Walking to Victoria Park
Yesterday, I started to walk to Victoria Park to see the site where my son’s ashes were scattered on the anniversary of his death last week.
It is a pleasant walk along the Regent’s Canal. A first surprise was this cafe.
Cafe on the Regent's Canal
Yesterday, the canal was busy with walkers and cyclists of all ages and type. So the cafe shouldn’t be too short of punters.
Good luck to them! I think they’ll be the first of many hostelries on the canal. After all, the canal will be one of the main walking and cycling routes to the Olympics at Stratford.
I also passed the new bridge that takes the East London Line over the canal, just south of Hoxton station.
The East London Line Crossing the Regents Canal
I use the line probably once a week these days and when they finish off Dalston Junction station, I will use it even more. If the line has a problem, it is that it is too successful and has started to get a bit crowded even in the middle of the day. But any good transport project, whether it is a railway, road or a bus route, should attract new customers and it would appear that the East London line has done this.
The Regent’s Canal forms part of the Jubilee Greenway as this sign shows.
Jubilee Greenway Sign on the Regent's Canal
The Greenway runs all the way from Buckingham Palace to the Olympics and then in a circle around London. With due respect to the Queen’s fitness, I can’t see her walking all the way at her age. But it would make a wonderful celebration of her Jubilee to traverse the canal part of the route in a proper Royal Canal Boat.
The canal was busy with traffic, despite the fact that all boats need to transfer through the various locks. I took this picture as I walked through industrial Bethnall Green.
Sailing Through Industrial Bethnall Green
The picture wasn’t chosen deliberately, but it does show how the canal is a long green oasis cutting a bold path across London. Is that spring blossom on the trees?
But it wasn’t just expensive boats. I took this picture just after Acton’s Lock.
Kids on the Regent's Canal
The inflatable boat contained a group of kids and an instructor and they were having a great time, especially as they worked the locks. What better way is there to learn the history of East London, than to experience it from the canal?
There are various works going on to make Jubilee Greenway, one of the ways to get to the Olympics. I particularly liked this well designed entrance ramp and steps to the towpath.
A Well-Designed Ramp and Steps
There is never an excuse for not using the best designs for even the most mundane things.
Note in this picture, you can see the slabs and bricks that cover the high-voltage electricity main, that takes the power to the City from East London. The boat moored at the end of the ramp is a workboat being used by the engineers upgrading this vital power line.
The Regent’s Canal follows Victoria Park for some distance and the park too, is being upgraded. This picture shows the bridge connecting the Park to Bethnall Green.
Entrance to Victoria Park
My kids used to go to the Gatehouse School nearby and used to walk over this bridge into the Park. At the moment due to the works the park isn’t totally accessible.
Works in Victoria Park
It will all be done for next year, when the park will be used as an Olympic viewing venue with big screens, a new cafe and lots of grass to sit on. Perhaps one of the best ways to go to the Olympics, will be to take a picnic to Victoria Park and then walk to the Olympics Park.
In some ways it is one of my favourite parks, and I can remember wheeling our granddaughter through the park with C many times in her pram. As it was also one of late son’s favourite spots it was entirely fitting that his ashes were scattered there.
I shall certainly use it as a venue to watch the Olympics, especially, as it is only about a hundred minutes walk from my house. Or if I feel lazy, it’s just one bus ride away from my local stop.
This sign gives the history of the park.
Victoria Park Sign
I’m certain that Queen Victoria would be very happy about the state of the park she supported and allowed to be named in her honour.
How The City of London Gets Its Electricity
I did mention briefly in an earlier post about this, but today as I walked from home along the busy towpath of the Regent’s Canal I saw this notice.
Notice on The Regent's Canal
Note that it says that it links St. John’s Wood and West Ham.
This closure is due to essential works being carried out by National Grid to refurbish the cable cooling system between our substations at St. John’s Wood and West Ham.
It also links up to the City Road Basin, where there is a major sub-station that actually supplies the City. For more details of the work, there is a press release here. It’s all good engineering combining the best of modern technology with some superb historic infrastructure.
City Road Basin, Regent's Canal
The sub-station is to the left of the Basin in the picture.
Where the cable is is quite obvious, as this picture shows.
Cable Duct in the Regent's Canal Towpath
But it is well-marked.
High Voltage Warning
It could almost make a story for a James Bond film.
Imagine an evil megalomanic, who wanted to do some sort of share coup. What better way to disable dealing in the City of London, than to cut the power supply, by attacking it along the Canal. But of course the film would end with an amazing chase through the East End of London, all the way to the Olympic Park.
On the other hand working on high-voltage cables without the proper precautions is not to be recommended, unless you want to end up as little more than a collection of atoms.
Mackays Make the First Brass Headed Coach Screw
I did try to make one myself, but I didn’t have a strong enough die to cut the thread after I’d taken the head off the coach screw. So I took the screw and nut to Mackays in Cambridge, when I visited the city on Tuesday.
They are basically a very good tool shop, but they also have a small engineering workshop out the back.
