Alliance Rail Are Thinking Big
In the UK, there is provision for allowing what are called open access operators on UK railways. This is Wikipedia’s definition.
An open access operator is a train operating company that is not subject to franchising, instead purchasing individual slots on the mainline from a railway infrastructure company.
The three most well-known open access operators in the UK are Eurostar, First Hull Trains and Grand Central Railway.
A new company called Alliance Rail, who incidentally are the parent company of Grand Central is trying to join them.
They are proposing to have two train companies Great North Western Railway and Great North Eastern Railway running on the West and East Coast Main Lines respectively.
Services which would be run using six-car Class 390 Pendolinos are proposed as follows.
GNWR
London Euston – Blackpool North (six daily)
London Euston – Leeds (six daily)
GNER
London King’s Cross – Edinburgh – (hourly)
London King’s Cross – Bradford/Ilkley – (two hourly)
London – Cleethorpes – (up to four daily)
In addition towns and cities like Dewsbury, Eccles, Grimsby, Huddersfield, Newton-le-Willows, Scunthorpe and Stalybridge will get direct services to London.
It is an ambitious plan and I suspect that Virgin and Stagecoach will use everything in their power to strangle this upstart before it starts.
Wytch Farm And Horse Hill
I couldn’t resist looking at the Google Earth images of the two sites.
This is Wytch Farm
Wytch Farm
The processing plant for the field is the two squares in the bottom-left or south-west corner of the map and the wells fan out for upwards of 10 km. The field even goes under the upmarket area of Sandbanks, so if anybody would complain, the residents from there would.
And this is the area of Horse Hill
Horse Hill
It is marked by the yellow circle. Note the sprawl of Gatwick at the bottom.
Both sites are surrounded by a lot of green field and woods, so I feel that a similar camouflage job could be done in Surrey to that done in Dorset.
Although as Wytch Farm is now forty years old, I suspect we’ll do a better job today of hiding it. It might be that directional drilling is used from a site near the railway through Gatwick, so that the processing plant could be well hidden and oil could be removed by train.
The New Stairs at Whitechapel Station
In a few weeks time, the main entrance at Whitechapel station will be closed and all entry will be from Durward Street at the other end of the East London Line platforms. At present there is just an Emergency Exit there. These pictures show the current stairs and the half-assembled new ones.
It looks like the stairs will lead up to the walkway, which goes across the line.
The Oil Find That Will Settle The Result Of The Election
I’ve believed for some time, that which ever party wins the election in a few weeks time should win the next election in 2020.
This belief is based on the fact, that so many large rail and other transport projects are due for completion in the later years of this decade.
The report on the BBC of the large oil find at Horse Hill in Surrey, is one of many that describe the find as of national significance. This is said in the BBC’s report.
“We think we’ve found a very significant discovery here, probably the largest [onshore in the UK] in the last 30 years, and we think it has national significance,” Stephen Sanderson, UKOG’s chief executive told the BBC.
Many will worry that developing an oil field in rural Surrey could be an environmental disaster.
A friend of mine had a lot to do with the development of the last major onshore oilfield in the UK at Wytch Farm, which is the largest onshore oil-field in Western Europe. The new field could be bigger, but all reports get their millions and billions mixed up.
Wytch Farm is not your average oilfield, as it is in the heart of rural Dorset by Corfe Castle. Wikipedia says this about the environment of the field.
Most of the field is protected by various conservation laws, including the Jurassic Coast world heritage site, Purbeck Heritage Coast and a number of sites of special scientific interest, areas of outstanding natural beauty and nature reserves (including Studland and Brownsea Island), so the gathering centre and most of the well sites are small and well screened by trees. Directional drilling has also contributed to reducing the impact on the local environment, with extended reach drilling from the Goathorn Peninsula attaining distances in excess of 10 km.
But the field would appear to have been an impeccable neighbour, more conspicuous by its absence in the media.
So I think the UK has good form in the development of oilfields in sensitive areas and there is no reason to expect that the development of Horse Hill will be any more disruptive than that at Wytch Farm.
The field’s biggest effect will be on the UK economy, if as reports are saying, production will start in a few years time, it will be producing revenues and cutting imports by the next election in 2020.
Circumstances have left the incoming government with a very large dowry.
They will have to be really stupid to lose in 2020. But then that’s normal for politicians.
The Slow Demolition Job At Highbury And Islington Station
I went past Highbury and Islington station yesterday and they’re still demolishing the old Post Office.
Has any other demolition job taken so long? Original gossip in the newsagents and at the station, said it would take a week. I first posted that work had started on the first of February.
