Category Archives: Air Travel

Rolling blog. Germany, the main event…

05 Tuesday Jul 2022

Posted by in Air Travel, Germany, Railways, Rolling blogs, Siemens, Travel

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07:00.

In starting what’s going to be a busy day here in Germany. Right now I’m preparing to head down for breakfast and a caffeine booste before we all meet up for a trip to the Siemens signalling factory here in Braunschweig. The company have got a full programme planned for our visit, but I should still have time to blog about what we’ll be seeing and learning. The world of railway signalling is constantly developing in the digital world. As one colleague described it – signals were all about keeping trains apart. Now they’re about getting them to run as close to each other as is possible. Here’s today’s agenda.

Then later this afternoon we head back to Hannover for our return flight to the UK. I won’t be back in England until late so I won’t be home until tomorrow, but hey ho…

Keep popping back to see what we get up to. But right now – it’s coffee time…

08:41.

The day begins…

10:30.

We’re just about to come back after having a coffee break. It’s been a really interesting morning so far which kicked off with a wide-ranging presentation on the company’s plans and aspirations from Siemens Mobility CEO, Michael Peter.

There’s far too much to describe here but some of the points touched on included how intelligent software and monitoring systems can lead to 100% fleet reliability and save time and money on traditional cyclic maintenance – both on trains and assets themselves. Cloud based interlocking was also discussed with some fascinating examples given about Norway, where the entire rail system is controlled from Oslo – including diagnostics.

Next up was a presentation on Digital solutions from Johannes Emmelheinz, CEO of Customer Services. One point raised was how trains and infrastructure need to work hand in hand and how digitalisation can enable this.

The third presentation was from Bart van Munster, CEO of Squills, a company that’s become part of Siemens. Squills provide ticketing services across the UK and Europe.

13:20.

After another really interesting series of presentations (I’ll tell you the story about passenger journey tracking and the Berlin Depech Mode concert later) we broke for lunch with some fabulous food prepared by the staff of the Siemens canteen.

18:00.

The afternoon was a very enjoyable as we enjoyed a rare tour of thee world’s biggest signalling factory. The site is involved in some cutting edge projects which I’ll be talking about in another blog. Here’s one, the complete resignalling of the Norwegian rail network which will be controlled from Oslo.

Our day came to an end after the tour and a final presentation on cloud based interlocking. Then it was back to the real world. Our small UK contingent (all three of us) decided to catch the 16:54 back to Hannover, only it was cancelled due to an incident on the line. The station was packed and we were looking at all sorts of possible plan B’s when the stock for the 17:20 rolled in, so we jumped on that. It was soon packed as other trains had been cancelled or were running late.

It got us as far as a place called Peine, where we’ve been sitting for the past 15 mins with no information on what’s happening. Ho hum…

18:15.

We’ve now sat at Peine for 30 mins – with absolutely zero information about what’s going on. Not a single announcement has been made.

19:00.

We were on the move shortly after after my last update – some 40 plus mins late. The service to the airport is hardly clockface and it’s only hourly so we abandoned plans to eat at Hannover Hbf and caught the next service to the airport – the 18:57, where we’re enjoying a mostly empty train with good a/c. Upstairs on a packed double- deck coach (our last train) is not the place to be on a sunny day like this.

21:40.

My final German update. A few of us are now relaxing at Hannover airport before our flight arrives. I can’t say it’s my favourite airport. Much of it is closed or deserted and what isn’t closes early! There’s one food outlet in our terminal and the sole duty free shut at 21:30. Still, the glider’s a nice touch…

23:17. (UK time).

I’m back in the Sceptic Isle having bid goodbye to my colleagues on the plane. The flight was quick and passing through Heathrow terminal 5 was quite painless. Everything worked perfectly.

Shame I can’t say the same for the rest of the UK as it seems I’ve returned to a political shit-show. The Chancellor and Health Minister have both resigned, along with a bunch of lesser political functionaries. It wouldn’t surprise me if more go as despite this, Johnson will do everything he can to cling to power. New lackeys will be appointed in their place and the whole rotten edifice will continue in the same lying, delusional vein whilst the country’s economy continues to fall apart. I see the FTSE 100 lost 2.86% today, continuing its awful spiral, having lost 6.74% in the past month, leaving a lot of people poorer and pension funds looking rocky. If only I could have stayed in Germany…

Is this country ever going to wake up and shake off the delusion that the Tories can be trusted with the economy? They’ve done little but wreck it ever since the Brexit referendum.

