Bob Crow Looks After The East End
The Tube Strike today, is a pain to many Londoners. But I’ve just been to Canary Wharf and back and things didn’t seem that crowded.
I even changed at Shadwell, which is Bob Crow‘s birthplace, from the Overground to the DLR, with no hassle whatsoever. So perhaps he’s making sure the strike doesn’t affect his part of London very much!
But then, Hackney doesn’t have any Underground lines. And probably never will, as the powers that be, think if you give the plebs in Hackney one, they’ll only want another!
A Pedestrian-Unfriendly City
I mentioned to a friend, who lives near Milton Keynes, that I might come up to see the new electric buses in the city. They suggested I come up and take one of the new buses to Bletchley Bus Station, where they would pick me up.
I got a return ticket on London Midland to Milton Keynes Central for just £9.55 for a journey that takes thirty-five minutes each way. Which I didn’t think was bad value.
There was information at the station about the buses, but compared to London, it wasn’t of the highest quality.
Clear But Fairly Useless Bus Information
Although, the bus stand looked to be all new.
A New Bus Station
But it was all very draughty and after waiting for twenty minutes, I didn’t see any of the new wireless electric buses going to Bletchley.
A New Electric Bus
Although a couple did pass without stopping.
Then my friend sent me a text to say, that they’d had a breakdown and when the AA came, they’d meet me in the central shopping in the city. There didn’t seem to be clear instructions about the best bus to get to the centrre and as it was a sunny, but cold day, I decided to walk, especially, as I could see a solitary lith with a map by the station.
A Solitary Lith In Milton Keynes
The lith said that it would be about a fifteen minute walk, so I set off for the centre. I didn’t pass any other direction signs or liths and eventually, I had to resort to the age-old device of asking a passer-by. I then got another message from my friend, who was still waiting for the AA. A phone call later and we decided, we’ll meet another day.
I carried on walking and found the shopping centre, where I knew there was a Carluccio’s, so at least I could have lunch before returning. Carluccio’s cafes are usually fairly obvious with their blue canopies, but could I find it? Of course not! I couldn’t even find a directory in the shopping centre, giving any useful information. It was a new experience for me, to find a shopping centre without instructions to find your favourite shop. So I decided to go back to London and took a sign pointing to a bus station. But the dreadful place had one more surprise in store for me. To get to the buses, I had to walk into the sun and didn’t see this beautifully camouflaged stone seat, as my eyesight isn’t a hundred percent, in certain circumstances.
A Camouflaged Stone Seat
I didn’t see it at all and it rapped me hard across both knees.
The Damage To My Left Leg
The picture shows the damage on my left leg.
When will those that design our pavements realise that not everyone is fit with perfect eyesight?
I wonder if a personal injury lawyer, would like to take on my case.
And then of course, there was no simple way to find which bus you should take to get back to the station.
When I got back to the station, I was wrongly informed, which was the next London Midland train back to London, so I had to wait for twenty minutes on a cold windy station with no shelter.
I shall never return to the most pedestrian-unfriendly city, I’ve found on my travels. And as my friend will testify, they can’t even get the breakdown service for the cars that they expect everybody to use, correct!
Tube Strikes And Cashless Buses
London for the next two days will suffer a Tube strike, about the closing of ticket offices and putting more staff in station lobbies and on platforms. New technology means that very few people need the ticket offices and the space could be better used for other purposes like retail.
Yesterday, London buses announced that they would no longer accept cash on buses from the summer. I would have thought that the Unions would have objected to this, as surely there must be job losses in those handling the cash. Or are the unions concerned with buses, in favour of a better service for all Londoners, whereas those on the Tube, are just out to do a King Canute and turn back the tide of new technology.
I suspect, every rail company in the UK, can’t wait for the day when Bob Crow retires!
London Buses To Go Cashless
It’s been announced that from this summer, London buses will go cashless.
Since Transport for London announced their consultation in August last year, there has been little discussion anywhere on the proposal in the media. Which makes me think, that most users of London buses are not bothered at all.
I’m very much in favour, as often my bus is delayed as groups of young people are using cash. Strangely, I’ve never seen anyone my side of forty, buying a ticket recently. They all seem to use either Oyster or a Freedom Pass. Could it be that most younger people only use buses as a last resort and many actually haven’t, as they always use their cars or have been driven around by their family?
The Invisible Busway
I used to see the odd local news story about the Luton Dunstable Busway, when I lived in Suffolk, but it does seem to be rather invisible on the web. It does have a rather poor website, which doesn’t seem to be updated regularly, but information in Wikipedia is very limited. It’s just a section in Transport in Luton, under Current Developments. It does say that it opened in September 2013.
The only news story I can find is this one about low usage on the BBC.
Passenger numbers for the first month of the Luton and Dunstable guided busway were just 43% of those predicted for the £91m scheme.
Perhaps the busway hasn’t been given a high enough profile? The successful Cambridge busway, had a lot of publicity, although much of it proved the old adage, that no publicity is bad publicity.
Perhaps I should go for a look, but there is very little to draw me to Luton or Dunstable.
All Systems Go On The Cambridge Busway
I was sceptical about the Cambridge Busway before it opened and felt that it would probably be better to have reinstated the railway. A group called CASTIRON was formed to promote the railway, but the busway still was built and opened.
Now I read this article, which states that Stagecoach is going to increase srvices on the route. Here’s the first paragraph.
Operator Stagecoach yesterday said it would increase the frequency of departures to every five minutes during peak times, in the hope this will relieve overcrowding and stop passengers being left waiting by buses which are too full to stop.
