Author Archives: Paul Bigland

Going nowhere fast…

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Calder Valley, Halifax, Musings, Politics

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After yesterday’s fun and games gallivanting up and down the West and East coast main lines I’ve had a far more relaxing day catching up with work at home – with nary a real train in sight! It won’t last of course, but it makes for a pleasant interlude. You can find many of the photos from yesterday on my Zenfolio website. Follow this link to see which galleries they’ve been added to as there’s a variety. Here’s one from the end of last night, when my homeward bound Grand Central service was diverted via Hebden Bridge.

180106 working 1D95, the 19.54 from London to Bradford Interchange reversing at Hebden Bridge after being diverted.

Whilst busy editing pictures I’ve been keeping one eye on events in the wider world and the political shenanigans in the UK where we’ve been graced by the presence of the Tango’d Tw*t. Sorry, the President of the United States of America, who’s been rubbing shoulders with other NATO leaders including our very own bouffant buffoon, Boris Johnson. It seems it’s not just ridiculous hairstyles and a proclivity to misogyny the two men share, it’s also an aversion to press conferences and interviews. Both men either cancelled them or cut them short, whilst Johnson is still running scared of and hiding from a BBC interview with Andrew Neil! When these mean are classed as ‘leaders’ of the free world is it any wonder we’re in such a mess?

With all that in mind I filled in my postal vote today. Regular readers will know that I’m advocating voting tactically. There’s hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of us who see themselves as politically homeless at the moment due to the shit-shower on both the Left and Right of UK politics at present. I’ve talked to just as many Tories who’re in that position as I have Labour supporters. There’s no doubt that Brexit and the parade of the dogmatic, venal or talentless politicians that we see on either front bench right now has caused a shift from the old tribal politics. It’s just that none of us know where it’s going to lead when the dust finally settles. So far the election campaign interviews with various politicians have seen more car crashes than the Indianapolis 500. I especially like this one, with the latest in a (very) long line of UKIP leaders!

As a tactical voter I’ve had to hold my nose and consider who is best placed to keep out Johnson and help block Brexit, rather than whom I might prefer to vote for. of course, the decision’s never easy as you may end up voting against a good local candidate, but many voters are now doing what not enough MPs have – and are putting country before party (if they still feel they have allegiance to one). This went into the post tonight, sans stickers of course…

With the latest polls showing a narrowing of the gap between the Tories and Labour and distinct signs that tactical voting is starting to register it looks like we’re in for a very unpredictable election night that could very well provide some more ‘Portillo moments’. I see the Green party have now stood aside in the Chingford seat of arch Brexiter Iain Duncan Smith, who only has a slim majority in a constituency evenly split between Remain and Leave in the 2016 referendum. It’s also rumoured to be looking dicey for another Brexiter and member of the Cabinet, Dominic Raab, in his staunchly remain constituency of Esher and Walton, which would be a major turn-around. I’m not going to expect too much as one can always be let down, but I suspect many of us can think of certain dogmatic MPs who serve no useful function that we’d love to see lose their seats. I wonder if someone shouldn’t produce a Brexit Bingo card with their names on? It would certainly add to the entertainment.

If the polls continue in this vein I’d certainly recommend getting in the popcorn for the night of December 12th, along with something stronger, just in case it’s needed.

Talking of the election but on a different tangent it’s been amusing to see the dwindling band of StopHs2 Nimbys desperately trying to pretend that they’ve still got a dog in the fight and can actually swing the vote in some constituencies. The fact we’ve empirical evidence from every election since 2010 to prove this is nothing but bluster makes no difference, they’re still maintaining that fiction! Quite who they expect to fall for it – other than themselves – is a good question. here’s a classic example from Peter Deeley.

Seriously? No, it’s bluster, Deeley’s timeline reveals that he’s always been intending to vote for the Brexit party. Shame they’re not standing in his constituency, as I’ve blogged about previously here!

