My original plan to work at home today has been altered by a change in the weather. The forecast for the next few days is lousy but today (so far) has bucked the trend – and the forecast – so I’m heading over to Manchester for a couple of hours in the hope of checking on progress on Trans-Pennine electrification and return clothes I bought from Uniqlo the other day. I’m flattered to say that ‘medium’ size is just too big!
Right now I’m on the train from Sowerby Bridge to Manchester Victoria. It’s a Chester bound service operated by a pair of 2-car Class 195s which is pretty busy for the time of day although I had no problem bagging a table seat to set up the mobile office. This is a lovely time of year to be traversing the Calder valley as the colours in the remaining leaves on the trees are glorious and the low winter light shows them at their most intense. I only hope the sunshine I’m seeing now stays with me. Let’s see. Expect some pictures soon…
11:15.
Neither my luck nor the weather’s held, so it’s time for a different mode of transport to Shank’s pony…
13:50.
That was an interestinginterlude! I caught a couple of trams out to Ashton-Under-Lyme which turned out to be a good idea as the rain persisted until a few minutes after I arrived. The plan was to have a look at progress electrifying the line from Manchester Victoria to Stalybridge. This should have been completed years ago but it was one of the schemes delayed by political dithering. Now it’s well underway. Now, most of the masts and stanchions are in place.
802206 speeds through Ashton-under-Lyme en-route from Liverpool Lime St to Newcastle whilst the masts march towards Stalybridge.
16:00.
I chose to walk between Ashton and Stalybridge in order to check out the views from various bridges on the way. It was an interesting trip as it took me down all sorts of streets I’d never explore otherwise. The area’s a maze of brick-built, late Victorian terrace houses with patches of much wealthier properties. But not all’s well. In the space of a couple of hundred meters I passed three closed pubs. One was derelict, one was ‘closed until further notice’ and the other was up for sale.
I find derelict pubs terribly sad buildings as I can imagine all the happy times people must have had there in the past. They were community centres, but now they’re dying.
I arrived at ‘Stalyvegas’ station just as the rain did, so ended up with a soaking, but I dried out on the train back into central Manchester, where I am now, indulging in my least favourite activity. Shopping!
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We’ve another misty morning here in West Yorkshire, where little cotton wool clouds cling to the sides of the valley. Not that t matters to me as I’m escaping for the day. Right now, I’m preparing to head down to Sowerby Bridge to catch a train across the Pennines. Let’s see how it goes…
08:18.
Another fun day on the railways. I walked down to Sowerby Bridge in plenty of time to catch the 08:23 to Chester. The service is having a torrid time. The station PIS shows the 07:23 was cancelled and the 09:23 is “delayed”. In contrast, the 08:23 turned up 7 minutes early and is now sat waiting time. Looking on Real Time Trains I see it left Leeds 6 minutes late and looks to have been diverted to run non-stop via Brighouse.
195119 approaches Sowerby Bridge on the Chester service, passing a Leeds bound set.
09:55
After arriving at Victoria I ambled theough central Manchester to Piccadilly. As I passed the gardens I heard a car making an awful racket. Then I saw a young guy driving (as fast as he could) a red hatchback with a smashed and flat front tyre and all the passenger side of the vehicle caved in. A few minutes later I passed this scene…
13:12.
We’ve unveiled the plaque to Paul Abell at Ashburys station in the area of Manchester Paul grew up in. Present were his Widow, Shirley, his sons Brian and Malcom and his daughter Anne. I’ll add more pictures later.
Paul composed this local history board which has been on the station since 2019.The Abell family with Paul’s plaque. (L-R) Anne, Shirley (Paul’s widow) Brian and Malcolm. The plaque (chosen by the family) depicts one of the engines that used to operate station pilot duties at Manchester Piccadilly and original Manchester tram No 756, which was restored in 1985 and now resides on the Heaton Park tramway.
15:30.
Following the event, we headed off to Guide Bridge station for coffee and sandwiches kindly supplied by TfGM and hosted by Northern in the station offices. On leaving I headed off into the city as an old Network Rail friend was up from London for the day, liaising with stakeholders on forthcoming blockades, so I arranged to catch up with him for an hour before he headed back to London.
