Rolling blog: foodie Friday

21 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Food and drink, London, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire

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06:34

I’m preparing to head to London for an Christmas lunch with old friends and colleagues today. It’ll be a very convivial afternoon, as will this evening, as I’ve got to head back to West Yorkshire as Dawn and I are out for a Thai meal with a couple of friends – such is the fun of packed social diaries in the run-up to Christmas.

08:21

For once, the Yorkshire weather defeated me. Persistent drizzle (the sort of stuff that manages to defeat umbrellas or waterproofs) meant I abandoned attempts to walk to the station and cadged a lift off Dawn – which got me there considerably quicker and a lot drier! I’m now watching the rain from the comfort of my mobile office, otherwise known as Grand Central’s 08:10 from Halifax to London Kings Cross. Here it is pulling in to Halifax, past the old signalbox which was made redundant in October.

For once, my train’s not too busy, that’s possibly because it’s so close to Christmas, but also the fact the first service of the day (the 07:07) tends to attract most business people as it arrives in London at 10:10 whereas this one doesn’t arrive until 11:14. As I don’t need to be there so early I’m enjoying the space and relaxing atmosphere, although I’m still catching up on some work.

09:32.

The path for this train is characterised by generous timings on the way to Doncaster. We’ve swung between being 1 minute late and 4 early. Having waited for a platform at Wakefield Kirkgate we’d been running early until we reached Marshgate Jn just outside Doncaster where we were held waiting time and for a platform to be free. Platform space has been at a premium here for years, which makes timekeeping difficult. We’re booked a generous 6 minutes to clog one of them up, which has meant our slightly late arrival has turned into a right – time departure. Next stop – London Kings Cross…

10:08

We’ve just passed through gloomy Grantham where the low cloud that’s dogged us all the way from Yorkshire still persists. Despite the fact these Grand Central Class 180s are capable of 125mph I doubt we’ve touched that today until now. We’ve dropped a couple of mins behind time but we’ve obviously got a clear road as the driver’s opened her up for a bit. The speed app on my phone tells me we hit 124 after Stoke Jn at the same time a rainstorm on the edge of the weather front hit us! We weathered that (literally) and now the sun’s managing to break through the momentarily fragmented clouds.

10:35.

The burst of speed didn’t help us as we crawled from Werrington Jn (where Network Rail are preparing to build a new ‘dive-under’) through an empty Peterborough station and on to Holme Jn, which we passed 7 mins late. Sun and speed have both deserted us. This section of line’s very busy, with Thameslink stoppers added into the mix as Great Northern locals, so could well lose more time.

11:54.

I take back my last comment, we did make up 5 mins!

Now, lunch beckons…

17:15

I’m Northbound again after an excellent lunch (if you ignore the eye-watering bill) that included one of my favourites: seared scallops.

Chatham House rules prevent me talking about the event, but there you go.

Right now I’m doing a Jeremy Corbyn – sitting on the vestibule floor of LNER’s 17:03 to Leeds. Any resemblance to ‘Magic Grandad’ is purely coincidental.

17:58.

We’ve just left Peterborough so I’ve graduated from a vestibule floor to a seat.

19:55.

Ho hum. Everything went well until I got to Leeds, when I found my connection (the 19:36) was cancelled. This meant I’d be 15 minutes late as my next train wasn’t until 19:51. I’ve now swapped this..

For something a little less speedy and spacious!

Saturday postscript.

What a fun day! Lunch in London and Thai tapas in West Yorkshire has led to a slightly slower than usual start to the day (I blame the Tequila shots that Froso insisted we buy). Both meals were delicious but I think it’s time to give my stomach a rest today!  If you’re in the area I can recommend Café Thai in West Vale. We’ve eaten here several times and never been disappointed. They have a traditional Thai restaurant on the ground floor whilst upstairs they serve a tapas style menu. Here’s one of last nights dishes.