OK, enough of politics, I’m off to edit a few more pictures! Goodnight…

Rolling blog: book-launch bound…

03 Tuesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Lancashire, London, Manchester, Railways, Rolling blogs, TPE, Travel

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I’m back in London today for a book launch and heading down early to do a few other things beforehand. Unfortunately, it’s not a vintage day on the rails. Dawn had a phone-call from a colleague, telling her that they’d be working from home today as a person had been hit by a train at Brighouse, causing many cancellations and uncertainty. This made me change my plans too so I hitched a lift with Dawn into Huddersfield and eschewed the idea of heading down the East Coast by heading for Manchester instead. As usual Trans-Pennine Express services are running late by around 15 mins. The situation doesn’t improve when the Manchester Piccadilly service I was catching was terminated short at Stalybridge in order to work a service back to Hull. Needless to say, the one following behind it is late too, leaving a lot of disconsolate passengers hiding in the waiting room from the cold weather. The sunshine we had in Yorkshire’s refused to travel this side of the Pennines!

Whilst our former train sits to the left after dumping us at Stalybridge, we wait in the warmth for a late running TPE service to rescue us.

Northern Rail always cop the flak for delays but in my experience TPE are just as bad – yet they seem to escape the same levels of criticism, which has always puzzled me.

11:10.

The 10:53 has been further delayed until 11:12. To add insult to injury, several TPE’s have passed through on their way to Piccadilly non-stop.

12:50.

I’m finally on my way to London after taking a slight detour when I got to Manchester. In the adjacent platform was a pair of the old BR ‘Pacer’ trains in original condition with the bus-type seats. As they’ve little time left I took a spin on them out to Guide Bridge in order to get a few pictures.

The traditional seating layout with bus-type seats in 142034.

Now I’m on very different traction, one of Virgin Trains 11-car Pendolino’s which could be my final trip with the company as their franchises ends on Sunday after 22 years. Personally, I’ll be sad to see them go but I’m looking forward to seeing what the new ‘Avanti’ franchise will bring to the network.

13:44.

We’ve just sped through Nuneaton on our way South and the weather’s picked up again to leave us with a sunny but cold day. My train’s only about 45% full, so I’m sharing a table bay of four with another chap who’s busy bashing away on the keys on his laptop in a similar fashion to me. Most folk in this car seem to be travelling for business, so it’s a very quiet coach. The only noise to be heard is the gentle thrum of the air conditioning as it fights against the exterior temperature to keep the coach warm.

16:44.

Since arriving in London I’ve been busy taking pictures around Euston station and the nearby streets, documenting the changes that High Speed 2 (HS2) is bringing. That said, the station itself feels very different now it’s full of de-branded Pendolinos and Voyagers. I’ve been taking pictures here since the 1980s and seen several changes over the years, but the scope of HS2 is on an entirely different scale! I’ll add links to all the pictures when I have time, but here’s a couple for now.

The distinctive tower blocks in the background give the location away as Euston, but not everyone will recognise the remains of the building being demolished to make way for HS2 on the Regent’s estate.
This is a view more familiar to travellers passing through Euston station. This is the remains of one of the ‘black towers’ outside the front of Euston which will soon disappear completely.
The view looking East to one of the Railtrack office buildings at Euston

21:28.

Phew! After a busy few hours I’m heading back to Yorkshire with my Grand Central train just pulling into Doncaster. The book launch went really well and was attended my many senior people from across the industry as well as many journalists and safety experts. Here’s a couple of shots from the event.

Former MP Sir Simon Hughes with his copy of the history of the Rail Inspectorate.
Former Virgin Trains MD (left) with LNER MD David Horne (centre) along with ASLEF Assistant General Secretary Simon Weller (right).
General Secretary of ASLEF, Mick Whelan also came along and picked up a copy.

22:26.

The fun’s not over yet. It seems the fun and games at Brighouse this morning were actually caused by an engineers train splitting the points at Greetland Jn, leaving the direct route to Halifax unusable. To get around the problem my Geand Central service is running to Hebden Bridge where it’ll reverse and head back to Halifax via Milner Royd Jn.

