Category Archives: London Underground

Rolling blog. Daytripper…

05 Wednesday Jun 2024

Posted by in London Underground, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Siemens, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

09:00.

Typical! Today – after a short shower – the weather’s turned sunny here in the Calder valley. So, where am I off to? London, for a Siemens Ltd press lunch. Today’s merely a day trip to attend the lunch. This is an opportunity to chat to Siemens Senior management team, learn about what’s going on with the company in the UK right now – and meet up with fellow industry Journos for a couple of hours. After which I’ll get a few library pictures and head home.

Right now I’m on Northern’s 08:43 from Halifax to Leeds. Today this is made up of a pair of 2 car Class 195s. It’s not as busy as usual so I’ve blagged a table seat and set up the mobile office to get some work done en-route. I’ll be blogging throughout the day, so feel free to pop back to see what I get up to…

09:45.

My stay in Leeds was brief. We pulled into the platform adjacent platform 9 where LNER’s 09:45 to Kings Cross was waiting. Within minutes I’d transferred to an empty 9-car Azuma where I set up the mobile office on a vacant table bay in Coach C.

801213 sits at Leeds this morning before heading to Kings Cross.

Now it’s time to relax and enjoy the trip. That said, I feel sorry for anyone trying to head down the West Coast Main Line this morning. A fatality South of Watford Junction had closed all lines in and out of London Euston earlier. They’ve now reopened but it’s going to be a rough day out there…

11:00.

What a lovely day for heading South – although we seem to be heading into cloudier weather. For once, it’s grim down South! I’ve been busy clearing my email inbox and sorting out some picture editing, but I have had chance to check-out social media and the responses to last night’s ‘debate’ between Starmer and Sunak. It looks like Sunak walked into a trap.

The phrase ‘never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake’ seems rather appropriate. Last night Sunak lied. More than once to be honest, but the one that’s coming back to haunt him is the claim Labour will cost everyone in the UK £2000 in raised taxes. Anyone who’s economically literate and follows these things already knows it’s a lie, but Sunak’s following in Boris Johnson’s (lying) footsteps and hoping to get away with it. This is Sunak’s £350m on the side of a bus moment.

There’s only one problem. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has exposed Sunak’s lie in a letter that was sent a couple of days ago. So, Sunak was in no doubt he was lying. Starmer was in no doubt Sunak was lying, but Sunak did it anyway and then doubled-down on it today. But Labour have released the letter…

I’ve said for some time that this was going to be a dirty election with the Tories and the rest of the right-wing leaving no lie unturned in a desperate effort to win. The good news is that they’re not moving the dial (exactly the opposite). It seems so many people now see them as liars, they’re expecting it!

11:12.

We’ve just left Peterborough after our brief stop at the city. The bank of cloud on the horizon doesn’t seem to have got any closer so I’m optimistic that today’s going to be a good day. I’ve an hour to get from Kings Cross to today’s venue in Shoreditch in London’s East End so my plan is to take the scenic route. Well, as much as being underground is ‘scenic’!

18:15.

Sorry for the interlude but it’s been a busy day. As soon as I arrived at Kings Cross I spotted something other than trains at the platform ends – an old friend and colleague in the form of Rob Pritchard, Editor of Today’s Railways UK. The pair of us joined forces to travel over to my old ‘Manor’ in the East end via Thameslink, the ‘Lizzie’ line and London Overground which deposited us just a block away from where we needed to be in Shoreditch. Boy, has that area changed since I first got to know it in the mid-1980s!

Rob, myself and several other old faces from the rail press plus one or two from the national media then had a very pleasant and informative couple of hours chatting informally to Siemens Mobility’s senior management team for the UK. It’s rare that you get that level of access or the time to chat to people from a company. In truth, a couple of hours wasn’t enough, as much as people try and circulate between courses.

I’ll add a couple of pictures later.

Right now I’m heading back North (well, I did say it was only a day trip!). I’d have loved to have made more of the weather but I’ve things to do. Plus, Dawn’s away for several days from tomorrow. The journey home’s been made more ‘interesting’ by the fact the train I’d intended to catch – the 17:03 to Leeds has been cancelled due to a fatality – so that’s both East and West coast main lines afflicted by tragedies today. Instead, I’m on an Edinburgh bound service as far as York, where I can change and still get home earlier than if I’d hung around at Kings Cross.

