ASLEF Put Their Marker Down for the Olympics
The various rail runions have never got on well and have always tried to see that they could get more out of owners, managers and ultimately taxpayers for as long as I can remember.
Today’s action by ASLEF was supposedly about triple pay and a day-off for working Boxing Day, in variance with an agreement they are reported to have signed, but was it also to show their power with the Olympics coming in 2012? They didn’t get the Danegeld this time and as millions of Londoners and tourists were seriously inconvenienced, I doubt they’ll get it if they try to do something similar about extra benefits for themselves during the games.
I was seriously inconvenienced today, as I had intended to get a Central Line train to Newbury Park for a friend to take me to the football at Ipswich. As I said earlier, the direct trains weren’t running. Instead I tried to take a 25 bus to Ilford, from where I would complete the journey on another bus.
But I was running seriously late for a pre-arranged pick-up time on a bus that would have had just a small bit of space for a couple of Snow White’s friends. All of the overcrowding could be put down to the non-running Central Line, as people had things like cases and bags of presents with them. So I abandoned the bus with some difficulty at Stratford and thought I’d get a bus home. The queues were enormous, as I suspect many had come to the interchange to get buses like the 25 to Oxford Circus. The shopping centre by the interchange was very busy too and it looked like things were getting worse rather than better.
I’d determined that I needed to get a 276 to Stoke Newington, but as that shared a stop with the 25, it would not have been a sensible proposition, so I walked back down West Ham Lane to the previous stop of the bus. Eventually, I got on a small single-decker bus after about a quarter of an hour, as that is the Sunday frequency. It then drove back through Stratford and the overcrowded stops and was probably carrying twice its legal capacity by Bow Church, where it started its meander towards Hackney.
It was then, that I got a text saying that the match at Ipswich had been called off due to a frozen pitch. So at least I was saved a long journey, even if my shorter one wasn’t much fun!
In the end I abandoned the 276 when it got to Mare Street in Hackney and went to look for another to get me back home.
I shall be interested to see how this story develops. ASLEF have seriously managed to annoy all of the shops in London, Transport for London and I suspect several million Londoners. At times, at Stratford, I felt some were going to seriously explode and that was one of the reasons, I walked away to look for a bus. I saw mothers with children getting distraught, as youths refused them access to buses with buggies, drivers and other staff were getting abuse and no-one was offering the disabled and the elderly the priority seats.
Still it was all good fun and practice for a man with dodgy eyesight and only one 100% hand. But the idea is to see if I can improve the parts of my body that don’t woek too well, by using them!
Christmas Shopping Completed
I got everything I needed in Oxford Street this afternoon. The strangest request I had was to get six lemons for Christmas Day from my son. In John Lewis, they were in fours, so he got eight.
Some parts of Oxford Street were seriously manic, but none as much so as Selfridges, where I was picking something up. John Lewis was quite quiet, but when I enquired about blinds for my house, the assistant said that a lot of their departments are quiet over Christmas and pick up in January. So as their sales are up four percent on last year, they are doing very well. Although the food department in the basement had the longest queue to pay, I’ve ever seen in a shop.
After I left Selfridges, I had intended to take the 30 bus which stops at the end of my road, but they seemed to be thin on the ground, so I took a 274 to the Angel, where I knew I’d be able to get any of five to get home.
The 274 bus brought back many memories, as it effectively took the route of the old 74 to Camden Town and then meandered towards the Angel. We’d used 74s many times when we lived in St. John’s Wood in the 1970s to get to and from Oxford Street and Knightsbridge. The route used Routemasters and you had to be quick to fold the double push-chair and stow it under the stairs, before someone else grabbed the space. C would regularly do the trip with three children under four on her own. Mothers today have it so easy.
The 274 will be a useful bus for me, as it connects so easily to where I live. Either I can take another bus from the Angel or a train from Cmden Road or Caledonian Road and Barnsbury to Canonbury and then walk.
Today I did the simple thing and got a bus down the Essex Road.
Targetting Businesses that Avoid Tax
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll see that I tend to shop and purchase with I hope an ethical dimension. Other things come into it like good service and convenience.
So if I need something quickly here, I’ll tend to use local shops or the two small Sainsbury stores within walking distance. As one has a good Free From section and sells Green’s beer, I use it a couple of times a week.
As I said in a previous post, I never use Tesco, except when it is totally to my advantage, as the store’s attitude gets up my nose in so many ways. But I am a free man and can have my own prejudices towards business.
So when it comes to the protests against the likes of Vodafone and Arcadia, because of tax avoidance, I have a certain sympathy with the protesters. But these two companies have been on my don’t buy list for years, as I don’t like their attitude. My cheaper clothes usually end up being purchased in such as Gap and Marks & Spencer, if possible. But lately, it’s been Gap, as they have a small size that isn’t made for the obese. Fit is important to me.