Monday’s melange…

02 Monday Dec 2019

Posted by in Calder Valley, Community rail, Musings, Mytholmroyd, Politics, Railways, Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire

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Another varied week’s kicked off with sub-zero temperatures here in West Yorkshire, leaving me glad that much of the day’s been spent working from home in the warmth as it’s perishing out there! I do have to venture out this afternoon as it’s the Friends of Mytholmroyd stations annual Christmas carol concert. Children from the local schools have return outing on the train to the Jubilee refreshment rooms at Sowerby Bridge to sing carols on and meet Santa Claus, whilst yours truly volunteers to take the pictures. Here’s one from last year. It’s always a jolly event and afterwards the adults adjourn to the Shoulder of Mutton pub in Mytholmroyd for pie and peas and something to keep the cold out!

In an entirely different vein I came across this crass bit of election stupidity on Twitter earlier, posted by Jane Smith, who’s standing in Congleton on an animal rights ticket. She also opposes HS2 and decided that hanging around standing on a foot crossing across a busy railway line near Alsager to have her picture taken would be a good way to try and score political points. Instead she scored an own goal…

To say that people in the rail industry get annoyed at these pictures would be an understatement – as Ms Smith found out after I retweeted it with a critical comment and many rail staff took to Twitter to express both their annoyance and disgust. The tweet has now been deleted. I expect her political career will be just as short-lived.

I’ll blog some more and add a few pictures from tonight’s festivities later today, so watch this space…

22.28.

It’s been a cracking (if freezing) evening. I headed over to Mytholmroyd in good time to rendezvous with the groups at the station before catching the train. What’s lovely to see with these events is the cross-co-operation between different station friends groups. People from Mytholmroyd, Brighouse and Bentham station friends all turned up on the night as well as staff from Northern Rail. Here’s a few photo’s from the evening.

Children and adults met at the bottom of the ramps to sing a few carols before heading up to the platforms to catch a train to Sowerby Bridge.
Singing carols on the platform…
Entertaining ordinary passengers on a service train with carols before Xmas!
The group outside the Jubilee refreshment rooms before catching the train back to Mytholmroyd.

Rolling blog: another month slips by…

01 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by in Calder Valley, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

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It feels rather surreal realising that we’re already in December. The year seems to have flashed past so quickly. The arrival of a new month has also seen the return of the sunshine. We’ve a beautifully crisp winters day here in the Calder Valley, although we won’t be seeing much of it as the pair of us are off to Manchester by train to do some Christmas shopping. Hopefully the exercise will work off some of the fantastic food we enjoyed at The Engine last night.

I’ll post a few pictures and comments through the day as time allows.

13:00.

We’re on our way on a packed 3-car from Sowerby Bridge, with 7 of us sharing a vestibule. At least there’s tip-up seats in the vestibules of these old 158s so it’s not too bad! Mind you, we’ll be calling at several stations on the way, so this train could be quite ‘cosy’ by Manchester…

13:13.

My prediction came true by Hebden Bridge where dozens more joined us including a cyclist who just managed to squeeze her bike into the last available space.

13:22.

We added more variety at Todmorden where a chap boarded carrying a 5ft tall Xmas tree, it’s not wrapped up either! Luckily he boarded at the other end of the train!

13:32.

There’s now 10 of us in this vestibule, including the Conductor, who’s doing the doors from here. To add even more variety whe’ve been joined by several children, including one dressed as the Incredible Hulk, complete with green facepaint!

13:45.

Thank God we’re ‘fast’ from Rochdale, as there’s not a square inch of space left on this train. The kids are stowed away in the luggage rack and people are holding on to watever they can as we rattle and roll our way into the city…

It’s amazing how many people you can fit on a 158!

16.55.

I hate shopping at this time of year when the city’s packed. Whilst the atmosphere around the Christmas market is lovely it’s a pain in the arse trying to tour the shops in search of what you want – especially when you can’t find it! In the end we did manage to salvage something from the day and ticked off a couple of items from our lists, but not much! Having exhausted our patience the pair of us adjourned to a favourite haunt in the Northern Quarter for a drink in order to gird our loins for the trip home.

Sadly, our cunning plan backfired as we arrived at the station to see our train was absolutely rammed to the gunwhales, leaving many of us unable to get on. As the next one wasn’t for another jour there was only one option that made sense – another pub and chance to explore a bit more of the Christmas market.

19:37.

