Islington to the M25 By Public Transport
I had to go back to Suffolk to pick some bits and pieces up and thought that the easiest way to do this was to get to Cockfosters Station, which is just a few minutes from Junction 24 on the M25.
So I took the 141 bus to Manor House taking a few pictures and a video on the way, where I got the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters.
The journey from the Balls Pond Road took just 35 minutes and that included a delay of two minutes at Arnos Grove station, where they changed drivers. I could even have got a bus to the M25 from Cockfosters.
As I was running early, I did make a detour at Southgate Station to take a few pictures.
The station has been sympathetically restored and still contains many of the Art Deco features. It is still very much as it was, when I used to use it to go to Minchenden Grammar School in the early 1950s and late 1960s.
I also seem to remember reading somewhere, that the ticket barriers can be removed, so that the station can be used for period film and TV productions. Parts of the film, The End of the Affair were shot in the station.
I just think that Southgate Station sums up everything that was so good about the designs of London Transport before the Second World War. It was designed as a bus/tube interchange and still fulfils that function, with style and panache.
Southgate Station was one of the buildings created by the archtect, Charles Holden. If he had been of any other nationality, than British, he would be one of the most famous architects in the world. But he was a modest man, who twice declined a knighthood. On the other hand, his buildings speak eloquently of the quality and beauty of his work.
How to turn a Nokia 6310i Into A Smarter Phone
People laugh at me because I don’t have a smart phone like an iPhone. But then apparently Elton John doesn’t even have any mobile phone.
But then my Nokia 6310i can send and receive text messages, tweet and even send and receive normal phone calls to anybody with a number. That last bit is really cool. Or is it Koool? Who cares anyway? The only thing it doesn’t have is an automatic reject of calls that are trying to cheat me out of money in various ways. But no-one has a phone that does that! Yet! But hopefully, it will come in the next 100 years or so.
I’ve had my 6310i eleven or twelve years now and even now, I find new features that I am starting to use. I’ve known about it for some time, but now I’m using the to-do-list feature to make notes as I ride around London, often at the front on the top deck of a bus. Try doing that in a car!
As the phone stores quite a few text messages, when I have information I might need on the move, I just text it to my phone using LiquidDrop. I’ve just picked up my tickets for Barnsley and I’ve texted the itinerary to the phone for Saturday. No hated piece of paper to take, but I suspect W H Smug, will try and load me up. Perhaps, I’ll buy my Saturday paper in M&S or on the way to St. Pancras.
So the 6310i is getting to be a smarter phone. This is what everyone wants! I once said, “Computers make good slaves, but very bad masters!” That applies to phones as well. And especially mobile ones.
The Ian Walmsley Train Comfort Factor
Ian Walmsley is a respected rail industry professional and a regular contributor to Modern Railways. In the last edition, he did a scientific analysis of passenger comfort in various classes of British train. Some typical Standard Class ratings he got were Eurostar – 77.6%, HSDT – 76.2% And a lot were much worse!
So I decided to apply his rules to the hybrid buses that take me to Wood Green and the City.
A 141 Bus to Wood Green
These are my rather crude results.
Noise Standstill – Estimated – 8 – 0.32
Noise Service Speed – Estimated – 8 – 8
Ride – Estimated – 6 – 6
Seat Comfort – 9 – 9
Seat Legroom – 8 – 0.64
Seat Window Alignment – 10 – 6
Seat Visibility Airline – 9 – 4.5
Seat Airline to Bay Ratio – 10 – 5
Seat Armrests – 0 – 0
Air Management – 9 – 7.2
Luggage Capacity – 7 – 3.5
Toilets – 0 – 0
Catering – 0 – 0
Vibration and Rattles – 8 – 4
Litter Bins – 0 – 0
Ambience – 9 – 6.3
So this gives a weighted score of 60.46. Not bad considering it scored zero for armrests, toilets, catering and litter bins. You could make a case for scoring somewhere about 7 for each of the last three, as they are generally available close to most bus stops.
It would also be interesting to borrow a noise meter and get correct values for that.
The Lost 243 Bus
Today as I travelled to Liverpool Street Station to go to the football at Ipswich, I got to sit at the front on the top deck of the 141 bus. The bus today was one of the Wright hybrid ones, which certainly to me seem to be the future for bus travel.
I had my camera with me and decided to take a Mitchell and Kenyon-style video as the bus travelled through de Beauvoir Town and along the Regent’s Canal towards Old Street.
But things don’t quite work out as you think they do, because for some reason a lost 243 bus got in front of the 141 and tried to steal the video.
I suppose there was probably some road works on the Kingsland Road, which meant that the bus had been diverted.
A 92% Day!
One doesn’t want to score it higher than that, as I might shilt myself.
But I’ve gone to football a lot in the last three years since C died and I’ve not had such a good day for some time.