So if these protests cost Philip Green some money, I’m not bothered, especially, as I never use his shops because they don’t have what I want. I’m also annoyed with British Home Stores for effectively cutting out the dry way of getting from Oxford Street tube to John Lewis, by reorganising their store. But that doesn’t bother me now, as I can take a 73 bus to right outside John Lewis.
I tend to use John Lewis a lot, as I get service and goods that last at a good price. But then could the service be so good because John Lewis is a partnership with everybody’s bonus on the line?
The Train that Won’t Go Quietly!
There are very few engineering projects in the world, that last a long time, as the technology gets replaced. To me some of the best in the UK are :-
The New River – Built in 1613 to supply London with fresh water, It is still used in part for that purpose nearly four centuries later. Will there be a celebration in 2013?
The Thames Embankments and Bazalgette‘s Sewers in London – These transformed the city and also laid down the basic quality control standards for large construction projects. I seem to remember reading that only one person died in the construction of the sewers, which was a major achievement for the ninteenth century.
The Forth Bridge – Probably the best known bridge in the world. Opened in 1890, it still carries nearly 200 trains a day.
The Thames Tunnel – The first tunnel under a navigable river, that now carries the East London Line under the Thames.
St. Pancras Station – The head of SNCF described it as the finest station in the world. I’ll agree with him. It was originally opened in 1868 and a lot of the original design is still intact.
Welwyn Viaduct – An extraordinary structure in Hertfordshire, that still carries the East Coast Main Line over 150 years after it was built.
We may have structures that last for years but actual vehicles that last more than a four decades or so are rare indeed.
The Mersey Ferries have been around for centuries, but the current three boats are all over fifty years old. I remember them with affection from my days at Liverpool University in the mid-1960s.
The London Routemaster bus was launched in 1956 and although most were replaced by 2005, their are still two heritage routes in central London. I rode on one in September.
The Victoria Line in London has two distinctions. It is the oldest fully-automated railway in the world and it still has some trains dating from 1967. I have travelled on some quite recently and they are still in good condition. at 43 years old.
And then there is the Inter-City 125 or High Speed Train. It may not be as venerable as the other three examples, but then they don’t travel at 200 km/hr or 125 mph over routes that measure hundreds rather than tens of miles. It was also designed as a stop-gap design after the failure of British Railways to get the tilting APT to work.
Now over thirty five years since the trains were introduced, they are being refurbished, re-engined and are still in front-line service all over the country.
On my trip north from Edinburgh to Inverness in the cab of HST, 43313, talked about some of the problems with the trains and added to my knowledge.
The old rather smoky diesel engines have now been replaced in many power cars with modern units.
The rather draughty and noisy doors in the cab have now been replaced to make the working environment second-to-none.
But the slam doors of the Mark 3 coaches with their rather quaint traditional windows are a worry.
But that is now being addressed by sound engineering according to Modern Railways.
Who’s to say when we’ll see the last of the HSTs. I wouldn’t be surprised if some are still running in 2030 or even 2040, as they are classic Darwinian train, that evolves to beat every attempt to kill it off.
In the same magazine, it was also announced that one of the HSTs had run from Plymouth to Paddington non-stop in just two hours forty minutes. That is an average speed of 84.375 mph. London to Paris by Eurostar is 307 miles and takes two hours fifteen minutes at an average speed of 136.444 mph.
So Eurostar is quicker, but it runs on a line virtually without curves and it isn’t thirty five years old.
As Modern Railways said, the Plymouth to Paddington run wasn’t bad for a thirty-five year old, British Rail-era diesel train dismissed as obselete by Labour transport ministers almost a decade ago!
I could talk about pots and kettles, but in a way isn’t the HST a superb two-fingered salute to the bunch of NuLabor morons, who almost bankrupted this country, by their idiotic policies?
Travels in the Snow
I had to go to London today, to see the man, who is decorating my new house and make sure everything was OK.
I was dropped at Whittlesford and the trains were running very much to time. As a fallback, I checked that the new Holiday Inn at the station was open, so if I needed to wait for my taxi, then I could do it with a coffee in the warm. It was, so that was probably an omen that I wouldn’t need it.
I didn’t take my normal route to Highbury and Islington from Tottenham Hale, but instead took a bus from Seven Sisters through Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington to the Essex Road. It worked and I had a much shorter walk than I normally do.
Everything was going well, so because of the weather I checked on a few things and walked to Carluccio’s in Upper Street for some lunch. After an excellent risotto, I walked to Highbury and Islington to get back to Totteham Hale.
I won’t say my troubles started there, as compared to many others, I didn’t suffer much. The Cambridge trains weren’t running, so it was suggested by staff that I go to King’s Cross and get a train from there.
Now the company that goes out of Kings Cross is First Capital Connect, which is a different one to that out of Liverpool Street. So I was worried that my ticket might not be valid!
