A long day

This morning the taxi came at 7.00am to pick me up to take me to Heathrow.

I caught a mid morning flight to Texas, where I then spent 3 1/2 hours on the ground  before  catching another flight to central America. Total time traveling: 21 Hours. Time spent in hotel room before falling asleep: 10 minutes.

Hopefully some interesting days to come.

High Speed 2

First things first.

I live in the beautiful Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, to the North West of London. Designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and part of the Green Belt, supposedly safeguarded land.

I like where I live, and moved here for some very specific reasons which include peace & quiet, natural beauty and an abundance of Flora and Fauna. I particularly like the fact that I live in an area that packs in an unbelievable number of Red Kites.

Recently the current government announced its plans for 'High Speed 2', a high speed train line to link London with Birmingham and eventually cities further North. The preferred route will head through West London before diving into a tunnel just before the M25, traveling underground for several miles before emerging to desecrate the landscape somewhere in the Great Missenden area. The line would then continue through the AONB towards Aylesbury and then on towards Birmingham.

The total width of the line and associated workings will be approximately 25 metres wide - the same as the length of a typical municipal swimming pool.

This afternoon I traveled on a Chiltern Railways train from Aylesbury to Amersham - the stretch of line between Wendover, Great Missenden and Amersham passes through some fantastic scenery. The thought of that countryside being forever blighted by a 25 metre wide concrete scar, with electric pylons and express trains passing through every two and a half minutes is not something that fills me with glee. Many people feel the same.

As the proposed route is the preferred choice of the existing Labour government, it is natural that their manifesto has the most specific detail on the proposals. Explicitly it says:

Rebuilding our transport infrastructure

Britain needs to invest in modern, high-capacity and low-carbon transport infrastructure. At the heart of our growth plan is the commitment to a new high-speed rail line, linking North and South. Built in stages, the initial line will link London to Birmingham, Manchester, the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds, and then to the North and Scotland. By running through-trains from day one, cities including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Liverpool will also be part of the initial network. Journey times will be slashed – those from the West Midlands to London will be as little as 31 minutes. We will consult fully on legislation to take forward our high-speed rail plans within the next Parliament.

I am not overly keen on the proposed route tearing up and through, as it will, a relatively nice part of the South East of our Green and Pleasant Land. I will admit to breathing a sigh of relief that none of the three preferred routes in the HS2 Report cut through or near the valley where I live. Call me a nimby if you like.

The Conservative Party's election manifesto states:

We will begin work immediately on a high speed rail line connecting London and Heathrow with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, with construction beginning in 2015, as the first step towards our vision of a national network joining up cities across England, Scotland and Wales. Stage two will deliver two new lines bringing the North East, Scotland and Wales into our high speed rail network.

What worries me about this is the directly stated intention to connect HS2 to Heathrow Airport. The reason this causes me concern is the lack of specifics on the stated route that such a line would follow - one possibility is that from being a reasonably content but unhappy nimby, I would become an "Oh my God you've got to knock my house down" nimby. That is not a good position to be in. A level of ambiguity and uncertainty that leads me to dislike a Conservative manifesto pledge.

The Liberal Democrats' transport policy is exceedingly wishy washy on HS2 simply stating:

Only the Liberal Democrats have costed plans to put the passenger first, with plans for a rail renaissance, reopening closed railway lines and new stations and building a High Speed Network to cut journey times to Scotland and the north of England.

So, I have previously been open about my political leanings. I need to cast a vote inside of two weeks. What difference will my single vote make in the context of a relatively safe-seat parliamentary constituency?

I know which political party I believe will be best for the country. I know which party's view is least worst for me on HS2. I know which is potentially the worst for me, and I know which one says nothing to help me form any opinion.

Conundrum, conundrum.

Interesting Routing on the way to Heathrow

In the lead up to UK airports re-opening last night, for some unknown reason I was wittering on about flight paths and made specific observations about Flight BA84 from Vancouver to Heathrow.

For the record, this image shows the merry dance that the flight made over the British Isles before becoming the first flight to land at Heathrow after 5 1/2 days.

The image is from flightradar24.com. Please click on the picture for a much larger version.

So what about the flight from Lusaka?

Flight BA254 has just taken off from Barcelona and is due to land at London Heathrow at 00.50 tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

It would appear that night time flying restrictions have been lifted tonight for the world's busiest international airport.