I had decided that I would travel First Class as a treat and I’d already bought the tickets for £36.60 on Wednesday, so after I’d made my sandwiches, I took the 141 bus to Moorgate and walked through Finsbury Circus to Liverpool Street to catch the 12:58 to Ipswich. It meant, if I’d driven, which I can’t, it would probably have spent more and taken longer. I also wouldn’t have had a large table on which to lay my paper and eat my lunch.
The train was a couple of minutes late into Ipswich, but this didn’t matter, as I’d have preferred to sit in the soft seat in the train, rather than the hard seat in the Britannia Stand. But despite the delay, I was well in time for the start of the match.
The match itself was spoilt by the strong wind and is best summed up by the comments of the Ipswich manager; Paul Jewell.
Delighted with win. Wind was awful, so would have taken ugly 1-0 win. But played some good football second half. Connor great goal. Pleased for Luca.
I would add that Town could easily have scored five instead of three, especially as Tamas Priskin hit the post and Grant Leadbitter missed a penalty and also hit a spectacular effort, that was deflected wide.
We also had a double sending off when Sheffield United decided to try the self-destruction route.
So all-in-all it was first class entertainment.
I’ve just watched the match on The Football League Show on the BBC’s iPlayer. It’s about thirty minutes in. It’s worth searching for, just to see Connor Wickham’s goal, where he takes the ball in his own half , beats everybody and then draws the goalkeeper and puts the ball in the empty net. It will be a clip that will be shown and shown.
After the match I took the 17:09 train back to London and another 141 bus got me home by seven. I even had time to pick-up a chicken korma for supper in Marks at Liverpool Street Station.
It would be nice if watching football was always so stress free. But then most sides aren’t as co-operative as Sheffield United!
One slight blot on the day was that the rice with the chicken korma was rather crunchy.
Bus Roulette
I said yesterday, that on my way to Kings Cross, I would be playing bus roulette.
I drew 476 and as I was a bit early, I got off at the last stop on Pentonville Road and crossed a couple of roads and walked into the front of King’s Cross Station. It was probably easier on a dry day, than going to the official stop opposite the station and using the underpass.
Coming back from York, I played roulette again and got another 476 to the Balls Pond Road from directly outside King’s Cross Station.
In some ways it is a bit of a forgotten route, as perhaps only one in four of the buses that go down the Essex Road to the Angel and on to Kings Cross are 476s.
The Monster Loony Party’s Thoughts on the Cambridge Busway
This story is priceless and puts one of Britain’s worst transport projects in perspective.
Loony politician Lord Toby Jug has launched a campaign to have Cambridgeshire’s guided bus route rebuilt in rubber and stretched to the Channel Isles so St Ives can become a tax haven.
Lord Toby, leader of the Cambridge and Huntingdon branch of the Official Monster Loony Party, is also campaigning to have a witch-ducking stool built on the Quay at St Ives.
This would be used so that council officials who came up with the “crackpot” guided bus scheme can be dunked in the River Great Ouse every hour.
Lord Toby Jug is also raising money for Alzheimer’s Disease research.
Stoic Londoners
Last night, I had to go to the bus stop to pick up a friend, who was coming to dinner.
At the moment, the Balls Pond Road, is more like the Balls Pond Roadworks and as buses through Dalston appeared to be being diverted, buses were stacked up to get to the stop, where my friend was to alight.
But was it all fraught, with shouting and waving?
No! Everybody just got on with their travel, perhaps walked a bit if necessary and got off buses in the middle of the road, if that was all they could do.
Hopefully, it’ll all be better in a week or two, when the works finish.
You do sometimes think that stupidity makes it worse. Yesterday, as I walked back from Dalston Junction, the road was narrowed by the road works, so what did some idiot decorators do? Block the pavement with ladders, so they could paint a building. This meant mothers with buggies had to use the road and weave between buses, trucks and other vehicles. Hopefully, there wasn’t an accident.
Too Much Choice
One of the problems I have here is too many different ways of doing the same journey by public transport. This morning, I went to IKEA at Edmonton, which is either the 341 bus from one end of my road or one of several at the other end to Seven Sisters and then a tube and a shuttle bus.
I obeyed the old superstition of a Pakistani friend and went the first way and came back the second. But it would probably have been quicker to use the 341 both ways. But hey, I popped into the picture framers in Stoke Newington to pick up some pictures they had worked on.
No More Jump Leads
As I walked back from the de Beauvoir Deli this morning after getting my paper and lunch and having a coffee, a guy was putting his jump leads back in the boot of his BMW X5. To be fair, it didn’t look like the BMW that had failed, but someone had had a problem!
I laughed, as that is something that won’t bother me again. So buses break-down, but it’s not my problem to give them a push!
The Anonymous Widower 