Buses up North

Those "recycled 1970s buses" (actually built in the 1980s) up North are soon to be replaced by nice new diesel and electric trains - and unlike Crossrail, they are still scheduled for later this year.

My 345 experience.

I'd been intending not to try out a 345 until I could combine it with a ride through the Crossrail tunnels, but the co-incidence of the postponement news arriving on the same day as my Freedom Pass made me decide perhaps I'd better not wait that long - and I had to try my pass out somewhere.

As for the train - I'm glad I was only going from Stratford to Liverpool Street: seat backs too high, and too hard.

Class 345

The 345s are already operating Liverpool Street to Shenfield. But when the line through the core opens they will go via Whitechapel instead of direct, so the journey time between Stratford and Liverpool Street will increase.

Toilets on trains

There is a difference between a toilet (or any other facility) not working in a train where one is expected (in which case reasonable adjustments should be made, such as having the train wait at a "convenient" station) and there being no toilets provided in the first place.

Water fountains

The patchiness of the mayor's scheme may be because of local initiatives. Kingston Borough Council is installing its own water fountains, so it will not be necessary for the local inhabitants to trek over to Acton Park to replenish their water bottles.

Pink readers

The pink readers are at places you might change trains on an orbital route - such as Gunnersbury if travelling via Turnham Green and South Acton. But you would never need to change trains at Kew Gardens.

Bedford Park

Half of the Bedford Park Conservation Area, including Abinger Road, is in the London Borough of Hounslow.

Westminster

How many people realise that the Royal Albert Hall and most of Imperial College, not to mention Kensington Gore and Kensington Gardens, are not actually in Kensington at all?

Lines of latitude

Lines of longitude get closer together as you approach the poles: lines of latitude are parallel.

The metre was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator, so one degree of latitude equates to 10,000,000/90 metres or 111.111 km.

If you prefer imperial measure, the nautical mile is defined as 1 minute of arc (1/60 degree), so 1 degree is 60 nautical miles.

Both figures approximate, as the Earth is not a perfect sphere.

Central London bus cuts

Cutting the 59 back to Euston means there will once again be no direct link (by bus OR Tube) between the country's busiest railway station and the Eurostar terminal.

The truncation of the 4 and 172 halves the number of bus routes (and therefore buses?) between Waterloo and the City - again an axis poorly served by the Tube. Still no buses on the direct route from Waterloo to the City via Blackfriars Bridge though.

I'm not sure this is the end for Fetter Lane as a bus route - the logical route if not going via Grays Inn Road is via Holborn Circus, not Ludgate Circus.

As for truncating the 172 at Aldwych, they usually do that anyway (leaving passengers from Waterloo further from the City than when they boarded), so no real change there.

The 40 is to be diverted over Blackfriars Bridge to replace the 45 and 388.

Waterloo Eurostar platforms

Platform 20 at Waterloo is used quite often. The other Eurostar platforms have seen use during the works which closed platforms 1-6 last summer, and also for diverted services from South Eastern during the last stages of the Thameslink project at London Bridge.

They are supposed to be being readied for the new more frequent timetable in December, except that isn't going to happen now because no-one checked whether the electricity supply was up to the job of powering the extra trains.

The 51.5th parallel

One street over from where it leaves Southwark for Lambeth, the 51.5th parallel passes 50 metres south of the geometric centre of Greater London.

LDDC

The LDDC (London Docklands Development Corporation, 1981-1998) is not the LLDC (London Legacy Development Corporation 2012 - date).

North Woolwich

From 1889 to 1965 North Woolwich was an exclave of the County of London, not Kent.

GWR

The GWR, like most companies to the north and west of London, were not very interested in commuter traffic - they had bigger fish to fry, such as freight (coal in particular) and long-distance express services.

Railway companies operating to he south (and east) of London had no coal traffic and their scope for long-distance services was limited by the proximity of the coast, so they were always more inclined to cultivate their commuter markets. Direct trains to London from a widely spread network were possible in the south - the GWR found it was a better use of track capacity to serve several branches from one main line train by providing connections.

Remember also that the original GWR was designed by Brunel to go from London to Bristol by the most direct route possible. Places like Windsor, Marlow, Henley and Oxford, which could have been served relatively easily, were spurned and found themselves only later connected to the main line by shuttles. (Doubtless the same fate could have befallen Reading and Bath if Brunel's preferred route hadn't passed through those towns)

51.5°N

What a coincidence that both the mouth of the Thames and the mouth of the (Bristol) Avon are at 51.5N

High-numbered London streets

On the Hertford Road, house numbers go up to just short of 1000. The parallel Great Cambridge Road gets well into the 1100s. There are several others as well - e.g Eastern Avenue London Road (Norbury), North Circular Road (Staples Corner).

Skyfall

The Tube train in "Skyfall" was a Jubilee Line train, not a Central, and was filmed in the disused platforms at Charing Cross.

Mind the gap

I have heard "mind the gap" at Queenstown Road, on a train not scheduled to call there and with a gap of four running lines between the train and the nearest platform!

Rolling stock handed-ness

Historically most Underground rolling stock couplings were "handed" - a left handed coupling ("A-end") could only couple to a right handed one ("D-end"), and each unit had one of each. (Ambidextrous couplings need some connections to be duplicated or stacked one above the other, both difficult to arrange in the very limited space available on the end of a Tube car).

A common orientation made it easier to arrange stock transfers between lines. (And yes, the loops at Hainault, Kennington and Heathrow do complicate matters).

Castles in Greater London

I suppose it depends on your definitions of "castle", but surely Baynard's Castle must count? (There's not much left of it, but then the same can be said of the one in Ruislip).

