Tuesday, 14 October 2025

Bakerloop? Where? [2]

Via New Cross ...

The Bakerloop bus (route BL1) continues via the Old Kent Road with a stop called Ilderton Road. The stop is of no great interest except that, when Streetview trundled past, it was closed due to road works. 
We are never told when Streetview does its viewing of streets, but a recent Geoff Marshall video about the BL1 commented that one of the stops at Ilderton Road was still closed! 

Maybe the road works are a permanent visitor attraction in the area! Ilderton Road itself runs northbound, leading, sort of, to the former Surrey Docks area.
But, if we continue forward from the bus stops and across said Ilderton Road, we espy a railway bridge but no station.
This is one of the FIVE branches of the Overground, all given the appropriate (?) name "The Windrush Line" to avoid confusion. 

The termini are, for the record ...
... Clapham Junction, New Cross Gate, New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon. 

The over bridge illustrated above carries trains via Peckham to Clapham Junction. The first stop southbound after the bridge is Queens Road Peckham.

Next, our BL1 will call at the New Cross Gate transport hub (although not named as such) where multiple railway services and buses come together in a confusing mess of information.
Do the line colours help? The red is the Wimdrush collection of lines and services as mentioned above; then we have ...
... but ignore the South Eastern High Speed as that does not really serve South Eastern London and is running north of the Thames at this point. The remaining three will be joined by ...
... Docklands Light Railway, at Lewisham.

It would take fbb until well after his own funeral to explain the history, routes and services of that lot; so our readers can just wonder with glazed-over eyes at its complexity and wonder some more how London commuters cope!

From a Bakerloop point of view the stops at New Cross Gate are in full view of the station.
There is the entrance on the over bridge ..;
... with New Cross a little further on.

The two New Crosses were termini for the original East London Railway ...
... later part of the Metropolitan Railway and finally incorporated into the Overground.
Thereafter, our BL1 service will find its way to Lewisham where it already looks complicated!

... to Lewisham
It looks complicated at Lewisham because it IS complicated at Lewisham. fbb spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon trying to make sense of it all; and he nearly failed. 

He was about to replace his blogging activity with Macrame string work; but decided to have one last go. Surely an intelligent octogenarian, well versed in the insanity of bus and rail operators, could work out where the buses go and where they stop in the London Borough of Lewisham ("where be dragons", remember).

fbb will reveal his conclusions in tomorrow's blog after a quiet evening yesterday potentially being depressed with his inability to answer questions on Mastermind, solve the problems on Only Connect and not even remotely close to emulating the students on University Challenge.

On reflection, Lewisham is probably a little easier to sort out than the  Monday quizzes on the Beeb.

In practice yesterday's quiz programmes were replaced with some exciting sporting event. Boo. Hiss.

By way of introduction, therefore, take a look at the central area of the town as per a London Buses Spider Map.
Aaaaargh!


Troubling Tanker Trauma
fbb has been suspicious of his latest three tank wagons, Hornby Dublo models from the immediate post WW2 years. All three looked OK despite the previous owner's obvious enhancement of his picture.

But look underneath. Both the red and the green vehicles are showing signs of modification. Here us the red Royal Daylight tank.
The tabs on the axle boxes (they hold the wheels in place) are very shiny. They have obviously been untabbed and retabbed, possibly to replace wheel sets. But the wheels are all metal, correct for 3 Rail Hornby Dublo.

Now look at the tabs holding the red body onto its chassis.
They are on both sides of the couplings rivet. Are they obviously shiny, too clean for a toy that must be at least 70 years old?

Maybe the seller was just cleaning his wagons. But fbb doubts it. These tank wagons have surely been assembled from assorted bits to replicate old models, assembled very well but assembled none the less.

But the buff wagon has the worst example of tinkering.
Those wheels are plastic! Not only that, but they have white wall wheel embellishment.
Definitely it is a "marriage" as they say in Bargain Hunt. It is not a completely genuine wagon. Those wheels are Triang Hornby 2-rail wheels dating from the 1970s.

If fbb were really concerned, and anxious to perpetuate the deception, he could retro-fit some correct all-metal 3-rail wheels.

He probably won't, because at £12 a wagon, they were the right price. Had the three been offered at £150 or more, matching some auction prices, then the deal would have been a con!

fbb is still happy with his purchase but, as always ...

... Caveat Emptor!!!

  Delayed Loopy Lewisham blog : Weds 15 Oct 

2 comments:

  1. Streetview *always* shows the date that the pictures were taken; indeed, you can roll back through earlier dates for comparison.
    And New Cross Gate isn't a terminus, so there are only four branches of the Windrush Line.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It would have been remarkable if any of the Monday quiz questions had been even attempted, as they were all rescheduled to this evening.

    ReplyDelete