Tideway – Blackfriars Bridge Foreshore – 4th September 2021
I passed Tideway’s Blackfriars Bridge Foreshore site on the way home and took these pictures.
This page on the Tideway web site, gives a visualisation of the project.
Heading North For Summer: Report Reveals £21bn Annual Visitor Spend Across The Region
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Transport for the North.
This is the opening paragraph.
Pan-regional figures reveal the full importance of the North of England visitor economy for the first time, with 25% of all England’s tourism spend taking place in the region.
The figures quoted are much larger than I would have expected.
Building Council Flats In London
I was told this tale by the Head of the Construction Branch of the Greater London Council, who was a big user of the first Project Management System;PERT7, that I wrote in the 1970s.
The GLC were building some council flats alongside the railway.
There were four parallel blocks with five floors and I’ll number them 1 to 4, with 4 alongside the railway and 1 furthest away.
The plan to build them involved the following.
- Deliveries were planned, so that the many residents around the site and British Rail were not inconvenienced.
- Site access was arranged with British Rail along the railway on a track to and from a major road a few hundred yards away.
- The site would be cleared with all the rubble going out in the reverse direction.
- The plan then was to build the blocks 1, 2, 3 and 4 towards the railway.
- This was logical, as when each block was completed it could be occupied and the new tenants wouldn’t be living in a building site, as what needed to be done was towards the railway.
But he was overruled by a vociferous local lobby and some local politicians, who had convinced themselves that building away from the railway in a 4, 3, 2, 1 order would be better.
In the end they were built in the 4, 3, 2, 1 order with budget and time overruns and endless complaints from residents.
If there is a lesson from this fairly insignificant project, it is that in a construction project, there is often one way to build it, that minimises construction time and disturbance to neighbours and maximises the cash flow from the development.
Deutz Hydrogen Engine Ready For Market
The title of this post, is the same as this article on H2 View.
These are the first two paragraphs
A brand-new hydrogen engine has been developed in Cologne, Germany to help accelerate the rollout of low and zero emission drive systems.
Developed by Deutz, the TCG 7.8 H2 engine has already passed initial tests on the test bench and is scheduled to go into full production in 2024.
This could be a very significant development.
Initially from the article, they seem to be concentrating on stationary applications, but it could be an easy route for large vehicle manufacturers to decarbonise their products.
UK’s Rude Place Names To Be Toured By Man On Moped
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This paragraph gives a flavour of the route.
His journey will begin in Shitterton, Dorset, on Wednesday and will take in locations such as Twatt in Orkney and Booze in the Yorkshire Dales.
Mary Whitehouse would not have been amused, but I suspect many will find some of the names raise more than a titter.
This is the JustGiving page of the guy doing what he calls the Moronic Moped Marathon. The money raised will go towards Cancer Research.
Record Levels Of Lithium In Geothermal Water At United Downs Project
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Think Geoenergy.
This paragraph explains it all.
Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL), the company behind the UK’s first deep geothermal electricity power plant, is today announcing record levels of lithium in its geothermal waters. Recent, third party tests have revealed that there are more than 250 milligrams per litre (‘mg/L’) in the fluid which is the highest concentration ever discovered in geothermal fluids anywhere in the world.
The article also says.
- The magnesium levels are low, which eases processing.
- Up to four thousand tonnes of lithium could be produced per year locally.
The article is certainly worth a read.
Afghanistan War: Taliban Back Brutal Rule As They Strike For Power
This article on the BBC describes the evil that are the Taliban.
They need to be rounded up and sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Violent thugs and despots like the Taliban give Islam a bad name.
HS2 Utilising UK-First Pioneering 3D Concrete Printing On Project
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
3D-Printing of concrete has been around for some time and it has been used extensively on Crossrail.
But High Speed Two are printing the heavy components on site, to avoid the problems of transport.
The Location Of Sunset Studios In Broxbourne
This article on HertsLIve discloses the location of the new Sunset Studios in Broxbourne.
This is said.
Land to the west of Waltham Cross has been bought and is allocated in Broxbourne Borough’s Local Plan 2018 – 2033.
It’s just off J25 on the M25 and is thought to be land on either side of the A10 Great Cambridge Road.
James Seppala, Head of Blackstone Real Estate Europe, said: “The site is on the north-west corner of the M25-A10 junction. It’s ideal given its accessibility across Hertfordshire, into Central London, to London’s airports due to its proximity to the M25, and it has the scale for the scheme we’re planning to develop.
“Highways England are expanding the motorway junction currently which is helpful as well.
This Google Map shows the location.
Note.
- The M25 runs across the bottom of the map.
- The A10 runs North-South between the two roundabouts.
- Newsprinters Broxbourne sits on a forty-acre site and is the largest newspaper printing site in the world.
I would expect that the brown agricultural site is where Sunset Studios will be located.
I have one big question.
Is It The Right Place For The Studios?
I know nothing about making films, but from what has been said, this development will produce up to 4,500 jobs.
How are all these people going to get in to work every day?
The site may have a good road network, but it doesn’t have a nearby rail connection.
But in my quote from Herts Live, this is said.
It’s just off J25 on the M25 and is thought to be land on either side of the A10 Great Cambridge Road.
Does that mean it includes the Newsprinter site as well?
This Google Map shows that site.
The site seems to be closed in by roads and on the Eastern side by the Cheshunt branch of the London Overground.
- It is a double-track railway.
- It runs between London Liverpool Street and Cheshunt stations.
- It only runs two trains per hour (tph) at present, but it has been designed to handle upwards of four tph.
- The trains on the route are new eight-car Class 710 trains, each of which can hold up to 1,300 passengers.
Could Sunset Studios be thinking about a rail-connected studio complex?
- Liverpool Street will be well-connected through Crossrail to much of London including Heathrow and Canary Wharf.
- Cheshunt is connected to Cambridge and Stansted.
- There are fifteen stations between Liverpool Street and Cheshunt, which must surely mean easy access to the complex for a massive number of potential employees.
A station at the complex, would certainly seem a possible move to cut the amount of road traffic travelling to and from the complex.
Riding Past The Sunset Studios Site On The London Overground
I took these pictures of the area around the Sunset Studios site from a train going North to Cheshunt.
Note, that when the line was reopened in 1960, British Rail left wide margins and from my pictures and the Google Map indicates that building a station on this stretch of line wouldn’t be the most challenging of tasks.
Railway Engineers Build Beaver Pass On Highland Line
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Railway engineers have built what they believe is Scotland’s first ever ‘beaver pass’, to allow the animals to go under the Highland mainline.
Let’s hope the remedial action works, as otherwise, there’ll be increasing train delays caused by beavers, as their numbers and dams proliferate.
The Scottish NFU is also against the reintroduction of beavers, as this article on the Scottish Farmer, which is entitled Don’t Protect The Beaver illustrates.
I can see trouble ahead!
The Anonymous Widower 