A good time was had by all…

48411884_2224892187832848_628339035206582272_n[1]

Slowly but surely, the old slides are getting scanned…

20 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Photography, Railways, Travel, Uncategorized

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It’s a painfully slow process, but I’m determined that 2019 will see the majority of my old railway back catalogue scanned and available on my Zenfolio website – although the travel pictures will have to wait a little longer! The past couple of months has seen me slog through a several hundred slides from 1996 onwards. Right now I’ve got as far as July, having uploaded or replaced another 40 images today. My plan is to continue my way chronologically through the years up the point I stopped taking slides and went digital, which was on the 20th February 2004, almost 15 years ago now! With the benefit of hindsight I’d wish I’d done it sooner – but hey ho!

These old pictures show just how much the railway scene has changed in the past 22 years. They’re all from the very early days of privatisation, when the railways had been ‘sectorised’ but not everything had been franchised. The first passenger service to be privatised was SouthWest trains in February 1996. This is adding another layer of complexity to scanning as the pictures are split up into different galleries on my website that are dedicated to each operator, so I’m having to do a lot of historical referencing as well. Here’s a few examples of today’s batch.

05865. 31421. Springs branch TMD. Wigan. 08.7.1996crop

A shot taken from a passing intercity service of the former Transrail depot at Wigan Springs Branch. Transrail was one of six companies the BR freight division had been broken up into as a way of introducing internal competition. In the end it, Loadhaul, Mainline Freight, Railfreight Distribution (RfD) and Rail Express Systems (RES) were bought by  American company Wisconsin freight which marketed them as English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS). Many of the old BR locos you can see in the picture were actually stored.

05887. 3202. Herne Hill. 30.06.1996crop

A Eurostar set led by 3202 snakes through Herne Hill in South London. These services would run for another 11 years, until High Speed 1 and St Pancras International opened in 2007.

05925. 31455. 31255. Wolverton. 14.7.1996crop

A pair of class 31s work an engineers train during track relaying work on the West Coast Main Line North of Wolverton. These old locomotives would sit idle during the week as they were kept purely to work these trains. That meant their reliability was poor, often leading to engineering work being disrupted. Note that the adjacent pair of tracks remains open. This would never be allowed today due to the risks it passes to track workers, who can be seen ahead of my Euston-bound Intercity service.

The UK has gone mad.

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Brexit, Musings

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We live in utterly surreal times here in the UK. Or, more specifically – England, as it’s unfair to tar the Scots and Northern Irish with the Brexit brush. We’ve spent the past two and a half years since the referendum on a slow course to self destruction and now we’re teetering on the edge of the cliff. Whilst we’re perched there, our political class infight and squabble, posture or play out fantasy scenarios that are so divorced from reality that you have to wonder – are they really that deluded, or are they doing this for their own ends? There’s a few honourable exceptions from both sides: Anna Soubry and David Lammy being two of the voices of reason.

Since the referendum result I’ve been hoping for an outbreak of sanity. It was obvious as soon as Teresa May drew up her red lines that Brexit was undeliverable, she was asking for the impossible. Before that it just might have worked. We’d never have had a better deal than our membership of the EU – that was always certain, but we might just have managed a less worse scenario and the utter chaos than we have now. Instead, she triggered article 50 and the countdown without any plan.

Since the referendum we’ve gone from the impossible promises of the Brexit fanatics to our own Government talking about mobilising the army to cope with a ‘no deal’ Brexit, whilst the Health Secretary is buying 1000s of fridges to stockpile medicines for the NHS. This is insane. How can a country inflict such things on itself in peacetime? And all for what? The threat of a ‘no deal’ Brexit is no threat to anyone except ourselves. All we’re doing is holding a gun to our own heads. It’s a surreal game of ‘chicken’ that no decent politician would ever inflict on their own country, yet that’s exactly what our politicians are doing, and some of them are genuinely serious about it as Brexit is like a religion to them. It’s an article of faith that no amount of fact based evidence and events of the past two and a half years will shake them from. Here’s a reminder of the broken promises and fantasy claims made by some of the architects of our downfall.

brexit lies

Will any of them admit to being wrong? No. They cling to Brexit as if it’s the word of God, despite the fact the EU made it crystal clear from the very beginning that it was not going to change the rules of the club just because we’d decided to leave.

