I Think The Cricket Is Heading For A Draw In The Rain
England have avoided the follow on, and it looks like the weather is going to do what Manchester is famous for; rain.
So what are the odds on a draw? The draw is four to one on, on Betfair.
The bookies are usually right!
God Has Taste
The BBC has just shown a dramatic picture of a lightning strike on Manchester Piccadilly station.
She couldn’t have chosen a better target!
Is It Goodbye To Trafford General Hospital?
Trafford General Hospital is going to be downgraded in phases according to this report. Here’s the first three paragraphs.
Campaigners fighting to save a hospital A&E department where the first NHS patient was treated say they will challenge the decision in court.
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday that Trafford General Hospital was to be downgraded in phases.
He said the decision had been taken because there were too few patients using the department.
My son was in that hospital several times, a few months before he died and they had no idea he had pancreatic cancer.
I certainly won’t miss its passing and I suspect as it seems to be suffering from Stafford Syndrome, with a lack of patients, neither will any of the people who live near the hospital.
But then as long as I can remember, NHS patients have always chosen to go to a better hospital a few miles away. When I lived in Suffolk, my local hospital was at Bury St. Edmunds, but I always drove to Addenbrooke’s at Cambridge. I suspect the good people of Trafford, go to somewhere in Central Manchester.
But then the first sentence in the BBC report says it all. It treated the first NHS patient. But we don’t want to keep hospitals as museums!
Andy Murray Shows The BBC Were Wrong To Move To Manchester
Andy Murray’s win is the lead story on BBC Breakfast, but he can’t appear in the studio with the trophy, to give out a very strong feelgood factor that we all need, as the program comes from Manchester.
If ever that ill-thought out move was exposed as a mistake, it is today. The BBC will have to make-do with a video link from the All-England Club at Wimbledon.
I won’t give odds on one of the BBC’s rival getting Murray and the trophy on air.
Manchester In The Slow Lane
An article published in The Times today says that a survey has shown that Coventry is the speediest city in the UK.
It also says Manchester is the slowest!
Could it be that Manchester has a terrible bus system, with little information and single door buses, that take forever to load and unload passengers? So buses waiting at stops, slow everybody down. I commented on the public transport system in Manchester here.
Are Virgin Trains Going To Go Faster?
With trains, it has always been known, that the faster you go, the more passengers you attract.
So when you get a headline of Virgin mulls 135 mph working in Modern Railways, you suspect that they are working on faster trains.
After all the Class 390 Pendolinos are capable of 140 mph, but are limited to 125 mph in service.
At present, most trains to both Liverpool and Manchester take about eight minutes over two hours from Euston, but one train a day does it in two hours. So to lose that eight minutes and get all trains on the headline-grabbing two hours, would mean an average speed increase of 6.25%. If the average journey speed bears a direct relationship to the train’s maximum speed, then by increasing the current maxium from 125 mph to 135 mph is a rise of 8.0%.
So is this where the conservative figure of 135 mph came from? It is just enough to get all London to Liverpool and Manchester trains just under that magic two hours, that will give a sensible return for the cost of the extra speed and the track and signalling improvements?
Applying the same rules to the Glasgow time of four hours and thirty minutes, could give a speed reduction to four hours and ten minutes.
So on a rough and ready cakculation, Virgin’s op speed of 135 mph, could bring a great improvement to the West Coast Main Line. Remember that the rebuild of the line in the early 2000s was intended to deliver a London Manchester time of an hour and forty five minutes.
Manchester Comes To Liverpool
I’m fairly certain, although I could be mistaken, that the Class 390 Pendolino, I took back from Liverpool on Saturday was named City of Manchester.
But it was the second train south in the morning.
Understatement From Network Rail
One of my least favourite station is Manchester Victoria, which looks like it was last deep refurbished and cleaned, when its namesake was on the throne. On the Network Rail page about their plans for the station is this classic phrase.
As anyone who has been to Manchester Victoria on a rainy day can tell you, there is a problem with the roof.
But at least something is being done. They state this about the new roof.
The £16m new roof is likely to be made of ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) – the material used at Manchester Piccadilly station, the Eden Project in Cornwall and the swimming pool built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, known as the Water Cube. ETFE is lighter, cheaper and lets in more light than glass. It’s also self cleaning, making it an ideal material for roofs.
