Who’d Want To Drive From London To Birmingham?
The weather wasn’t good and there had been a severe accident on the M25, so it wasn’t a good day to drive!
Who’d Want To Drive From London To Birmingham?
I took the picture, when the M1 ran alongside the railway by Watford Gap.
Virgin Trains Are Getting There!
I travelled up to Birmingham today in First Class on Virgin Trains. They now have an improved breakfast menu, which is available on all trains leaving Euston before 10:00.
Virgin Trains Are Getting There!
I’d had breakfast earlier at home and anyway I was on the 10:23, so I was too late! However I did get three cups of tea and a bottle of water thrown in to my £25 fare bought the previous evening.
The Joy Of Birmingham By Train
An old friend phoned up last night and we decided to have lunch in Birmingham today.
So I got on the Virgin Trains web site and bought myself a ticket to Brum for this morning at nine last night for just £25.75, which gets me to New Street station in good time to walk to Carluccio’s. I should be in the centre of Birmingham about two hours after leaving home
I didn’t buy myself a return ticket, as I want to look at several things in the city and am unsure about, whether I’ll come home to either Euston or Marylebone. So I’ll buy a walk-up ticket in steerage, when I decide to come back.
I just used the Transport Direct web site to see how long it would take someone else to drive. They reckon it will be just under two and a half hours, but they recommend taking a fifteen minute break. The cost in a medium-sized petrol car is £20 plus the parking.
So cost is probably about the same, if you exclude the cost of ownership of the car, but the train is thirty minutes quicker. I can also use my phone and wi-fi.
My one beef at a lot of big stations, is that they don’t have a decent restaurant, cafe or pub, where you could have a quiet meeting, close by. Birmingham New Street is a special case, as they are rebuilding the station, but some don’t provide hardly anything except gluten-rich fast food. Manchester Piccadilly, Kings Cross and Waterloo are setting a standard, that all others should try to follow. Where for instance is a good Indian restaurant in a station?
Real Neighbourhood Policing
I like this story from the West Midlands. Here’s the first bit.
He’s a beat bobby with a difference – but Pc Ian Northcott stopped shoppers in their tracks when he started belting out Oasis hit Wonderwall outside a busy shopping centre.
We need more of this interactive neighbourhood policing.
I am reminded of a story years ago, when a police team got conned into a five-a-side football tournament by the local vicar. To say the football was rough would be an understatement. But the officer who told me the story, says some those they kicked and were kicked by, gave them information to catch a few felons.
The Bombers From Central Casting
You shouldn’t laugh at bombers, as what they aim to do could be serious. But this team from Birmingham, who have just been found guilty could be part of the plot of Four Lions.
They have given comedians enough ammunition to last for quite a few gigs.
I particularly liked the part, where they raised money from street collections and then lost it by speculating on the Internet in various financial products.
The Real Arguments For HS2 Start Now!
The government has announced the route of HS2 this morning, as is detailed in this article on the BBC.
There is going to be masses of opposition.
In fact, I think that the amount of opposition is such, that the line will not get built. certainly, as I look forward at 65, I doubt I’ll ever see it.
Let’s face it, if you had a referendum, which asked if we wanted a high speed rail or more motorways, the man stuck in the jam on the M1 would vote for the roads.
HS2 also doesn’t help our biggest transport problem of the next twenty years. Or at least not directly! How do we get all the freight containers, to and from the major ports like Southampton, Felixstowe and Thames Haven? It deals with them indirectly, by making more paths available on the classic lines to the North and Scotland, especially if a few strategic freight by-passes are built and lines like Ipswich to Nuneaton are electrified.
There also seems to be a lots of opponents saying that London and the South East will be the biggest beneficiary. So perhaps we should built it from Birmingham to Scotland? Or at least that should be the first phase to open!
There is the classic opportunity here for a political party to fight an election on an anti-HS2 platform. I don’t think, any of the three major parties would do this, but who’s to say, some smaller party wouldn’t? After all, UKIP has said no to the project in this article on its web site.
Good Riddance To Earls Court Exhibition Centre
Earls Court is an exhibition centre, whose sell-by date was decades ago. I can remember going to events there like The Motor Show in the 1960s and it wasn’t the best then. I can also remember being at the NEC in Birmingham about 1980, talking to one of the top people in Hewlett-Packard, where he reckoned at that time the NEC was one of the best places they exhibited.
So what has Earls Court done in those intervening years? Absolutely nothing! Read about the NEC and it is a story of continuous development and updating.
If ever a building was saying “Please knock me down!” it’s Earls Court.
So I’m now pleased to see that this is going to happen. It’s reported here on the BBC. But as ever there are those, who want to turn the clock back. Two housing estates will be incorporated into the scheme and the report says this.
But tenants and leaseholders on the West Kensington and Gibbs Green housing estates who will have to be re-housed have called for a judicial review on the grounds that the plan is contrary to Hammersmith and Fulham’s local planning policy.
As ever, selfish people seem determined to not co-operate for the good of the many. So be prepared for a long and expensive fight which will only delay the inevitable.
On a personal note, I’ve only visited Earls Court once in recent years. I try to avoid the place, as it is one of those places where I can’t find anything to eat.
Now we have the problem of what to do with Olympia. After all with Excel and the O2 Dome we have made a start on providing alternative venues.
Told Off For Not Buying A Cheap Ticket
I came back from Liverpool to Birmingham by London Midland. I didn’t have much time to get a ticket at Lime Street, especially as the one machine near my platform was broken. I was told that I could get a ticket on the train, which in fact I did.
The inspector said, I should have bought it on-line before I left, as that way I’d have got it for a fiver. I can’t remember what I paid, but I did get a normal Off Peak.
My trouble though had been that I might have stayed later in Liverpool and gone straight back to London missing the football in Birmingham.
I suspect that London Midland have been getting complaints about overpriced tickets and they’re trying to do something.
Wouldn’t it be much simpler, if we had some sort of electronic system, that worked out your cheapest ticket.
A few more ticket machines at Lime Street would have helped too!
Ipswich Finally Get A Win
I was there on Saturday, when at St. Andrews in Birmingham, Ipswich finally got a win.
What a relief!
A Pedestrian Crossing From Hell
I could have labelled this crossing between Bordesley station and Birmingham City’s ground of St. Andrews, the worst I’d seen, but the pictures didn’t do it justice.
A Pedestrian Crossing From Hell
They don’t show how there was no signs, lights or a policeman on a road, where cars took the junction at well over the legal limit. Two cars actually touched as I waited to cross.
But nothing will be done, as a proper solution would slow the cars. And cars are of course kings in Birmingham, with only losers using public transport.
One day, there’ll be a serious accident.
The Anonymous Widower 