After such a positive couple of days It’s deeply frustrating (and embarasding) to return to the kakistocracy that the UK has become under Johnson and his Cabinet of the incompetents. It’s painfully obvious that the only reason Sunak and Javid have resigned is political survival and a crack at Johnson’s job as PM. They’ve no more commitment to the country or public service than the man they hope to replace. But how many Tory voters will fall for it I wonder?

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Rolling blog. Outward bound…

04 Monday Jul 2022

Posted by in Air Travel, Germany, Rolling blogs, Travel

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05:30.

It’s an ungodly hour here at Heathrow but I have coffee, so things aren’t too bad. I arrived late last night and bedded down at the airport for a few hours. As I’m flying from the modern Terminal 5 that wasn’t too bad. There’s plenty of space, I had a bottle of beer which helped make the floor softer and I’d also packed a small cushion in my suitcase to use as a pillow which made all the difference as I got a decent night’s sleep – saving myself silly money on booking an airport hotel room which I’d only have occupied for a few hours anyway.

06:30.

I’m now airside. Checking in and the baggage drop was pretty painless, as was security which was busy but the staff were both polite and efficient. One thing I did notice was the number of people who’re wearing masks again. Not only has Covid not gone away but cases are rising – something our Government and the media seen strangely quiet about. Despite this, it’s good to see how busy Heathrow is now that life is returning to some sort of normality – although with everything that’s going on in the world right now I’m not entirely sure what ‘normal’ is anymore.

Heathrow terminal 5 at 06:30 is not what you’d call quiet…

I’ve an hour to kill before my flight to Hannover boards so I’ll spend the time people-watching, catching up on some work – and blogging. I’m not a great fan of airports. I’d rather have caught the train to Germany but as I’m someone’s guest I have to go with the flow. Even so it’s interesting as I love travelling and the Pandemic years severely clipped my wings. This is only the second time I’ve left the septic isle since 2019 – and both trips have been to Germany. I’d love to get back on the road again but with everything that’s going on I can’t see that happening for a while yet. Still, I can’t complain. I’ve a busy schedule these next few months with lots of interesting things to keep me occupied – like this trip. Funnily enough, whilst writing this I wondered when it was that I was last in Hannover. A quick look at my Zenfolio website brought the memories flooding back. I was there 10 years ago for the recreation of the British Military train. This was the service that ran to Berlin during the cold war and an old friend – the late Major John Poyntz – was OC at one time. You can find the pictures from that event here.

17:00. (German time).

And relax! The flight wasn’t bad – only 90 mins and I managed to get some shut-eye which was useful. As I disembarked I bumped into another colleague. Chris Jackson from the Railway Gazette was on the same flight. The two of us hooked up for the onward journey to Hannover by rail, then on to Braunsweig. Siemens had sent me a rail ticket confirmation which no-one (including a couple of very helpful locals) could get to work in the ticket machines! Instead, I bought one of the month-long 9 euro rail passes that Germany is offering people to encourage people to get back on trains. It makes the UK’s ‘great rail sale’ look positively limp in comparison.

Having checked into our (very nice) hotel I had to do a quick bit of writing for a living, then headed out to explore the town which has a great little tram system and still has the odd vintage vehicle out in service. Here’s one passing the Rathaus earlier.

Right now I’m relaxing in the square outside the Rathaus and enjoying Konig Ludwig weissbier whilst I watch the world go by. We all meet up for a meal at 20:00 but I’ll probably try and get an hours kip in beforehand.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Crazy anti-HS2 campaigner of the week. No 33.

16 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Air Travel, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Iolo Williams

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This feature makes its first appearance in 2022. Mainly because there’s so few anti HS2 people left out there and the ones that are are nearly all crazy! However, this one is such a classic self-own I couldn’t resist.

Meet Iolo Williams, a minor celebrity in the Chris Packham mould. Like Packham he never lets facts get in the way of his occasional rants about HS2. This time with hilarious consequences! Here’s his tweet from yesterday when Williams channelled his inner Jeremy Corbyn to have himself photographed sitting in the vestibule of a train.