Caesars Camp on Wimbledon Common? (Actually misnamed, as it is Iron Age)
Does Jack Straw's Castle count?

One would not expect to find a Norman castle in the Domesday Book, which was essentially a stocktaking exercise of the assets seized/inherited by William the Conquerer in 1066. And certainly anything built in Middlesex in the 9th century wouldn't be Norman - it was part of the Kingdom of Mercia at the time.

Kingston has a "Castle Street" but there is no castle - the street is apparently named after a Mr Castle. It also has a housing development on a former barracks (of which the gatehouse remains), called The Keep.

Ongar zero datum

The datum point of Ongar was used because anywhere else (except Chesham) would have required some points to be negative.

The Northern City Line still used miles from Moorgate in 1975 (see the Official Inquiry into the crash). By 1972 the NCL was not directly connected to the rest of the system - the Highgate route had been closed in 1971 so stock transfers had to run via Kings Cross and the "Widened Lines". Neither Brill nor Verney Junction were part of the Underground in 1972.

Wembley to Shortlands

Wembley and Shortlands are both in Zone 4, so not touching in and out for the second leg wouldn't actually save very much - only the "TOC premium" (and he would save even more - legally! - by going via Clapham Junction).

A Zone 4-Zone 4 journey made is allowed more time than a Zone 4-Zone 1 journey actually paid for. You could be over time at Elephant, and back within time at Bromley South. (although non stop services such as Victoria - Bromley South, London Bridge - East Croydon or Waterloo- Surbiton are better bets for pulling that trick)

National Park Cities

Three National Parks have cities, or parts of cities in them. Pembrokeshire Coast (St Davids), South Downs (Winchester and Brighton & Hove), Peak District (Sheffield).

La petite Ceinture

Most of a re-opened petite Ceinture would duplicate Metro Lines 2 and 6, which shadow it very closely. However, part of it has been re-used in RER Line "C".

Carbon dioxide

Most of the CO2 used in fizzy drinks is a byproduct of fermentation processes, mainly in the brewing industry, and would otherwise just be vented to the atmosphere anyway.

Crowd support

Crowd support at football matches is probably a factor but other factors may also be involved, such as familiar surroundings (both in the pitch and in the dressing room), acclimatisation, and not having to travel a long distance to the fixture. It would be interesting to see whether there is still a "home advantage" in games that have been played behind closed doors.

Late station openings

Pimlico is a more recent example of an Underground station opening after the line it is on. Pudding Mill Lane and Canary Wharf are examples on the DLR. (From Day 1 the automatic trains used to stop there, even though there was no trace of even a platform).

Crossrail to Heathrow

Although the Tube map pretends they don't exist, Finsbury Park has direct services to both Moorgate and Farringdon, both giving connections to Crossrail. In the short term a change at Paddington will be needed for Heathrow, but from the end of next year (if all goes to plan) there will be direct trains from both Farringdon and Moorgate to Heathrow.

Finsbury Park to Heathrow by Piccadilly Line is 65 minutes, via Farringdon will be about 45.

And of course it's not just about Heathrow - connections to East London and Docklands from north London will be much faster too.

Population pyramids

There was a marked dip in the birthrate from the early 1990s to a minimum in 2003 (15 year olds), but I haven't noticed a National Teenager Shortage.

The rate has been declining again since 2012.

National Cycle Network

Look at the junction of CS6 and NCN4 at the south end of Blackfriars Bridge. Impossible to switch from one to t'other without either cycling across a pedestrian crossing or running a red light (there being no green phase for that turn)

Also NCNs are signed in miles and LCN in minutes - sometimes on the same signpost.

The gap between Tattenham Corner and Epson Downs

The height difference is 46m, and they are now about 2km apart (They used to be closer, but Epsom Downs station was moved about 500m north in 1989), so an average gradient of 1 in 40 would be needed. Steep, but not impossible with electric traction, but you would require substantial earthworks at the Tattenham Corner end, or a 2km tunnel.

There is also the small matter that the racecourse passes just 100m beyond the buffer stops at Tattenham Corner station!

Elizabeth line diagram at Farringdon

The absence of the Central Line at TCR may be because the interchange there isn't particularly easy compared with Liverpool St and Bond Street. Moreover, Crossrail passengers for the Oxford Circus area can use the Eastern exit at Bond Street station, which is in Hanover Square (or the Dean Street exit from TCR). No need to use the Central Line.

For Holborn it's probably easier to change at Kings Cross rather than double back from TCR. And for Chancery Lane and St Pauls it's quicker to walk from Farringdon.

Cheapest Gold Card season ticket

An annual season ticket from Pevensey to Pevensey Bay is currently £168.

Ryde Esplanade to St Johns Road used to be the cheapest, but is now £180.

Now that the Gold Card area has been extended into the West Midlands, there are cheaper ones. Lichfield City to Lichfield Trent Valley is £164. But that has now been undercut by Hatton to Lapworth in Warwickshire, at £160.

Invading England

There have been several armed invasions since 1066, such as those by the armies of Henry Tudor in 1485, by William of Orange in 1685, by the Jacobite army in 1745, and by the French in 1797 (the Battle of Fishguard). Only the first two of those were successful.

Closing tube stations

Closing Lambeth North is unlikely, as it would just make Waterloo even busier. Cheaper to keep it open than build a new entrance at Waterloo.

(Would the new entrance at Holborn have been needed so urgently if Aldwych was still open?)

Tube journey

TCR to Farringdon can be done by tube with only one change - at Liverpool Street - but it's a very circuitous route.