We’re now sat on the 18:57 to Sowerby Bridge, having arrived in plenty of time to get on this time. It was just as rammed on leaving, but we were first in the queue. It’s another 3-car Class 158 which is going to make it popular with the homeward-bound pub crowd later as the toilet door doesn’t lock!

20:28.

Bliss! We’re finally home in the warm and out of the freezing cold. The mercury’s really dropping tonight and it looks like we’re in for another cold one. The Council’s gritting lorries have been busy and many of the roads have had a layer of salt since the early hours of this morning. I always wonder why it is we still use something so corrosive nowadays. Many of the buildings here that are close to the road bear the scars as the stone is eaten away by the salt splashback as vehicles drive past.

Rolling blog: it was lovely whilst it lasted!

30 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Rolling blogs, Sowerby Bridge

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For one short day yesterday, sunshine returned to the Calder Valley. Sadly, for most of it I was stuck indoors working in the office, but I did manage to escape for an all to brief period just before sunset and managed to capture this image looking across the valley from where we live to Norland, high up on the other side.

For the photographers amongst you, this was taken on manual and under exposed to bring out the depth of colour in the skies. I used my Nikon D5 with an 80-400mm lens on 200mm. ISO1250, 1/200th at F8.

When we woke up this morning not only had the temperature dropped well below freezing, leaving the valley covered in frost but the clouds had returned to half-hide the valley bottom and bring back the gloomy half-light we’ve lived under for the past few weeks. But we’re not letting it get to us as we’re having an evening out with friends, so expect a few pictures later. Right now we’re off to do some chores before getting in a Saturday stroll along the canal into Sowerby Bridge to meet up with the gang…

22:39.

Sorry, this rolling blog never got updated because I was too busy having a fantastic time with friends. 16 of us went to the Engine in Sowerby Bridge tonight and had an excellent meal, then a few drinks afterwards. I’ll add more tomorrow, right now it’s time to relax at home…

As promised, here’s a few pictures from last night.

Suckling pig was on the menu last night and the portion sizes were huge!
The sea bass with mussels was divine…
The gang’s all here! So much so we needed both tables.

The latest Stophs2/Green party debacle…

29 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Joe Rukin, Johnathan Bartley, StopHs2, The Green Party

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Yesterday the Green party and StopHs2 held a joint demonstration outside the Department of Transport in London. To say it was a bit of a flop is an understatement. The event was widely advertised on social media by anti Hs2 groups and the Green party – for all the good it did. Here’s an example.

Notice that 27 people claim to have attended? This is a piss-poor number when you consider the number of people who supposedly oppose HS2. As is my habit, let’s crunch some numbers to get a bit of perspective.

Over 6.5 million people live in the 63 Parliamentary constituencies HS2 will pass through.

The Green Party are estimated to have a membership of 48,500.

StopHs2 have 11,849 Facebook followers. Many of whom will have seen this leaflet.

Now, allowing for the fact there’s clearly crossover between these different groups, you’d expect a reasonable turn-out, wouldn’t you? Especially as the demonstration was taking place in Central London, thus within easy reach of many of those supposedly up in arms about HS2, No?

No. Here’s a few pictures from the event, which was timed to take place between 3-4pm. The first one is the sort of tightly-cropped pictures that you’ll see the media use, making it look like there’s actually something going on.

Here’s Green party ‘co-leader’ Jonathan Bartley, (right) singing the praises of Mark Keir, their candidate in Uxbridge who’s standing against Boris Johnson. In the foreground is Sarah Green, another Uxbridge campaigner who’d been in court that morning to have (yet another) injunction taken out against her tiny protest group. In the background, dressed as a tree, is StopHs2 ‘campaign manager’ Joe Rukin.

Here’s what the media won’t show you. This is a view of the full event, which shows you just how pathetically small is was! I count a total of 15 people, including 3 members of the media. Even the police didn’t bother showing up! The only security is a couple of DfT staff stood discretely in the background.

Here’s another shot, after the media had left but including one innocent passer-by on her phone. This is the best both the ‘combined might’ of the Green party and StopHs2 can do – in Central London! Quite where the others out of the 27 who claimed to have gone were is a mystery. But then it’s like the social media ‘keyboard warriors’ who spend all their time ranting about Hs2 on Twitter or Facebook – but never get out of their armchairs when it comes to doing anything else.