Ignoring the fact he managed to link in a spoof Avanti West Coast Twitter account, not the real one (attention to detail, much?) there’s several problems with his tweet which is just a cut and past job of anti HS2 soundbites. Let’s start with the fact that the new HS2 railway IS “investment in the current network” as it will be part of it, not separate to it. And most delicious irony? HS2 will relieve the very line that Williams is travelling on and complaining about having to sit on the floor! Without HS2 Williams would be doomed to sit on floors forever (as he seems incapable of reserving a seat) because there’s no extra capacity to be squeezed out of the West Coast Main Line. Of course, Williams also seems ignorant of the fact we spent £9bn upgrading that line just 15 years ago, which caused massive disruption for years that led to the service hemorrhaging passengers as it was closed nearly every weekend to allow the upgrades to happen. Those people transferred to far more polluting road transport.

This isn’t the first example of cognitive dissonance and complete absence of knowledge or fact we’ve seen from Williams. I’ve blogged about him before this time last year here when I had to look him up because I’d never heard of him. That’s when I found out he shares other traits with Chris Packham. Both of them fly people around the world on expensive wildlife trips to exotic locations and charge people for their company.

So, we have a ‘conservationist’ who objects to us building low-carbon mass transport that is vital to cutting our biggest source of Co2 emissions (transport) but who’s happy to generate God knows how many tonnes of Co2 flying people around the world. Here’s a list of destinations advertised on his website. Hypocritical, much? Even his Spanish trips advertise flights although it’s perfectly possible to get there by very low carbon transport (rail).

The Costa Rica trip alone involves a round trip flight of just under 11,000 miles!

This is why you should ignore the pronouncements of ‘conservationists’ when it come to the environment. They’re often part of the problem, not part of the solution. Here’s the science these people ignore. What Williams is opposing is on the bottom of this chart. What he’s based a business around is the opposite…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank You!

The fake environmentalists of Hs2Rebellion let their mask slip…

04 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in 'Green' madness, Air Travel, Hs2, HS2Rebellion, Malaysia, Politics, Travel

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I’ve always said that Extinction Rebellion and HS2Rebellion are anything but real environmentalists. Both organisations have jumped on the ‘green’ bandwagon to further a wider (anti-capitalist) agenda and nothing more – hence some of their mad tactics that do nothing to promote tackling climate change. Exactly the opposite in fact. One only has to look at the way XR have frequently disrupted public transport in the UK, even going as far as disrupting electric public transport by gluing themselves to trains on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) or standing on the roofs of Underground trains!

HS2Rebellion are doing the same with High-Speed 2, opposing a green railway that is the only way we’ll have the rail capacity to get modal shift from road air to rail to cut our biggest source of Co2 emissions (transport) and meet our international obligations to tackle Climate Change.

Today, HS2Rebellion let the cat out of the bag by showing they either don’t understand the issues – or just don’t care. Their target was the news that Malaysia has cancelled the proposed High-Speed rail project between Kuala-Lumpur and Singapore and they used this (superficial) report on the BBC from a freelance journo based in Singapore. In the report it mentions that there are 30,000 local flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur per annum – as well as a 24 hour bus service. Here’s what XRebellion have to say on their Facebook page.

Yet again we have supposed ‘environmentalists’ playing along to the right-wing libertarian narrative about costs. This is bizarre. After all, aren’t they the ones who’re always telling us that there is no ‘Planet B’ and that the environment is priceless? Not if you’re intending to build High-Speed rail it seems (roads? No problem – carry on!).

What is it that these ‘environmentalists’ are deliberately ignoring? Simple, just how much carbon those different modes of transport generate. Take a look at this and compare domestic flights, buses and high-speed rail (mentioned as ‘Eurostar’ on this chart).

Here you have the blatant hypocrisy of XR and HS2Rebeliion exposed in black and white in one simple chart.

Over in the UK there’s a similar picture. The biggest market for domestic aviation is between Scotland and London’s airports. HS2 (like HS1 before it with flights to Brussels and Paris) will make severe inroads into that market by speeding up Anglo-Scottish services, as Chris Ogilvie often points out.