I believe several things have led us to this. Once is English arrogance and exceptionalism, the bizarre belief that because we once had an Empire and were on the winning side in two world wars, we were somehow ‘better’ than everyone else, that we were blessed because of an accident of birth and could do no wrong. Whatever happened, we’d always come out on top. The second is complacency about the state of our democracy and a lack of engagement or understanding of the political institutions that underpin both our country and the European Union. I’ve lost track of the numbers of bonkers conversations I’ve had (and still have) with people who clearly have no idea how these things work, but who spout whatever slant they’ve been fed by the newspaper they read, or social media group they’re part of. I’ve never been a fan of conspiracy theories, but now there’s too much evidence out there not to appreciate how a few very rich (so powerful) people have used their money and the media (which they own) to manipulate opinions. It’s been going on for years in the way newspapers like the Mail and Express have poisoned the debate about immigration. It came to a head in the referendum, with massive manipulation of social media – such as targeted ads on Facebook directed at people who’d been identified by harvesting their data. Social media has proved to be as much of a curse as a blessing. We now know the problems, but the problem is no-one is doing anything about it. Our democracy is broken, but no-one wants to ask the awkward questions (unlike in the US, or EU) never mind find ways to fix it.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are caught up in the insanity of it all – including the business community, who are tearing their hair out at the uncertainty and unpreparedness for a major change in our economic relationship with our biggest market: Europe. Here’s an example.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/companies/businesses-watching-in-horror-as-mps-urged-to-stop-no-deal/ar-BBR9ivS?ocid=spartandhp

To add to the shitstorm we’re seeing the rise of the far-right, who’ve been emboldened by Brexit. Racism has become fashionable again. Sadly, where I live (West Yorkshire), it never really went away. It was one of the things that shocked me when I first moved here in 2010, the fact you’d hear people use the term ‘Paki’ quite openly and unashamedly. It’s quite clear to me that a lot of the Brexit vote here was driven by attitudes to immigration. The supreme irony is that this is mostly about religion and skin colour – something that leaving the EU will do nothing about as these are Commonwealth citizens they’re normally talking about, not EU citizens. In fact, we’ll probably need more dark skinned folk from the Commonwealth and elsewhere to take the place of the EU citizens who currently keep the NHS running but who no longer feel welcome so are leaving!

Today the EU published what it would do in the vase of an insane no deal Brexit. It highlights the utter stupidity and dishonesty of the Leave campaign’s slogan “Take back control”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46617152

The main points are;

British airlines to operate flights into and out of the EU but not within in it

Hauliers to carry freight by road into the EU for a nine-month period without having to apply for permits

UK financial services regulations – in a limited number of areas – to be recognised as equivalent to the EU’s for one or two years

The icing on the cake?

“Brussels says the arrangements will be strictly time-limited, lasting only for a few months and will be ended without any consultation with the UK“

Our country has never been so divided, nor have so many of us been ignored by the political classes. Political discourse has been poisoned by sections of the media who label people ‘traitors’ in echoes of Nazi propaganda from the 1930s – another parallel I’ve always been reluctant to make – but not anymore. When we have the Brexit fanatics threatening riots in the streets if a ‘true’ Brexit (whatever the hell that is) isn’t delivered, and politicians from right and left back them up we are in deep, deep shit. That’s not leadership, that’s the sort of cowardice that opens the door to fascism.

Whilst we have all these forces in play, our politicians posture around May’s proposed deal that no-one really supports but where few MPs have the backbone to stand up and say “this is madness, what are we doing to ourselves”? Which leaves people like me deeply pessimistic about the future of the country and venting my spleen via a blog.

In just over a week’s time we’re off to New Zealand. I’m starting to regret that I’m not 20 years younger, otherwise I might not come back. 2019 is going to be a year when the shit hits the fan and we have no idea how far it’s going to fly…

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Panorama on Hs2, what a damp squib!

