All is calm, all is bright

Actually, it's not that bright, but all is calm.

After last night's storm, Chiltern Railways have managed to run most trains, albeit with some quite long delays. 

My train of choice this morning was cancelled - where I live we are often the first to be sacrificed. However I am now sat at the back of the six carriage loco-hauled Chiltern Blue & Grey set. Yes, we are running late, but there are only seven people sat in the carriage, so it is rather soporific. 

Mind you, there is one grumpy old man who ranted that 'They've had all year to check the lines'. Eh? Some people!

South West Trains are running no trains before 10.00 am and other Train Operating Companies are operating very limited services due to various safety / infrastructure issues. 

By contrast, Chiltern started to time and have tried to run the best service that they can. 

Commercially (unlike other TOCs), Chiltern Railways are enforcing ticket restrictions today. Given the paucity of passengers and the worry caused by the Christmas Eve weather, this decision appears Scrooge like, and hopefully will be reviewed as the big chiefs get to work. 

I'll be on a de-restricted Advance ticket this afternoon, on an East Coast train. 

Anyhow, to my reader wherever you are, have a very Happy Christmas!

The Impossible

Boxing Day 2004.

Due to an overflowing family home, I had been spending Christmas as a neighbour's house guest. I was woken to be told that there had been a large tidal wave in the Indian Ocean. It appeared to be a calamity for the area.

"Oh, OK", I seem to recall was my immediate reaction. Of coursse I had not realised that the Boxing Day Tsunami, caused by an under sea earthquake just before 1.00 am London Time, was to be one of the largest natural disasters to have struck our planet in recent recorded history.

I do recall that the disaster became the focus of world attention for the following weeks, with hundreds of thousands of people having lost their lives cross South East Asia.

Eight years later and the New Year Blockbuster (in the UK) appears to be 'The Impossible', a dramatisation of the real life story of a family on holiday in Thailand, who were split up by the phenomenal tidal wave that engulfed vast swathes of coastal areas in that country and many of its neighbours.

Unlike the other films that I have seen this year, the cinema was almost full. The audience was also incredibly quiet, gripped by the powerful drama unfolding in front of us. How they filmed some of the sequences I shall never know. Certainly though, the drama and cinematography may be considered epic.

The headline star is Ewan McGregor, but really, Naomi Watts and Tom Holland steal the show. Having said that, the entire cast and the production quality are incredible.

I have said something similar before, but unless you have a massive television set with a cinematic suurround sound system, do go and see this film while it is on at the cinema. It will enthrall you.

At the end, I left the cinema exhausted - so well does it portray what must be such a small part of what was such an enormous disaster.

December 2012 - Back to normal numbers

This month turned out to be vaguely average for the month. With the Christmas break I would have expected it to dip more, but the numbers were boosted by a trip over the holiday period up to the North East on East Coast Trains (and very good they were too).

For the record:

Operator	Miles Travelled
Chiltern Railways	3,275.7875
EastCoast	465.25
London Midland	18.7375
South Eastern	5.2875
Total for Month	3,765.0625

I'll post an annual summary a little bit later. I hope you are having a good evening.

Sugar Rush for the End of the Year

I've had three days at work this week - as usual it was surprisingly busy (primarily because enough people were allowed to take the week between Christmas & New Year as holiday).

After work on ThursdayI had a house party to go to, which was most pleasant. So much so that I had to return yesterday evening to retrieve my car. Hic!

Tonight is off to some friends to see in the New Year. I said that I would supply the desert.

There won't be that many of us. I think I may have gone overboard.....

Happy New Year!

End of holiday family evening

Tonight we had a really good (for me) end to the family Christmas.

Six of us went along to Twickenham for the Harlequins -v- Saracens rugby match.

There was a sell out 82,000 capacity crowd, a world record for a normal club rugby match. Saracens beat Harlequins 19 points to 11, breaking the Harlequins' all season unbeaten run in the Premiership. Hah! Merry Christmas!

The temperature was remarkably mild for a 1630 end of December kick-off. The ages of our party ranged from 13 to 69 and we all had a good time.

Next, we have to beat Gloucester at Vicarage Road on New Year's Day. Roll on Sunday!

How not to speak to customers

I don't do it very often, but I am going to name and shame.

This evening I went out to try to complete my usual last minute Christmas shopping.

I was in the ladies department of House of Fraser in the Eden Shopping Centre in High Wycombe.

I sought advice from a shop assistant as to style suitability for a top for my Mother. I do try not to buy vouchers every year. The response I got was:

"No, my Grandmother wouldn't like that."

Ouch!

Birmingham Christmas Market

Earlier this week I was up in Birmingham, for work, when the receptionist told me that the annual Christmas Market was setting up. She was most excited about the prospect.

The Birmingham City Council microsite certainly bigged it up so, this morning, I decided to nip up to take a look.

I was actually quite impressed.

