The Long-Awaited Walthamstow Link Is Nearly Here
It should have been a simple job, but it has grown into an eighteen year saga.
Walthamstow Central and Queen’s Road stations are not far apart and a pedestrian link has been needed for years to make interchange possible. Finally, it will be opening next month, as is reported here in ThisisLocalLondon. In the end despite an agreement the Council had to take the developers to the High Court.
How many other simple links should be created to make travelling by public transport easier?
Is OFGEM On Our Side?
According to this article on Uswitch, OVO Energy’s very customer-friendly policy of paying interest on overpayments is to be banned.
Obviously, OVO have not been sucking up to the regulator enough!
14-Jun-2014 – There has been update on USwitch. It includes this statement from OVO.
Our OVO 3% Interest Reward is a central part of our offer and something our customers tell us is really important to them. OFGEM shares our ambitions to make the energy market a fairer, more open, more honest place and on this occasion we’re happy to be working with them to try and help make that happen.
If nothing else the reports have been good free publicity for OVO.
A Journey Into History At Todmorden
The title of this post is borrowed from this article in the Todmorden News about the opening of the new curve that I wrote about here.
The tone of the article is enthusiastic and it shows how these smaller rail projects are often really useful in their local area. This curve for instance will allow direct Manchester to Burnley trains for the first time in forty years.
All they need to do is rustle up some decent diesel multiple units. Then they’ve got to work out what services will use the curve. Judging by my experience of Burnley Manchester Road station, it couldn’t be used as a terminus. So where will the trains go after that station?
The area of the country that lies between Leeds and Manchester is an area that needs to be given a lift.
Projects like this can only help.
If this one proves to be the success all of its promoters expect, I suspect we’ll be seeing more of this type of project.
Network Rail engineers will hopefully be doing what they like to do most!
ITV And The BBC Disagree Over Fred’s Penalty
ITV’s commentators and experts thought that the penalty awarded to Brazil last night was correct. The BBC’s pundits were adamant Fred dived.
The Times this morning is saying that Fred was guilty. Type “Fred penalty” into Google News and most newspapers the world-over think it was a dive!
Brazil were lucky, as other decisions of the referee didn’t stand up to video scrutiny.
Let’s hope that the rest of the referees have been to Specsavers!
Is This The Most Annoying Advert?
Microsoft is coming under fire for their new TV advert as is reported here on the BBC. This is the first three paragraphs.
Xbox One owners are complaining that a new TV advert is switching their consoles on without their permission.
The ad – featuring Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul – has the actor say “Xbox On” near its start.
The instruction appears to trigger the machine’s Kinect voice/motion sensor, activating the console.
It won’t affect me, as I’ve never played a computer game in my life and I rarely watch adverts with the sound on. In fact, I watched the World Cup match last night, with ITV’s idiot commentary off, whilst listening to Radio 5 Live.
Blackpool And Huddersfield May Get Direct Services To London
I’m leaving the may in the title, as nothing is cast in stone yet, but according to this article, Network Rail have found the space to squeeze direct services to Blackpool and Huddersfield from London into the schedule, by a new train operator called Great North Western Railway.
The services won’t be running until 2017 at the earliest, as trains have to be ordered and built.
And who knows what will happen in the negotiations?
The Project Manager’s Lot Is Not An Easy One
I found this article on the Rail Engineer site and it describes in detail how the project managers at Network Rail reinstated the Todmorden Curve.
This paragraph talks about the checks that needed to be done before a level crossing was eliminated.
And then there’s the new footbridge. Sorry, didn’t I mention that? Previous usage surveys suggested that Dobroyd crossing was visited only by occasional dog-walkers; nobody expected any great issue with closing it. But due diligence demanded that another survey was conducted, with the crossing being monitored by CCTV around-the-clock for ten days. Initially the team didn’t believe the results: they suggested peaks of 150 users daily, most of them being children. Only then did it become clear that an activity centre had opened at nearby Dobroyd Castle in 2009 and the chosen route to get groups up there was over the railway. This launched the crossing’s risk assessment score into the north-west’s top ten.
Nothing is as simple as it is first thought!
Liverpool University’s New London Campus Shows Itself
I walked past Liverpool University’s new London campus in Finsbury Square yesterday. The signs now show some details of the new tenant.
It is just round the corner from Broadgate and Liverpool Street station.
A Little Alone Time For Roy
This headline accompanied a picture of Roy Hodgson walking by the waterfront by the team’s hotel in Rio.
Managing footballers and especially those as well-paid as today’s England team, is probably not an easy job. I got to wondering, how the players were reacting to Roy’s apparent calmness.
So I looked up Sir Alf Ramsey’s obituary in the Guardian. Talking about his playing career, they said this of Sir Alf.
He was a calming and reassuring influence on the whole team.
So one could probably assume that he managed his teams in a similar way. We do know from the likes of Ian Callaghan, that Sir Alf fought to get the best for his players, and it was probably partly from Sir Alf’s pushing that the whole England squad from 1966 got winner’s medals. Even if he got his posthumously.
I don’t think that for the England team to get worked up will do them any good.
So is Roy doing his best to keep total calm in the camp? After all he has been to World Cup Finals before with Switzerland in 1994. So he probably knows more about motivating a side in the World Cup than any of the public! Or the pundits!
A Ticket Machine With A Canopy
I saw this ticket machine at Canonbury Road and Barnsbury Station yesterday.
A Ticket Machine With A Canopy
It’s certainly more customer-protective than those on the Edinburgh Tram
The Anonymous Widower 