18 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, Railways, StopHs2

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After much hoo-ha from the tiny anti Hs2 campaign who did their best to build up the programme, Panorama aired at 19:30 last night. The 30 minute episode, titled “Hs2; Going off the rails?” was billed by Hs2 antis as a smoking gun that would herald the downfall of the project as it would ‘lift the lid’ on the (supposedly) massive cost overruns and shaky finances.

The reality? It told us nothing new at all. Not a single thing.

The main thrust of the programme was an interview with a former employee of H2 who’s turned “whistleblower” and made all sorts of allegations that Hs2 had grossly underestimated the costs of purchasing land and property needed to build the line. None of these allegations were new, they date back to 2015. In fact, they’d been investigated by the National Audit Office who published their report into the matter back in September (link). The full report is 36 pages long and looks into all aspects of land and property purchase. Here’s the opening.

Part One Introduction to HS2 Ltd’s acquisition of land and property 9

Part Two The cost of land and property 16

Part Three Performance of HS2 Ltd’s land and property function 27

Appendix One Our investigative approach 32

So, what were the NAO’s conclusions and key findings?

Key findings
1 The estimated cost to acquire land and property for Phase One has increased significantly since the start of the programme.

2 The estimate has increased for a range of reasons, such as scope increases and the introduction of additional compensation schemes.

3 HS2 Ltd’s estimate of the cost to acquire land and property has improved, and now provides a reasonable basis for monitoring the cost of the property acquisition programme

4 HS2 Ltd forecasts that costs will remain within available funding, but it is still very early in the property acquisition programme

5 The Department deposited an estimate of the cost to acquire land and property, and a list of the property it expected to acquire, with the hybrid Bill, as required by Parliament

6 The property acquisition programme is currently on track but there is a long way to go and risks remain

7 HS2 Ltd’s land and property team has become better established since 2015

8 Only half of advance payments to claimants have been completed within the required three-month period from HS2 Ltd receiving a claim request

Now, the headline “half” of advance payments needs putting into perspective. Here’s what else the NAO said.

” Under compulsory purchase, HS2 Ltd is required to pay claimants 90% of HS2 Ltd’s valuation of the property within three months of receiving a claim, or the date of possession, whichever is later. The remainder is then paid upon agreement of the final value of the property. Between March 2017 and August 2018 payments have been later than the three months or forecast to be later in 52 out of 108 cases. HS2 Ltd has analysed the causes of delays. It considers that in 35 cases, the main reason is that claimants have not provided the required information in a timely manner. HS2 Ltd considers that the remaining 17 cases have been caused, at least in part, by HS2 Ltd (paragraphs 3.14 to 3.15).

So, just 17 cases of delays (out of 108) due to Hs2 Ltd, in other words 15.74%. Undoubtedly room for improvement, but hardly the scandal some try to pretend.

The NAO then go on to their concluding remarks
9 It is understandable that concerns have been raised with us about HS2 Ltd’s land and property acquisition programme given that it affects so many individuals and businesses. Although HS2 Ltd has made efforts to improve its land and property function since 2015, there is work to be done to support claimants to receive timely compensation where they are due an advance payment.

10 While HS2 Ltd’s estimate of the cost of land and property has increased significantly over time, cost estimates, particularly in this sort of major land acquisition programme, are inherently uncertain and subject to change as more information becomes known about both the design and operation of the railway, and the nature of the land and properties required. HS2 Ltd’s current estimate is within its agreed funding envelope from HM Treasury and provides a reasonable basis from which it can monitor the potential cost to compensate property owners and tenants affected by the construction of the railway. However, it is still very early in the property acquisition programme and too soon to determine with certainty what the final outturn will be.

So, no evidence of corruption, malfeasance or any other shenanigans. The NAO report is measured and balanced. It highlights the difficulties for such a major project as Hs2, pointing out that, “in order to build Phase One of the railway, the government will need to acquire approximately 70 square kilometres (more than 17,000 acres) of land along the route of the railway. HS2 Ltd estimates that it will have to compensate between 6,000 and 10,000 claimants who have land and property interests affected by the route, including property owners, leaseholders and tenants, and issue and process up to 50,000 compulsory purchase notices between 2017 and 2023”

All of this puts Panorama into perspective. As well as the ‘whistleblower’, they had a short interview with Surveyor Michael Byng, who trotted out his (long known about) claim that Hs2 would spend it’s entire budget on building Phase 1. No evidence was offered to support his claim, which wasn’t explored in any detail and it was rebutted by Hs2’s Chief Executive, Mark Thurston, and err – that was it. All a bit of a waste of time really.

