Tuesday Variety

Govan Grew Greatly ...

... from a quiet rural village, with archetypical cows grazing (archetypically!) on the archetypical village green, to this aerial view.

The River Kelvin enters the view top right.

Or this map which shows the ferry.

Move on to 2002 and there is very little left except some warehouses on the north bank. 

Or maybe, in the past, you could take a wander down Govan's Water Row ...

... where you might join the queue for one of those decidedly odd looking ferries.

But if you walk down Water Row TODAY ...

... you will find lots of the above. Likewise, were you able to walk down the old Ferry Road on the north bank you would find another heap of this!

Here a new footbridge, a swing footbridge to be precise, was due to open in 2021. It is, as they say, running a little late. Here is a big chunk of it on a barge having arrived from furrin parts..

To allow ships past, its swing bridge main span can rotate to align with the south shore. The 110-metre bridge will carry pedestrians and bicycles between Govan south of the river and Partick to the north. The V-shaped pylon design is inspired by the historic cranes at the riverside. It will be one of the largest opening footbridges in Europe.

And here is what it will look like when it is fully open - sometime soon - possibly even later this year.

On 14 October 2023 (?) the tugs towed the crane on its pontoon up the River Clyde into Glasgow, to Pointhouse Quay just upriver from the museum. They moored the pontoon just past floating sheerleg crane Hebo-Lift 10 which was already there, along with the small tug Avontuur 2. On 17 October the floating sheerleg crane lifted the moving main span of the bridge into place on its pivot in front of Water Row, Govan, leaving it aligned with the shore so that the Clyde remains open to shipping. Site work continued. The connecting fixed span, still on the pontoon, was taken away for storage. It is to be installed in the summer of 2024, when the north pier and approach path works are complete.

The idea is that it will improve access to both banks, including the Riverside Museum which is a bit isolated at the moment. 

Both banks of the river are due for significant development but nobody really wants more road links! The most recent Google Earth picture shows potential areas for new building.

And, just to be pedantic, the northern end of the Govan Partick Bridge is at Yorkhill or possibly Pointhouse. Partick is on the west bank of the Kelvin.

The Pointhouse shipyard was on the eastern bank of the River Kelvin.

The main building stood roughly whee the A814 road juncts with Castlebank Street.

The railway catenary gantry is a good clue!.

Timetables At Stations

Those at Nottingham are by far the best in the country (unless anyone knows better!) and fbb is grateful to a correspondent for sending him the latest pictures of this excellent display.

Unfortunately, thanks to the weirdness of the internet, no sooner had three excellent photos appeared on screen than the whole email vanished without trace.

fbb thinks the man's name was Michael, but cannot be sure.

Whether you are Michael or not, please re-send the emails.

However, fbb is not conscious of doing any illicit deleting!

GoAhead North Riding

In yesterday's blog, fbb refereed to a timetable booklet for this batch of tendered services won by GoAhead East Yorkshire.

Encouragingly, Both Transdev and Reliance provide full details of their losses ...

... in each case with links to the East Yorkshire North Riding timetable pages.

In fact there has been no significant change to the actual timetables, just a bit of tweaking and renumbering for operational convenience. But what is excellent is the new maps on the leaflet and, if you know where to look, on line.

Here they are:-

31X tendered part of Reliance 31X

80 former Reliance 29

81 former Transdev Castle Line

82, 83, 182 former Transdev 22/23

194 former Transdev

fbb does not know the details of the Tender but knows of many operators who (foolishly?) leave publicity to the tendering authority. Here, whatever the finances, GoAhead has produced excellent printed maps and printed timetables for their newly-acquired network.

Well done GoAhead. Chocolate peanuts all round!

 Croyfun At Croydon blog : Weds 10th April