Strange Station Announcement

Announcement just heard:

"Would any passengers for; and Abbey Wood, please make their way to the rear of the station."

Where am I?

Not what was planned

This evening England are to play Mexico in a 'friendly' football match at Wembley Stadium.

Those who are in the know will often choose to travel from central London to Wembley via Marylebone Station.

Chiltern Railways have, this evening, been affected by Signalling problems at Leamington Spa. Unfortunately the same sort of problem is now affecting equipment in the Wembley area.

There do appear to be a small number of train cancellations. London bound trains seem to have delays of about 10 minutes, while Northbound services seem to be worse, at about 25 minutes.

I am not there, but I don't suppose that Marylebone is a sea of tranquility at the moment.

Katla is not erupting

As of 0532 GMT this morning, the Icelandic Met Office stated

"Katla is NOT erupting and there are NO indications that Katla is about to erupt."

Clear enough?

Whatever they say, accurate long term planning for airlines that fly through European airs space will be a little tricky for a while.

Hat Tip to Uncle Bill

Nails anyone?

The Rugby Union team that I support won the Guinness Premiership semi-final on Sunday. Saracens beat Northampton Away by 21 points to 19.

If I were someone who chewed my fingernails, then I would have none left. The game was a scintillating game of rugby that saw two evenly matched teams show off all that is good about the game. I got home with a bit of a sore throat.

Subsequent to the match, and following an incident eight days before at Leicester, Director of Rugby Brendan Venter has been handed a 14 week touchline ban by the RFU. This is to be appealed. The full Saracens statement may be read here. The club is appealing.

There was a second hearing in which Schalk Brits was reprimanded and warned as to his future conduct by a Rugby Football Union disciplinary panel. This is good news - It is probably fair to say that Saracens go into the Final as second-favourites, so the fact that Brits is available to play is a relief. He has made a fantastic contribution to the Saracens since he arrived at the club and now has a week and a half to work with the team to finish preparations for the Final.

I shall now jump in the car to drive to Twickenham - I may have to consider staying over a week on Saturday, just in case a sherbert or two are required. Either that, or go the long way round by train. Weekday rush hour on the M25 followed by South West Trains or the Piccadilly Line (to be decided).... Yumm!

Come on you Sarries! Or should that be "way-a/Lay-o, Lay-o, Lay-o"?

Changing the character of the game

I am a Saracens season ticket holder. We have an important match against Northampton on Sunday - if we win, we will be in the Guinness Premiership Final at Twickenham at the end of the month. I hope Saracens do well.

Last weekend, Saracens played Leicester away, and won. The win was a bit of a surprise to many. I wasn't at the match, but imagine that the Leicester supporters were not happy that their team had lost.

There were a couple of incidents at the match. The RFU have charged the Saracens Director of Rugby with ‘pushing a lady supporter from Leicester RFC’ and with ‘conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Union and/or the Game’. Brendan Venter, the Director of Rugby, is clearly a man of some passion who has been responsible in a distinct uplift in results since arriving at the club.

In my experience, Mr Venter is however a miserable git - I sat about five seats away from him at one away match and it was like sitting near a man with his own personal thunder cloud. It was not a pleasurable experience - there was certainly no bon-homie.

Sarcens have but out a statement relating to the RFU charges, which may be read in full here. It reads well and is nicely polished and full of corporate spin.

One paragraph stands out:

“Brendan was put in an impossible situation at Leicester. Imagine Arsenal playing at Stamford Bridge, and Arsene Wenger being made to watch the game from a seat in the midst of passionate Chelsea season-ticket holders. It would not happen in football, yet that is exactly what happened on Saturday."

Yes, that's the problem. Rugby isn't football. Supporters from opposing sides sit with each other. We can drink beer in our seats and yet remain reasonable human beings.

Clearly as a Director of Rugby Mr Venter has to bring out the best in his players, usually involving some aggression and adrenaline. Mr Venter, leave it on the pitch. We do not want the game of Rugby Union going the way of professional football, where the behaviour of some supporters means that those from opposing teams are segregated. It would totally change the character of the game.

I would hope that rugby clubs would deal with opposing team officials with the utmost courtesy when seating their guests - but it is always down to the individual to behave appropriately. If someone can't stand the heat, then they should get out of the kitchen. It's a lot quieter in the car park.

Sorry. Had to get that off my chest. I am now running late.

A Quotation

"The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity."

Benjamin Disraeli

2010 General Election - Number Crunching

Following Thursday's General Election in the UK, there will no doubt be an ongoing debate about reform of the 'First Past the Post' voting system.

I have extracted the following two tables which aim to show;

(1) The Number of votes / eligible voters per constituency

and

(2) The number of votes it took for each party to obtain each seat.

Two observations:

• The number of electors per constituency is just a number - I don't think my table proves anything, as individual seats range from about 22,500 to as much as 105,000. Such discrepancies cannot be right.
• I absolutely understand why Liberal Democrat voters might feel hacked off.

The arguments can go any way you like - I have neither the will, nor the knowledge, to write a coherent argument either for change or for the status quo.

For me, even acknowledging the view of the Liberal Democrats is an attempt at partisan rehabilitation.

A true story

Two of my neighbours originally came from a country in the southern hemisphere.