This is what they created for me in a few minutes.
Brass Dome-Headed Coach Screw
Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the unobtainable oversized washers.
But it installed perfectly to screw the staircase to the wall.
The Installed Coach Screw
Note the old brass-painted one at the left. I’ll now be ordering another two.
Brass Washers As Earrings and a Watering Can Handbag
I saw the first on the tube and the brass washers were there in all their engineering brilliance hanging from a young lady’s ears. No wonder I can’t get any to complete my staircase! I would have photograhed them for this blog, as I was so disgusted at the application. And it’s probably rude and/or illegal to take pictures of a lady’s ears on the Underground.
I saw the second last night, as a lady walked towards me on the station with what looked like a shiny green watering can under her arm. As she passed me I could see it was a handbag complete with a fake spout.
Will I ever understand women’s fashion? Probably, never!
The Noise of a High Speed Train
There is quite a reasoned article on the BBC today about the sort of noise you might get from a high speed train on HS2 and how you could reduce it.
The article doesn’t mention a technology that by 2020 will probably be available to quieten the train and that is the use of anti-noise, where an equal and opposite noise is generated to cancel the sound of the train. I dabbled in this twenty years ago and even then the technology had been successfully applied in a few applications. But even if anti-noise itself is not used, in ten years or so how trains create noise will be better understood and better design will be used to cut the noise.
I may be generally against the building of HS2, but I do think that noise will not be one of its biggest problems.
A Curious Structure On The Western Curve
The picture shows a rather curious white corrugated structure covering the Western Curve at Dalston Junction.
A White Steel Tent at Dalston
When I first saw it, I thought it was some sort of protection for concrete, whilst it was drying.
But it would appear that it’s the ventilation for the railway tunnel under Kingsland High Road. It is designed so that the prevailing westerly winds will draw the air out of the tunnel. I think, it’s also designed to work in case of fire.
This looks to me, like a classic case of very sound passive engineering. An active solution with electrically-driven fans would be a lot more complicated and expensive.
Where Have All the Brass Washers Gone?
I’m in need of some more oversized brass washers to complete the staircase.
Oversized Brass Washers
My supplier has told me, they can’t get any more. I can’t find any on the Internet in the UK either.
The Hopefully Very Last Bolts
The staircase is now almost refurbished and needs just a few things.
I think it would be improved if oversized washers were put on my dome-headed bolts.
But perhaps the last thing to do is replace the three brass-painted coach screws with dome-headed coach screws.
A Dome-Headed Bolt and Coach Screws
The picture shows shows from the top; a fake dome-headed bolt, a stainless steel coach screw and one of those used by Jerry, the builder.
It would seem that the solution is to saw the head off the stainless steel coach screw, put a screw thread on it and then screw on a dome-headed nut.
How to Make Dome-Headed Bolts
As I have said several times on this blog, the builder of my house was possibly named Jerry. His worst piece of work was undoubtedly the staircase, which instead of using brass nuts and bolts, as probably specified by the architect used brass painted steel ones.
I have got part of the way, but to fix the staircase to the floor of the house, Jerry used Rawlbolts, which couldn’t easily be replaced, as they were set in concrete. I got this far and you can see it looks a bit better but some are round one way and others the other.
In the end I decided I wanted some dome-headed bolts. But just like the perfect woman doesn’t exist, the perfect bolt doesn’t either. Although there are some good ones about.
So I had to make my own. I started by purchasing some 10 mm. mild steel studding from Thomas Brothers at Archway. I used steel rather than brass, as this might give less trouble with dissimilar metals in contact causing corrosion and anyway Thomas Brothers don’t sell brass studding. They also were kind enough to cut the studding in half, so that I was less likely to poke someone’s eye out on the bus home.
I started by securing the studding in my Workmate.
Studding Secured in the Workmate
I then sawed off an appropriate length using a standard hacksaw, The stud was cut to be perhaps two centimetres longer than the steel bolt I wanted to replace.
The Cut Length of Studding
The problem with cutting any screw threads is that when you cut it, you damage the threads and nuts are difficlt to fit. You can mitigate the problem by putting a new blade in the hacksaw, but you really need one of these.
Hexagonal Screw-Cutting Die
It is a 10 mm. hexagonal scre-cutting die, that effectively cuts threads in round bars. Or in this case recuts damaged threads.
My father had lots of these, although his were round and were held in a special wrench. But because they are hexagonal, you can use them with a good ring spanner to cut the thread. I’m doing just that here, after first mounting the cut stud vertically in the Workmate.
Recutting the Threads
I actually turned the die from one end of the stud to the other to make sure that all damaged threads were repaired. All I had to do then, was screw a dome-headed nut onto the pristine length of studding.
A Dome-Headed Bolt
They are now all installed in the staircase.
The Bolts in Place
You can’t tell which ones are my fakes and which are the ones the builder put in the right way round. Or was it the wrong way?
He didn’t put them in level either!
The Anonymous Widower 