Here’s a short video, just in case stills aren’t convincing enough!

I’ve not seen any media coverage of this as I’m assuming it wasn’t considered newsworthy, which is hardly surprising. Bartley gave a speech to camera in which he trotted out the usual scaremongering nonsense about ‘ecocide’ and ‘concreting over’ the countryside. mark Keir also spoke to the camera. What he said was more interesting because of what he let slip. He appealed for more people to turn up to the Uxbridge protests because they’re desperately short of bodies on the ground. If you follow his and the other protesters farcical antics on Facebook it’s easy to see why!

The whole protest reveals something about the UK green party, which is that they’ve very little credibility as anything more than a protest group – which is clearly what they’re happiest being. They have several credibility issues, one of which is the calibre of their candidates and Mark Kier is a good example of this. I’ve no doubt of his commitment, but there are serious questions about his fitness to be a candidate. OK, it’s fair to say that the whole Brexitshambles has exposed the fact Parliament has more than it’s fair share of people with the intellect of an amoeba on both sides of the floor, but the Greens are meant to be offering something better. Here’s an earlier blog of Kier giving an interview. Does this sound like someone you’d like representing you in Parliament? remember, he stood in Uxbridge in 2017 and managed to reduce the size of the Green vote!

I’ve no idea how the Green Party chooses its candidates, but I have to say they really need to up their game if they expect to be taken seriously. That said, their ridiculous ‘co-leader’ policy doesn’t help either. It may play well to the membership, but out in the real world? Oh, please…

The tragedy of all this is the UK desperately needs a credible Green party, but this lot ain’t it. When I see the impact their German counterparts have on politics I do go green – but only with envy! The German party manages to grapple with national and international issues whilst the UK party is obsessed with localism and can’t actually see the woods for the trees, hence their mad opposition to HS2, because the hard truth is without HS2 we simply don’t have the rail capacity for the future to get people and freight off roads and cut transport Co2 emissions to tackle Climate Change. Stopping HS2 isn’t ‘green’, it’s exactly the opposite.

Rolling blog: A day on the rails…

28 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in LNER, Northern Rail, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

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Well, that’s the plan, but it’s not started well!

09:00.

Having walked to Halifax station after a later than usual start due to the dank and dismal weather I was greeted by news of an equally dismal rail service! Here’s the PIS screen..

Oh, joy…

So here I am waiting for a train to Leeds, wondering which late-running one will turn up first. So far we’ve had services delayed or cancelled due to no traincrew, a late-running freight train, the train being late off the depot and a train with an onboard fault! What next, pestilence or the pox, or a plague of frogs?

It’s not difficult to see why long-suffering Northern travellers have such a poor opinion of Northern services. There’s not a day that goes by without delays or cancellations. Mind you, I should be thankful I can travel today. Yesterday both East and West Coast main lines were blocked by different incidents. The truth is that our railways simply aren’t resilient enough in the face of disruption and running ever more services on a crowded network isn’t helping.

09:16.

I’m finally on the move as a Huddersfield – Leeds train has turned up. To add insult to Northern sensibilities, it’s a 2-car Pacer! These should have been reduced to just a handful of trains with only a month left in service. Instead, they’ll still be running in 2020. Here’s the scene as I boarded.

09:40.

Our Pacer’s now struggling manfully up the bank out of Bradford Interchange full and standing. It was busy on the way in from Halifax but this is a different order of magnitude!

At least I’ve got a seat and the heating’s keeping me toasty, so I’m not complaining. I’m just glad I’m not stood at New Pudsey, hoping to catch this train!

10:09.

We bounced and rocked our way to Leeds, managing to squeeze just a handful more passengers on from the dozens waiting at our next stops. Our apologetic Conductor telling those left behind that there was another train just behind us.

As we pulled into Leeds I noticed that a large gaggle of yellow painted MEWPs were being assembled in the land between the triangle of tracks. These road/rail Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (hence MEWP) are used for maintaining and renewing overhead lines and their presence suggests Leeds will have a heavy ‘orange army’ presence this weekend.