I have to declare an interest here. I know Malaysia (and Singapore) well. I’ve been travelling there since 1992 and maintain a keen interest in the areas political, economic and transport issues. In the past, I interviewed the then head of Malaysian Railways for the International Railway Journal and I maintain contacts inside both countries, which is why I know the BBC story isn’t the full story by any means. Even so, for ‘environmentalists’ to gloat over the failure to building a carbon-neutral alternative to 30,000 horribly polluting domestic flights a year (never mind all those 24 hour, 5 hour coach trips) is mad – but then, these people aren’t real environmentalists. What’s depressing is the number of genuine ‘green’ groups and people who’ve been taken in by them. We’ve now gone from saving the planet by any means to saving the planet – just as long as the price is right! This is why I’ve long maintained that the the UKs ‘green’ movement (or what passes for it) simply isn’t fit for purpose as they’ve become just another limb of the libertarian right. You have to ask, how (and why) did ‘greens’ suddenly start celebrating the failure of plans for high-speed rail networks whenever and wherever in the world they happen, and how on Earth can they still call themselves greens?

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

27th November picture of the day…

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Air Travel, Aircraft, Musings, Picture of the day

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There’s not much of a blog from me tonight. I’m tired and hurting from my fall yesterday, although I didn’t let it stop me getting my exercise today, it just meant some of it was through gritted teeth.

I do have one small cause for celebration. I try for a little victory each day – something that I’ve accomplished so that I can feel that I’m moving forward. Today’s was scanning the last few slides from our round the world trip. We left the UK and arrived in India on the 6th November 1997. Over the next 18 months we visited many states in India, then overland into Nepal to go trekking before flying to Thailand where we travelled overland to Malaysia, then by ferry to tour Sumatra, back to Malaysia and overland to Singapore before flying to Bali, then travelling by bus and ferry as far as the Island of Flores in the East. From there we flew back to Bali, toured the island with friends before doing a ‘visa run’ to Singapore and back. After which we went by bus and ferry to tour Java thence returning to Bali for the final time before flying to Australia for Xmas with friends we’d made on our travels. We toured Victoria with Alison and her family, then caught a train to Sydney to meet up with yet more friends before flying to Auckland, New Zealand. From there we travelled by train through the North Island, then a mixture of train and bus around the South Island (with Alison once again, sans kids) before flying back to Auckland to connect with our Air New Zealand flight to Los Angeles via a week in Fiji and another in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Barely pausing for breath in LA, we caught our final flight on the 20th March with Virgin Atlantic, who flew us back across the pond and home to London, where we arrived on the 21st March 1999. This rather breathless precis is just to give a flavour of what was an incredible experience. You’ll be able to find all the photographs in this gallery by the end of the week. One day (when time permits) I hope to blog in detail about aspects of the trip and show just how much the world has changed since those heady days of the 1990s. For now, here’s the picture of the day, which is the final picture I took on the trip…

We caught a Virgin Atlantic flight from LA (VS8) at 17.30, it’s an overnight flight as the journey takes 10 + hours to cover the 5416 miles. Waking up on the morning of the 21st just in time to feel the plane banking over the Atlantic at sunrise I grabbed this picture out of the aircraft window…

Memories…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

27th October picture of the day…

27 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by in Air Travel, Airports, Musings, Picture of the day, Travel, West Yorkshire

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Work hasn’t been at the forefront of my mind today, mainly because it’s my Birthday and Dawn was determined to make it a good one for me – despite the awful weather we’ve had today which has rendered any idea of a long walk in the country out of the question, unless you fancy pneumonia for a birthday present!

Instead, after a lazy (ish) morning the pair of us went out for lunch to La Luna in Halifax as a rare treat. Due to the madness off this year we can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we’ve eaten out recently, especially as the increased restrictions have meant we’ve had to cancel plans several times.

Despite it being a Tuesday lunchtime La Luna was very busy which was good to see. They’ve stripped out a lot of tables inside but they have another seating area undercover in the arcade outside so they still have enough seats to make the place viable economically. We shared dishes off the small plate menu and mixed a Greek Meze plate with Singapore Crab Springroll (fresh white crab seasoned with chilli, ginger, coriander and served with sweet chilli jam and avocado mayonnaise) and Gambas Pil Pil (pan-fried extra-large king prawns with paprika, chilli, garlic, lemon, parsley & olive oil served with ciabatta). I washed it down with a rather nice glass of Merlot (well, it is winter!) whilst Dawn had a Peppermint tea. The portion sizes meant three dishes was plenty for us and the quality of the food and the presentation was very good indeed. It was such a lovely break from what’s become normal life.