I have a colleague and his family stuck in Cyprus with another stuck in Madrid - I wonder how long before I see them.

It has been really quite pleasant having aeroplane free skies for the last few days. I have family who live in Twickenham, very close to the Heathrow flight path - it's back to the usual noise levels for them.

Happy flying!

I think that Heathrow Airport is about to open

I've been blogging for the last couple of hours about BA flights wandering aimlessly over the skies of North Western Europe.

NATS made an announcement an hour ago which said

Statement on Icelandic volcanic eruption: Tuesday April 20, 2040

Response to CAA statement

NATS has received new direction from the UK’s safety regulator, the CAA, on applying restrictions to UK airspace following the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

As soon as revised accurate information is available from the Met Office on the location of the dense ash cloud, NATS will review

airspace availability and provide an update to airline operators on any airspace that has been restricted for safety reasons. We will i

ssue a further statement by 2200.

Now take a look at this image - What do you reckon?

Lost in space...

... or perhaps that should be 'How to throw the losing dice'?

This image, from the excellent radarvituel.com shows four long haul British Airways jets currently heading for Heathrow.

So long as you are not geographically challenged, you may notice a slight problem.

The planes left Lagos (Nigeria), Calgary (Canada), Vancouver (Canada) and Beijing (China).

Houston, I think we have a problem!

Whether they end up in Madrid or Paris (either of which looks possible), I think if I were a passenger, I would rather have been diverted to Newcastle or Durham Tees Valley, both of which appear to be capable of receiving flights at this moment in time.

Ho hum.

20.30 I think the most easterly of the four planes was from Beijing and that plane landed at Amsterdam's Schipol airport. The 'orange' flight from Calgary is due to land at Paris CDG, the flight from Lagos has just done a circuit over the Channel Islands and doesn't seem to know what it is doing while the flight from Vancouver is currently doing lots of circuits over the Irish Sea.

20.50 The flight from Vancouver appeared to be about to land in Dublin, but then headed out over the Irish Sea again.

20.57 I've just noticed that flight BA254 from Lusaka (Zambia) appears to have done an about turn just South of the French coast and may now be heading for Spain? This looks interesting.

21.09 I hope the B747 from Lagos has plenty of fuel - it is still doing circles over the Cherbourg peninsular. The Vancouver flight is currently over Chester at 26,000 feet and heading South East towards Birmingham (currently closed). It must be an interesting evening on both of these planes.

21.20 The fligh from Lusaka appears to be heading for Barcelona and is currently descending through 17,000 feet. The Vancouver flight got as far South as Stratford-Upon-Avon and then did an about turn and has now done a circuit over Birmingham! The Lagos flight is still going round in circles.

21.27 I can't find the Lusaka flight any more. I am getting bored. You must be!

21.33 Just a thought... I wonder whether BA are trying to bully the UK authorities into letting them land at Heathrow. Currently there is a flight from Vancouver doing circles over Birmingham, a flight from San Fransisco that did a fantastic dance off the West coast of Ireland and which is now heading for the Welsh Coast, a flight from Lagos whic is still doing circles off the French coast, a flight from Los Angeles currently over Plymouth and a further two from Abuja (Nigeria) and Mauritius which have been circling over France and which are now heading across the English Channel.

A Busy Day

Today, I have been to Newcastle Upon Tyne for the day.

Two reasons - lunch with relatives, and to watch Saracens beat Newcastle Falcons away, 22 - 15.

I am not sure which was better, but it was a good day.

Departure from Chateau Centraluser in Rural Buckinghamshire was at 8.05 am this morning, arrival back was at 10.00pm just now. Not bad really seeing as we only landed at Heathrow at 9.09 pm and got off the plane at 9.21pm.


Can't rabbit on all night as I have to catch a train at stupid o'clock in the morning as it is to be, I think, my busiest day of the year at work.

Ho hum - well at least the rugby team I support are at the top of the table again.

Well, I never knew that!

Driving North and East past Heathrow Airport yesterday morning, for the first time ever, I noticed that arriving planes were using both the North and South Runways at the same time.

Five minutes of searching the interweb thingy has failed to reveal when this practice started, but I guess it must be a good thing if it helps get planes onto the ground quicker. Obviously it can only be done when there are relatively few departing aircraft.

