Put Thameslink On The Tube Map Says London Assembly
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Ian Visits.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A report on improving accessibility on London’s Transport services has called for the fully accessible Thameslink line to be on the Tube map as a matter of some urgency.
I’m all for this happening.
I use Thameslink quite a bit, as if I’m in some places South of the River and am coming home, taking Thameslink to West Hampstead Thameslink and then using the Overground to Canonbury, from where I walk home, is a convenient route.
- It is step-free.
- There is a Marks and Spencer at West Hampstead, where I can do a bit of food shopping.
- Walking from Canonbury station to my house is gently downhill.
These are some other thoughts about Thameslink,
The Underground Train With A Toilet
Sometimes, I also find it doubly-convenient, as I need to spent a penny or more. Often, the toilets on Thameslink trains are free in the tunnels under London!
How many other Underground trains have toilets?
Obviously, Eurostar does, but does anybody know of any other trains that run deep under the surface, that have toilets?
Do Thameslink Want The Extra Passengers That Being On The Map Would Bring?
This may seem a dumb question, but sometimes, I do wonder, if the answer is that they don’t!
Thameslink Would Surely Make A Good Travel Partner For Eurostar
Increasing, many visitors from the Continent to London and the South East are travelling across the Channel using the excellent Eurostar.
As the Thameslink and Eurostar platforms at St. Pancras International, there could be mutual advantages to both companies to be partners.
Suppose you were travelling on these routes.
- Paris and Gatwick
- Brussels and Greenwich
- Amsterdam and Brighton
- Rotterdam and Luton Airport
And for one reason or other you didn’t want to fly; climate change, you like trains, awkward baggage or just plain fear of flying.
Surely, using Eurostar and Thameslink would be the obvious travel companies.
Note that Thameslink have posters, saying that they are the ideal way to get to Luton Airport.
Do they have posters, saying they are the ideal way to get to Eurostar at St. Pancras?
If I was running Thameslink, I’d do the following.
- Make sure, that all Thameslink stations accepted contactless ticketing using bank or credit cards.
- Put information and advertising on Eurostar trains and stations, telling passengers how to get to and from any Thameslink station without buying a physical ticket.
- Devise a simple add on ticket, that would be printed on your Eurostar boarding pass or held in Eurostar’s app.
- Market Thameslink to the French as the UK’s answer to the RER.
- Put travel information in at least Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, at St. Pancras station.
I would think, that a properly thought-out plan, could be a nice little earner for Thameslink.
Serial Cooking – Pasta With Yogurt Sauce For One
This is based on a Lyndsey Bareham recipe, which I cooked in Serial Cooking – Quick Pasta For One.
Note.
- There’s a lot of room for error and personalisation.
- I suspect it works equally well with Marks and Spencer’s normal pasta.
- It can be cooked in about ten minutes.
I’ve cooked it perhaps twenty times now and eaten it every time.
Could I Survive Four Months Self-Isolation?
As I am over seventy, it is quite likely that if newspaper reports like this one in The Times, which is entitled Coronavirus: Millions Of Over-70s Will Be Told To Stay At Home For Four Months, prove to be true, I shall be spending at least four months, alone with my television, my books and the Internet.
These are a few thoughts.
How Does My House Get Cleaned?
When I moved into this house, I decided that I didn’t want to have anything to do with cleaning the house, so I hired a contract cleaning company, who come every Monday.
I also reduced my cleaning utensils to those that I would to clean up a spill.
- A dustpan and brush
- Kitchen roll
- Washing-up liquid.
- A portable Dyson vacuum cleaner.
- A few sponges.
At least I don’t spill much.
How Do I Get My Clothes Washed?
My clothes washing arrangements may seem strange to some.
- The cleaning company also looks after my bed-linen and changes it on Mondays.
- Most of my clothes like underwear, shirts and jumpers are washed by a lady, who collects them from my door and brings them back a few days later.
- I take trousers, jackets and suits to the dry cleaners.
Since my washing machine packed up about three months ago, I haven’t replaced it and I use a pair of new socks every three or four days. It’s cheaper than buying a new machine.
I can see problems arising, as my lady, who does the washing, is not in the first flush of youth or good health and may be told to self-isolate.
But I can afford to get more clothes delivered.
How Am I Placed For Home Deliveries?
Despite my front door virtually opening onto the street, I have problems with home deliveries.
- Inevitably, they come when I’m out! But that won’t happen, if I’m confined to barracks!
- But the major problem is that I share a post-code with the mews that runs down the back of my house and drivers relying on sat-navs inevitably end up in the mews. It happened last week and only because I’d given the company my home phone number, which the driver rang, did I get the parcel.
I should say, that most things that I need I collect from shops, because of the delivery problem, which inevitably means I have to collect it from a Post Office or depot a short or sometimes long distance away.
I Like A Daily Paper
I buy The Times most days and I also have an on-line subscription.
Being brought up in a print works, I like the feel of papers and as I do most of the puzzles in The Times every day, I don’t have to print them out. Not that I can print them out at the moment, as no-one can work out how to drive my printer from this terrible Microsoft Surface Pro Studio computer.
If anybody knows how to drive a HP LaserJet P1102w from one of these awful computers please get in touch. And if you are anywhere near London N1, there will be a beer waiting if the fridge or a boiling kettle, if you turn up.
I buy the paper from the shop round the corner, but I can’t find anybody to deliver one!
It sounds like there’s a business there to deliver papers to those, who the government insist are isolated in their own homes.
What About My Food?
At the present time, I shop most days and generally keep the following in the fridge.
