castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 25, 2011 20:27:18 GMT
@ Slugabed
Quite possibly
I am told that (at least) one of the trips stopped at Winslow on the way there (and back), but also, whoever had nicked an original station sign, had it back on the platform and visible for the train's stops, so photos probably exist. I was also told that on one trip somebody from Denham or GerX actually got OFF at Winslow on the outward journey to MKeynes, and got the train back south on its return!
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 25, 2011 16:31:44 GMT
You have reminded me that BR advertised the "Merrymaker Tour" brand for a short while in the late 70s and early 80s. I still have a handbill/timetable for a Christmas/Merrymaker of that period from S.Ruislip, Denham and stations up to Aylesbury then on up the old G.C. stub to Calvert (the route Undergound stock was delivered and the route that the DMUs took to be serviced at Bletchley), then along the bit of Varsity Line to Bletchley and Milton Keynes. One day I'll find it and give the exact dates, - from memory it was the two or three consecutive Saturdays before Christmas 1980. Merrymaker was definately a B.R. branding at that time.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 22, 2011 16:59:45 GMT
I also remember seeing District stock for scrapping reversing at North Acton then heading off to Ruislip in late April '72 or very early May '72. There is no doubt that it had got on the Central at Ealing Broadway.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 22, 2011 16:47:13 GMT
I clearly remember seeing a photo of delivery or scrap stock for Rotherham coming down the STUB of the Great Central. It had come down the Midland to Bletchley, then Bletchley to Calvert, then down the G.C. stub to Aylesbury.
I am told this is how the Midland Region sent their DMUs from Marylebone to Bletchley for servicing.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 21, 2011 16:52:37 GMT
Perhaps he was looking at one of Alfie's new maps on here
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 21, 2011 8:01:11 GMT
It's not just passengers. It's our so called 'society'
On Sunday 10 days ago, I was driving along the A24 into Dorking going south, and a group of cyclists (8?) were in front of me. The traffic light turned red in front of them and they ignored it. A few yards further on is a pedestrian crossing controlled light and a bloke was crossing the road there (by Deepdene Station bridge). They ignored that red light too and almost knocked the pedestrian over as he jumped out of their way.
It seems that there is little or no respect for any sort of rule or law these days.
The happy end to this story is that they didn't see the police car behind them, and after they turned left onto the A25 towards Reigate, the cops put their blue lights on and 'pulled' most of them.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 19, 2011 13:14:25 GMT
There was once a fruit and veg shop in Worthing called > > >"Melon Cauli" (How sad is that?), and a driving school in Southall called "IMPACT Scool of Motoring"
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 18, 2011 14:29:45 GMT
"...................albeit on their last legs"
Legs??
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 16, 2011 7:31:36 GMT
@ gerryuk
I hope they didn't buy them from Argos and the guarantee hasn't run out
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 14, 2011 19:19:10 GMT
My posting re Lord Hanningfield is pertinant as Essex CC were always deemed to be the one County Coucil surrounding London (rather like Bromley in GLC days) who would find NO money for any public transport venture if it could possibly be avoided.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 14, 2011 19:13:40 GMT
And former Essex CC leader has been re-arrested again today > this time for allegedly fiddling Essex CC expenses. No money for the Ongar line then. This is just off the new BBC news website
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jailed Lord Hanningfield re-arrested over council expenses
Former peer Lord Hanningfield, who was jailed for expenses fraud, has been arrested over money he claimed from a county council, the BBC understands.
The Conservative was released last week after being jailed for nine months for falsely claiming £14,000 while in the House of Lords.
He has been arrested by police investigating expenses claims he made while leader of Essex County Council, BBC correspondent Sally Chidzoy said.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 14, 2011 18:18:04 GMT
Alfie, you ask: "Why is TfL so up-tight about selling a train though?"
Perhaps they've got it into their heads that selling a train might lead to somebody setting up a rival rail operation. Or, selling it on ebay for profit - that would never do!! Years ago, I gave up trying to figure out how the minds of Civil Servants 'work'
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 14, 2011 9:23:33 GMT
Yes, but remember the tale of "marginal constituencies"
There is a line still operating which Beeching wanted to shut down nearly 50 years ago. But it runs through no less than six very marginal constituencies, and although of course only a miniscule number of voters actually use the train, it is political suicide to shut the line, so it is still open today. Here you have not only parliamentary seats but Essex CC vs The GLC as it was. Different rules thus apply.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 14, 2011 8:15:27 GMT
As I said on another thread, Essex CC have always had a more "Thatcherite" policy towards railways and this CC's attitude is why the Ongar branch closed. It would not have happened in any other of the "Home Counties" as other county councils have (varying degrees of) a more enlightened attitude. I also wonder if a certain Tory peer who was recently jailed for fraudulent personal expenses claims was involved in ensuring there was no subsidy for public transport > thus different attitudes to London farezones by county councils run by the same political party!
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 12, 2011 16:25:11 GMT
Better still would be a Picc at 00 20 40 a Met 07 27 47 a Central 14 34 54
The Central to run via PAX spur to Ruislip Gdns
So many benefits. Comparatively little cost
And a Park Royal interchange please
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 7, 2011 14:59:25 GMT
only Ceiling Cat knows the answer to that. It seems he/she is affected by "Irritating Cowell Syndrome". Cats are relly very mystic creatures. I suggest that Ceiling Cat smokes the dried leaves from auxsetreq's tomato plants. Get a life, Ceiling Cat!