Cornish ferries

The Falmouth - St Mawes (and St Mawes - Place) are ordinary boats, for foot passengers only. The chain ferry is the King Harry vehicle ferry, further upstream, between Philleigh and Trelissick.

Mobile numbers

From some time in 1997/98 all newly-issued mobile numbers started with 07, although some existing numbers remained in other blocks and were migrated later. (My 0402 number issued in 1996 became an 07702 number).

Stilton

"Stilton" cheese can be made in Melton Mowbray, but not in Stilton itself.

Strand underpass

The Strand underpass has a 12'6" height restriction

Freedom Passes

Freedom passes validity has to meet the minimum requirements of the English National Concessionary Pass scheme. This means it has to be valid on all buses in England between 0930 and 2300 on working days, and all day at weekends. That is the only legal requirement.

In particular, passes issued to residents of Slough, Maidenhead and Reading will not be valid on the TfL-Cross-Liz services passing through their area.

May 2018 tube map

HEx is simply a non-stop service over the same line as Heathrow Connect/TfL Rail/Crossrail/whatever.

The legend next to the dagger at Heathrow is pointless - since T23 and T5 are both in Zone 6, onward connections to T5 would be at no extra charge even if the Freezone didn't exist.

Might as well have a dagger at Finchley Central: "Underground passengers should change at Finchley Central for free rail transfer to Mill Hill East"

More lowest bus numbers

The 105 is the lowest-numbered bus route to serve an airport, (LHR or LCY) and also the lowest-numbered bus to use a tunnel - 105.

The 108 uses the lowest tunnel.

The 20 is the lowest-numbered route to have never been operated by Routemasters (of either kind)

The 81 is currently the lowest-numbered route to serve a non-Oyster-enabled station (Slough), but this will become 117 (Ashford and Staines) when Slough becomes TfL-X-Liz.

Lowest bus numbers

No 5 is the lowest not to go south of the river.
No 37 is the lowest not to go north of it.

Twenty station

Twenty Station closed in 1959

Megabus Europe

Megabus Europe (now passed to Flixbus) only ever operated in the UK and the European mainland - not Ireland or Cyprus. The "1 euro" bus was more likely to have been on one of their cross-channel services.

Duck Tours

All nine of the Duck Tours vehicles were named after female Shakespearean characters. Sadly the services have been suspended since September as the slipway has been requisitioned for work on the Thames tideway tunnel.

The tilt test

The double decker bus tilt test is done with the worst-case arrangement - empty bottom deck and a full top deck (using sandbags rather than people). The absence of a roof will help slightly. The minimum to pass the test is 28 degrees for the chassis - the body will tilt a bit further because of the suspension.

Iniquitous rail fares

Some connections to my home town are made by a more circuitous route than others. You are expected to pay a premium for the 28-mile detour - on a "Pacer". Not only that, but there are no Advance tickets available by the longer route, so it's "Anytime" fares only.

Greater Anglia Rolling stock

Although built in the 1980s, the current Norwich Line trains have only been on that line since 2004. But give me a West Coast Main Line cast-off (which is what they are) rather than a brand new Thameslink cattle truck any day! (or for that matter the Pendolinos that now work the WCML)

Day trip to Box Hill

Waterloo to Zone 6 on Oyster, off peak, is £4, so a round trip by train and 465 bus to Boxhill can be done for (£4+£1.50) x 2 = £11. The daily cap is £12.50.

You could, just about, do it for less than £9 by taking the Underground to Wimbledon (£2.80) and then two buses to Boxhill (£1.50 Hopper fare), although you would be cutting it fine to catch a second bus within the hour on the way back.

Network Railcard

Both Huntingdon and St Neots are in the Network Railcard area.

Chains of stations in alphabetical order

If you take two random stations, the odds are 3/1 that at least one of them (the later one) is in the second half of the alphabet. The odds of the next one down the line being even further towards the end of the alphabet are less than half. As your chain progresses, the number of available stations gets shorter and shorter, so the odds against get longer and longer.The odds are not 50/50 each time.

Letter frequency makes no difference, as it merely the stations' positions in the sequence that matters.

Alphabetical order stations

If you take the direct line from Vauxhall to Weybridge, you'll not call at any station with a Q in it.

But if you take the other route, via Chiswick, you don't need to go any further than Brentford to find all the letters except Z.

Stations in alphabetical order

After leaving Moorfields on the way back to Bidston you go round the loop, passing through Liverpool Lime Street and Liverpool Central, before reaching James Street. Thus there are nine (not seven) stations in reverse alphabetical order.

Chester

Channel 4 had a programme about the history of Chester on Saturday.

"give me a ring"

That ambiguity led to Uncle Percy Spillinger's sixth (and last) marriage at the age of 81 in "The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin"

Bottle dating

31 August last fell on a Sunday in 2014.

Internet traffic

95% of internet traffic goes by undersea cable, not satellite. It's all a question of distance, and the finite speed of light. Taking the extreme case, a cable to the antipodes is about 12,000 miles. To get there via geostationary satellite needs 100,000 miles (since no one satellite, even at he geostationary height of 25,000 miles, can have line-of-sight to two antipodal points). At the speed of light, that's a delay of nearly half a second which, for modern computers, is an eternity.

Heathrow Crossrail fares

The announcement says the fares to Heathrow will count towards the appropriate cap (£12.50). There will not be a higher cap set for Heathrow, even though the individual fares will be higher.

As was pointed out on London Reconnections: "Travel by Heathrow Express and you pay £25 just to Paddington. Travel on Crossrail (Lizzie/whatever) and you can get all your travel for the whole day for half that amount."