To begin with I walked from Snow Hill station to Victoria Square where to start with I was mildly under-whelmed. However further exploration revealed that the market also stretched the full length of New Street and there really are quite a lot of stalls.

There are unsurprisingly lots of outlets selling Germanic food and drink, but there are also lots of handicraft stalls selling everything from candles through to fruit bowls, clothing and general nic-nacs. Many of the outlets and artisans are local, but there are also plenty of our continental friends who have come over to give the market a truly authentic feel.

I recommend a visit. If possible, I suggest that you arrive as early as you can - by the time I emerged from the stalls at the bottom of New Street, it was really getting rather busy.

The market is open daily from 10.00am to 9.00pm daily from now until Friday 23rd December 2011.

Travel was by Chiltern Railway. They currently have a rather spiffing weekend offer (make sure you follow the instructions and follow the terms & conditions) enabling people to travel across their network for £10.

All in all, a good way to warm up into the Christmas spirit.

The same again (but not quite)

I hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas.
Back to the grindstone this morning, although I do hope to be able to bunk off early today to attend a family celebration in Hampshire.
In one way, this morning's journey to work has been remarkably similar to last year's return from the Christmas break. I was the only person to board the train at my station.
The principal difference to last year is that the train was already a third full. That is unusual for a normal day. A check of the timetable shows that the train has come from Banbury - that explains why everybody looks half asleep.
It seems that we are following a First Great Western service (on diversion from Oxford) and a train that started from High Wycombe. The result - only a handful more people have got on since I did and we are now running fast to Marylebone.
I've just noticed that, according to Live Departure Boards, the first two FGW trains from Oxford are due to stop at West Ruislip (interchange with the Central Line). I cannot say that this is a first, but it is certainly highly unusual.

Christmas Greetings

I would like to wish my reader a very Happy Christmas and all best wishes for a fruitful, happy and peaceful New Year.

Apologies for the re-use of the card, but I like it!

CU

Chiltern Railways This Morning

It's Christmas Eve, I am going to work and I am just about ready. Ready, that is, except for the wrapping and the packing.

Chiltern Railways should have been running a special Christmas Eve timetable today. They are, but I think it's a "Special Special" timetable. At this moment, believe nothing except the Chiltern Railway's website as to what is going on.

Why?

Well, after two days of fairly well organised chaos, station Passenger Information Screens are either wrong or blank. Also the Live Departure Feed on the National RAil website is displaying a normal timetable.

On the up side, today is a long train and the front carriages only 50% full. It must be like the Marie Celeste at the back.

Sent from my iPhone

Ghost Busters

For the last two mornings, I've had the station platform to myself.
This morning, someone else joined me for the lonely journey to work. The front two carriages of the train were totally empty, so our ghost busting skills were needed before it was safe to sit down.
I can only assume that solitary passengers had got on at each of the previous stations, to be quickly subsumed by the apparitions. [Either that or they had decided to stay in bed.]
Always travel in numbers! We have since been joined by a few more people, so I think we are safe now.
On a BAU front, Chiltern Railways are running a good service at present, with extra late night trains home tonight.
If you want a copy of the special timetable, do ask at your local staffed CR station, they've got loads. I think this is because the paper versions only arrived from the printers just in time for Christmas.
After some very early morning niggles, the London Underground service now appears to be running to plan.
I can also report that the M25 motorway is quiet and running well near the roadworks in the Junction 17 area.

Stepping back in time

As we approach the end of the first decade of the Twenty First Century, it seems that many people are taking stock of what has happened to them over the last ten years. Please indulge me while I do the same.

Ever since I was at school I have enjoyed photography. I used to spend hours in the darkroom developing black & white film after black & white film. Hardly anything got printed - I remember that film cost about a penny a frame whereas it cost at least five times that much for a sheet of photographic paper.

Moving forward to the last couple of weeks of the Twentieth Century, I learnt an important lesson about modern technology. Anything that needs power needs power. I know it's obvious, but I spent those weeks in the mountains of Nepal - a long way from electricity or any source of replacement batteries.

My old Minolta SLR camera sucked the juice out of AAA batteries like you wouldn't believe. Combine that with huge contrasts in temperature between day and night, and my camera quickly became all but inoperable. My little APS camera, with it's funny shaped film cassettes, just about lasted the course, though I did have to make sure that I kept it as warm as I could.

So, all in all, while a great trip, photographically speaking the holiday was not a resounding success.

This picture was taken on Christmas Day 1999. It was scanned from a long lost print on a scanner that came out of the ark.

It does however mean a lot to me. The peak with the cloud blowing off the top is Mount Everest. You will see many better pictures of the tallest mountain on the planet, but as far as memories go, it was a great place to spend the last days of the previous millennium.

B.N.M.

I hope you had a good Christmas. I did, though I suspect that far too much turkey was consumed than was strictly necessary.

Back to the grindstone for me today.

I note that the Bakerloo Line is closed until 3rd January 2010 between Queens Park and Stonebridge Park for engineering work. It may slow my journey to work, we'll just have to wait and see.