While stood at the station this morning, one of them told me that in one local election, his mother did not vote.

The election was a dead heat.

Please don't let the toss of a coin decide who is to be your next Member of Parliament.

Volcanic Ash - The Return

According to RTE, Irish airspace (affecting airports, not the high bit) will close from 7 am tomorrow, 4th May 2010.

The Outer Hebrides are apparently already affected.

As these latest closures are in line with the new internationally agreed guidelines, one can only assume that the ash must be a bit more dense than last time.

Beaconsfield on a Saturday morning

Someone was seriously assaulted late last night on or near the Northbound platform at Beaconsfield station.

It must be bad because a large area of the platform is taped off with various colours of police tape, with the British Transport police in attendance with cameras etc etc. I do hope that the victim recovers. Highly unusual thing to happen for the area.

As of an hour ago trains were stopping, though taxis were picking up and dropping off by the London bound platform.

*******************

While walking over the footbridge, I noticed that someone seems to have been having a good try at nicking the lead from the roof of the station. I have no idea whether this is new damage or old - whatever, it can't be good for the integrity of the station roof.

*******************

It may not have passed your notice that I use Chiltern Railways a lot. I do this because I live a little way out in rural Buckinghamshire and my annual season ticket enables me to let the train take the strain without spending more than I already do.

The only problem with this is that my ticket does not work the barriers at all stations, because Chiltern do not seem to be willing to upgrade the software that enables them to recognise that my ticket is valid, but being used at an intermediate station.

I've never had this problem at Beaconsfield till now.... As of this morning my ticket will no longer open the barriers there. This is going to be a nuisance for me.... I guess the station staff will just get to know me.

Cable

In the current higly politically charged environment surrounding next week's general election, I might be expected to get a bit more political in my observations.

I might be expected to observe how, yesterday, the Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman was pictured on a train from Waterloo. He is obviously a clever man but, caught off-guard, looked to me like a tired old man on his way to a charity board meeting. Maybe if we had more people like him, our politicians would be inclined to do less?

Speaking of cable, overnight some thieving scum-bags have stolen some signalling cable between Banbury and Leamington Spa. This has led to delays and some cancellations to this morning's train services, affecting Chiltern Railways, Cross Country trains and Wrexham & Shropshire.

There are currently masses of people stood on my train (last stop before London - Gerrards Cross). Throw a pebble in the pond and see how far the ripples spread...

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.

Recycling - But please use your vote!

I am not a particularly erudite blogger. By design, I tend to say things about public transport, occasionally I witter on about other things, and now and then I stray into politics.

For those who may not have noticed, the UK has a general election coming up in 11 days. A rare opportunity for some voters to make a difference.

My politics are fairly obvious to those who know me.

A can't stand Gordon Brown, I don't like the politics of the party that Nick Clegg heads up and I feel uneasy about David Cameron, the leader of the party whose policies trend more towards mine than those of the other main parties.

In September 2006 I wrote a post that I titled "This one is politics". A lot has changed in the last three and a half years, particularly from an economic perspective. Fundamentally though, I still believe in what I wrote and I think my words have stood the test of time.

If you are entitled to vote, please do. Vote for whoever you want. Vote for the party which has a leader you like, or vote on the strengths of a good local candidate. Whatever you do though, please use your vote.

If my personal views are not obvious enough, this video may help it become a little more obvious.

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.

For the avoidance of doubt

Last night I was was clearly bored. There will be no repetition. I am not suddenly going to appear at an airport near you with a notepad and pair of binoculars.

Normal service will be resumed.

Very early this morning, the Central Line was suspended between North Acton and West Ruislip, due to over-running engineering work at Perivale.

All appears to be back to normal now as tfl are currently reporting a good service. A random check of the Live Departure Boards concurs with this message. Good thing really as the closure would have knocked out one of the three main train depots for the line.

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.

Yuck - Look away now!

Beaconsfield is a generally charming town in the Chiltern Hills. It has a train station run by Chiltern Railways.

Yesterday (Saturday) at 10 am there was a pile of something rather yucky on the Northbound platform. It wasn't pleasant and was reasonably fresh. Uggh (shudders)!

Today (Sunday) the pile of unpleasantness is still there, looking less fresh, though just as unpleasant.

To be quite frank, the fact that the mess has not been cleared up in 24 hours is just bone-idle laziness. Beaconsfield is a staffed station and I know for a fact that roving station staff (whose jobs include cleaning) were out and about yesterday and are on duty today.

I know it's not nice, but if you are paid to do a job, get on with it. Don't just hope that management won't spot a problem and then leave it for someone else to clear up.

Unacceptable. Unacceptable. Unacceptable.

Rant over... It's a glorious day in rural Buckinghamshire with droning and vapour trail free skies. I'm now going to do some gardening.

Escalator Work at Oxford Circus

London Underground have announced that from next Monday, 19 April 2010, until summer 2011 Oxford Circus station will be exit and interchange only before 10.30 am on weekdays.

That means that before 10.30 am on weekdays it will not be possible to enter the station at street level to join the Central Line, the Victoria Line or the Bakerloo Line. The restrictions may also be implemented at other times if the station gets too busy.

It sounds bad, but the reality is that these restrictions shouldn't affect the majority of passengers. The access arrangements are being implemented to allow engineers to replace a bank of three escalators.