Thoughts On The Washington National Air Tragedy
I flew light aircraft for over twenty years as a hobby and to get about on business. I flew mainly in the UK, but flew for perhaps fifty to a hundred hours in Australia, France, Ireland, Italy and the United States. I flew planes on to islands like the Scillies in the UK, the Lido in Venice and the Barrier Reef in Australia. It was great fun and I enjoyed it immensely.
I had a friend, who had been an RAF Air Traffic Controller, who would be horrified at Trump’s remarks on diversity, as although he was white, he had been born in Tobago and had many ATC colleagues who were not white.
Flying around the world, most ATC personnel, try to smooth you on your way, even in France and Italy. But American ATC seems to work under unnecessary pressure because they allow planes to where British, French and Australian ATC wouldn’t.
I was told in the 1970s, that aviation experts, wanted to close National Airport, but the politicians wouldn’t allow it.
If I was Trump, I would bring in outside experts from somewhere like Australia, where in my opinion, they do ATC so much better than the Americans.
Along The River Vistula
I took a tram and went down to the river Vistula, where I walked along the bank and took another tram to Krakow Castle.
As the Vistula also flows through Warsaw, I wonder if it is possible to take a ferry between the two cities.
After Overground – Edmonton Green – 31st May 2015
When I visited Edmonton Green Station some time ago, it was in the process of being updated with lifts.
As the pictures show it is one of the first stations on the Lea Valley Lines other than the totally flat Enfield Town, to be updated to full step-free access.
This page on the Enfield Council web site, says how the station rebuilding was financed and the problems encountered in the design and building.
The Council are working in partnership with Network Rail to deliver two lifts at Edmonton Green Station to enable step free access to both Platforms 1 and 2.
The Council has been awarded £850k for the project following a successful bid for funding from the Department for Transport’s Access for All programme. However, the total cost of the project is estimated to be £2m and the balance of funding is being provided by the Council, utilising a mixture of contributions from nearby development schemes and grant funding from Transport for London .
The construction of the lifts provides many challenges because of the constrained nature of the site, the need to cater for passengers throughout the works and the fixed budget.
In addition, the station is at the heart of Edmonton Green and within a Conservation area, so it needs to be of good design. The focus at present is therefore trying to find the optimum design solution for the lift shafts, given all of the above constraints.
It looks like it was challenging.
I think it illustrates that the cost of putting two lifts into a conservation area and making sure that the station is acceptable to all parties is a couple of million. Good building isn’t cheap.
But at least Edmonton Green is now a station with platforms that look like they’ll take eight car trains and possibly twelve-car ones if needed.
Obviously details like handrails and information displays need to be updated and the station needs a good clean and a paint, but it shouldn’t need much expensive work for the next decade or two.
It can certainly be used as a standard to which all stations on the Lea Valley Lines can aspire.
West Hampstead Station: A Tangle Of Property Development And People To Solve
West Hampstead station is one of those North London Line stations, that has narrow platforms, which need lengthening and a cramped station building with no step-free access. The station also sits in the middle of a large property development. This Google Earth image shows the station.
West Hampstead Station
This was obviously taken before the development started. There were plans for a grand West Hampstead Interchange, drawing the four rail line in the area; Underground, Overground, Thameslink and Chiltern together in modern stations linked by a boulevard.
This page on the London Borough of Camden web site, is a pointer to some documents. This Google Earth image shows the various rail lines.
West Hampstead Lines
There is actually more lines than is obvious here. Starting from the top (north), the lines and stations are.
1. Thameslink passing through West Hampstead Thameslink station – From 2018 this will be a very much increased service.
2. Midland Main Line passing through West Hampstead Thameslink station – The number of services stopping here to places like Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby and Corby may well increase as the line to Sheffield is electrified.
3. North London Line passing through West Hampstead station – This is being upgraded to take five-car trains.
4. Jubilee Line passing through West Hampstead Tube station – A station not to the standard of the Jubilee Line Extension.
5. Metropolitan Line passing alongside West Hampstead Tube station, but without platforms.
6.Chiltern Main Line passing alongside West Hampstead Tube station, but without platforms.
This is Wikipedia’s schematic of the lines.
West Hampstead Lines
I would say that the best way to sum up the area is using that old estate agent’s phrase of development potential.
So how is West Hampstead station getting on?
There certainly seems to be lots of flats growing up by the side of the railway and these seemed to have replaced the trees. There was a bit of fuss about the thirty-five trees being removed, which I can sympathise with, but surely a better plan would be to take away as much traffic as possible from West End Lane and make it a proper tree-lined boulevard. But any council that suggested that would be voted out by the 4×4 owners.
There’s a preview of the new West Hampstead station on West Hampstead Life.
I’m not impressed and it is rather a poor design compared to Hackney Wick.
Only time will tell, but rail developments will have a big effect on the number of people using the stations at West Hampstead.
1. The opening of the full Thameslink service in 2018.
2. More trains from West Hampstead Thameslink station to the North on full electrification to Sheffield.
3. The possible opening of Metropolitan and Chiltern Main Line platforms in a rebuilt Underground station.
4. Network Rail and Transport for London have stated that they will increase the capacity on the London Overground, by increasing the number of trains and running six-car trains. Certainly they will do this on the East London Line, which will get twenty-four trains an hour.
It is my view that all of this extra rail traffic, will necessitate the turning of West End Lane into a proper pedestrian boulevard with very much reduced traffic levels. The only alternative would be to create a pedestrian tunnel.
Messages for me…
if yo u have a message for me.. please post a comment to this post. many thanks.. James
On the Plinth
I said earlier that yesterday, I ended up on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Sqaure.
Whilst I was on the plinth, I took about thirty minutes of video of what I saw around me.
This is the video. Or at least the edited version after taking out some of the most boring bits. There are still plenty of those there, so don’t watch it too often.
If you want to see the official one produced by One and Other, then click here.
How I got to be on the plinth is a complicated story. Let’s say that I came down to support Janet and ended up coming on as a substitute because someone had to cry off at the last minute. And you know how you have to scape the barrel to get anybody sensible at seven in the morning, as all sane and sensible people are in bed.
But it was all great fun and well worth doing. It’s probably not too late to go to their web site and register.
Janet W on the Plinth
Janet W is someone who is also a member of the Yahoo UK-Coeliac list. I went to support her on Sunday when she did her hour on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square as part of Anthony Gormley‘s One and Other project.
The video shows her on the plinth.
Click here to see the video footage taken, whilst she was on the plinth by One and Other.
You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
I followed a real Mini yesterday, with this classic line across the rear window. It made me smile.
It comes from The Italian Job.
Do We Need New Aircraft Carriers?
I was in India once with my late wife and somebody asked a guide, why India needed to keep such a large army. He replied in one word – Pride.
I have a feeling that we don’t need two massive ships, with their expensive aircraft. In fact, with the exception of the Falklands, have we needed the three smaller ones we’ve got already? Or does Gordon Brown, want to leave a legacy for all times. So perhaps they should be called Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
If you want to read about the carriers and their costs and politics, go to Robert Peston’s blog.
But then if we cut out the carriers, we can cut out the Joint Strike Fighters and why not add Trident, which is up for renewal anyway. We could then give the troops in Afghanistan equipment better suited to that sort of task. After all I can just see Trident being used on the Taliban!
Brown only wants it for you’ve guessed it – Pride.
The Anonymous Widower 