Sunrise and sunset

At 56N (the latitude of Edinburgh) the maxima and minima azimuths of sunrise and sunset are at 90 degrees to each other, so exactly NE, NE, SW, and SE.

I am told it is possible to see the sun set twice in Blackpool, first by watching from the beach, and then from the top of the Tower, where the sun will still be completely above the horizon. (It may depend how long you have to queue for the lift!)

Heathrow to Central London by bus

Making use of the Heathrow Freezone, I think it can be done for £1.50, in theory at any rate. Take any bus to the edge of the Freezone at Harlington Corner or Hatton Cross. That costs nothing and you don't need to touch in.

Then, buses 81 or 222 from Harlington or 482 from Hatton Cross to Hounslow West, followed by the H91 to Turnham Green can, according to Journey Planner, be done in less than an hour (50 minutes from Hatton Cross, a bit more from Harlington). With a bit of luck a 27 will turn up at Turnham Green before your hour is up and then you're away - right through Zone 1 and out to Chalk Farm if you so desire.

Central London to Heathrow by bus

I don't think it can be done in two buses - X26 to East Croydon and then the 468 to Elephant & Castle doesn't really count as E&C is a boundary point. There are several three-bus possibilities (e.g via Shepherds Bush and Hounslow) but although the Hopper is no longer restricted to one change, you probably can't get from Zone 1 to any suitable second change point before your hour is up.

Sweetwater bridge

The span that collapsed had only been installed last weekend and the bridge had not yet opened to pedestrians. The fatalities were in vehicles on the highway underneath.

Long gaps between stations

I doubt that the Post office railway precluded a station at Mount Pleasant - it wasn't a problem at Liverpool Street or Paddington, and anyway the Circle Line was there first. I had assumed the reason was because the Metropolitan railway's original raison d'etre was getting people from the main line stations to the City. Clerkenwell is walking distance from the original terminus at Farringdon so there would have been few takers for the service, and the railway didn't want its services clogged up with short-hop passengers anyway. There are other examples of long gaps between a terminus and the first station out - see Deptford, New Cross, Finsbury Park, Acton Main Line for examples.

Circle line trains

Outer rail trains to tend to get held up more than inner as they have conflicts with other trains crossing their paths at Minories Junction, Gloucester Road, High Street Kensington, Praed Street Junction, Baker Street and Aldgate.

Poplar station

The site of the London & Blackwall Railway's Poplar station was somewhere between Poplar and Blackwall DLR stations. It was the North London Railway's station, also called Poplar, that was on the site of the present All Saints.

Decimalisation

On the day of decimalisation some prices were indeed rounded down. One example was the dog licence - pegged at 7/6d since at least the Edwardian era, it became 37p (not 38p) when the new halfpenny was abolished in 1984. They were abolished three years later, except in Northern Ireland where they now cost thirty three times as much.

Bike hire costs

I don't know how many users of the Bike Hire scheme have annual membership, but for them it costs a lot less than £2 a day - if you use it every day it's less than 25p per day (not per journey!)

George Osborne

The editor of the Evening Standard is not an Old Etonian.

Bus route 53

There has been a route 53 along the Old Kent Road much further back than 1952.

Prime numbers

The digit '0' appears in many prime numbers - the first is 101.

The centre of London

The geometric centre of Greater London is near the London Ambulance Service HQ in Waterloo, whilst weighted for population you end up in the Shell Centre on the South Bank. The centroid of the Congestion Charge Zone is on the other side of the river, near Somerset House, whilst according to Londonist the centroid of Zone 1 is on the Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus. The statue of King Charles I seems a reasonable compromise between these four!

Antipodes

I understand anti-podes means opposite-feet. The singular of "podes" is "pous" (cf octopus, platypus)

Runners-up

In any knockout tournament, the second-best team could have been any of those knocked out by the eventual winners - they may not even have made it to the second round. Getting to the final doesn't even prove you are in the top half!

Pubs on platforms

Kew Gardens used to have an on-platform pub, although it is technically a National Rail station (albeit served by Underground trains as well).

Precipitation probability

"20% probability of rain" means if you go out on five different days when rain is 20% probable, you will get wet on one of them. But whether it's comparable to a lottery ("It could be you") or a meteorite strike ("We'll all go together if we go"), depends on the nature of the weather patterns being forecast. If showers are forecast, someone will get wet - it could be you. If a hurricane is approaching but its course is uncertain, either everyone will get wet, or no-one.

Weather forecasts

The BBC's graphics were changed for the worse way back in 2006. The recent further change in the graphics is minor in comparison. ITV (who still get their forecast supplied by the Met office) are better, but did dumb down somewhat in 2016.

When I were a lad, surface pressure maps were part of the geography O-level syllabus. And, at least at my school, geography was not an optional subject.

Severn Tunnel Portal (East) again

It is unlikely you would have been able to see anything from the A403. The bridge over the M49 is directly above the portal of the Severn tunnel.

Pilning again

Google Street view is revealing. The latest image of the entrance dates from 2016, when there were still two platforms. It would seem that GWR have gone to the trouble of re-numbering the remaining one, as in 2016 eastbound trains left from platform 2.

St Andrews Road station

The reason for the oddity of needing a footbridge despite only having one platform is because there are several sidings between the road and the track serving the platform. Incidentally, the National Rail website shows the road as "un-named", although the name of the station itself should be a clue as to the road's identity!