By 16:30, I was in Cambridge, only to find that there were no trains to Newmarket, so I took the bus to the main Cambridge bus station, intending to get a bus to ether Newmarket or Haverhill. It actually doesn’t matter which as there are good taxis home from either, but the ones from Haverhill are slightly cheaper, as the town is closer. There was a large crowd waiting for the Newmarket buses, so as one was just leaving for Haverhill I took it. Unfortunately, it was a slow one, so I had an extensive tour of the many estates that surround the town before I got a taxi home.
If there is anything positive about today, it is that public transport must be flexible and that tickets must be interchangeable, if one service fails. Except for the taxi, which I would have had to pay for, wherever I returned home from, everything was covered by my day retiurn and Travelcard from Whittlesford or my bus pass.
Except for my walk too, everything was clean and warm and as I sat upstairs in the front of the bus from Cambridge to Haverhill, I was able to complete the Sudoku from the Times.
The one thing though that would have improved my journey would have been the unopened Cambridge busway, which surely will make getting from Cambridge station to the city centre aot easier. Or it might do in the future, if has been designed properly. And on that subject, shouldn’t the busway and the trains interface properly with buses that go to inaccessible towns like Haverhill?
Incidentally, it appears that the trains from Tottenham Hale are now running to time, so perhaps my diversion to King’s Cross was unnecessary.
It also seems that the overhead electric trains to the north of London are much more reliable than those to the south using a third rail for power. My engineering knowledge would suggest that overhead electric trains perform better in snowy weather, but I’m happy to be corrected. If this is true, it is rather strange that some railways south of the Thames were electrified using overhead cables, which were then changed for thrd rail. But the history of railway electrification in the UK is as complex as you can get, with innumerable systems, changes of policy and objectives. Read a simple history in Wikipedia.
The Cost of the Cambridge Busway Climbs Again!
It now looks that the cost of the infamous Cambridge guided busway is climbing again according to this article. Possibly to as much as £181million. That looks like a 56% overspend, by my simple accounting methods, but I know politicians use other methods, that spin things in a better light.
Is the Cambridge Busway Britain’s Worst Transport Project?
It may not be Britain’s as the Edinburgh Tram will take a lot of beating. But it is certainly England’s, especially if you read this report in the Hunts Post.
Here’s a flavour of the report.
Building the St Ives-Cambridge guided busway is now expected to cost nearly two-thirds more than the target price – an overrun of well over £50million.
Cambridgeshire County Council, which is promoting the scheme, expects construction to have cost £142m.
When the cost of land, the county council’s own costs and those of its engineering consultants Atkins are added, the total cost of the project looks set to reach £170m before the High Court decides who pays the final bills.
When originally proposed in the early 2000s, the scheme was costed at £56m. After a few modifications, a lengthy public inquiry and Government approval, the bill had risen to £116.7m. The Government promised to chip in £92.5m, with the balance coming from developers who would benefit from the project.
As with many of these fiascos, it’ll be the lawyers who make the real money.
The Sting in the Tail
There always is, isn’t there!
I’d decided that the best way to get home from the hospital, would be to take a bus to Haverhill and then take a taxi.
As I left the hospital the 13 bus was there, so I ran to get on it. I may have had a stroke, but I can still run ande walk a few hundred metres or so.
I assumed that the bus would go straight to Haverhill Bus Station, as the previous one had done a couple of weeks ago. But this one did an unguided tour of all the delightful estates and I ended up being dumped in a place I did not recognise. It hadn’t helped that because of the rain I couldn’t see out of the bus in the dark.
So it was a long walk to the Bus Station and then I couldn’t get a taxi without half-an-hour’s wait.
So something that should have been easy, made me late!
I get more fed up with the countryside every day.
Cambridge Bus Chaos
After lunch I had to virtually walk halfway to Addenbrooke’s as Cambridge city centre is all dug up and the buses have been diverted. I was nearly at the station before I found one going to the hospital.
Let’s hope it all gets better when and if the Busway opens!
The Last of the Bendy Buses
I’ve only travelled on a bendy bus once in London.
Route 29 Bendy Bus
As a passenger I don’t like single decker buses, as wherever you sit, you usually find that there is a lot of junk on the floor like cases, buggies and children. So when your eyesight like mine isn’t 100%, it’s better to get out of the way on a double-decker and only come down, when you want to get off.
So I sometimes wonder why Ken introduced these buses, if passengers don’t like them.
I’ve heard two theories.
In the first, the length is ideal for blocking junctions and slowing motorists.
And in the second, because they have multiple entrances, it means that a lot of revenue is not collected and that helps with reducing the cost of public transport to the general public.
I don’t know enough to judge why these buses were introduced. I don’t think many except fare dodgers are mourning their passing. As I took the picture, several people did get on the bus through the wrong door.
There’s a detailed article on the BBC about their problems.
Incidentally, I used to use the route 29 to get to school and sometimes to my father’s print works in Wood Green. But those buses were good old-fastioned RT‘s.
The Anonymous Widower 