During my only partially successful research I found this whizzy technical tool, Webtrak, guaranteed to give hours of endless fun to those so minded.

PR Fluff

Transport for London put out a Press Release yesterday titled "Customers benefit from new Piccadilly line timetable". What a load of Public Relations rubbish.

"The Piccadilly line is unique because it serves the heart of the West End's tourist and entertainment districts as well as Heathrow Airport."

• Yes..... and??? The Central Line is unique because it serves Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road. The Circle Line is unique because it goes round in a circle (for now). The Victoria Line is unique because.........
  

"Changes were made to the timetable in 2008"

• So why put a press release out in the middle of 2009?
  

"In recent years, rising passenger numbers have meant that trains have to stop at stations for longer while extra customers get on and off trains, leading to an increasing level of late running and delay."

• Doesn't this happen on every line?

Talk about useless piffle. I could go on, but I won't.

So, What's Been Going On Then?

Last Saturday's post was posted 'on the hoof' from my Father's laptop while sat in my Grandmother's front room. All a bit of fun really to prove to Grandma that she was 'On The Internet'.

I needn't have bothered, because I subsequently remembered another family blog with loads of pictures. My plan was to subsequently remove the post- I then realised that that could be construed as wrong, it is however simply an example of the way that social blogging works. I have however abbreviated some specific proper names down to ensure that this remains a virtually anonymous blog.

No that isn't a challenge to 'Out' my identity (Hercule Poirot would have no difficulty in that), it is just the way I prefer things to be.

So, what have I been up to?

• Sunday: Well, following a family birthday party in the North-East of England last Saturday, the rest of my immediate family left for home on Sunday morning. After lunch with Grandma in a local hotel we went for a ride up Swaledale and Arkengarthdale (in the hire car) stopping for a couple of minutes at the Tan Hill Inn. The Tan Hill is Britain's highest pub at 1,732ft above sea level. I know it might not seem very high to those used to continental mountains, but it really is in the middle of nowhere. Swaledale is where I come from and I get quite emotional even thinking about it. I am a country bumpkin at heart and very proud of it.
• Monday: I was set to work digging up sundry rose bushes, followed by the digging, weeding and bonemealing of the raspberries. Honour done. After lunch we went on a monster drive of the North Yorkshire Moors taking in Saltburn on the way we went to Whitby, Goathland, Pickering, Helmsley and then back via Thirsk and Northallerton. Four hours and about 130 miles. Fantastic scenery.
• Tuesday saw me on a lunchtime flight from Durham Tees Valley back to Heathrow, the 140 bus home and then (via the Central Line) to the London Palladium to see The Sound of Music with my parents. This is a good week!
• Wednesday was a chill out day, though in the afternoon I went out to leafy Buckinghamshire (and also not so leafy High Wycombe) on Chiltern Railways. All will become clear in due course.
• Thursday was a day of domestics with a quick trip to Ealing (Central Line and First Great Western) thrown in for good luck.
• Friday was a correspondence day with a late shop thrown in (repeat of Thursday).
• Saturday is well... now and I'm still at home.

Well if that hasn't done enough to shake off the die hard readers, I am not sure what to do next!

Pip pip!

Year in a Nutshell

January: I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but I thought I would at least start 2006 by starting this blog.

February: An early trip to Heathrow Terminal 4 this morning to meet my father who was returning from a five week visit to Delhi in India.

March: I was fortunate enough to be skiing last week in Kitzbuhel, Austria.

April: Having seen off the Spring downpour at lunchtime today, it turned into a pleasant afternoon.

May: A short while ago I made a post entitled 'Chavs On The Line'.

June: Central Line users will be well aware that Queensway Station has been closed for over a year for refurbishment work.

July: Sorry about the gap, almost as big as the one between the train and the platform at Bank.

August: Baker Street London Underground Station was closed today between about 09:30am and 6:00pm due to a major gas leak outside the station.

September: Following my post earlier in the week, here are the brief descriptions again, along with the names/locations of the airports to which they refer.

October: Today is the day of The Great North Run.

November: It was only after chatting about this with a former station announcer earlier this evening, that I remembered that I had forgotten to blog a recent incident.

December: Actually, what I mean is they are poo.

If you need any clarifications, please scroll down to the Archives on the right.

Thanks to The Coffee Table for the idea.