Second Severn Crossing

The "fortuitously-located rocky outcrop" on which part of the Second Severn Crossing now stands has been identified as a likely candidate for the location of the "Hut-on-the-Rock" where Harry Potter saw in his 11th birthday - Severn Beach being the station from which he and Hagrid took a train later that morning. The story is set in 1991, the year before construction of the crossing started.

Severn Tunnel Portal (East)

The deep cutting can be seen on Google Street view, from vantage points on the B4064 or the M49 almost directly above the portal

Ordnance Survey indicates there is a public footpath from which views of the portal itself are possible.

Pilning

Even on Saturdays there are only two trains at Pilning, both eastbound as the footbridge has been removed so there is no access to the westbound platform.

It is surely not possible that Pilning could be closing in a few months' time. A consultation process is required before any closure, and there has been none so far. Even if the procedure were to be initiated today, it would take longer than a few months to take effect.

South Greenford station

Given the plummeting ridership on the Greenford branch now that it no longer has direct trains to Ealing Broadway (let alone Paddington), it is certainly going to be a contender for least-used status in the future. A 30% drop in usage would be enough to drop it below the currently-second-lowest station. That would only leave one station, Angel Road, below it. But Angel Road is going to close next year.

Greenford Branch Line

The line will be an orphan whether or not it transfers to Chiltern, as no other Great Western services will serve West Ealing after May 19th. It will be Central Line at one end and TfL Rail at the other.

The line has a very close counterpart in East London (shuttle service connected to the Underground at one end and Crossrail/TfL Rail, Elizabeth Line at the other, but isolated from the rest of the Overground, and entirely within the GLA area. That line has been Overgroundised, and at first glance, the Greenford branch does indeed look like another candidate for Overgroundisation. However, unlike the Emerson Line, the Greenford branch is not electrified. The Overground is busy eliminating its only existing diesel line, and would not want to have to retain (or hire in) an odd diesel unit specially for the shuttle.

"Everyone crammed at the back" syndrome

This was graphically (literally!) displayed yesterday. As I got to Waterloo at the last minute, I had to jump on the second-rearmost coach despite it being very full as the "OFF" light on the platform was already lit. The carriage was absolutely packed, and the fancy display showed the rear five cars as "orange" (full and standing). However, the display showed the front five cars to all be "green" (seats available). Unfortunately the "walk through" feature is not available between the fifth and sixth car of these trains.

Waiting by the platform exit

If everyone leaving a train is doing so from one carriage, that is where people will wait to join the train. You can't really expect people to wait at a point where they're not going to be able to get on! (Especially where trains run only every 15 minutes). Double-ending the busiest stations, such as Wimbledon, would improve punctuality enormously.

Canbury, Kingston upon Thames

Until 1988 Kingstonian football club's stadium used to be at the north end of Burton Road - now, like the Sopwith factory, given over to modern housing.

Kings Road used to have a parade of shops, from newsagents to DIY to greengrocers to glaziers. Most have also been converted to domestic use - Spraggs is one of the last survivors.

Canbury Ward also has a "lost" river (the Latchmere Stream, which follows Acre Road, cutting the corner between Burton Road and Kings Road) and occasionally floods.

Kings Road saw London's very last trolleybuses in 1962.

The Burton Road street parties have been a regular thing since they were revived for the Golden Jubilee in 2002.

Burton Road's "smart hedges" made the local news a few years ago, when the council took an agricultural-type flayer to some of them, making them very-definitely-not smart!

Epsom and Oyster

Epsom won't be Oysterised whilst the local MP is also Transport Secretary. He is on record as not wanting the mayor's influence to extend beyond the Greater London boundary, even though it seems many of his constituents are keen for it to do so.

Bus safety

All buses have a device which has actuators to control the closing of the doors and the operation of the handbrake, built-in sensors that can detect if there are any standing passengers, a means of making announcements, and a central processor capable of determining whether and when such an announcement would be appropriate.

It's called a driver.

The Guardian

The paper's never been the same since it dropped the word "Manchester" from the masthead.

Stations with an infrequent service

One reason these trains run at quiet times is because rolling stock is available then. For those stations where there are extra stops (rather than extra trains) it may be for timing reasons - at quiet times they are more likely to be able to make up the delay involved in making the stop.

Infrequent train services

Fishguard Harbour is in Wales and has 39 train departures a week - six a day except on Sundays when there are only three.

The Co-Op in Nuneaton

The Heart of England Co-Op (one of several independent Co-Ops in the Midlands and East Anglia) closed all its department stores 18 months ago to concentrate on its food and funeral care businesses, but the building in Nuneaton still houses its head office.

Telephone exchanges

Many telephone exchanges are still in use by BT as offices and depots. Even though the serried ranks of plug-and-socket boards operated by well-spoken young ladies, or the later mechanical Strowger equipment taking up several floors of a buiding, may have long ago been replaced by a box of electronics which would fit into a large cupboard, all the cables still go into the building so they can't sell, let alone demolish, it.

Thameslink service patterns

On a date not that far away (before the end of the current football season!), if you used to have services via London Bridge to Charing Cross, the planned service pattern suggests you are more likely to have direct trains to Luton Airport than to Peterborough.

My journey from Holborn Viaduct didn't change in either speed or frequency when it switched to City TL, but now the train is already full when I join it instead of me getting first dibs at the terminus. And electrification of the main line out of Kings Cross means I lost the direct trains I used to use to visit my family.

London Bridge station

Platform 1 was in a different location in the old station - roughly where platform 2 is now, but there had not been a platform 7 for many years.

I recall reading that although Thameslink trains will not be calling at London Bridge until May, some trains may be routed that way before then (rather than the slower route via Tulse Hill) for driver training purposes. Likewise the odd Peterborough service may find itself at St Pancras Low level instead of Kings Cross.