I didn’t have much time in Leeds as shortly after I arrived the stock for LNER’s 10:15 to Kings Cross arrived from London formed of one of the remaining Mk4 coach sets worked by 91109, named “Bobby Robson” after the famous football manager. This being an off-peak service and because of yesterday’s problems the train’s rammed. I’ve managed to find an airline seat in the quiet coach, but my plan to get a load of work done has suffered a blow as the adjacent power socket’s kaput.! I’ll see how things are after wwe leave Doncaster…

11:34.

I’m now on an LNER ‘Azuma’, havng abandoned the mark 4 set at Doncaster in favour of 1E09, the Glasgow – Kings Cross that was running 10 mins behind. It’s a busy 9 car but I was lucky and found a free table in coach K right up against the 1st Class portion of the vehicle. The socket works, so I’m up and running!

Even the weather’s decided to play ball and brighten up. I’ve just glimpsed something I’ve not seen for days – a patch of blue sky! OK, admittedly it was a fleeting glimpse, and there’s plenty of tough looking stormclouds keeping it company but even so…

12:31.

We’re in North London now and the weather’s like it was back in the Calder Valley, just a little more mixed, with thinner cloud. Good job the only backgrounds I’m expected to get in today’s photos are office blocks!

13:31.

On arrival in London I made a quick detour to Euston to drop something off with an old friend, have a quick chat and get this shot to show progress on demolishing the former Railtrack HQ to make way for HS2.

14:27.

Job No 1 done I’m taking a few minutes to enjoy old haunts and admire the changes…

15:43.

Now I can admit what the second part of the job was! The Green Party and StopHs2 had arranged a ‘big’ protest outside the Department of Transport between 3-4pm today, so I thought I’d pop along and show you what the media (with their close cropped shots of the main speakers) don’t show you! The event was a miserable flop with less than 2 dozen people – including the media – turning up. Needless to say, none of the stophs2 keyboard warriors were there, it was just the same few faces. Green ‘Co-leader’ Bartley turned up, as did Harvil Rd protester Sarah Green. The Green’s candidate in Uxbridge, Mark Keir, was also there. He gave a barely coherent interview to the couple of cameras who’d bothered to attend. Remember, this is the man who stood in Uxbridge in 2017 and reduced the Green party’s share of the vote! The only thing of interest (but not to his advantage) that he did say was by constantly appealing for people to turn up to their ‘direct action’ protests such as Harvil Road. What’s painfully obvious when you see the tedious phone videos they post to their Facebook page is just how few of them there are. They’re completely outnumbered by HS2 staff, security and (when needed) the police.

StopHs2’s Joe Rukin was also there, getting his money’s worth out of his ridiculous tree costume. After that there were half a dozen people holding up banners and, err, that was it. It was excruciatingly embarassing when you think of all the bluster we hear about the country being up in arms about HS2! It also shows just how badly the Green party have misjudged this issue. Fracking or roadbuilding it ain’t and their desperate attempts to spin just how much environmental damage HS2 is meant to be causing are backfiring. Here’s a couple of pictures of the debacle. These are phone shots. I’ll add better ones later.

Including the media and passers-by!
Not exactly the anti – Brexit demonstrations, is it?

Here’s a little video too…

17.34.

I’m now heading North on yet another Azuma. Just in case folk think it’s only travel in the north that stuffs up, let me relate a couple of today’s experiences in the capital. On arrival, my first trip was via Thameslink, a network that suffers delays and cancellations on a regular basis and yes, my first train was cancelled, leaving me hanging around for an extra 10 minutes for the next Southbound service across central London. Afterwards I abandoned public transport and opted to walk from Blackfriars to the DfT as I was in no rush and a walk along the South bank of the Thames brings back lots of lovely memories of my days as a Londoner. On the way back I chose to get the Victoria line from Victoria to Kings Cross. Joining the crowds on the platform we waited and waited. Normally you can expect Vicky line trains to be one after the other but due to a ‘passenger incident’ at Vauxhall we were left waiting for a good 10-15 mins. Not a huge amount of time in the scheme of things, but an absolute age on the London Underground!