Chiltern Railways are running an amended timetable today. The station car park was totally empty this morning and I was the only passenger on the platform.

Billy No Mates.

Just the two of us

Yes, that's just the two of us - in my carriage of what is usually the busiest commuter train into London from my local station.

Merry Christmas!

Some good news

A cursory glance at the Departure Boards for the Bakerloo Line would suggest that the 4 day suspension of service in Zone 1 (for engineering works) is over. That means that Bakerloo Line trains are once again running to all destinations.

Now for a depressing thought. Today (31st August 2009) is a bank holiday in the UK. The next time we have a bank holiday, you will have hopefully finished any Christmas shopping you were going to do.

So you got a new bag for Christmas...

I can see you got a new bag for Christmas. It looks as though it might have a laptop in it. It may only contain a few manky sandwiches, but I can't tell. Your bag is well attached to your shoulders. Up in the real world it is quite cold, so it may be helping to keep your back warm.

However, the Jubilee Line at Baker Street in the morning rush hour is not the place to be impersonating a camel. Take the bloody thing off your back and let some more people on the train.

Thank you.

Shopping Trip

As it is nearly Twelfth Night, I thought I ought to get the Christmas present my parents had promised (and which I had asked for).

I am much more M&S than Prada, but no joy yesterday at the M&S store in High Wycombe.

This afternoon I decided to venture a little further to the new Westfield shopping centre in West London. I did pay a brief visit before Christmas, but it was then too busy for my liking.

It appears to have settled down a little now, in terms of the crowds, and I managed to purchase the coat I was looking for in the unsurprisingly modern M&S. I also latched onto a ridiculously expensive ski suit in Ellis Brigham that I first saw at the London Ski Show a couple of months ago, but fortunately managed to keep my plastic firmly in my pocket for that.

Getting to Westfield was quite straight forward. A Chiltern Railways stopping service saw me change to the Central Line at West Ruislip and it was then plain sailing to White City. I arrived at White City only two minutes after my first train would have arrived at Marylebone, so it was definitely the best way to go. Returning home was the same trip in reverse.

Edit:Westfield transport links are shown here (click image):

**Eden photo by kingpin1055**

And the wind down begins....

Well, the Underground was particularly quiet this morning.

My 'big train' to rural Buckinghamshire (en-route to Birmingham), mid-afternoon, was packed to the gunnels.

A very Happy Christmas to my reader.

Chiltern Railways are running to a special timetable over Christmas and New Year, with no trains whatsoever on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. A copy is available to download here (walk to your manned Chiltern station if on dial-up).

London Transport Christmas and New Year travel arrangements are still available here.

Christmas & New Year Travel Guide for London

Transport for London (aka tfl) have today published a Travel Guide to getting around London over Christmas and New year.

It weighs in at a hefty 2Mb and is in pdf format. For now the guide is available here, but if they move or change the file name, please let me know.

A summary is:

• Christmas Eve 2008: Most stuff finishes early
• Christmas Day 2008: London stops
• Boxing Day 2008: London starts to get going again, except for the Jubilee Line (no service Friday, Saturday or Sunday), the Metropolitan Line (no service) and the Waterloo & City Line. There are also other station closures on the Bakerloo, Central, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Northern Lines.

• There are also pages and pages of guidance should you be in London on New Year's Eve.

It isn't possible to summarise here all the travel changes detailed in a 25 page guide, so I recommend you obtain a copy if you intend to travel in London over the holiday period.

I note that there is no mention of a corporate sponsor for the free late night travel arrangements on 31st December. The economy really must be in a bad way.

Edit: 2 January 2009. Tfl have removed the guide from their website. At present I do not have any suitably anonymous webspace to host the document. If you can host, please let me know - if you want a copy emailed to you, please let me know. Thank you.

A Happy Ending

First of all a very Happy New Year. I hope you and yours had an enjoyable Christmas.

Tonight I was at a quiet country station in Buckinghamshire waiting to catch a train home to somewhere even quieter, when a youngish man tried to engage me in conversation. The trouble was he couldn't engage in a proper conversation because he appeared to have some form of learning disability. He was carrying a small bag with some clothes but did not seem to know where he was, where he was going or how he got there.

Eventually, after a lengthy conversation he showed me a tag around his neck which had his home address and telephone number printed on it.

Using the Help Point on the platform I was able to contact the Chiltern Railways control centre who were in turn able to contact the man's parents. His Father then set off on a journey of over 80 miles down from Birmingham to collect him. S was left in the safe company of the parking attendant in a warm and cosy hut. I suspect the parking attendant will be having a late night and S & his family an even later one.

I can't even begin to imagine the worry his parents must have been going through. Hopefully S will get home all right - well done to the lady at Chiltern Railways for taking ownership of a really human problem, and to the parking attendant for doing the right thing.

The original title of this post was "A Sad Tale" but, with hindsight, it is always better for the glass to be half full, rather than half empty.