I rarely use the tube

Living out here in the Tubeless sticks, I rarely use the Underground at all. If I do, I also get off at Kew rather than go on to Richmond - but that's because I can park the car at Kew!

Maybe a dozen trips since I lost my Oyster last New Year's night. The most recent trip was on Boxing Day when I had to go into London and there were no proper trains, so I had to trek all the way over to Colliers Wood.

Bethnal Green - Stairway to Heaven

I'm not sure the memorial is inverted - surely it's a representation of a cast of the stairwell (the hollow space), in which case the steps should be on the underside.

It was obviously not a literal cast (even if you could mould teak, you could only have taken a cast of the stairwell by temporarily filling it in)

I wouldn't be too worried about weathering - they used to build railway carriages out of teak, and they are generally left out in all weathers.

Metropolitan Line Extension

The new S8 train is a sunk cost as it has already been built and is in service.

The Air Ministry

The Air Ministry merged with the Admiralty and the War Office to become the MoD in 1964.

For some years I worked in a building (since demolished) opposite the London Weather Centre. Because our building was taller, their measurements, including whether it was a White Christmas, were made on our roof.

The definition of a White Christmas is broader now, and can mean snow falling anywhere in London. (Lying snow from a fall the previous day doesn't count).

Hounslow Barracks

Hounslow Barracks is also to close - announced in the same MoD report as Kneller Hall.

Crossrail

You don't need to wait until next December for direct trains from Farringdon to Abbey Wood.

Naming stations after streets

A station named after a street is very specific if the railway runs at right angles to the street, and completely non-specific if the railway runs along the line of that street. Early tube lines were independent entities rather than a network, so could use the New York model, but when adjacent stations became combined as interchanges it ceased to be a good idea. (Tottenham Court Road and Holborn are two modern examples: each works for one line but not the other).

Least-used stations

Chicken and egg - why did they have such a poor service (one a day, or even one a week........) in the first place, even when, as in most cases, there is a train service passing through? In most cases, these "least used" stations are in sparsely populated areas, or there is a nearby station on another line with a better service. It costs money, in fuel and wear and tear, for a train to call at a station, and adds to the journey time for everyone else. If no-one is using the station anyway, why stop there?

The two Paddington underground stations

H&C and Circle trains to and from Hammersmith use the original "Bishops Road" platforms alongside the main line station, from which the rest of the station can be reached by the walkway you mention. District and Circle trains to and from High St Kensington use the "Praed Street" platforms which are connected to the main concourse (known as the "Lawn", because the GWR always had to be different). The Bakerloo platforms are more-or-less underneath the Bishops Road platforms but have barrier-free interchange with the Praed Street station.

Stations with the same name

There were two Shepherds Bushes until a few years back, and going back into history there were two Tottenham Court Roads (one now renamed Goodge Street), two South Kensingtons (now combined), and two Gloucester Roads (also now combined).

Liverpool Central

Liverpool Central is the interchange between the two Merseyrail lines. It only has three platforms, all of them under ground.

Solar elevation

Everywhere gets the same amount of daylight over the year. But where the sun gets higher in the sky, you get more heat from it per unit area - that's why it never gets very warm at the Poles, even though you get 24 hours of daylight in the summer - the sun is never more than 23 degrees above the horizon.

The amount of heat per unit area goes as the sine of the sun's elevation, so varies more at low elevations - at 30 degrees you get half (not a third) of the intensity you get at 90. As for absorption by the atmosphere, depending on what value you use for the thickness of the atmosphere, geometry gives values of around ten times as much absorption when the sun is on the horizon compared to when it is overhead.

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.

Festive duration

The religious festival of Christmas is twelve days long - it starts on Christmas Day (and not before) and ends on Jan 5th (Twelfth Night).

Some traditions include the Epiphany season, which extends to Candlemas (Feb 2nd, forty days after Christmas Day), which commemorates Christ's presentation in the Temple. Shrove Tuesday can fall as early as the following day, but has not done so since 1818 and will not do so again until 2285.

Twixmas

The period from 27 to 31 December is fully part of the Christmas season, namely the 3rd to the 7th days of the twelve. Traditionally the festivities lasted all the way to Twelfth Night - but on no account would decorations etc have been put up before Christmas Eve.

I was once told by a Spanish colleague that it is not done in Spanish-speaking countries to wish someone a Happy Easter before the day itself (even if you are not going to see them again until after Easter), as that would be to disregard the significance of Holy Week and Good Friday.

Poppytide

I'm sure the BBC's poppy-wearing gets earlier each year. There was one on the News last night. To me, this premature anticipation of the event detracts from the significance of the day itself - in the same way that people seem to be "partied-out" long before December 25th.

In the 1920s, When WW1 was well within the memory of most of the population, it was accepted practice to only wear the poppy on Armistice Day itself - a key point in one of Dorothy Sayers' "Lord Peter Wimsey" mysteries. If that's good enough for the (admittedly fictional) General Fentiman, it's good enough for me.

Bloomberg Arcade

Had a nose round just now - there are actually three pools - two at the Queen Vic Street end, and a third at the Cannon Street end. I don't think the pools mark the original line of the Wall Brook, which is followed by the street of that name along the east side of the Bloomberg estate, rather than cutting across the middle. The source of the Walbrook is somewhere in Shoreditch.