Earlier, I had managed to make the most of the sunshine by bimbling along to get a few shots along the notorious railway bottleneck of the Oxford St corridor. Here’s one of them.
It’s not often that I have the opportunity to fillet so much dishonest and fact-free nonsense about HS2 in the media nowadays, but I’ve been given the rare threat thanks to two people who’ve been writing trash about HS2 for years. Yesterday it was Andrew ‘transcription error’ Gilligan, one of the Tories client journalists who for many years was embedded in the heart of the Tory party as one of Boris Johnson’s coterie.
Today it’s the turn of the dyspeptic Simon Jenkins, whose penned his latest fact-free polemic in the Guardian, which you can find here. It’s up to his usual standard, loads of assertions with no facts to back it up and made-up numbers for the ‘true’ cost of HS2. I’ve examined Jenkins troubled relationship with facts before in this blog.
However, Jenkin’s goes one further than Gilligan and claims that ALL of HS2 should be cancelled immediately – even Phase 1 where construction is well advanced. To support his claim, Jenkins says this;
“A New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, famously halted a rail tunnel under the Hudson river by simply ordering the contractors to fill in the hole”.
There just one teeny problem with this claim. It’s complete and utter bollocks. Jenkins has made it up, and the reality shows Jenkins example of the ARC demonstrates that his idea is short-sighted and stupid in the extreme.
Here’s the reality. Chris Christie does exist. He was the Republican Governer of New Jersey between 2010 and 2018 when he lost to his Democrat challenger. He’d put his hat in the ring for his party’s Presidential nomination, he got nowhere, but Donald Trump did, Christie endorsed him and joined his team, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But what about this tunnel? That didn’t exist. There *were* plans to build one (there still are). Known as ‘Access to the Regions Core’ (ARC) the plan was to build two new tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan and a new railway station next to Penn Station which was at capacity. The original cost of the project was estimated at $8.7bn. Preparations for building the tunnels began in 2009 with a completion date of 2018, but in 2010 Christie effectively cancelled the project by withdrawing his part of the funding, citing ‘concerns’ about cost overruns. By the time the project was cancelled in October 2010 all that was built was the Palisades ‘tunnel’, an underpass under Tonnelle Ave in North Bergen. Contracts *had* been let for tunnelling, Skanska had won the design and build contract for the full Palisades Tunnel on May 5, 2010, just 5 months earlier but tunnelling proper hadn’t even begun.
That wasn’t the end of the story. The decision was controversial and Christie became embroiled in a series of legal actions over where the money went – especially Federal funding towards the project. The federal government demanded repayment of funding received by New Jersey Transit for the project. After litigation, an agreement was reached where part of the funds were returned while other monies were used on transit-related projects.
That wasn’t the end of the story. Christie’s administration was later investigated and fined $400,00 for diverting funds from the project to subsidise various roads projects. Plus, some of New Jersey’s funds earmarked for ARC were eventually diverted to the state transportation trust, normally funded by a gasoline tax, one of the lowest in the United States. This was believed by many to be a cynical attempt to subsidise motoring by avoiding raising gas tax,
In March 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal agency, published a report entitled Commuter Rail Potential Impacts and Cost Estimates for the Cancelled Hudson River Tunnel Project,which concluded that Christie’s basis for cancellation was a misrepresentation and that he misstated the estimated costs, cost over-runs, and New Jersey’s obligation to pay them (see link)
So, was anything ‘filled in’ as Jenkins claims? No, because the project never really died because it was still needed. This need became ever more evident after 2012’s Hurricane Sandy caused damage to the existing 100 year old rail tunnels which led to flooding of the New York subway. It’s estimated $5bn damage was caused to the rail systems. Some of the completed design and engineering work has been used by Amtrak to develop the Gateway Programme, which will build yes – you’ve guessed it – new tunnels under the Hudson! The Gateway Project was unveiled on February 7, 2011, just 4 months after Christie cancelled ARC.
So, the project Jenkins cites isn’t dead at all. Nothing was filled in and the delays and political shenanigans have cost taxpayers dearly! The original ARC project was budgeted at $10 billion and was due to open in 2018-20. The Gateway programme’s 2022 projected cost of the tunnels and related projects is $16.1 billion.