The final part of the programme involved interviewing several people who were complaining that Hs2 wasn’t offering them enough money for their homes so was ‘robbing’ them, or that payments were late. None of them were new, in fact most of them had been featured in the media regularly over the past year. Such as this one.

All in all, Panorama was nothing more than a rehash of old stories and allegations – hardly a smoking gun that was going to bring down the project. The NAO had already addressed and dismissed the main complaint, and the fact they could find just 5 from 6,000 to 10,000 claimants who were complaining was never put into perspective.

You could almost sense the disappointment amongst the remaining Hs2 antis. StopHs2 didn’t even get a look-in and the reaction on social media was muted. Hs2 didn’t trend on Twitter and there was no ‘Twitterstorm’ just a few dozen people tweeting their outrage – many of whom were the usual suspects! The Stophs2 Facebook page was equally muted. Here it is this morning. Just 16 comments and 172 shares!

stophs2 FB

The reaction to the programme on social media and elsewhere reflects what I’ve been saying for a very long time. The anti Hs2 campaign’s a busted flush. Its influence is as insignificant as the actual number of people still protesting and programmes like this are no smoking gun. If his is the best they can go, it’s all over bar the moaning. Stop Hs2 is dead. Ironically, Joe Rukin himself gave the game away with this pompous but utterly misguided tweet

rukin. 17 dec

“Thousands” of people on Stophs2’s mailing list? Not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, just thousands – despite 6.5 million people living on the route of Hs2?

On another matter, a little bit of other news slipped out unseen yesterday. Remember the High Speed 2 Action Alliance? They used to be the main Stophs2 group until they gave up the ghost way back in 2016 after a long and futile campaign of legal challenges, including Judicial Reviews. Their last action was to allege a failure by the United Kingdom to comply with its obligations under article 7 generally, and article 7 in conjunction with article 6(3) and (4) of the Aarhus Convention by failing to ensure public participation in relation to the decisions issued by the Secretary of State for Transport on 10 January 2012 in the Command Paper “High Speed Rail: Investing in Britain’s Future – Decisions and Next Steps”

Yesterday, their legal people, Landmark Chambers, announced they’d failed as there was no breach, thus driving the last nail in the coffin of Hs2aa!

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New Zealand, here we come…

17 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in New Zealand, Photography, Railways, Travel

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Today I put the finishing touches to our plans to visit New Zealand and booked the last set of accommodation for our month-long tour in December – January. It’s going to be an epic trip (and an expensive one thanks to Brexit and the devaluation of Sterling). I’ve wanted to revisit the country for donkey’s years. I was there in 1999 during an 18 month around the world trip. We’ll be visiting some of the places I saw then plus many new ones. Last time I made the trip entirely by public transport, this time we’re hiring a car to travel around the South Island – although we will be taking a trip on the Tranzalpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth which is one of the world’s great railway journeys. We’ll also be visiting one preserved railway near Dunedin, but the rest of the holiday will be taken up with outdoor activity and sightseeing as we’ve got a very busy schedule but then there’s no point in travelling half-way around the world just to sit on your bum!

One aspect I I’m really looking forward to is the chance to shoot more pictures. New Zealand’s a stunningly beautiful country but going through my slide archive I’ve been surprised at how few I took during six weeks there in 1999. I suspect that’s because it was towards the end of our trip and I was conserving rolls of film as Fuji Velvia was a rare (and expensive) commodity in that neck of the woods (and we still had Fiji and the Cook Islands to visit). Still, here’s one or two to whet your appetites.

