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.
London Shows Contactless Cards Work On Buses
This article on Finextra, shows that what the Dismal Jimmies predicted when you could use your contactless cards for bus travel didn’t happen. Here’s the two paragraphs.
Transport for London is celebrating a successful one-year anniversary of the use of contactless payments cards on the capital’s buses, as it prepares to extend the technology to the entire transit network in 2014.
Since it was launched on Thursday 13 December 2012 when 2,061 customers made 2,586 journeys, more than 6.5 million journeys have now been made using an American Express, MasterCard or Visa Europe contactless payment card.
So now we have another good thing, that the banks have done for us in addition to the cash machine.
I hope, I’m young enough to be able to use my contactkess bank card on public transport all over the world. It would certainly have helped in Bilbao and a lot of other places I’ve visited this year.
Crossrailed Yet Again!
Coming back from St.Pancras today, I took my normal route of the Circle line to Moorgate to get a 141 or 21 bus home.
When I left on Sunday, the buses were running their normal route, but coming home, they were on diversion because of Crossrail. The display was showing a bus was due, but if I had waited until September, I have frozen to death before one arrived,
So it was back into the Underground to take the Northern line and see if I could cut one off at the pass opposite Moorfields.
When I got there, it was showing twelve minutes wait, but one arrived in two.
So I was lucky.
Why don’t they divert the buses permanently until Crossrail is finished with digging up Moorgate?
I’m sure, I wouldn’t be the only one, who would be very pleased!
Biarritz’s Free Shuttle
Biarritz has a free shuttle bus, that operates around the town.
Biarritz’s Free Shuttle
This was the stop outside the hotel.
Termibus
What better name is there for a bus terminus, than Termibus.
Termibus
Surprisingly, Termibus in Bilbao, would appear to be the only place the name is used.
Where Now For The New Bus for London?
This post was prompted, when I found this post on Leon Daniel’s blog. It was this paragraph that caught my eye.
The buses have also been busy promoting British technology at home and abroad. After leaving the USA, LT1 journeyed to Bogota after which it will head to the Far East. Another vehicle is already doing similar duties in Europe and a third vehicle is likely to be added to the tour. Wherever they go they attract huge attention and continue to promote Britain and British industry.
It’s an interesting itinerary!
Couple this sort of story with the news last week about LT100 appearing in Ipswich and it does appear there is a strong move to sell the buses more widely.
Remember though that WrightBus have sold a lot of buses to the Far East in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.
The New Bus for London is also not built like most other buses and coaches, which makes it easy to assemble from a kit of parts with most of the body made locally. Hong Kong and Singapore have got their previous Wright buses this way. I speculated on a New Bus for Hong Kong in May 2012.
These buses are almost like a kit of parts, that can be assembled in many ways.
But surely, one of the biggest selling points of the bus, is that each operator can rebrand them as they want. Will we see a New Bus for Ipswich?
And don’t forget that London’s red buses have always been fashionable and extremely cool. Were bendy buses ever that?
I do think we’ll see one big change on New Buses for London in a few years. Hybrid buses, like the New Bus for London, use a lot of batteries, that need to be changed every few years. I suspect these will be replaced by some form of mechanical energy storage device like a flywheel. There’s something about the testing of this type of technology here.
To my untrained brain, I think that the distributed nature of the power train on the New Bus for London, where the various parts are positioned around the bus, lends itself to the replacement of the batteries by a flywheel. The batteries are under the front stairs and the engine is under the back stairs, with the electric motors in the rear wheel hubs.
Proceeding Along Oxford Street
I took the 390 to the vicinity of Bond Street station, so I could get a Central line train to Liverpool Street station for my train to Ipswich for the football.
It was rather a round about route from my home, but the pictures show what a good camera platform a New Bus for London is.
Note the crowds at the X-shaped crossing at Oxford Circus, which is a very busy area.
I prefer my idea for an elevated walkway, as I proposed here.
I think that in a few years time, we’ll think that running through shopping streets like Oxford Street, will be one of the best places for New Buses for London.
They will make a good window shopping vehicle for the lazy or a simple way to check out which shops you are going to visit. So you can do that on all double-deck buses, but New Buses for London are a much better viewing platform.
Loading buses with passengers on Oxford Street and similar shopping streets, is often a frustrating and slow process, but the three doors and two staircases should speed it up and hasten those wanting to get out of the area on their way.
But the biggest advantage of the New Buses for London, is that you can enter with a baby in a buggy or heavy parcels, though the middle door, swiping your card as you go. This will be a lot easier, than fighting in at the front.
New Buses for London On The Euston Road
The route 390 from Archway to Notting Hill Gate from this morning is using New Buses for London.
These pictures were taken on the Euston Road, in the vicinity of Kings Cross and St. Pancras stations, which now have a bus to compliment their own good design.
If you wan t to go in the Archway direction, you will just walk onto Kings Cross Square and pick up the bus along Euston Road. To go to Oxford Street and Notting Hill Gate, you need to cross the road.
I think that when they’ve finished the building work, it will be a lot better than it is at present.