19:23.

The penultimate leg! I swapped from the 17:16 ‘Azuma’ Kings Cross – Hull onto the 17:31 Kings Cross – Leeds at Doncaster. Both are 9-car trains and with their loadings on leaving London you can see why! I must admit, these trains are growing on me and the onky thing I’ll miss compared to the Mk3 and Mk4 coaches they’ll replace is the ambience you could get in the buffet cars, especially on a Thursday/Friday. The cramped offering on all the Hitachi sets is far too functional, but I can understand why (from a comnercial perspective) that is.

20:10.

Last train of of the day folks – and it’s another Pacer. This time one of the Andrew Barclay bodied Class 144s, so a little more up-market! In these days of electronic communications and real-time information it’s frustrating when you see your train described as ‘arrived’ when you’re stood on a nice warm concourse only to find on the platform PIS it’s announced as running late when you’ve made the trip early…

A mixture of musings…

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Calder Valley, Musings, Politics

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To misquote Kings Henry II on Thomas a Becket – ‘Who will rid me of this turbulent weather’? It’s been another bleedin’ awful day in the Calder Valley. For the umpteenth in a row we’ve had rain, fog, low cloud and the sort of depressing weather that make you want to reach for a travel brochure that features white sand beaches and palm trees. Not that there’s much chance of that at the moment, unfortunately.

To add to the general merriment we’re also slogging our way through a turgid general election campaign where you wish an option on the ballot paper would be ‘non of the above’. I received my postal ballot today and found that we have a choice of Holly Lynch, the incumbent Labour MP – whom I respect, even if I can’t stand ‘Magic Grandad’, her party leader, or some of the lacklustre people he’s put on the Shadow Front bench. Then there’s the Lib-Dems, the Tories (whose candidate lives in Lancashire!), the Greens and the Brexit party. The woman who’s paid Farage her £100 to stand for the Brexit party lives way over East in Batley and Spen, the constituency where their Labour MP, Jo Cox, was brutally murdered by a far-right extremist.

The Brexit party candidate’s name’s Sarah Wood and all I know about this young woman is that I’m getting well pissed-off with her clogging my Facebook page with adverts like this! She admits she never voted until 2015, now she expects to be elected as an MP, but I’ll be damned if even she knows what she stands for. One of her videos filmed in the local market claims the Brexit Party will scrap local business rates and replace them with a ‘small’ tax on online retailers. It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to spot the flaw in that plan! This is populist politics at its basest.

“Ready”? Ready for what? Bunging Farage a few more quid?

Well, that and the fact her replies to some of the comments on her FB adverts don’t exactly make you think she’s a political titan who’s got much of a grasp of things. You know, like reality…

I’m hoping that Wood will split the brexity vote and allow Holly Lynch to retain the seat in order to help deprive Boris Johnson of a majority. Plus, we get to keep a decent local MP, so a win all round!

How the election’s going to play out is anyone’s guess, but I’ve been heartened to see how many young people (ie, under 35) have registered to vote before the deadline closed. The potential impact this could have can’t be underestimated, because they’re the one’s who have most to lose from Brexit, and it’s clear that Conservative Party Central Office are acutely aware of this as Johnson’s lead in the polls starts to disappear. I don’t believe for a minute that Corbyn is going to sweep to power. I suspect we’ll end up with another hung Parliament, but I am hopeful that tactical voting will produce more than a few ‘Portillo moments’ (when he lost his seat in a shock result in the 1997 general election). I came across this on Twitter earlier and hope it has relevance to Halifax too…

Politics and weather aside, I’m back on the rails again tomorrow, so expect the first rolling blog for a while. I’m heading back to London to get some pictures for a magazine, then pop over to an event that I don’t want to spill the beans about just yet. The reasons for that will become clear tomorrow! Typically, the weather forecast isn’t looking great wherever I am, North or South, the only difference is that the rain will be warmer in London!

The cat’s getting fed up of me!