T8899. Franz Joseph glacier. New Zealand 1999.crop

The Franz Josef glacier on the South Island seen from a helicopter just before we landed and went hiking on the glacier itself.

FR0644. No 7145. Kaikoura.NZ. 1999.crop

An intermodal train from Picton to Christchurch passes Kaikoura on the East coast of the South island. This line was closed after a devastating earthquake but re-opened earlier this year.

T9075. Queenstown. S Island. New Zealand. 1999.crop

Looking across Lake Wakatipu at sunset, Queensland, South Island

Expect a host of pictures from both North and South islands and regular blogs. It’s going to be good to take a break from the madness of Brexit before the sh*t really hits the fan.

Another change since 1999 has been in the ease of finding places to stay. Then, the internet was just taking off. I remember using dial-up in a post office in Yogjakarta, Indonesia to try and book a hotel, and how frustrating it was (but also exciting because of the possibilities). Now, I’ve been browsing properties via Booking.com and AirBnB from my smartphone!

Rolling blog: A chilly day in the Calder Valley

15 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Weather, West Yorkshire

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Today’s a good day to be sitting at home with the central heating on, pottering around doing various chores and keeping one eye on the weather. The temperatures hovering around zero, although the wind makes it colder. We’ve snow forecast and the baleful sky looks like it could deliver it at any moment. Luckily, my new Brasher walking boots have arrived, so I’m prepared!

It’s now mid afternoon and the snow’s turned out to be drizzle, which is a bit of a disappointment but probably for the best!

15:53

Despite the filthy weather and treacherous conditions we’ve ventured out as we needed to stock up on spices ready for Xmas. I love browsing the local Asian supermarkets, marvelling at the variety of exotic veg on offer, or exploring the vast spice aisles. Here’s our haul.

Now we’ve dumped the car, taken our lives in our hands and strolled up the cobbled hill to our local, the Big 6. On the way we passed a car that’s skidded on the ice and rear-ended another! Now, what to choose…

Rolling blog: Birmingham return…

13 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in ACoRP, Birmingham, Northern Rail, Rolling blogs, Travel

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09:30

Dawn and I are on our way to Birmingham for the ACORP Association Of community rail lartnerships) AGM. It’s not the quickest of journeys to Britain’s second city due to our Victorian rail network. Right now we’re on one of Northern’s no-frills Class 150s heading to Manchester Victoria. In my opinion these are the worst trains Northern have – even the Pacers beat them. They’re very much in as-built form, which means there’s no tables, the seating’s 3×2, it’s difficult to find a rubbish bin and the views are poor because of the window and doorway arrangements.

Admittedly, there’s not a lot that you can do with the major design defects, but Arriva Trains Wales refurbished their 150/2s and brought them up to a much higher standard. I’ll see if I can dig out a picture to compare later.

10:39

After a brisk stroll across central Manchester we’re now sitting on Cross-Country’s 11:05 to Bristol Temple Leads which is being worked by a 5-car Voyager. I can’t wait to be doing this trip on Hs2, although I’ll have to as it’s not going to open until 2033!

11:49.

We’re well on our way to Birmingham now. The train’s pretty empty for a change, I’ve managed to get a table seat and crack on with some picture editing. Dawn and her colleague Hazel have the table opposite me, so I’m leaving them to it!

The weather’s picking up the further South we get, so I’m hoping to get one or two rail shots before the ACORP AGM starts…

12:52.

The ladies have headed off to AGM venue and I’ve nipped off for an hour to get some new library shots of the cross-city line which is operated by these old Hunslet built Class 323s.

26 of these trains (which date from 1992) work around Birmingham with another 17 based in Manchester. They’re nippy units that are comfortable to travel on as well as being popular with drivers. Despite this, they’re due to be displaced by brand new trains from 2020. However, there are plans to transfer these trains to Northern allowing them to replace the 4-car Class 319s there and work in multiple to run 6-car trains (2×319=8, which wouldn’t fit in most platforms).

16:06.

The AGM’s over and there’s six new board members elected from nine candidates.

18:00

Dawn and Hazel with the outgoing Chair of the ACORP board, Peter Roberts, who’s been keeping order for the last 18 years.