What Jenkins completely fails to mention is cancelling a project where no main construction works and no Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) were running is a very different kettle of fish to HS2, where the Chiltern tunnels are already over 8 miles long, the Long Itchington Tunnel has one of the 1-mile-long tunnels completed and at West Rusilip there are two more TBMs already boring East into London. Oh, and that’s without the 3.5km long Colne Valley viaduct which is already well underway! Add in all the other civil engineering work along the phase 1 route and we’re talking of 10s of billions already spent or committed. To claim this can just be cancelled or ‘filled in’ is nothing more than idiocy. But then when did Jenkins ever deal in reality when it comes to HS2? The most amusing thing about Jenkins using the Hudson tunnels as an example of how you could scrap HS2 (apart from the fact it was bollocks) is it’s exactly the opposite. It’s a classic example of why you shouldn’t cancel these vital projects and how doing so comes back to bite you on the arse!
Unlike Jenkins US tunnel which was never started much less ‘filled in’. here’s one of the HS2 Chiltern tunnels under construction. This is now over 4 miles long, as is its next door neighbour. The Long Itchington tunnel is half-complete and the West Ruislip tunnels already have two TBMs running. That’s over 9 miles of tunnels bored already…
January 1st 2023 update.
I was sent this link yesterday which puts the nail in the coffin of Jenkins nonsense. The new rail tunnel under the Hudson is on its way…
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Today the right-wing press and a few other media outlets are falling over themselves to report of the latest right-wing nonsense about HS2 from the secretive political lobbyists at ‘Policy Exchange’.
But who are ‘policy exchange’? none of the media bothers to ask.
Like other right-wing lobbyists, PE claim to be an educational charity. They bill themselves as “the UK’s most influential think tank”, an appellation awarded to them by the right-wing newspapers who lap up whatever they report. Yep, that’s the reason they’re ‘influential’. Their friends in the media push their agenda and the organistion has a revolving door with Tory Governments, with many of its members having been part of Tory administrations at advisory or Ministerial level!
How you can be an educational charity when it’s plain to anyone who does the slightest research that they’re actually political lobbyists is a sad indictment of the laws around charities and political lobbying. Sadly, the Charity Commission is both weak and feeble when it comes to allowing overtly political lobby groups to get away with claiming charitable status and availing themselves of the tax breaks that bestows. PE is also the opaquest of all the ‘think-tanks’ when it comes to revealing who funds it. You can read more about that here on the ‘Teacher Toolkit’ website.
PE was set up in 2002 by prominent Tories including Nicholeas Boles as its first Director. Micheal Gove as Chairman and also Francis Maude. There’s a long list of familiar names associated with the right-wing and PE, including one who wrote the latest hatchet job on HS2. Step forward, Andrew ‘transcription error’ Gilligan! Former advisor to Boris Johnson (both when he was Mayor of London and Prime Minister). Gilligan’s long had antipathy towards HS2, so his fingerprints being on this report ‘HS2: The kindest cut of all’ are hardly a surprise.
So, what does Gilligan claim? Nothing new at all, so no change there then! In fact, the report is just the usual rehash of old claims about HS2 the libertarian right have been bandying around for years. Gilligan has a long history of rehashing knocking copy about HS2, as I’ve blogged about in the past.
“By cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not yet started, we can save around £3bn a year by 2027/8, and £44bn or more in total.”
And the evidence for this is? There’s none, apart from a few back of a fag-packet calculations and assumptions, each one is caveated with the phrase “likely to be an underestimate“. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? How is this meant to ‘fill’ a supposed black hole in the Government’s current budget? It can’t – obviously, this is pure spin on the part of the media who’re reporting on this. Not only would it not fill any holes in Government coffers, but Gilligan’s suggestion also to stop work at Euston would actually COST money as contracts would be cancelled and compensation paid and workers (who’re currently paying tax) would be laid off.
