Georg von Trapp

The munitions industry is a strange place. It seems somewhat ironic that the British inventor of the torpedo should have married off his grand-daughter to a man who later used his invention to sink six British ships (and another seven of the Allies).

Georg von Trapp's first wife was Agatha. Agathe was their eldest daughter. He had dual Italian/Austrian nationality, allowing him and his family (by then including nine children with a tenth imminent) to leave German-occupied Austria in 1938. (by train, not on foot...........!). I say "children", but the oldest was 26 (going on 27). The Sound of Music plays very fast and loose with history - basically losing a decade between 1927 and 1938.

Peak hour train times

The "Not valid on trains timed to depart before..." restriction seems to be the only practical way of managing it on the trains, as how is a ticket inspector further down the line to know whether the train was on time when the passenger boarded?

Chestnuts

There's often a roast chestnut stand under the south end of Blackfriars Bridge.

Step-free access

Bank (W&C) already has step free access, although it is a bit circuitous. You can transfer step free between the W&C and the DLR, from where there is step free access to the street.

Waterloo also used to have step free access to (but not from) the W&C, by way of the Eurostar concourse.

South London fares

The extra charged to South Londoners is accentuated by the much greater number of stations which have been placed within Zone 6.

We all pay the same £276 pa GLA precept, but even allowing for the cap, if you make two peak journeys a week from Zone 6 south of the river, you generally pay an extra £235 a year compared with coming from the north. (Unless you're over 60, in which case you pay £8 for each peak hour trip south of the river, and nothing at all north of it!)

Sadiq Khan, of course, lives in the only area south of the river where the Tube has a strong presence.

Potters Bar schoolbuses

The once a day extension of the 313, and the school routes 626 and 699, are presumably of some (albeit limited) use to local residents of Dugdale Hill Road wanting to go into Potters Bar or beyond, as well as the schoolchildren for whom it is primarily intended.

11th November

There is an important difference between the significance of November 11th in the UK and the US.

November 11th in the USA is Veterans' Day. As its name implies, it relates to people who have retired from military service, unlike in the UK where Remembrance Day commemorates those who died on active service.

The US equivalent of the UK's Remembrance Day is Memorial Day, which is in May.

Goblin DMUs

In Network South east days the 2 car units were based at Bletchley, from the same pool as the St Albans and Bedford branches that all came under the "North London Lines" division.

Before the "Bedpan" electrification they came from Cricklewood's allocation, as befits a former Midland Railway route.

Privatisation Premium

The Overground provides a rare exception where TfL fares are available south of the river. Most south Londoners still have to pay the Privatisation Premium that most North Londoners do not. Thank you Mr Grayling.

Greenford branch

Is there any serious prospect of the Castlebar line being added to the Overground fold in 2019? Either when the franchise expires in 2020 or, as you suggest, even earlier.

Great Western will need to run diesel units on the other three Thames valley branches (Henley, Marlow, Windsor) for the foreseeable future, so it makes operational sense to use a common fleet for all four, rather than split one off to LO. LO would surely not want to have to maintain a one-of-a-kind train just for that branch.

Infrequent Overground services

Many Overground services have to share tracks with other services (for example between Liverpool Street and Clapton, or more particularly the freight trains on the West and South London lines.

You must have been very unlucky (or very selective) to have had to wait as much as twenty minutes for an Overground service, let alone more. Only the Emerson Park shuttle and the outer reaches of the Enfield/ Cheshunt routes (beyond their divergence at Edmonton) have a service less frequent than 3 trains per hour. Even then, with 2 tph the average time you would wait would be 15 minutes (maximum 30 minutes).

The busiest section is between Dalston Junction and Surrey Quays (up to 16 trains per hour, or better than every four minutes).

Parliamentary trains

Network Rail still have to go through a formal closure procedure if all passenger services are to be withdrawn from a stretch of line. It is easier just to keep a skeleton service going, which also allows drivers to maintain their route knowledge if the line is needed for emergency use (as it is this morning).

The Pasengers Services over unusual lines (PSUL) website http://www.psul4all.free-online.co.uk/2017.htm lists five weekday services over the Wimbledon-East Putney- Point Pleasant route
0042 Waterloo - Strawberry Hill
0105 Waterloo - Basingstoke
0454 Basingstoke - Waterloo
2254 Basingstoke - Waterloo
2312 Waterloo - Southampton Central

It was the 0454 which cane to grief this morning.

The route saw extensive use during the August shutdown.

Lettered prefixes on the North London Line

"B" stood for a stopping service, and was nothing to do with Broad Street. You would occasionally see a "C" (for an empty-to/from-depot service)

B9 was the Croxley Green branch - the other numbers were various short workings.

Thames Ditton

I have been to Thames Ditton many times, (despite the injunction in the Busmans Prayer to "lead us not into Thames Ditton and deliver us from Esher") but I've never been to Southend Pier.

Southend Pier trains

The invalid cars and original* Southend Pier train were actually built at AC's other factory, opened in 1941 on Taggs Island**, one of the islands between Hurst Park and Hampton. An interesting history, at various times owned by Surrey, Middlesex, and (Mr) Kent.

* oops - the trains built for Southend Pier by AC Cars in 1949 were its second fleet, not the first.

** oops - it was Platts Island, further upstream, that moved from Surrey to Mddx (Greater London) in 1970 (and was therefore the only part of the Esher UDC to become part of Greater London). Thames Ditton Island moved the other way.