Rolling blog: Leeds liason..

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Rolling blogs, Transport, Travel, West Yorkshire

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Best laid plans and all that: I’m currently sat on a train to Leeds with my wife as Dawn’s having to have an ultrasound scan on a shoulder injury, so I’m going with her for a spot of moral support. It’s a pain in more ways than one as time is flying by at the moment and there’s so much to do before we fly out to New Zealand.

Mind you, the concept of time seems to be relative if you’re a member of the Tory party, especially if you’re an MP. Despite the sands running out rapidly on the article 50 date and us getting ever closer to crashing out of the EU in a no-deal scenario, they’ve found time for another round of the interminable civil war to stage a no-confidence vote in the PM. This is proof (were it needed) that the majority of the Tory party only cares about itself and the wealth and ambitions of its members. The rest of the country can go hang. I can see I’m going to indulging in a lot of spleen venting in these next few weeks as these fools take us ever closer to the edge of the precipice.

Whilst my spleen’s up to speed, I’ll have another gripe? What is it about some people who clearly have all the awareness to their surroundings as an amoeba? Here’s an example from today.

These two women have the whole bloody platform to stand on and a waiting room to sit in. So where do they choose to stand? Right in the middle of the doorway! Despite several people having to try and squeeze past them (and being typically British, they never said anytbing to the women) it never entered into their tiny minds that this wasn’t a great place to hand around! I’m beginning to despair of the English and I’m constantly reminded of an old NUT badge from the teachers strikes of the early 1980s that said “if you think education’s expensive, try ignorance”…

From Leeds we had a spin on one of Northern’s Class 170s which have been cascaded from Scotrail. This one was working the 11:55 Leeds-Selby. They’re certainly an improvement on the 158s!

13:48

For Dawn, this has been time well spent. Her shoulder injury is capsulitis which was diagnosed by ultrasound. A Corticosteroid injection was administered directly into her shoulder capsule to help ease the inflammation, so I came in useful as a hand-holder! Dawn was given advice on exercise and posture. We went private, so it cost £150, but it was worth it.

The clinic’s in Garforth, to the East of Leeds. It’s a place i’ve never visited before although I’ve passed through the station dozens of times. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact it still manages to retain a functioning High St. I was also interested to see clues to its past in the name of a pub (The Miners) and this building.

Those days are long gone. The last colliery (Rothwell) closed in 1983, the year before the bitter and destructive Miners strike of 84-85.

17:05

We’re now in Huddersfield. Slightly later than planned as the Trans-Pennine service we caught was (to no-one’s surprise) delayed. The stopping pattern of the Hull-Manchester service we used has changed, it no longer stops at Batley but the automated announcement still claimed it did, much to the Conductors annoyance!

As we left Garforth I spotted this historical plaque on the Miners pub.

Whilst Dawn’s returned to work I’ve been having a mooch around Huddersfield, looking for a few bits for our New Zealand trip. It’s bleeding freezing tonight, the temperature may be rising in Westminster but the hot air’s certainly not reaching West Yorkshire!

This festive season the town’s gained a new attraction in St George’s Square, outside the station. It’s a tent based pop-up pub (I saw the same thing in Lincoln last month).

I popped in to have a look but didn’t stop for a drink as we’re meeting up with Dawn’s parents for a meal later at the wonderful Thai Sakon.

21:20

The food at Thai Sakon was excellent as usual and so were the staff. Here’s my starter: deep fried crispy noodles with prawns in a sweet and sour sauce.

It was a lovely evening with Dawn’s parents. We shared food and laughter. We’re now making our way back home on one of Northern’s less attractive trains.

The picture pile gets smaller…

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in History, Photography, Railways, Uncategorized

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After all my travels last week the first part of this week’s been spent at home trying to catch up on paperwork, picture editing and scanning more old slides in an effort to reduce the mountain I have to climb. If you’re interested in last week’s German rail pictures, you can find the full selection here and the travel shots here.