Afterwards we drove over to Wakefield as Dawn wanted to buy me a new waterproof walking jacket, sadly the selection on offer at Go-Outdoors wasn’t what I was looking for but hey ho – we’re not going to buy something just for the sake of it. On the way back the appalling weather caught up with us. Wind and driving rain made the trip back fun to say the least as the cars windscreen wipers went into warp factor 7. The views from the hills above Huddersfield can often be very attractive – but not when rain reduces visibility to a few hundred metres and drops light levels to the equivalent of dusk. Even the giant Emley Moor TV transmitter was lost in the low clouds.

Back at Bigland Towers we’ve settled in for a quiet evening at home in front of the fire although we did decide to take a risk and book a long weekend away in Hexham, Northumberland next month. It’ll be the only time we’ll have this year to get away together and – as it’s an apartment – we’ll be self-contained and independent if any more restrictions kick in. I’ve always wanted to explore parts of Hadrian’s wall and more of the Tyne Valley, so this seemed like the ideal opportunity.

The rain’s battering the window as I write this so we’re both happy to relax and enjoy a chicken stew that’s been simmering in the slow-cooker whilst we’ve been out, which meant we returned home to some delicious smells! We might even stretch to something as adventurous as a play game of Scrabble, or even watch a film. The outside world can take a backseat for once. Anyway, we’re being sociable (at a social distance) tomorrow – so this is our time. After all, I’m only Sixty..X once!

And so to the picture of the day, which has been chosen totally at random by putting a name into the ‘search’ facility on my picture website, and it threw up this…

Here’s the main hall of the old Berlin Templehof airport, just a few weeks before it closed in 2008. Built by the Nazi regime between 1936-1941 it’s an impressive building that a few of us were determined to visit during one of our regular German forays.

The site and associated building have a fascinating history. You can read more about them here. Sadly, I never got to fly in or out of Tempelhof, but I’m glad I saw it before it closed.

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

29th July picture of the day (and a spot of musing)…

29 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Air Travel, Musings, Picture of the day, Travel

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Today’s actually been quite a varied day. In these strange times that normally means the weather around here’s produced sunshine and rain, instead it’s meant that I’ve been juggling household DIY jobs, work, shopping and cooking as well as managing to get out for some exercise – oh, and I’ve finally finished scanning yet another album of old railways slides from 1995. There’s only 3 albums left to do now after 31 years (Woo – hoo!). You can view the latest batch here. They’re the first ones that come up in the gallery.

These mixed exertions have certainly passed the time and allowed me to play catch-up on a number of fronts so the day’s flown, which brings me to the picture of the day, which was taken Mid-Atlantic in April 1999.

T9168. Boeing 747 wing mid-Atlantic. 1999.crop

Pictures through aircraft windows are always frought with difficulty, especially when you’re shooting into the sun because of the chances of flare in the window layers as well as the optic elements of the lens (which is why I use prime lenses in these situations), but this one worked quite well and it holds a lot of memories. It was taken from a Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angleles to London Heathrow on the final day of an epic 18 month trip around the world, from 1997-1999. Lynn and I were heading home with no idea how we’d feel about being back. As we crossed the Atlantic the plane banked just before sunset, allowing me to capture the final shot of the trip.

I’ve still many many pictures from our adventures to scan, but you can find the ones I have here.

 

 

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Rolling blog: The Viennese whirl, Part 1.

28 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Air Travel, Rolling blogs, Travel

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18:56.

It’s Sunday evening and I’m on my way from Halifax to Heathrow in readiness to fly out to Vienna in the morning for a press trip to see what Siemens have been up to ahead of the UITP conference. We’ll be seeing the latest cutting-edge transport technology, but the start of my trip is on the antithesis of all that – an old BR built ‘Pacer’ eking out the last months of its life after decades of service acro2ss Yorkshire…

19:45

Having bounced our way sedately and peacefully to Leeds (the train was very quiet as only a handful of passengers were aboard) I’m now on something a little more modern, but also soon to be displaced. I caught LNERs 19:46 Leeds – Kings Cross which is worked by a Mk4 set of coaches pushed by a Class 90 (90026) hired in from DB.

The joys of TDM control mean the set judders like it’s got St Vitus dance. The effect is magnified by the fact I’m in the coach nearest the loco, thank God I’m only on this to Doncaster as it’s taken me 10 mins to type this ‘cos my fingers are all over the place and my ‘spull chucker’ is working overtime!

21:13.