I can only thing that the building is built with lots of asbestos.
An Historical Side-Effect Of The London Gateway
This story from the Southend Echo, tells about the excavation of HMS London. They say this.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC exhibition detailing the excavation of a shipwreck off Southend pier has opened to the public.
HMS London was first rediscovered in 2005 during works to build the London Gateway superport.
Mary Rose it is not, but HMS London would appear that it is starting to give up its secrets.
I shall certainly go to the exhibition of photos at the Beecroft Gallery in the town.
Two ‘eads Are Better Than One!
This is an old phrase, but it certainly doesn’t apply to the two Eds trying to think up Labour Party tax policies.
In this article on the BBC, about the taxing of ‘non-doms’, this is said.
Ed Miliband said the non-dom rules were “indefensible” and axing them would raise “hundreds of millions” in tax.
But shadow chancellor Ed Balls was forced to deny contradicting himself after saying in January that scrapping the rule “would cost Britain money”.
How many people will now take everything they say with an awfully large pinch of salt?
I think it illustrates the first law of politics, which is don’t go into it, if you can’t remember everything you’ve done and said, since you first drew breath.
A Heavy Delivery
I was behind Whitechapel station this morning and this steel beam was delivered.
This Google Earth image shows the small area in which the builders have to work.
Whitechapel Crossrail Site
The site is accessed down Durward Street, which is in shadow above the buildings.
To actually get the large artic down Durward Street, necessitated poking under the entrance to Sainsburys, which is to the right. I assume the truck was parked for the lift over the Overground line.
It was all a very professional delivery and unloading.
The Crossrail Cambridge Heath Site At Whitechapel
As the pictures of the delivery showed, the Whitechapel station site is extremely crowded. Luckily, the major occupier of the area, is a large Sainsburys supermarket, which seems to have been rebuilt, as I remember using it around the turn of the millennium and it was all massive surface car parks, which have now seemed to have gone. This Google Earth image shows the area from the supermarket to the Whitechapel Road.
Whitechapel Station, Crossrail And Sainsburys
The Sainsburys is large and it has a multi-story car park, which stretches across the picture.
Note the big hole to the South of the supermarket, which is thirty-two metres deep and is Crossrail’s Cambridge Heath shaft to provide emergency access and ventilation to the Crossrail tunnels. Read more about the shaft and the other works at Whitechapel station in this page on Crossrail’s web site. This is all you can see from outside the site.
The Crossrail Cambridge Heath Site At Whitechapel
I was standing in Cambridge Heath Road, which is the road on the right of the image, which goes past the site and Sainsburys.
All this site used to be the Mann, Crossman and Paulin brewery,of which the only remains are the ornamental gates and the Blind Beggar public house. The latter is marked on the map and is notorious for its association with gang violence of the 1960s.
I wonder what the customers of those days, would make of the area now!
Shopping In IKEA Without A Car
I don’t drive, but when it comes to shopping in IKEA, I can get to the three London stores at Croydon, Edmonton and Neasden by public transport.
Edmonton, to where I get a 341 bus, is probably the easiest and if say I bought something that was too big to carry, the store will put me in a mini-cab.
Croydon is actually the farthest, but I use it at times, as it is so easy to get to using the tram from West Croydon. So if I’m going South of the river for some reason, and I need to check something, I’ll pop in to that store.
As my house and the built-in garage front the street and there is usually plenty of parking outside, I usually shop at IKEA by going to a store and ascertaining what I need and then ordering on-line. It doesn’t always work out as it should.
Due to finger trouble I ordered the wrong freezer for my kitchen. And as I only discovered too late to send it back, if you want an IKEA DJUPFRYSA, I’ll be putting one on eBay soon!
I need to check on a few things at the moment.
On my trip to Huddersfield on Monday, I wondered, if there was an IKEA in Sheffield that I could have visited to answer my queries. But there isn’t.
So it got me thinking, as to how many IKEA stores in the UK, are as easy to get to by public transport, as the three in London.
Only four seem to be easy to get to from the local station or tram stop.
Here’s Manchester, shown on a Google Earth image.
IKEA Manchester
This store would have been ideal, as there is a direct train service from Ashton-Under-Lyne station, which is near the store to Huddersfield. Except that there were no trains to Manchester on Monday and anyway I’d already bought my ticket via Sheffield.
As to the other stores on the UK mainland, they are Cardiff, Coventry and Southampton, all of which are in easy walking distance of a train station. But they wouldn’t have been much use on Monday!
So I’m off to Croydon today!
The Anonymous Widower 