Whilst admitting it’s not possible to scrap phase 1 of HS2 are construction is already well underway and the costs and penalties would be astronomical he does suggest scrapping the line from Old Oak Common into Euston. What Gilligan completely ignores is the fact Old Oak Common can’t be used as a replacement for Euston station as it’s far, far too small and would hamstring any possibility of running a full service on HS2, thus rendering the project pointless. This is classic penny-pinching and either not understanding (or deliberately ignoring) why a 10-platform station at Euston is being built in the first place. Gilligan claims people can change onto the Elizabeth line and use that to get to Central London instead. In that he contradicts himself as earlier in the report he claims that to cope with the extra passenger numbers HS2 would bring to Euston we’d need Crossrail 2’s capacity. Yet Crossrail 1 (which wasn’t designed to cope with HS2 passengers) can somehow fit everyone on regardless! But then, consistency has never been Gilligan’s forte. Gilligan grudgingly admits that “Old Oak will, admittedly, be less convenient than Euston for passengers seeking to continue their journeys by taxi, car or foot, or going to the Eurostar terminal”. But he completely ignores another dimension and reason Euston was chosen as the HS2 terminus. It not only has East-West connectivity, but it also has something Old Oak doesn’t have – North-South connectivity, Euston serves the whole of London in a way Old Oak never could – even if it had the platform capacity! That a former transport advisor to the Mayor of London doesn’t understand this (or more likely, choses to ignore because it doesn’t fit his narrative) tells you a lot about Gilligan.
Building HS2 at Euston in October 2021. Gilligan completely ignores the reasons Euston was chosen as the terminus (connectivity) and the fact the railway systems are designed and developed, it’s only the oversite development where plans are in a state of flux.
We see other bald assertions such as “HS2’s real benefit-cost ratio may be somewhere between 0.4 and 0.7 – even at the official price” (note the word ‘may’ doing some very heavy lifting there’s no evidence for this claim is offered at all). Gilligan often quotes the BCR as being lower than 1, occasionally he admits this excludes the wider economic impacts (WEIs) but completely ignores the fact the WEI’s are woefully underestimated because they don’t include real environmental impacts such as tackling Climate Change. Transport is the biggest single emitter of carbon in the UK, but Gilligan hardly even mentions the environment in his ‘report’ except when he makes this evidence free assertion “Per pound spent, almost literally any other public transport project imaginable could achieve greater modal shift and CO2 reduction than HS2; that it takes vast sums away from such projects is another of its environmental harms”. Yet again we see the fabrication that HS2 is taking money “away” from other things. The truth? Cancelling HS2 wouldn’t release any money for anything else: the money just doesn’t exist until the government issues the bonds for it. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that (just as they did with HS1) the government can make money from selling the operating concession, which you can’t do if you don’t build it, or only build a rump of HS2 that makes the whole project pointless (which is what Gilligan wants).
Gilligan makes much play about the conservative %’s the Government use for modal shift from other modes of transport to HS2. As usual, these percentages have no context, saying what they’re percentages of. 3% of 100 is tiny, 3% of (say) 100 million is a very different proposition. Plus, what are the carbon savings by moving from high carbon travel (domestic air) to high-speed rail? Gilligan ignores that as it’s inconvenient. It’s also worth noting that whilst Gillian rubbishes any official figures he doesn’t like, the takes the governments modal shift numbers as holy writ, yet the Government’s forecast method is known to be weak. It specifically excludes any factors that favour rail over car or air. Plus, mainland Europe high-speed rail has much higher from-air percentage than the UK Governments figures All the UK modal shift claims are ridiculously low compared to what has actually happened with high-speed rail elsewhere – for which empirical evidence exists.
Reading the report it’s clear that Gilligan’s ignored the most important reasons for building HS2 (rail capacity and the environment) in order to focus solely on what always drives these libertarians. Money and ideology. He offers no alternatives to HS2 because that would mean admitting the central reasons for building it. Instead, he dismisses it purely on the grounds of cost with the spurious arguments that we ‘can’t afford’ HS2 and that the money can be used to fill holes elsewhere – even though that money doesn’t actually exist until it’s borrowed. There isn’t and never has been a big pot of money sat in the Treasury labelled ‘for HS2’ just waiting to be rebadged and spent on other things.