You do wonder if this material could be used in other places to improve buildings at a more affordable cost than traditional methods.
I’ll look forward to using the new Manchester Victoria station in a few years time.
A Trip To Huddersfield
Yesterday, I took the train to Huddersfield to see the two Towns share a goal-less draw.
I went via Manchester Piccadilly, as I wanted to have a decent lunch in Carluccio’s at the station, where I know the wi-fi is also excellent, as it incidentally was on Virgin’s trains and in their First Class lounge at Euston. The same can’t be said for their food and drink offering on the trains at the weekend.
It was very cold outside and as I passed through Highbury and Islington station to get to Euston, it was actually trying to snow.
It may seem strange to get to Huddersfield via Manchester, but then there are four trains about every hour on that route. They are new trains, but are only three coaches and often are completely full with standing everywhere. It was a classic case of the Treasury deciding how many coaches should have been bought for the Trans Pennine route and then dividing it by three to fit their budget. It’s a pleasant enough half-hour route though through the Pennines as this picture shows.
Manchester To Huddersfield
Although, the cleaner at Piccadilly was a bit slapdash.
Slapdash Cleaning At Piccadilly
I feel right to blame the cleaner, as he actually came into the carriage whilst I was waiting to sit down.
I should point out that these Trans Pennine trains, illustrate some of what is wrong with the layout of Piccadilly station, which was probably designed by a Scouser with a bizarre sense of humour, to get at their rival city. These trains turn up at all sorts of places in the station and are often the second or even the third train on the platform, counting from the concourse. I think it was the third yesterday. It must be a nightmare for staff to get passengers on the right train. But I’ve changed trains at Piccadlly so many times now, that I know the traps the station sets for you. Hopefully things will get better with the Northern Hub works. But this won’t be fully implemented until 2018.
At present. there are two solutions for passengers to avoid the problems; allow plenty of time and have drink or a meal in the station or take another route. For Huddersfield yesterday, I could have gone via Leeds, but that would have meant a walk up the hill in the cold to get a meal, as Leeds station doesn’t have a restaurant only snack bars.
The journey on to Huddersfield was enlivened with one of those bizarre incidents that seem to happen to me. A screw fell out of the bottom of my camera onto the floor. In crawling around the floor looking for it, I was assisted by a retired lady doctor from Hull, who like me had gone to Liverpool University. We must have looked an odd pair. I’ve now got the problem of finding a screw for the camera. Or should that be an independent camera shop?
Huddersfield station is not your ordinary drab station, as the picture shows.
Huddersfield Railway Station
It is a Grade 1 listed building and actually contains two pubs. Pevsner described it as one of the best early railway stations in England. The statue by the way is Harold Wilson. The football ground is a twenty-minute walk downhill from the station and despite Huddersfield Town not being on television very often, the ground is well-known to viewers because of Rugby League.
John Smith’s Stadium
The John Smith’s Stadium was one of the first modern grounds to be built in recent years. As the picture shows, the view is good and I’d rate it one of the best seats for visiting supporters along with Barnsley, Burnley or Wolverhampton. You would never describe it as pokey or restricted like Charlton or QPR, although the stewards were complaining of the cold. So that must have been bad!
A steward incidentally told me that Ipswich had attracted a thousand fans. This must be quite a lot considering the distance from Suffolk and the weather. But on the other hand Ipswich, Suffolk and the football club must have one of the largest diaspora of any part of the UK.
Have Carluccio’s Cracked Wi-Fi?
In Manchester yesterday, I had a breakfast-cum-lunch in Carluccio’s in Manchester Piccadilly station.
It was the first of their caffes, where I found that wi-fi had been installed. As it was a station that supposedly had Network Rail’s wi-fi, I gave it a go and found that I could collect to Carluccio’s network.
And very good it was too! It was also pretty hassle-free, in that there was no login or registration process. Which is as it should be!
I hope that they don’t find their hot-spot gets used as a free download for masses of data, but there is nothing worse than going into a pub or restaurant and finding that getting a Wi-fi connection is a complete hassle.
But then, all I ever want to do is check e-mails, read a few web pages or use the machine locally. I don’t listen to music, play games or watch videos or live action on a small device.
The Anonymous Widower 