First Great Western have no sense of history

Actually, what I mean is they are poo. They couldn't catch a cold, are as much use as a chocolate teapot and do not deserve the word 'Great' in their company name.

Today there are some invisible engineering works which mean that the Heathrow Connect services from London Paddington have been cancelled. Also the 1/2 hourly service between London Paddington and Greenford has been replaced by an hourly train between Greenford and Hanwell plus a replacement bus service between Ealing Broadway and Greenford.

I suggest the works are invisible only because I have just spent 45 minutes standing at Hanwell waiting for a train to Greenford and can confirm that (1) all four mainline tracks are in use and (2) there is no mention of engineering works in the are on either the National Rail site or the First Great Western Site. There may well be some works going on somewhere, but goodness knows where.

The train to Greenford never arrived. Other travellers and myself ended up catching a train back to Ealing Broadway, then getting the Central Line (changing at North Acton) back out to our destinations. Not so much as a by your leave from the cretins at the railway company in charge of communicating with their passengers.

Dictionary.com has an abundance of definitions for the word Great. You may wish to remind yourself of some of them. The company has 'Great Western' in its name as a historical reminder of the Great Western Railway. There is no comparison. Anyone with any sense of railway history will know that a mention of GWR is highly evocative: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Box Tunnel, the age of steam and Victorian Britain. The modern day company has purple trains that run late, stations with clocks that don't function for months on end and no real evidence of appreciating that their passengers are anything other than cattle.

First Great Western should remove the word Great from their name forthwith. They do not deserve it and certainly will have no positive impact on the history of railways in this country, if my experiences are anything to go by.

I also missed out on the unusual train journey from Hanwell to Drayton Green, a very short stretch of line that does not usually carry passenger trains.

With Clockwork Precision...

The plane touched down at Heathrow at 22:45 and got to the gate at 22:50, five minutes early.

Straight to the bus station (my toothpaste had been dutifully wrapped in a clear plastic bag), Night Bus within two minutes and in the front door 45 minutes after landing. Result!

I now have to spend £1,500 renewing my season ticket. Back to the Central Line in the morning.

A Flying Visit

Caught a flight yesterday morning from Heathrow up to Durham Tees Valley (Teesside Airport to you and me). The flight landed 15 minutes early and I was at my Grandmother's by 12 Noon.

Today we went up to Washington, Tyne & Wear, to visit relatives and to have a sumptuous tea. When I spoke to my Aunt last week she had said "I'll bake a cake." My Grandma and I turned up to be faced with a fantastic entirely freshly home baked high tea.

By the time we left at 18:35, the weather had got fairly squally. Down the A1M to North Yorkshire and then off to Teesside (DTVA) at 20:10. Appalling weather so no chance to put the speedy sporty whizzy hire car to the test (well hardly). I'm now sat in the departure lounge waiting for the 21:50 flight as the rain batters against the windows. Let's hope the flight doesn't get cancelled as the weather really is grotty.

I am so looking forward to getting back to London and to work tomorrow (NOT)!

How to go to Greenford by bus from Hounslow?

Why would you want to?

Hounslow covers a fairly large area to the east of London's Heathrow Airport while Greenford appears to be a poorly defined area (based on state of the public transport infrastructure) in the London Borough of Ealing, neatly bi-sected by the A40 Western Avenue.

While I say 'Why would you want to?', I am not questioning anybody's desire to leave Hounslow, or their desire to get to Greenford. I am simply questioning the rationale for limiting the transport options to bus only as, so far as I can see, there is no direct bus link between the two towns.

While I am no fan of Uncle Ken, the Journey Planner on the TFL website is a useful tool to answer this sort of question.

Now, I am not going to start acting as a travel consultant to the rich & famous (or indeed to anyone else) but, to answer the question:

• Catch a 120 Bus towards Northolt and then, after about 40 minutes change onto an E6 to Greenford.
• Personally I would go at least part of the way by tube- I get really frustrated by the traffic snarl-ups in the Southall area (which is where the 120 bus usually gets stuck).

Burning the Candles at Both End

I had to go to Glasgow earlier in the week. Up at 04:45 to catch a bus to Heathrow Airport. Caught the 07:00 flight to Glasgow. Hung around for an extra hour because the colleague I was meeting's plane had been sat on the tarmac at Stansted for an unexpected extra hour and then we were off to a day of customer meetings.