No doubt the usual suspects will fawn over Gilligan and his recycled report, despite it being the usual rehash he’s made a career out of. Will it stop HS2? Of course not. He never has. Because even this Government is starting to realise that it’s these ‘think-tanks’ and their loony libertarian thinking that doomed Truss and got the Tories into the mess they’re in now. If a ‘black hole’ does exist, it’s because of the ‘think tanks’ that Truss listened to! Cancelling HS2 would add another nail in the coffin of their reputation of economic competence and leave the UK looking even more like a laughing stock, unable to build infrastructure because the swivel-eyed loons on the right want small government (and tax cuts).
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It’s a short(ish) blog from me today as the day’s been rather a mixed one. It started out well enough, the weather was gorgeous with wall-to-wall sunshine and clear blue skies, so – after completing several chores and putting other stuff on the backburner I decided to venture out into the valley in the hope of getting some shots of trains amongst the glorious autumnal colours in the woodlands around Todmorden. Only my cunning plan was thwarted by geography. The Pennines are notorious for micro-climates. We can have great weather here in the Calder Valley only for it to be bucketing down next door in the Colne valley. It’s the same if you move just a few miles along the valleys too – as I found when I caught the train. By the time I arrived in Tod’ there were clouds as black as the ace of spades appearing from the North-West. It even started raining. To my surprise I found that staff had salted the station platforms, which didn’t fill me with much hope about the weather. What did they know I didn’t? As I’d planned to be stuck up a hillside for an hour or two, I decided ‘bugger this for a game of soldiers’ and turned tail back to Hebden Bridge, where I stopped to change trains and at least get a couple of shots in the can before catching a service into Halifax – where the weather was back to full sun!
Admitting defeat I wandered home, where I’ve spent the day catching up on work and looking at flight options for a trip to South-East Asia. The prices I’ve been quoted for the time I was thinking of going are painful as they’re in four figures – far more than pre-Covid prices, so it looks like I’m going to have to work out a plan B and alter my dates – and maybe destination. More research is certainly needed.
To cheer myself up I trotted along to our local pub to join friends and partake in the Friday evening quiz. It’s not a formal quiz, it’s just a few of us getting together to answer questions from the quizzes published in the ‘Pub Paper’ but it keeps us amused. This month I’m ‘on the wagon’ as I’ve decided to give my liver a holiday (and lose a few pounds) – so I couldn’t even drown my sorrows. Instead, I was quaffing the alcohol-free ‘Erdinger’ beer, which isn’t bad taste wise, meaning you don’t feel you’re missing out in the way you would if you were nursing a Coke. Now I’m back at home. After knocking up a Prawn Noodle stir-fry for the pair of us I’m now sat in the office sipping Brewdog’s low-alcohol version of their ‘Punk IPA’, which is one of the better LA beers. I I prefer their Nanny State but you can’t get it in any of our local supermarkets, so I have to stock up. Ah well, 4 days down and only 26 more to go. My liver better be bloody grateful…
Right, on to the picture of the day. But what to choose? I know! One of today’s shots from the picturesque Hebden Bridge station.
Here’s the first of the CAF built 3 car diesel units (195101) arriving at Hebden Bridge station on its way to Leeds via Halifax and Bradford Interchange. It’s a little gem of a station as it retains so many of its old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway features, even though that company ceased to exist in 1923!
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Welcome to November folks! Apologies for the sparseness of blogging during October. That was due to two things. The first was our fortnight long holiday in Greece where I made the conscious decision to step back from social media and have a bit of a detox. However, the last few days absence has been due to the fact that I’ve been down with some sort of lurgi. It wasn’t Covid (I did a test) but some of the symptoms were similar and I felt like death warmed up! I’ve been confined to bed since Sunday and now seem to be making a recovery. The aches, pains, sore throat have eased but my energy levels still aren’t back to normal, so I’ll be taking it easy at home for the rest of the week. Not that that’s a problem as I’ve plenty to do at Bigland Towers. Whilst I’ve spent most of my time sleeping, I have been editing pictures during some of my waking hours in an effort to clear the massive backlog of images I have going back as far as September. Tonight, I managed to get all the shots from our Greek trip onto my Zenfolio website. You can find those ones here. I’ve also been wading my way through images of my visit to the HS2 construction sites at West Ruislip, Denham and Calvert on Thursday. I’ve added them to this gallery. Now all I’ve got to do is complete editing pictures from September’s trip to Germany, which are beginning to appear here. The other major bit of work I have to do is finish writing the 3rd part of my round Britain trip for RAIL magazine. I’d hoped to have had it done by now but being ill has rather got in the way. Once that’s done I’m free to start thinking about other things – and catch up with writing some blogs on my various HS2 site visits.