Reverse BR logos

Sealink only used the back to front symbol on the starboard side of their ships - it is a common practice (although not universal) to use a reversed symbol on that side of a ship so it represents a flag as seen flying sternwards from a mast, (i.e seen from the reverse side) even though the symbol is actually painted on. Some military shoulder insignia follow the same pattern (e.g the US army), as did the earlier version of the British railways "Lion and Wheel" symbol, which had two versions, to be placed on opposite sides of steam locomotives so that the lion always faced forwards.

How many Overground stations are there?

From a quick count from the map, there are about 111 stations served by Overground services, but many of these stations are managed by other operators such as TfL Rail, the Underground, C2C, Anglia, London Midland, SWR, Southern, South Eastern, and Network Rail.

Abbey Wood Crossrail

Bexley now has a TfL-operated station, thus halving the number of London boroughs lacking such a facility.

Bromley - the instigators of the "Fares Fair" court case, now has five Tramlink stops and three Overground stations. Sutton has two Tramlink stops.

Pedway update

Google Street view shows the Swan Lane bridge was still there as recently as three years ago, and the pedway seems to have followed parallel to Arthur Street to emerge opposite the Monument. Arthur Street itself is closed at present, I think for work on the Bank station enlargement. We may see the pedway return?

By the way, the thoroughfare crossed by the Pudding lLne bridge is Lower Thames Street - the name changes from Upper to Lower as it passes under London Bridge.

Baynard House

The pedway connection to Blackfriars station, together with the new south entrance to that station, provides a route from Queen Vic Street to the South Bank without being exposed to the elements!

Peter's Hill

It may not have the ambience of the other pedways, but Peters Hill is very much elevated where it crosses Upper Thames Street. The street below only briefly emerges from under the buildings that span it, so it is rarely noticed.

Ticket gates

As for ticket gates, SWR have "the journey starts here" plastered all over the ticket gates at Waterloo - but curiously only on the side you can see as you leave the platform......

Tube announcements

At least the announcements (audible and visual) on the actual buses trains and tubes are not diluted by advertising (yet). Although there is so much unneccesary verbiage* already that many people filter it all out (or talk over it) so that the important information (like "this train will not call at........") is missed.

Above the A3

The New Malden display has attracted a lot of opprobrium not only as a distraction to motorists but because it reduces sight lines on the junction above the underpass, and local residents have complained of the light pollution.

Air pressure sensors

Sensors that weigh the train by monitoring the air pressure in the suspension are not new - I recall reading they were fitted to the Underground's "C" stock, introduced in 1969. The original purpose, I understand, was to control the brakes by compensating for differences in the weight of the train so that a consistent braking rate is applied for a given position of the driver's brake handle).

The Rochdale Pioneers

Whilst the Rochdale Pioneers have an important place in the history of the co-operative movement, they were by no means the first consumer co-operative (they were not even the first in Rochdale....). But it is from them that the modern movement's principles can trace its roots. The Rochdale Co-Op remained independent until it merged with the larger United Co-Operatives, which in turn became part of the Co-Operative Group - the largest, but by no means the only, Co-operative society in the country.

Cotton imports

In 1784 there was a large home market for cotton products as well. And since we can't grow cotton in the UK, the volume of raw cotton imported must have been much greater. The children in English mill towns were not the only people being exploited.

Styal

Until 1993 Styal did indeed have a much more frequent train service, but then Manchester Airport station opened, and most trains now go there instead.

Invite

Anyone who sends me an "invite" instead of an "invitation" is off to a bad start...........

"to even out the service"

This is a common trick of bus operators to inconvenience passengers in order to meet TfL targets. The timing points at which performance is measured are at busy interchanges, but the measure of whether they are early or not is done by arrival time rather than departure time. I have several times missed connections to trains or other buses because of this practice. TfL should realise that nobody minds if a bus arrives at its destination early. (Leaving early is another matter entirely of course, but they don't measure that).

Particulates

Most of the M25 is outside the GLA area and therefore not shown on the map. It forms the boundary in the Waltham Cross and Heathrow areas, and cuts across the easternmost extremity of Greater London, and slightly elevated levels can be seen there.

In any case motorways, despite having higher volumes of traffic than the radial routes and the North Circular, probably produce no more particulates as (most of the time!) traffic is moving smoothly, with engines turning at their most fuel-efficient speeds and little use of the brakes.

Declassified

A useful tip - if the train is advertised as 2nd class only, (as all Hertford East trains are) you can use any part of the train, even if part of it is labelled as 1st class.

It happens quite often on Thameslink and SWR.

The Low Line

The leaflet describes the walk as "London Bridge to Southwark", perpetuating the anatopistic* naming of the station at the junction of The Cut and Blackfriars Road. The soi-disant "Southwark" station is a long way from the heart of Southwark itself (the borough that grew up around the south end of London Bridge), for which the closest stations are Borough and London Bridge, and indeed "Southwark" station is partly within the neighbouring borough of Lambeth. The seemingly arbitrary end of the "Low Line" is the borough boundary.

*anatopism - the geographical equivalent of an anachronism

Matlock

Matlock was already on my "to-do" list as one of the places to visit on what will be many trips to and from Manchester over the next two years (I was in Edale on Monday), but I'd forgotten quite how much there is to see there. I did go there once before, shortly after the cablecar opened (and got a ride on the prototype Sprinter diesel train as a bonus).

By the way, the "little snaking road" you can see from the cable car is the mighty A6 - which shows how high up you really are.

The ineffectual train

It means that Melton and Oakham get a direct train to and from London every morning and every evening. There are much larger towns in the East Midlands that can only dream of such a bounty.