The return flight touched down at LHR at just after 21:00 and I was home by 22:00, absolutely shattered. Travelling for work is NOT glamorous.

It became apparent the next morning that I had sapped too much energy, because I woke up with the begining of a cold. Grrrr!

Fast forward to last night. Straight from work to babysitting my Niece and Nephew in the Richmond area. Little darlings... eldest one (10) did eventually snap out of being half a nightmare, took herself off to get ready for bed and then read me a six page chapter from her book, really well.

Younger one (7) is very wearing. I have no parenting skills and didn't manage to get him off to bed (and to stay there) until 22:15. Dinner then went in the oven.

My little sister and her husband got back well after midnight but I chose not to stay over.

Sometimes... public transport in London can be brilliant...

Bus at 00:30 to the Piccadilly Line, very late train to Heathrow airport, Night Bus home. No longer than a two minute wait for anything (one connection was five seconds!) and home by 01:25. Result!

Dose of Nightnurse. Woke up at 11:00. Washing machine on. Haircut later.

Airport Security Checks (Part 2 - The Answers)

Following my post earlier in the week, here are the brief descriptions again, along with the names/locations of the airports to which they refer.

All opinions are mine and are non negotiable unless negotiations include offers of free flights or similar!

• a) Hi-tech (digital photo taken, barcode placed on boarding pass). Small queues. Efficient. (Durham Tees Valley)
• b) Massive queue but well managed. Loads of tourists getting stuff confiscated. Grave danger of missing flight if extra time not allowed. (Edinburgh)
  
• c) Ten Minutes from getting off bus to being in departure lounge. No queue. Efficient and effective. (London Heathrow)
  
• d) Officious. Over the top. Plenty of staff. (Newquay, Cornwall)
  

Airport Security Checks (Part 1)

For reasons I won't bore you with, I have travelled through four UK airports in the last week or so.

In alphabetical order, those airports are:

1. Durham Tees Valley (Teeside)
2. Edinburgh
3. London Heathrow
4. Newquay

Now, see if you can match the following descriptions of my experiences of the security checks at each airport:

• a) Hi-tech (digital photo taken, barcode placed on boarding pass). Small queues. Efficient.
• b) Massive queue but well managed. Loads of tourists getting stuff confiscated. Grave danger of missing flight if extra time not allowed.
• c) Ten Minutes from getting off bus to being in departure lounge. No queue. Efficient and effective.
• d) Officious. Over the top. Plenty of staff.

I'll provide the answers in a day or so.

The Crossroad of the World

An early trip to Heathrow Terminal 4 this morning to meet my father who was returning from a five week visit to Delhi in India. He was well and was pleased to see my mother and I, though I suspect he will be glad to be home. There will no doubt be plenty of pictures and stories to see and hear over the coming months.

For those who don't know, London Heathrow is the World's busiest international airport and early morning is when a huge proportion of the long-haul flights arrive. You certainly see all sorts of people and every emotion!

For stalkers, the route today was:

• Out: Bus 140 to LHR123; Heathrow Express (free) to Terminal 4.
• Back: Rail replacement Coach to Hatton Cross, Piccadillly Line to Northfields, E2 bus to West Ealing, to Greenford on First Great Western Link, then the last leg on the Central Line.

Not a single hitch either way, so having got up at 5.30am I can now go for a snooze before I get on with my weekend tasks.

Too good to be true?

I've done a lot of travelling around this week. By way of example:

1 Day: Central line to Bond Street, Jubilee Line to Waterloo, South West Trains to Portsmouth Harbour, Fast Cat to Ryde, Train down Pier, Train back up Pier, Fast Cat to Portsmouth Harbour, South West Trains to Clapham Junction, South West Trains to sister's house, bus to Hounslow, tube home. On time all day. Fantastic! The reason for the journey was less happy.

2 Day: Bus to Heathrow, Plane to Glasgow, Bus to Glasgow City Centre, Bus back to Glasgow International Airport, Plane to Heathrow (left 20 minutes late, but landed on time), bus home. On time the whole day.

The above were on Wednesday and Thursday. On other days I have been using the Underground, Chiltern Railways and First Great Western Link. All without a single delay or problem all week.

Today I'm off down to Hampshire via Reading and Basingstoke. It usually works well, but I've no doubt just put a jinx on it.

Have a good weekend.