- Two bottles of milk; one in use and one full.
- Some fish pate or M & S salmon parcels.
- Several small pots of M & S Luxury Honey & Ginger yoghurt.
- Three pots of cut fruit from M & S, which I usually eat at a rate of one a day. Sometimes with the yoghurt.
- Benecol spread instead of butter.
- Two or three ready meals.
- Two packs of M & S gluten-free pasta, which has a two months life. I cook it with peas in a yoghurt sauce, with each pack giving two meals.
- Three bottles of Adnams 0.5% beer from M & S. I’ve also got plenty of this in store.
- Some eggs and cheese.
In various store cupboards, storage jars and bowls I also have the following.
- Several bananas.
- Lots of dried apricots
- M & S gluten-free bread.
- M & S gluten-free ginger snaps.
- Plenty of tea bags.
- Tins of sardines
- Tins of baked beans,
- M & S gluten-free granola, which I eat with yoghurt and apricots
- M & S gluten-free porridge pots, which I eat with honey or strawberry jam.
I should say, that most days, I eat breakfast out either in Carluccio’s or Leon.
You will notice that I shop extensively in Marks and Spencer. But I have one only about five hundred metres away in Dalston and in Central London, you pass one of their food stores very regularly.
I can also go to their two larger stores at Finsbury Pavement or The Angel, if I am able to risk the bus.
- It should be noted that I have strong connections to M & S at The Angel.
- My paternal grandmother used to shop there before the First World War.
- C and myself used to shop there in the early 1970s, when we lived in the Barbican.
There is also a Boots next door, where I get my prescription drugs, which was also used by my grandmother over a hundred years ago.
How Will I Get To The Doctors?
It’s walkable!
Conclusion
I think, that I’ll survive.
An Oasis In A Gluten-Free Desert
I took this picture, this morning in Mark’s and Spencer’s cafe in Ipswich.
It was the only place, I could find a gluten-free breakfast in the town.
Note that Christmas must be coming, as it’s a turkey feast sandwich.
A Quick Pasta Supper For One
A few months ago Marks & Spencer started selling an Italian made gluten-free passta, that is named prosciutto & ricotta cappelletti.
Marks recommend serving it with your favourite sauce or melted butter.
So I used one of my favourite sauces adapted from Serial Cooking – Quick Pasta For One. The idea came from a recipe from Lyndsey Bareham in The Times.
These pictures show the stages.
Note.
- I split frozen peas down into small one-portion pots.
- The yogurt is a small pot of Honey & Ginger West Country Luxury Yoghurt from Marks & Spencer.
- I generally drink Adnams beer!
I shall cook the second half of the pasta in a few days, which will be the fifth time, I’ve had the meal in three weeks.
A Map, An M & S, But No Clock At Manchester Victoria Station
Manchester Victoria station has improved recently, with a map and an M & S Simply Food.
But it doesn’t have a proper clock.
Mojitos On Display By The Tills In Dalston Marks And Spencer
As this picture shows, the well-publicised Mojitos are handy in Dalston Marks and Spencer, which is perhaps thirty metres from the London Overground at Dalston Kingsland station.
They are the two light-blue cans on the left of the shelf.
I had just relieved the shop of two bottles of my favourite 0.5% Southwold Ale.
Incidentally, I have never drunk any alcoholic drink out of a can, without using a glass as an intermediary.
These days, I don’t even drink soft drinks directly out of a can.
If Transport for London allowed sponsorship of rail lines, perhaps the North London Line would be sponsored by Marks and Spencer, as they have stores very close to the following stations.
- Richmond
- West Hampstead
- Hapmstead Heath
- Dalston Kingsland
- Hackney Central
- Stratford
I think there will be more.
The Lucky Seven
Why the Lucky Seven?
Because i’m drinking them! Does that make us the Lucky Eight?
The seven were the last on display in Marks and Spencer on Finsbury Pavement.
The City is a good hunting ground for this excellent beer!
The Orchestra Pit At Waterloo Station – 14th March 2019
These pictures show the area nicknamed the orchestra pit at Waterloo station.
It looks like it could be open soon!
Although Network Rail and their pandering to the terrible tastes of the average rail traveller, this are will probably filled with gluten-rich junk food.
I’d like to see a Leon added to Waterloo, as they already have two Marks and Spencers and a Carluccio’s.
Rail Operations Seeks New Sites To Extend Storage Space
The title of this post, as the same as that of this article in Issue 869 of Rail Magazine.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Rail operations (UK) Limited is looking to lease more sites for storing off-lease trains.
Via ita Traxion business, the company has already leased Crewe South Yard and the Marks & Sencer Logistics site at Castle Donington.
Much of the rest of the article is an interview with Karl Watts, who is Chief Executive of Rail Operations (UK) Limited, where he outlines the train storage market. He appears to be a man, who builds a strategy around facts and then pounces.
To do this he would need to have.
- Good advisers, with excellent knowledge of and contacts in the UK Rail and European rail industry.
- Reliable financial backing.
- The ability to give a good story to the media.
It appears, Karl could have used similar tactics, when he commissioned ten Class 93 locomotives from Stadler, that I wrote about in Stadler’s New Tri-Mode Class 93 Locomotive.
He puts forward some firm views and facts.
- 4,000 vehicles are coming off-lease.
- 46-47 miles of track will be needed.
- 313s, 314s and 315s will be scrapped.
- 317s, 319s, 321s and 442s will be re-engineered.
The customer gets what they want with appropriate servicing and maintenance.
The Anonymous Widower 