St George's Hospital

The original main building of St Georges, near Hyde Park Corner, closed in 1973, when the former Tooting branch (originally known as the Grove Hospital, before being taken under the wing of St Georges in 1954) was earmarked as the new site of the main hospital.

Bus data

The raw data on bus usage can only tell you where people got on, and therefore not which is the busiest section, because that also depends where people get off. You can get an approximation of loadings over the day if you assume travel patterns are symmetrical - that is to say the number of people getting off a westbound bus at stop X over the course of a day is probably close to the number getting on eastbound buses at the corresponding stop across the road.

Heathrow Express

There may be people for whom the difference between Tube and HEx (approximately £1 per minute) is worth it, but we should note that the average time advantage is not as good as that. HEx only runs every 15 minutes, so much of the time advantage may be lost in waiting for the next departure. And Paddington is not very central.

Taxis

Sometimes, even in London, a taxi is the only practical option. But I don't think I've used more than two in the past ten years - both were 1km journeys which would have involved two buses (pre-Hopper), it was pouring with rain, and I was travelling with someone on crutches.

(Actually, for short journeys with two or three people, a taxi can be cheaper than the bus)

First Class

Surely no-one would buy a first class ticket to or from Slade Green, as there is no first class on that line?

Other than the London termini, The only stations in Greater London on South Eastern to have First class services are Orpington, St Mary Cray and Bromley South - the first two of which are in Zone 6.

Manhattan Loft Building

The Landmark Background Protection Area does not include Newham, possibly because no-one ever thought anything that tall would be built that far from the Square Mile

Given that the Manhattan Loft Building is now a fait accompli, the simplest way of restoring the sky background to the view of St Pauls might be to move King Henry's Mound about 100 yards further south!

The Manhattan Loft is in the Olympic Park site, not Docklands, so the relevant planning authority in 2011 was the Olympic Delivery Authority

The London Docklands Development Corporation was wound up in 1998.

The protected area extends 3km behind St Pauls - The Olympic Park is more than twice that distance.

Peninsular

A pedant notes: "peninsular" is an adjective, as in the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (better known as P&O). The noun is "peninsula", as in the Iberian Peninsula to which P&O originally sailed.

Uniqueness

Uniqueness, as you say, is a binary thing - either it is unique (in some way, however small and insignificant) or it is identical in every respect with something else.

I suppose "most unique" might mean it has more unique features.

Leopard Field

Leopard Field could potentially also have Impala, Chamois, Gazelles, Hawks, Kestrels, Hornets, Mustangs, Ponys, Stingrays and Barracuda, but none are very likely. If it also takes coaches you might indeed see a Leopard.

Major Pringle

It was not a general (pun not intended) practice for the Civil Service to recruit from the military, but from its founding in 1840 right up until the 1960s Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate drew its personnel from the officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers. The last Chief Inspector with a military background, Major Rose, retired as recently as 1988.

Major Pringle worked on construction of railways in east Africa and India, before joining HMRI in 1900. He was appointed as head of His Majesty's Railways Inspectorate in 1916, by which time he had been promoted to Colonel.

Signalling

I think the oldest signalling still in use on the Underground is at Edgware Road, which was last resignalled in 1926 (some reports say it was decommissioned recently, but I understand they have jumped the gun as the press release only reported the replacement as having been given the go-ahead)

The 1926 resignalling by the Metropolitan Railway was designed to accommodate a new relief line between Kilburn and Edgware road, and the platform destination displays were thus made capable of displaying exotic destinations like Watford and Quainton Road.

Once the Met and LER were both incorporated into London Transport, a less ambitious relief plan was formulated, using the Bakerloo Line and missing out Edgware Road altogether.

George Osborne

Given that the Evening Standard's editor signed off the government funding for this folly (in his previous job) it would be surprising if the subsequent scrapping were to be welcomed with open arms. There was an opinion column in it today, from the Chairman of the Trust which was not only somewhat inaccurate (in its assertions that it would be "open all year" but also, rather worryingly given his position, (and his former experience as chairman of a major bank) he doesn't seem to understand the "sunk cost" fallacy.

Trees

Even with a high maintenance budget, keeping trees as large as those in the artists' impression alive in such a location would have been a challenge, with the inevitably shallow roots (because they're on a bridge!) depriving them of both stability and nourishment - not to mention that any Thames bridge can get quite windy.

Henry VIII

Before Henry VIII's privatised the monasteries (by selling them off) he first had to nationalise them (by seizing them from the Church)

SWT

SWT was one of three franchises due to start on the same day in Feb 1996. The very first privatised service was a rail replacement bus from Fishguard. The Great Western franchise was bought out by First Group (who already had a minority holding in it) in 1998 and the franchise, now expanded, is still in the same ownership today.

The second franchise to start up would have been a management buyout of the Essex Thameside services, but the franchise was halted literally the evening before startup after the managers in question were found to be involved in accounting irregularities which improved the franchise's financial position at the expense of London Transport. This left SWT to run the very first privatised passenger train.

Waterloo

Waterloo's congestion problems would be a lot less if they announced platform numbers more promptly. The present practice of leaving it until the last minute results in congestion on the concourse as people wait for their train to be announced, and a mad scrum at the barriers when it is finally called, (not to mention the conflicts with people arriving off the train) and because the train is due to depart so soon people naturally jump on the nearest carriage, meaning that people getting to the platform a little later can't get on at the rear and haven't got time to get further down the train, thus getting left behind and having to wait for another train, further adding to the congestion on the concourse.

It is simply not credible that the people responsible for the departure screens do not know which platform a train is to go from until it arrives. (And if a late change is necessary, it would be much easier to manage if the concourse is not clogged up with people).