November promises to be another busy month with various jobs in the pipeline and places to visit, but I’m determined to get back to blogging too. I’ve missed it – and I hope some of you have done too!
In the meantime, here’s a return of the picture of the day. This one’s from Thursday’s trip to attend the launch of the 2nd HS2 Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to begin its journey under London – and the 5th HS2 TBM all told. That makes 5 of the 10 machines launched now. It was quite a privilege to be aboard ‘Caroline’ when the button was pressed to start her up – and to have a tour of the machine whilst she was running. Here’s what she looks like from just behind the cutting head.
Mike Lyons, HS2’s Civils Director (left) and Michael Greiner, Head of Tunnelling for Skanksa JV discuss the intricacies of ‘Caroline’ as she begins her 5 mile long journey under London. The pistons you see above them push the TBM forward off the first ring of segments. The plate in the foreground lifts the 8 tonne segments into place after they’re delivered into the bowels of the machine. This happens every 2 meters. Individual pistons are retracted to create space for a segment, then pushed back into place before the next segment is added. Seven segments make up each ring.
If you want to learn more about how a TBM works HS2 Ltd have produced this excellent video graphic.
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/
I’m on the last leg of my trip home after what’s turned out to be a fun-filled day – although it didn’t initially feel like that when my alarm went off at 06:30!
However, as I made my weary way from my friends flat to Clapham Junction station, I was treated to one of those spectacular sunrises that literally brightens your day. Sadly, I didn’t have time to grab more than a camera phone shot from the station as I had an appointment to keep. Making my way across central London via the ‘tube’ I pitched up at Marylebone station for the short train trip out to West Ruislip, the location of today’s press event. HS2 Ltd are launching two Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) from a site adjacent to the railway. The TBMs will spend the next 2 years tunnelling South to bore 5 miles of tunnels. The first machine (Sushila) was launched a couple of weeks ago and is already 70 meters underground. We were here to see the launch of the second machine, named ‘Caroline’. I’ll blog about this in detail later, but for now, here’s a few pictures from the event.
Looking down on ‘Caroline’ (nearest the camera) and ‘Sushila’, who’s already 70 meters into her journey. Behind the fence in the background id the Chiltern railway line to Birmingham. The HS2 site is rail connected as the tunnel lining segments will be brought in by train from a factory at the Isle of Grain in Kent.Suited and booted for the job. Not a bad way to spend my birthday as very few people get to see the inside of a TBM.Here’swhat’s behind me. The tail of ‘Caroline’ with a ring of 7 tunnel segments already loaded.Inside ‘Caroline’ just behind the cutting head. A ring is already in place and the TBM’s pistons are pushing the machine forward off them. The machine in the foreground is a rotating drum that picks up the individual 8 tonne segments and puts them in place once the individual rams blocking the way are retracted. Each ring is 2 meters wide and consists of 7 segments.
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/
It’s been a long day with lots going on but I’m now on LNER’s 19:45 from Leeds to Kings Cross to stay with a friend overnight ready for an early start to a job in the capital tomorrow morning. I’d have left earlier but I had an important appointment over in the Colne valley which I didn’t want to miss, so I didn’t leave Huddersfield until after 19:00.
Even so, I’ve had a productive day at home, scribbling for a living as well as sorting out some of the huge backlog of pictures I have from Germany and Greece. Dawn’s been just as busy, working from home and getting back up to speed with Community Rail Network business. The pair of us are still getting used to be back and in a familiar routine without letting it take over our lives in the way it did before we went on holiday, although that’s easier said than done!