.....and I still don't know what an Olly Murs is or does
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 7, 2011 9:06:16 GMT
@ auxsetreq
What is Olly Murs? Is it something to do with Simon Bowel? Why do you watch such stuff?
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 6, 2011 20:18:07 GMT
Castlebar Park didn't have a ticket office, but it had a sort of a ticket shed when l was there, - it was run by two old sisters until they got to about 70 (in about 1970). As there was only one train an hour then after the morning "rush", it seemed pretty pointless being open all day, though it was as a relic of the pre-1948 service to Ruislip etc. Then, when the old ladies retired, "Old Bill" ran the shed for some years. When the allotments were built on, a "pub" was built there and name "the Old Bill" was given to the pub for his 10 years or so of service there l think, but as you will see from my other posting l had moved to Sussex by then.
I understand the Old Bill pub was closed by the "real" old bill due to drug dealing and then burned down. Not up to date with news from that area these days. However, the ticket shed was open for about 3 hours every morning on the Greenford bound platform
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 5, 2011 19:35:50 GMT
Perhaps its for the new series of "Chuggington", > apparantly one of the Network Rail internal promotion exams will be based on it.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 5, 2011 15:20:40 GMT
Yes, Yes!!, That's right: - a relic of the infamous mid '60s "Bus re-shaping Plan" where, rather than pay more to staff, instaed, spend a fortune on new buses that didn't work and had a shelf life of just about 6 years. Because nobody thought that if you just put the central exit door in the middle, everybody will stand near it 'cos they'll want to escape a.s.a.p., so the bus bends in the middle (the first Loondon Bendybus?) and the doors won't shut so the bus cannot move! Great ideas from L.T. The question is: "Are these people still there?"
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 3, 2011 8:23:24 GMT
bumperharris is of course correct. I would add that the only significance of the triangle was as bumper states - it had no other purpose and certainly nothing to do with coupling. It occurred on Southern DEMUs too, for example, as some of these got "turned around" in the course of their working duties - platform staff would also know which end of the unit post and newspapers were being carried.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 2, 2011 18:03:36 GMT
With all due respect, this sort of thing is NOT what FOI requests are for. And the cost of each of these to the taxpayer is something quite shocking.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Sept 2, 2011 16:32:27 GMT
Funny this, Until quite recently, the Greenford B.R. service to Ealing Bdy didn't run on to Paddington. In the '60s, it was a very poor service, but connected with trains to/from Paddington.
It was common knowledge that quite a few of the higher graded Paddington Pen Pushers lived just over the (then) field on the posher side of the tracks by Castlebar. Sometimes as the train for Ealing was coming up from S. Greenford, we heard the (generally single car class 121 unit with a trailer) blast off as it crossed the Ruislip Road bridge, and half a dozen bowler hats and briefcases ran across the field to the train. So, THAT is what kept the line open!
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 30, 2011 19:57:40 GMT
There WAS once a connection at South Acton. I do not know when exactly it was severed, but I suspect it was before 1950
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 30, 2011 19:40:03 GMT
In a way, this is completely "off message" but in another way, it isn't
Like Xerces, I also became redundant a year ago, at 62, and the pension fund went with the company due to a fraud. My retirement has gone the same way as the Great Central - it has completely disappeared. And the reason for this posting is that I can relate to everything Xerces has said. Over regulation in this country has completely killed any chances of growth, just as if somebody poured a litre of Paraquat on the "green shoots of recovery". This country has been killed by Quangomeisters, their apparatchiks and professional pen pushers/paper shufflers. My friends in industry are all struggling because this country seems to interpret E.C. legislation in a different way to France & Germany etc. So our train makers cannot compete on a level playing field. There is a strange mentality amongst those who have "office" to stifle anything that smacks of promoting British goods. Truly. many of these people cannot differentiate between "importance" and "self-importance"
I have little hope for our train makers. Yet the fraudsters walk away because our prisons are already too full, and the police are too busy, shuffling paper in an office, to go for a conviction.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 29, 2011 11:52:07 GMT
Interesting point Ed
L.T. always ran buses in service if they could, even if garage journeys were off route. Provision was made for odd garage journeys on the fare charts even if they never ended up being used (e.g. Route 211 Ealing Broadway to Greenford 1960s had garage journeys diretct to/from Southall Garage via Uxbridge Rd on their fare charts even though all garage journeys were via Greenford Rd) - it seems to have been a L.T. policy at the time.
But there seems to have been a total 180 degree turn around in policy in recent years. The number of "out of service" bus journeys to/from Fulwell garage through Teddington almost outnumbers regular journeys through the town at some times these days. It seems this philosophy has spread to L.O. & LU too,
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 29, 2011 10:56:43 GMT
How's this for an explanation?
There are 3 stations, A, B & C
If B is in 2 x different fare zones, passengers from both A & C can both access it without cossing into a second zone, whereas if B were only in the same zone as either A or C, a fare for using two different zones would be charged from the other one of the 2 stations.
SEEMples! This is something that has actually been thought out properly and designed to help the travelling public!!!!!!! (Gosh)
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 28, 2011 13:51:34 GMT
I think we should all take a vote on it
A Woolwich rear B Woolwich Anal C Woolwich Arsl
Answers to Uncle Boris, Strangeways House, Bendybus Business Park, Eton
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 28, 2011 10:34:54 GMT
"Woolwich Asnl?"
or Woolwich Anal?
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on Aug 28, 2011 7:30:48 GMT
"The PIDs are designed to be fully compliant with Disability legislation. Unfortunately, if you put the full name Woolwich, the second word would be rear." Yet another reason to support Brentford
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