of attractions, so many ordinary people in nearby EU countries, who probably won’t get another chance to see an Olympics, are making the London their big holiday this year.  Rio will be a bit expensive next time round. The Irish certainly will be coming in droves, as we all know they love a party.

So if anything, the shortage of Olympic tickets is more of a success thing than anything else.  Although you could blame London’s unique place in the world and being a member of the EU as important too.

February 16, 2012 Posted by | Sport, Transport/Travel | | Leave a comment

Missing Links on the Overground

Late this year, the extension of the East London line of the London Overground to Clapham Junction station will be opened. I say “will be opened” as given Transport for London‘s record, they usually hit their own targets.

You will then be able to do all sort of circular journeys around London, but there will still be a couple of missing links in the complete circle or if you include Stratford, the circle and stub. But it’s never been intended that you get on one train and go all the way round.

Here are the missing links.

Passing through Clapham Junction from east to north

Passing through Clapham Junction from north to east

These two have been solved by an elegant solution, where the northbound trains use one end of the platform and the eastbound the other. So passengers just walk a few metres to their next train or where it is expected.

East London line stations to Stratford

The standard way is to change from the East London  line to the North London line at Canonbury or Highbury and Islington, which involves a lift-assisted bridge crossing. But you can always go to Canada Water and then take the Jubilee line to Stratford.  They might rebuild the Eastern Curve at Dalston, but I think that will only happen, if they need to send significant traffic from Stratford to South London.

Stratford to East London line stations

The standard way is to change from the North London  line to the Line London line at Canonbury or Highbury and Islington, which involves just a walk across the platform.

East London line stations to Richmond

Richmond to East London line stations

These two will again need a lift assisted walk over the tracks at  Canonbury or Highbury and Islington. I’d take the second as you have a bigger choice of direct stations without changing when travelling from Richmond.

To show how I use it, I’ll give a simple example.  Say, I’ve been to the Eastfield John Lewis at Stratford and I’m bringing home a heavy parcel, I’ll get off at Canonbury and take the first train to Dalston Junction, where I’ll often take the first bus home, to avoid carrying the parcel. It’s also step-free all the way.

The reinstatement of the Dalston Eastern Curve would save a few minutes, but then you’d probably have to wait a couple for a suitable train at Stratford. So from a passenger point of view, it’s probably not worth building, especially, as you can use the Jubilee line as a by-pass to South London. In fact the Jubilee is very much circular tube through South London.

February 12, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | 1 Comment

A Lock Is a Gate

This is a mini concept album and drawing project for the Central Line. These pictures were taken at Bethnal Green station.

There is more on the project here. Note the poster for the Stairway To Heaven, which will commemorate the 173 people who died in the Bethnal Green tube disaster in 1943.

February 10, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

When Airlines Knew What Service Meant – 3

This is a third tale from about 1985 and again it concerns British Airways, but I suspect in those days any good airline did their utmost for their passengers, as it was cheap positive publicity.

A friend, his wife and another couple had gone for a weekend in somewhere like Malaga.  They had worried about actually getting there, as the French air traffic controllers were having one of their periodic bouts of industrial action.

They werent’t particularly bothered, as if they didn’t get back on Monday, Tuesday would do.

On the Monday, various tour reps arrived at the hotel and said that everybody would get home, but it would be a bit late and they would be picked up from the hotel at the expected time.  But the British Airways rep told her charges to wait in the hotel and they’d be picked up three hours before the flight was to leave.

So about nine, they all trooped onto the coach for the airport, where chaos reigned, as no flights were going back to the UK, due to the French. At midnight, they were called to the departure lounge and pretty soon were on their plane.

They’d been expecting a 737, but the plane was a wide-bodied Tri-Star, which BA filled with other passengers caught up from the Sunday or at the chaos at other airports.

Once airborne, the pilot explained the Tri-Star by saying that the French weren’t allowing any planes through their airspace, so they’d used the longer-range Tri-Star and filed a flight-plan on the way out to Bermuda, with Malaga as the alternate. Then halfway across the Atlantic, they’d declared  a minor emergency and as they were just north of Spain, requested they go to the alternate. He said the flight home would be a bit longer, as they were totally avoiding French air-space.

It must have used a lot more fuel, but there were lots of contented passengers.

 

February 6, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | 2 Comments

When Airlines Knew What Service Meant – 2

In about 1979 or so, we ad an awful Christmas Eve in the UK, which meant that lots of aircraft were frozen to their stands at Heathrow and nothing could go in or out.

At the time a colleague in Metier was in Amsterdam and needed to get back for Christmas. He got to Schipol and there were massive queues as no planes were flying to the UK, because most airports were shut. But instead of giving up, as they do these days, British Airways managed to get a Tri-Star to Schipol from somewhere.  But where was it to go? It then turned out that the then small East Midlands Airport was open and during the afternoon and evening, it shuttled passengers across the North Sea.  The last flight arrived in England at three o’clock in the morning, as they kept the airport open late, so as not to ruin Christmas for the passengers. The airline is supposed to have commandeered all the coaches in the area to complete passengers journeys.

But everybody had a good Christmas and British Airways got a lot of publicity.

I can’t imagine it happening today! In fact today, there are reports of incoming passengers to the UK,  stuck in places like  Barcelona and Shannon.

February 6, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

When Airlines Knew What Service Meant

I was just talking to a friend, whose son  had got mixed up in all the delays at Stansted. He had got no sense from an Irish so-called airline and had had to come home.

It got me thinking about how airlines used to know what service meant.

Many years ago all five of us went to St. Lucia on an all-inclusive holiday with British Airways.

I think we were due to come home on the Thursday, but due to an engine failure on the incoming flight, it became obvious that we would have an extra night on the island. We were moved that night to another hotel and were told that although we would get home on Friday or Saturday, they couldn’t be sure how long we’d be stuck.

We eventually heard that it would be the Saturday, as although there would be an incoming flight on the Friday, it would be coming in late as it was carrying the spare engine and the crew to change it, and because of the extra load, it would be refuelling in Bermuda. We did get a view as it flew in to land of one of the strangest sights in aviation; a Boeing 747 carrying an extra fifth engine under the wing root. There’s a video of one here.

So we ad two extra nights on St. Lucia and very late on Saturday, we boarded the 747 to go home. I can’t remember if it was Thursday’s, Friday’s or Saturday’s plane, but it was one of the then new Rolls-Royce powered 747-200s.

The pilot did announce though, that it would be a direct flight to Heathrow, instead of via Barbados, so he apologised if the take-off was a bit noisy, as he’d be using full everything.

I remember he was followed down the runway by a tug and they backed the plane as far towards and over the fence as they dare. It was a noisy but safe take-off and we arrived much earlier than expected non-stop into Heathrow.

The one thing that spoilt the flight, was rather a heavy landing, for which the pilot apologised and blamed the new auto-land system, which as he said needed a bit more tweaking.

February 5, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | 1 Comment

More Idiot Train Reporting

Ben Ando on the BBC this morning, made the mistake in thinking that the A14 carries a lot of trucks with containers from Felixstowe to the North and back. Nowadays a high proportion of containers go by train via Peterborough and Nuneaton. In fact, I reported here, that they seemed to have decreased in number significantly.

 

But of course there might be more on the roads this weekend, as that idiot went too fast over the points at Bletchley.

February 5, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »