The Anonymous Widower

Do We Need More Runways In The South East?

This old chestnut keeps coming round and the London Assembly has produced a report, as is discussed in the Standard. Here’s the first few paragraphs.

The Government’s claim that the South-East faces an aviation capacity crisis was thrown into doubt today after an influential report suggested London has enough runways already.

The London Assembly study found the capital’s airports are currently underused with two — Luton and Stansted — having around half of their runway slots free.

Even Heathrow, at 99 per cent runway capacity, could fly an additional 20 million passengers a year if larger aircraft were used, it claimed.

To test their premise, that London has enough space, let’s look at Gatwick.  Two years ago, I flew out of Gatwick to Greece.  Read what I wrote in this blog. The last statement was.

Let’s face it, if I fly again, I’m not going out of Gatwick.

But in spite of that, I did use the airport to go to Budapest, where I had an excellent meal at Jamie’s Italian.

Gatwick seems to have improved immensely in the last couple of years, since the change of ownership, and it’s all been done by lots of small steps.  The other thing that helps me is the direct link from Dalston Junction to Clapham Junction.

I’m going out to Geneva on the 17th and it’ll be interesting to see how it goes. On every trip, Gatwick seems to get better.

May 1, 2013 Posted by | Food, Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Why Do I Like Travelling?

I was asked this question by a journalist this morning. But somehow it must be in the genes.

My father had been a great traveller before the Second World War and I know he’d gone all the way to the South of France and Geneva by train. One tale, that I can verify is that when he needed to buy a new guillotine from Griegs in Glasgow, he drove all the way up with his Scottish deputy and guillotine operator; Frank Black, or Mack the Knife, to see the machines in the factory. That was something not many people did in the 1950s.

Even at University, I was a bit of a traveller and one summer, I hitched to Glasgow to see a football match, before taking the train down to Manchester and then Paignton, to see friends.

C might have picked up the bug from me, but we were not beyond hitch-hiking together, as we did once to come to London, to tell her parents we were going to get married.  I was 20 and she was just 19.

Package tours were not for us and some of the first real holidays we had were when we took our Austin Maxi, down to the South of France, with the three boys in the back. And that was generally before they’d built the Autoroutes.

Later we would drive to Syros and Crete in Greece and Rome in Italy. On one trip we went over the St. Gotthard Pass in August in a severe blizzard and then came down the other side into Italy with rocks falling off the mountains in heavy rain.

We also swapped houses with a couple of Americans and we were in the States for six weeks, travelling as far East as Boston and as far West as Minneapolis.

We didn’t do boring.

After the children got fed up with us and left home, we continued to travel. We drove around Malaysia, took the train from Bangkok to Penang and I flew C and myself, all round Australia in a light aircraft.

We also had some memorable trips in my own plane.  Perhaps the longest was going out of Southend and reaching Naples.

Even when C was dying, she was planning another trip, where we would drive around Thailand.  Sadly, she hadn’t realised how ill she was, so this trip never came about.

Since her death, I have continued to travel and in fact, my stroke happened on a round the world trip in Hong Kong. I have visited every ground in the English League in alphabetical order by public transport and now I have started a series of fly out-rail home journeys.  The first was to Budapest.

Pencilled in to be done over the summer are Palermo, Sumburgh, New Quay, Lisbon, Stockholm, Odessa and Ferranfore.

This weekend it’s more mundane, in that I’m going to Burnley to see Ipswich in the last match of the season, by train from Kings Cross.

 

May 1, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

Bognor Is Just Like Felixstowe

it was an uneventful trip to Bognor, except for the loss of the pen. And all at a ticket cost of just £14.75 in a very clean train.

The only excitement on the way down was two Dutch tourists, who in killing time changing planes at Gatwick, decided they’d visit Crawley. Surely, there must be something better to do at the Airport!

Here are some of the pictures I took.

It could all have been Felixstowe, as I remember it as a child.

That town wasn’t the best place to be a teenager. Especially, where you had no transport, buses were rare and there were about three trains a day.

At least Bognor had a bus to get me back to the train station, which seemed to run about every fifteen minutes.  I needed the bus, as I’d probably walked about three miles.

Once off the sea-front, I only passed one pub. And I think, I only saw two in the first mile or so, whilst in the town centre.

Did King George V liked a drink, and couldn’t find any in the town?  Hence his supposed remarks.

Perhaps, James Joyce went there to stay sober enough to write Finnegan’s Wake.

May 1, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel, World | , , , | Leave a comment

An Event Driven Life

Yesterday, when I went to Bognor, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, when I saw the weather forecast, which said that Bognor would be the warmest place in the UK.  The hotspots today are Heathrow, Salisbury, Birmingham, Harlow and Barnsley.  I hsven’t been to Salisbury for years, but I don’t think I’ll be going today.  But who knows?

So every day, I look at the news and the weather and decide where I might go, if I feel a trip coming on.

I also try to sign up to offers, I get from places like Liverpool University.

It is a mildly exciting way to live.

May 1, 2013 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel, World | , | Leave a comment

Checking Up On King George V

It has often been said that King George V’s last words were “Bugger Bognor”.  Although, as this article says, it is probably a myth.

