Modern Railways also has an article about the opening of a new electric railway between Airdrie and Bathgate, which effectively creates a fourth link across Scotland’s central belt between the two main cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
I’ve read the article in detail and it states that a new station is being built at Drumgelloch to serve just 3,700 local inhabitants. This really shows how different rules starve East Anglian stations of money. Bury St. Edmunds for example has a population of 35,000 and the best thing that could be said about the station is that it compliments the Abbey Ruins. Haverhill has a population of 22,000 and no train station at all.
I think East Anglia could take a leaf out of Scotland’s book and reinstate the line between Sudbury and Cambridge. But that will never get done in my lifetime, despite the fact it could probably be done for a lot less than Airdrie to Bathgate.
The only thing we get is other areas’ hand-me-downs and a virtual busway.
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October 24, 2010
Posted by AnonW |
Transport/Travel | Bury St. Edmunds, Cambridge Busway, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Scotland, Trains |
3 Comments
My main purpose in going to Glasgow, was to see an old mate, John, and his son, to reminisce about old times. Now John had been with me, when I went to the Queen’s Award party at Buckingham Palace in I think, 1981.
We had coffee in the hotel in Queen Street station, which made my point about stations as destinations for business, pleasure or sin! I’d also told John that I wouldn’t mind seeing the Sentinel Works, the first building designed by Archibald Leitch, the man responsible for so many sports stadia in the British Isles.
In some ways visiting the Sentinel Works had become more important to me, after reading about sorry state of the Egyptian Halls in Glasgow, in the latest Private Eye. I’m certain that if these two buildings had been in Edinburgh, then solutions would have been found for both!
Sentinel manufactured steam lorries amongst other things and to see one still going strong is a sight to behold.
Sentinel Steam Lorry
I saw this one in 2007 on the A505 near Baldock.
If the Egyptian Halls are in a sorry state, then the Sentinel Works are only held up by the integrity of Leitch’s design.
52.245212
0.403362
September 30, 2010
Posted by AnonW |
Transport/Travel | Architecture, Building, Glasgow |
1 Comment
I’d been to Glasgow a few times before in my life. The first was when I was a student and I hitched to see Spurs play in the Glasgow Cup, the second and third were when I passed through on the way to and from Skye with my family and the last time was many years ago, when C took her first flight with me in Tango-Tango, my Piper Arrow. In the last case, we were actually aiming for Prestwick, but weather meant a diversion to Glasgow Airport. It’s sad to think, that the two people who accompanied me that day, C and my youngest son, have both passed away. I can still remember us all getting out of the small plane at the General Aviation Terminal and saying to a pilot with a smart uniform, that today had been my wife’s first flight. He suggested that because of the weather, that she deserved a Purple Heart!
I’m not sure now, where I’d hitched to Glasgow from in I suppose the summer of 1966 or 1967, but it could either have been Liverpool or perhaps London, where I was working at the time in Enfield Rolling Mills. I do remember though going over Shap in an old Albion truck in the pouring rain, as there was no M6 in those days. I also remember waiting perhaps two or three hours for a lift on the A74 to somewhere nearer to my destination. In the end I got a lift from a driver in a van that had been delivering the Scottish Daily Express. I think, it’s the only time in my life that I’ve had any positive thoughts to that rag in any of its guises! I remember that the match was at the old Hampden Park and Celtic were the opponents. Searching the Internet I did find this program, which sets the match in 1967, which must be right. But then I must have known C at the time, so it’s surprising she let me go off hitching around the country. Unless this was when she was being a mother’s help in Ireland for the Wright family from Norfolk! Two of their daughters; Amanda and Caroline were later bridesmaids at our wedding. They also had a brother Tim.
I also remember passing that day on the beach at Wemyss Bay after taking one of the Blue Trains from the centre of Glasgow.
I don’t remember much of the match, but I think Spurs won and I also remember a Rangers supporter who turned up getting thumped for his trouble!
After my troubles getting lifts in Scotland coming up, I took the late train down to Manchester. It was very late and I remember I wrote a letter of complaint, about having to use a taxi to get to my friend’s house in Manchester. I think they sent me a cheque for about nine shillings! It gave me my first reward in the art of complaining.
So that trip shows, I’m just reverting to type after over forty years, by travelling around!
But on Monday, the trip was different! My host kindly dropped me at Waverley, I bought a ticket from the machine and fairly soon, I was on my way to Glasgow in a smart new train. It’s when you do this sort of journey you realise how far trains have come in the last twenty years or so. And also how far, some of the lines have still to go!
52.245212
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September 30, 2010
Posted by AnonW |
Sport, Transport/Travel | Flying, Football, Glasgow, Skye, Tottenham Hotspur, Trains |
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