20:25.

Changing at York turned out to be a good plan. I’m now at Bradford Interchange en-route to Halifax, having clawed back 15 mins. Not a huge amount in the scheme of things but at least I nanaged to add a few more libray pictures to the collection. The sun’s still shining in Yorkshire, but by heck – it’s cold!

22:30.

Time to call it a day. I’m back at home, spending an hour editing a few pictures before day’s end. So, as promised, here’s a small selection from the day…

A study in Azuma front ends at Kings Cross…
It looks underground, but this is very much overground. The interior of the elevated Shoreditch High St station.
It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Sitting down to lunch with Siemens senior management to talk about all things Siemens (and much more)…

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

1st October picture of the day…

01 Sunday Oct 2023

Posted by in London Underground, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

After a week gallivanting around the South-East today couldn’t have been more different. Partly because after getting up at 06:30 every day the pair of us had a lie-in until nearly 11:00! Hey, it’s Sunday and time to recharge the batteries. The fact we’ve both gone down with minor colds and aches was another good reason to relax – at least until tomorrow. So, no trains for me today. In fact, no travel at all unless you count a leisurely stroll into Sowerby Bridge and back in order to pick up some shopping and ensure that I get my steps in for the day. Apart from that, I’ve spent the rest of Sunday glued to my computer in order to finish the first sift of this weeks pictures and begin editing the ones that pass muster. Which is a lot!

Whilst doing this I’ve been trying to resist looking at commentary about the Tory party conference in nearby Manchester. OK, I have taken the occasional peek but managed to avoid the temptation to vent my spleen – difficult as it is when you’re watching a party who’ve been in power for 13 years trying to pretend the utter shitshow we’ve suffered is nothing to do with them and what we actually need is to elect them again so they can make everything *even* better! Their levels of delusion are off the scale and I have to wonder if even they believe the bullshit they’re coming out with. Of course, their cheerleaders in certain sections of our famously ‘independent’ media (are you having a laugh! Ed) are doing their damndest to keep the gravy train rolling and cheerlead. Oh, did I mention trains? One thing you won’t get a straight answer out of any of them is over the HS2 railway. Apparently, having set the hare running over the future of HS2 to Manchester, Sunak and Co won’t comment on ‘speculation’. The very speculation they’ve started and could kill in an instant if they were honest and gave a straight answer. But they’re not – and they won’t. After all, when you’re having your conference in Manchester and spent years talking bollox about ‘levelling up’ the country are you really going to admit you’ve just cancelled/postponed the high-speed line to the city?

I can’t see the Tories having a great conference. It seems from reports (and the pictures I’ve seen) that attendance figures are derisory. Everyone knows they’re a dead man walking so why bother going unless you’re one of the deluded batshit faithful? I’ll bet the Labour conference shortly after will be a very different affair as people can see which way the electoral winds are blowing. I’d love to be enthused about Labour and the vision of them taking power and putting to rights the mess the Tories have made of the UK since they morphed into UKIP, but I’m struggling. Honesty is in short supply in UK politics. Of course, that’s not just the fault of the political classes, it’s also the media and voters as many of the latter seem happy to be lied to if what they’re told fits their prejudices. How things will pan out only time will tell, but it all increases my feelings of disconnection from the UK. As I get older the more I suspect that the UK is becoming an economic and political basket-case that’s utterly incapable of shrugging off the past and embracing a future where the world’s changing and flag-waving just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Anyways, on another front it’s going to be a very busy week as I’ve articles to write, pictures to edit and spleens to vent – and an awful lot more besides as I’ve another role to slip in to but more of that soon…

In the meantime, here’s today’s picture which is from last week’s Southern haul. People from outside of London always think of the London Underground as the ‘tube’, those narrow trains that runs on certain deep level lines across the capital. Here’s a very different ‘underground’. This is a Metropolitan line train at Chalfont and Latimer out in suburban North-West London. The stations and tracks are shared with the old Great Central railway as far as Amersham. This is Sir John Betjeman’s ‘metroland‘.

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