But today, the BBC Weather is saying that Bognor Regis is going to be the warmest place in the UK at 15°C

So as I’ve never been to Bognor Regis, I think this is a good day to see if King George V had the right thoughts about the place.

April 30, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 3 Comments

Not Very Correct French

French Railways or SNCF has just introduced a budget low-cost TGV service .  They’ve called it Ouigo, which I assumed is pronounced “we go”.

I thought the French had laws against the language of the dreaded rosbifs!

But it is a concept that might just have enough to succeed.

Would I use it?

Probably not, as it seems to be tied into French mobile phones and post codes. But I had read that the web site was only in French, but it’s now also in English.  So I suspect that in a few months, it’ll be as easy to use as easyJet or Ryanair.

I shall certainly try it on one of my trips back from somewhere in Southern Europe.

April 29, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Lea Bridge Station May Be Reopened

Tucked away in the May 2013 edition of Modern Railways, is a statement that Lea Bridge station in Walthamstow may be reopened.

If they do reopen the station and the nearby Hall Farm Curve, this would link the Chingford branch directly to the Lea Valley Lines.  Wikipedia says this about the project.

Transport for London ran a study on the feasibility of reopening the curve for 2016 that produced a result with a benefit-cost ratio ranging between 8:1 and 14:1 depending on the length of trains involved. In 2007, the Greater Anglia Route Utilisation Strategy published by Network Rail suggested that construction of the curve could be possible by 2019 or later.

Designs for new services run using the curve have been suggested to reduce journey times between Walthamstow and Stratford or Tottenham Hale to 12 minutes from their current duration of 34 minutes and 43 minutes respectively.

It would appear that house prices  in Walthamstow and Chingford should soon be on the rise, if the project goes ahead.

I believe that small projects like this can often give great benefit to passengers and the railways. This one is one of three that have just been proposed.  The others are Ilkeston and Pye Corner.  They all follow Cambridge Science Park station, which will start construction next year.

April 29, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 1 Comment

Next Season Is Starting To Take Shape

After yesterday, the matches that Ipswich Town will play next season are starting to come into line.

I can start to work out, which matches will be a bit more than an Eat-Travel-Watch-Return trip.

Looking at Championship promotion and relegation, it looks like the following.

Cardiff are definitely up and although I’ve never been to see Ipswich there, it’ll be one I’m happy to miss. Although, I quite like going to the Welsh capital on the best diesel trains in the world. I must go again to Cardiff or Swansea before the trains are retired from that route.

It looks like the others to go up are one or both from Hull and Watford, and possibly one from Brighton, Crystal Palace, Bolton, Nottingham Forest and Leicester. I would be sad to miss out on the trips to Hull, Watford, Brighton and Nottingham and I’d love to get rid of Leicester, as the ground is so far from the station. I think on balance, I’m prepared to put up with the dump that is Selhurst Park, to see an easy away match. It’s just a pity, that the two to go up can’t be Bolton and Leicester.

Sadly at the other end of the table, three of my favourite away places; Barnsley, Bristol City and Wolves are in line for relegation, along with Peterborough. The only one I’m not bothered about is the latter, as although the ground is one of the worst in the Championship, the city is worth a visit. After my last trip to Wolves, I think that I’ll miss that trip the most.

I’ll deal with who’s coming up first. Doncaster and Bournemouth are definitely up and although, I like Doncaster’s new ground, you have to get a taxi from the station and I would suspect, that Doncaster isn’t the most coeliac-friendly town. But as you go there from Kings Cross, it’s an Eat-Travel-Watch-Return trip. Bournemouth is an easy trip, the ground is very good and I’d probably fortify myself with a good breakfast at Carluccio’s in Waterloo.

Of the other candidates to possibly come up; Brentford, Yeovil, Sheffield United and Swindon, I’m really only against Yeovil, as that is an almost impossible trip. Brentford would be a low-cost bonus and Sheffield United and Swindon are more easy trips.  Although, after my last trip back from Sheffield, I’d prefer one of the others.

The big question is who’s coming down from the Premier League, with Reading and QPR, who seem to me certain to get relegated.  It’ll either be Aston Villa, Newcastle or Wigan. I hope it’s not Wigan, as that is a bad ground to travel to.  I think I’d prefer Aston Villa to Newcastle, solely on the distance involved.

The team I’m annoyed about, who are coming down is QPR, as they have the worst ground for away supporters, where I’ve ever seen a match. Hopefully, they’ll get promoted or relegated quickly, or perhaps their rich owners, will walk away from their toy and the club will do a Portsmouth.

Since I wrote this post, we’ve seen Reading and QPR commit mutual suicide in a monochrome match. So I’ll just have to put on my strongest underwear and brave a trip to Loftus Road for a season or two.

April 28, 2013 Posted by | Food, Sport, Transport/Travel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Canary Wharf Station’s Pedestrian Tube

The Pedestrian walkway (Or is it a tube?) to Canary Wharf Crossrail station is getting to be recognisable as to what it will be.

It does appear that we will see some spectacular stations on Crossrail.

April 25, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Kings Cross Square

This must be a classic design for a barrier to keep people out of a building site.

Kings Cross Square

Kings Cross Square

Kings Cross Square is going to be a welcome addition to London’s streets.

April 23, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

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