I’m on my way again after a pause at a rather deserted Doncaster. Much of the station had shut up shop and from what I could see the town wasn’t far behind. The platforms were patrolled by the British Transport Police, who clearly expected some form of fracas, although the place was quiet when I passed through. The only thing that was open was a branch of ‘Subway’, which was doing steady business.

The train I’m on now is LNER’s 18:00 Edinburgh to Kings Cross. I took a stroll from the coach I’m sitting in (C) to the buffet and did a head count. It’s good! I don’t know what the ticket yield is, but judging by the number of folk on the train, it’s certainly more then paying its way.

23:20

I’m heading for Heathrow on an old friend – the Piccadilly line. There are so many memories attached to it – apart ftom Heathrow. Back in the very early 1980s I used to use it to get to Manor House in North London where an old friend from Southport lived. Mary and I had a fling for a whole, so I used to hitch-hike from Southport to London at weekends to see her. Mary had rented a room with a very orthodox Jewish family, this meant I had to make sure I turned up before sunset, otherwise the door wouldn’t be answered & Mary would have to throw her keys out’ve the window! A decade later, when I was living in London with Lynn in Crouch End, the Piccadilly was one of our local lines. We’d have to get the bus to Finsbury Park to connect with the Picc or the Vic, but they took us to so many places, and to do many memories. Now, Dawn and I use it to head North from Heathrow- although the journey nowadays is a bit further north than Crouch End!

Looking around this train I realise what I miss with living in West Yorkshire. There’s 40 plus folk in this car and I’m probably the oldest one! It’s a young multi-racial crowd, a world away from some of the ‘old’ bits in West Yorkshire who’re still re- fighting the second world war.

New Zealand update: pictures of trains, planes and automobiles – and even a couple of videos.

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Air Travel, Railways, Travel

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Despite the jet-lag I found a second wind after a couple of hours dozing, so I managed to  edit a few more New Zealand pictures and get them onto my Zenfolio website. There’s a real mixture – hence the title of this blog! You can find the gallery here.

There’s still many more to sort out. I’ll try and get them on Zenfolio over the weekend. I hope you enjoy them. Oh, if you want to see a couple of video’s of flying out of Queenstown and landing in Auckland, go and have a look at this blog I’ve just added them to the end of.

Rolling blog: Back in Britain…

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Air Travel, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

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06:20.

It’s a bit of a shock to the system but we’re back in the UK after flying in from Houston. We’ve actually had a very good flight. Our plane was well over half empty. The food was very good and crew were friendly and helpful, my only observation was that this was an 11 year old 777-224 (N69020 for the aviation geeks) so the seat-back entertainment system was rather clunky.

We arrived nearly an hour ahead of schedule after an easy flight. It’s the first time I’ve flown out of Houston and across Texas, so I was surprised to see just how green the state was. After a childhood spent watching cowboy films the last thing I was expecting was to see how green it was with huge tracts of pine forests, winding roads and arrow straight roads. We also crossed Louisiana and Arkansas only by then the clouds had rolled in. leaving little to see but this.

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Admittedly, US cities look rather spectacular when you fly over them at night…

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It was still night when we entered UK airspace and flew past Bristol and up the Thames valley before looping back on ourselves before lining up for our final approach to Heathrow, where we encountered mist and very low cloud. Now we’ve got to re-adapt to UK climate, which isn’t at its best. It looks like we’ll be returning to snow in West Yorkshire. We’ve a few hours to kill before then as our Grand Central service back to Halifax isn’t until 10:57…

09:16

We’ve braved the cold to get on the Piccadilly line tube to Kings Cross. In truth, it’s not a bad day to come back to. The sun’s shining and it’s a beautifully clear but frosty morning.

12:17

After brunch at the Parcel Yard in Kings Cross station we’re now speeding North through a Narnia style landscape courtesy of Grand Central trains (my first UK rail trip of the year). We ran out of sunshine North of Peterborough, swapping it for freezing with visibility down to a couple of hundred metres at most. Doncaster almost looked attractive in the frost (no mean feat) although the further West we get the more the frost’s fading. I don’t envy the guys we passed, working on the station platform extensions at Pontefract, they must be freezing – despite all their PPE.

19:17

We’re home, unpacked and knackered! Having travelled halfway around the planet on two flights, one of 12hrs 30m and the other of 7hrs 45m plus a layover of 2.5 hours as well as having crossed the international dateline has caught up with us. Now it’s time for bed and a chance to begin resetting our body clocks to UK time.
I’ve a favour to ask…
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