Heading town to London this time of night at this time of week means the trains are fairly empty. That said, it can still be stressful. I had a 15 minute connection at Leeds but as Trans-Pennine Express aren’t exactly paragons of punctuality you do have that thought that you might end up being seriously delayed at the back of your mind. As it was, the Hull service I was catching from Huddersfield was only a couple of minutes late, although it lost more time stuck outside Leeds waiting for a late-running LNER service from London – which turned out to be the train I was catching! So, my connection at Leeds was assured – as was a late departure.
91127 being readied to push its train to London Kings Cross
The set in question was a rake of Mk4 coaches pushed by Inter-City liveried 91127. As it’s a fairly uiet train (just not according to the reservation system) I’ve easily bagged a table in the quiet coach behind the loco to set up my mobile office. That said, we’re now speeding South from Doncaster and the ride is ‘lively’ to say the least. My ‘spull chucker’ is having to work overtime correcting the number of missed keystrokes.
The depressing thing about travelling this time of night at this time of year is the whole trip is conducted in darkness. The bright side is that the weather’s still mild – and it’s not raining – well, until I’m working tomorrow, anyway!
Precisely what I’m doing and where tomorrow morning is embargoed, but what I can say is that it involves a rather exciting visit to an important High Speed 2 railway worksite. All will be revealed in the morning…
Right now I’m going to kick back on the train and enjoy the journey. Catch you later!
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/
Time to wind down! Yesterday’s community rail awards was a brilliant event but it certainly kept me busy! I was editing pictures of the award winners until late into the evening back at the hotel, but the company was good as the CRN staff and helpers (along with some of the attendees) were winding down over a few drinks. This morning Dee and were part of a group who visited one of the post-awards events laid on by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM). In our case it was a visit to the old Castlefield viaduct which has been turned into a mini version of New York’s ‘high’ line.
The Castlefield Viaduct has only been open for a matter of months (it opened on the 30th July) but it’s well worth a visit. It’s managed by the National Trust and plans for the future are very much out for consultation at the moment.
Sadly, it was the only event we could attend as we had to head back across the Pennines to prepare for another event. Tomorrow the pair of us disappear off on holiday to the island of Rhodes. We’ve certainly picked the right time as today the rain’s been bucketing down, both in Manchester and here in the Pennines as I write this. In contrast, Rhodes should be a balmy 27 degrees – as well as sunny and dry! Whilst I’ve had several work trips abroad recently (and we had a mini-break in Berlin with friends) this will be Dawn and mine’s first proper holiday abroad since Covid struck. To say we’re both looking forward to it would be an understatement.
I won’t be going ‘off-grid’ completely as us freelances rarely have that luxury, but I will be letting social media take a backseat. Expect some pictures but not a huge amount else – unless we get rained in (which is unlikely).
In the meantime, here’s today’s picture which is from our visit to the Castlefield Viaduct. The NT have done an awful lot in a short time, but they welcome feedback from people on the direction of the project.
When I get time (on holiday) I’ll upload the rest of the pictures to my Zenfolio picture website – along with hundreds of pictures from Holland, Germany and the UK I have in the queue.
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/
Today’s the day of the awards in Manchester so Dawn and I have been up early to head off to the event to help in the preparation, not that there should be too much to do as it’s always a well-organised event with a good team behind it. Even so, we’ll be on-hand if needed and to go through the rehearsal later in the day. There’ll be a fair bit of time-killing too, so expect a few pictures of Manchester to appear at some point. The beauty of the event being in Manchester this year is that it’s on our doorstep. The awards visits different towns and cities every year. For example, last year we were in Southampton and we’ve been everywhere from Plymouth to Glasgow and all points in-between.
Right now, the pair of us are on the 08:05 train from Sowerby Bridge to Manchester Victoria, having driven down to the station ‘cos we’ve got so much kit. This brings me to my first picture. Sowerby Bridge has a fairly big station var-park. It was almost full by the time we arrived. Cars were already lining the street outside. But, hang on. I though those opposed to us building new railways like High Speed 2 swore blind it wasn’t needed because everyone’s working from home nowadays. Clearly, a lot of citizens of the Calder Valley didn’t get the memo!
Getting through the ticket barriers at Manchester Victoria was a bit of a scrum too…
10:50.
We’re here at Manchester Central where the awards will be held tonight. In another few hours this auditorium will be full of people…
Paul Bigland 