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by in Down memory lane, Musings, Railways

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I’ve spent so much time at home recently due to the foul weather and my determination to catch up on paperwork and scanning old slides that I think our cat’s getting fed up of me getting under his feet (isn’t that normally the other way around? Ed). Thankfully, there’s a number of events on the horizon that’ll see me out and about a lot more over the next couple of weeks including a few jaunts back South to London and the South-East for both work and social reasons . I must admit that I’m starting to yearn for sunnier climes but I can’t see any chance of getting away until next year now – there’s simply too much to do. Once the dust has settled on the results of the general election I’ll have a better idea of my options. Such as – will it be planning for a holiday, or looking to seek political asylum away from Brexit Britain? It’s a good job I’ve been concentrating on scanning old rail slides at the moment rather than the 1000s of travel pictures I have, otherwise I’d really be feeling sick. Images of places like Wigan create little in the way of itchy feet compared to some of the exotic stuff I’ve got in the queue like Brazil, Indonesia or Tanzania. Here’s a good example why. Now, this is no dig at Wigan per-se (Honestly Sheila!) as I have exactly the same sort of shot of Clapham Junction in London, but this is what a shit-tip our railways looked like in 2002.

Thankfully thinks have changed dramatically. It’s not that folk don’t still sometimes throw rubbish onto the tracks, it’s the fact Network Rail continually clean them and TOC staff no longer sweep crap off the platforms onto the rails as if it’s no longer their problem. Images like this remind me more of Indian railway stations than UK ones nowadays.

Expect one last update of 2002 slides tomorrow, then I’m firmly back in the present day…

A good day to stay at home with the cat!

25 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Down memory lane, London, Photography, Railways

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The weather here in West Yorkshire has continued the miserable run that we’ve had for several days now. Most of the day the other side of the Calder valley’s been half-hidden in the murk or had the valley tops disappear completely in low cloud. This gloomy weather does nothing to lift the spirits, nor does the persistent rain encourage one to venture out. Luckily, I’ve not had to. Jet (our cat) and I have stayed warm and dry at home, him in his basket and I in the office from 06:30 this morning, clearing up paperwork and scanning dozens of old rail slides from 2002. If there’s one silver lining about the weather, this is it – I’m making steady progress getting the old pictures (many of which have never been seen by anyone but me) onto my Zenfolio website after 17 years sitting around in albums. Here’s a small selection of the ones that have been added in the past 24 hours.

On the 16th July 2002 Hull trains 16.30 service from Kings Cross to Hull waits to leave the capital. These Class 170s were hired in from Anglia trains for several years before Hull acquired their own. Later this year Hull Trains will be introducing their 4th train fleet in less than 20 years when the Hitachi built ‘Paragon’ trainsets enter service to replace the Class 180s which will be cascaded to East Midlands Railway.
A day later, here’s a signal gantry on the Chiltern line at Sudbury and Harrow which is being held up with cables and straps! Railtrack, who were still in charge (just) at the time were often criticised for the state of their assets. This is a good example. Railtrack were finally wound up in October 2002 when Network Rail were formed to take over management of rail infrastructure.
However, the picture wasn’t all doom and gloom. Here’s a view of the old Kings Cross Goods yard taken on the 1st September 2002. In the background are newly laid sidings which would allow spoil from boring the new High Speed 1 tunnels under London to be moved by rail to Calvert in Buckinghamshire. In the foreground is the trench which would eventually allow Thameslink services to run from the East Coast Main line into St Pancras Thameslink.
Here’s another view taken the same day. This shows the old Midland Railway bridges which carried the line into St Pancras station which is just out of shot to the right. All these have disappeared as the area is now occupied by the East Midlands Railway platforms, whilst the area beyond the bridges is the Eastern side of the new station which is used by South-Eastern Trains Javelin services to Kent.

The weather forecast for tomorrow’s looking even worse than today, although I’m not sure If I’ll have time to scan anymore old slides as I’ve other things that need my attention. That said, you never know. I’ve just 50 left to scan from the present album, so maybe by tomorrow night…

In the meantime, if you want to have look at the full selection that I’ve added to my Zenfolio website, follow this link, which will take you to the ‘recent’ section and show you which galleries they’ve been added to as there’s quite a mixture.

Expect some modern pictures as I get out and about on my travels later in the week.