As the busway is going to link up with the new station at Chesterton and new housing along the route at Northstowe, it doesn’t seem to appear it is going to be a white concrete elephant.
Wireless Electric Buses In Milton Keynes
This is a very good story about how bus technology is getting better. Here’s the intro.
Electric buses which their developers say can run all day are set to begin service.
A fleet of eight new electric vehicles will operate along a busy route in Milton Keynes from late January.
The buses can run for longer by virtue of a wireless booster charge they receive at the start and end of the route from plates in the road.
Remember that a lot of hybrid buses, like the New Bus for London, are effectively electric buses, where the electric power is provided by an on-board generator coupled to a battery or other energy storage device.
So could this type of pick up be fitted to these buses, to top up the battery at each end of the route? If I look the local route I use most; the 38, at the outer end of Clapton Pond, there is a vast bus parking area, which could easily charge buses for several minutes, whilst waiting to depart. I suspect that Victoria might be a bit more difficult, as space is more limited.
Obviously, the bus would need a clever GPS-savvy on-board control-system, that would decide where to get the electricity from. But as the bus would have an on-board generator, it would never get stuck without power.
For this and other reasons, all the buses for towns and cities, we build should be electric or hybrid. The specification of the New Bus for London, says this.
The engine is a Cummins ISBe 4.5l unit, rated at 185kW.
A typical engine like this Ford unit, used in vehicles like a Land Rover Discovery is 2.7l and is rated at about 150kW.
It’s an interesting comparison.
From Canary Wharf To Walthamstow Central
On a quick examination, Canary Wharf and Walthamstow Central, are both important transport hubs in their parts of London and probably there is significant commuter traffic between the two stations.
After my trip on the cable car, I took the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf, where I had a coffee.
After looking at some other things, I found I was running a bit late for lunch in Walthamstow.
I suspect the fastest way is usually to take the Jubilee line to Green Park and then change to the Victoria line. Using my mother’s rule on seventeen stations and one change gives 39 minutes. but there was one flaw, the Jerrylee line wasn’t running past Waterloo. At least, I wouldn’t have to walk miles in the tunnels at Green Park.
The obvious choice seemed to be to take a DLR or the Jerrylee line to Stratford and then get a bus. I chose the DLR, as I was nearer, and after a few minutes wait, I was on my way.
It was then that I made the wrong choice. The first bus to arrive was a 257, which treated me to a mystery tour of Leyton and parts of Epping Forest.
When I arrived late at my lunch, I’d taken quite a bit over an hour.
So what does the Tfl Journey Planner say?
It did suggest one all Underground route via London Bridge and Kings Cross, which was fourteen stations and two changes. Or 38 minutes according to my mother!
the others suggested were verging on the exotic, in that they generally involved taking a Central line train to Leyton or Leytonstone and then getting a bus. One even suggested getting off the bus and taking the Overground.
I think all of this illustrates the problem of going north and south in East London, unless you can use the Northern line or the East London line.
Crossrail might improve the journey a bit, as you should be able to reach Bond Street a minute or two quicker. But will the change to the Victoria line, require superhuman stamina?
What might help though, is if the services to Walthamstow are improved, when the Lea Valley lines come under the control of the London Overground. If the Hall Farm Curve is rebuilt, services from Walthamstow to Stratford could be of the order of twelve minutes, giving a time of Canary Wharf to Walthamstow Central of about twenty five minutes.
Tfl have the figures for the traffic, but surely creating a good service between Chingford via Walthamstow to Stratford would relieve the Victoria line, by giving those in Waltham Forest, an alternative route to Central London.
TfL haven’t published any plans for the Lea Valley lines and I’m waiting to see what they propose. If I judge them on the current Overground, it’ll have a few surprises and innovations.
A Day Of Lots Of Misses And Rain
Yesterday was one of those days. I went to Portman Road to see Ipswich play Charlton.
I got there on time, but only just, as the journey to Liverpool Street was a succession of misses, buses and Underground trains. I had to skip lunch, as my usual pit-stop at Carluccio’s at Spitalfields was closed for New Year’s Day. The alternative of sandwiches from Marks and Spencer was also not on, as they were closed.
No Sandwiches
Luckily, I was able to get a couple of EatNakd bars from Boots, although after I’d bought them, I found that the Camden Food company had a bigger selection.
I was soaked, by the time I got to my seat and the rain was so bad, they’d had to move some spectators to a drier part of the stadium.
To say the match was ruined by the rain, would be an understatement. That makes it three out of the last four matches that I’ve seen, have been ruined by the weather.
To add to the misses, David McGoldrick missed a penalty, so the match was only drawn.
Coming back, I wasn’t as fast as normal to the station and as the match finished late, I missed the train and had to wait for forty minutes in the cold.
And then coming back from Liverpool Street, I decided to take the dry route to Barbican station to get a 56 bus. And as i walked to the stop, the bus I wanted roared past. So I had to take a 153 and then a 38!
It was not the best of days! It probably summed up my miserable Christmas. But speaking to others at the match, mine seemed to have just about this year’s norm. Next year, I won’t be here!
They’ve Renumbered The Hackney Eight!
Or I think it is just five at the moment according to Wikipedia, as others have other duties!
But they have been given new registration numbers.
They’ve Renumbered The Hackney Eight!
Someone has decided that it would be tidier, if they were all in sequence. LT6 was originally registered as LT12 FHT. This picture from Flickr shows the same bus with its original number.
The Anonymous Widower 