Meanwhile, I’ve made another dent (albeit a small one) in the railway slides. I’m currently scanning a couple of albums from 1996-97. Most of them have never been seen since I took them. A selected few had made it onto my Zenfolio website but now I’m being methodical and scanning complete albums. The beauty of this is that it creates a lot of space! The slide albums contain many duplicated shots because that’s what you did in film days – just in case an important picture was damaged or was out with a client and you needed a copy. I reckon I’m binning at least 30% of the slides I have because they’re redundant now once one’s been scanned. Here’s some of tonight’s batch.

DSC_5512crop

It’s a reflection on how technology’s changed over the past 22 years. The irony is that I remember working out that each of these cost me about 24p apiece when I added together the price of the film, developing and mounting – plus postage! In theory, I’m throwing away a lot of money!

Here’s a taster of what’s been scanned today.

05815. 37057. Ipswich WRD open day. 15.6.1996crop.jpg

Here’s 37057 at the Ipswich Wagon repair depot open day on the 15th June 1996. EW&S had taken over the BR trainload freight companies (Mainline, Loudhaul and Translink) earlier in the year and this was the first public outing of the new livery. 37057, 60019 and the inspection saloon 999504 had been repainted and were on display. So much has changed since those early days of privatisation!

I’ll try and get some more done soon. Right now I’ve got other tasks in hand, including finalising our trip to New Zealand in December-January, plus, I’ve just found out I’ll be working in Birmingham on Thursday.

The UK’s collateral damage to Tory party infighting.

11 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Brexit, Politics

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I really don’t think UK politics can get any more surreal. The origins of the Brexitshambles and the manipulated referendum that kicked it all off were in a Tory party brawl that spilled out onto the streets. The Conservatives have always been split over Europe and the headbangers in their Eurosceptic wing have been a thorn in their side for years. David Cameron bought them off with the referendum – and we all know how well that went!

Since then we’ve had two and a half years of the Brexit headbangers living in a different world to the rest of us. One where no claim was too outrageous and no lie too big to tell. Now we’re coming to the endgame. They never could deliver a single one of their promises, instead they blamed everyone else for the failure to deliver a ‘pure’ Brexit. In that respect the Brexit fundamentalists share the same ideological purity (and total inability to deliver) as the hard-left.

Meanwhile, we’ve wasted two and a half years whilst they try and deliver the undeliverable. All the bluster about ‘take back control’ and ‘they need us more than we need them’ has been exposed for what it always was – English arrogance. The EU has remained united and stuck to its principles.

Now we’ve come to the end game. The deal on the divorce from the EU and one of those burning issues that the Brextremists always dismissed as ‘Project fear’ – the Irish border question – hence the backstop. The Brextremists hate May’s deal because it exposes what the rest of us always knew: leaving the EU makes us a rule-taker, not a rule-maker. All their bluster about ‘sunny uplands’, no ‘downsides’ and how easy it would all be was just a pack of lies – and now those lies have been exposed. Here’s a few of them.

brexit lies

So, the shambles deepens. Teresa May has managed to negotiate a divorce settlement with the EU but it’s painfully obvious to most sensible people that it’s a worse deal than we had. Truth is –  it was always going to be as there are no Brexit Unicorns. But that doesn’t stop the Brexit fundamentalists making their excuses and pretending ‘we’ could have got a better deal if one of them had been PM. May knew she was going to lose the vote on the deal, so cancels it at the last moment. Funny, isn’t it? Apparently, she’s allowed to change her mind all the time, but we’re not allowed to change ours by being given the opportunity to vote in a second referendum on the details of the deal/no deal!

So, what are the Tories about to do now – according to media reports? Stage a fucking leadership contest, that’s what! The UK is like the Titanic, it’s heading straight for a frigging Iceberg, so what do they decide to do – fight over who gets to hold the wheel!

Never has a developed nation been so ill-served by its political classes. Sadly, it’s not just the Tories. ‘Magic Grandad” – otherwise known as the leader of the Labour party is just as culpable in the shit-storm that’s about to hit us as the Government is. It has his tacit support for his own ideological reasons.

If only I could say “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”…