Sunday Variety

Hornby Class 66 Fastline 

Above we have a Bachmann model, pre-owned at £129 set against a Hornby version with electronic (DCC) control and sound (wot no smoke?) also pre owned, also £129. These are "pre-owned" from Rails of Sheffield. 

Below two more offers from Rails.

The same model, new, from Accorascale at £179 or with DCC and sound at £279. 

Other retailers are available!

Above is Bachmann at £145.

Confused dot com?

There is no doubt that the Accurascale is the most accurate (there's  a clue in the name) and most detailed version with Bachmann coming second. Hornby's Class 66 is definitely third but it us still a very good model.

But the "Puzzle Picture" version is a special offer from Rails ...

... as an orange dyed David Dickinson might say ...

... cheap as chips. Just £60. That is about half the price of a signalling tank engine in today's market.

Most of our readers would find it difficult to tell the difference between the models UNLESS they had all three side by side.

White Rose Weird Results

It's a shopping paradise, inni?

It opened in 1997 and is adjacent to a large business park; both places involving lots of people and lots of car parks. The White Rose "area" should have been an ideal location for a railway station on the line between Leeds and Huddersfield.

Work started on the station in 2022.

Work was abruptly stopped in 2024 due to management incompetence due to "an alarming cost overrun".

One of the best ways to reduce road congestion is to use rail. So, ideally, a station should be in place before the area develops. This happened with many stations on the London Underground and has again happened with Meridian Water.

But, nearly 30 years after White Rose opened, it still doesn't  have its railway.

But, whisper it quietly, something is about to happen.

White Rose may yet get its station!

Better late than never, as the saying goes!

Glorious Gronk?

For those unfamiliar with trainspotting patois, a Gronk is a class 08 diesel shunter once familiar in their hundreds all over the British Rail network. Sort of 'invented' by pre-nationalisation LMS, they have been painted black ...

... green ...

... numbered in the "D" series ...

... and been turned our in an amazing variety of post BR liveries. But those that have not been actively preserved tended to look like this.

08 308 was in a very sad state at Wolsingham on the heritage Weardale Railway.

Oddly, the Weiardale Railway does not seem keen to publish pictures of its pathetic peeled paint Gronk!

But something has happened.

It is shiny and green.

More to follow.

Puzzle Picture

What am I and how fast can I go?

Cranbrook By The Sea?

Stagecoach in Exeter runs buses to the rapidly expanding "overspill" town of Cranbrook.

There it is on the old A30, now B3174 just north of Exeter Airport. 

It's new station is top left in the above shot and more development now continues top right.

But it is not near the sea!

A local East Devon news hack doesn't  know that!

Never mind, it's  all on line!

So fbb checked. The timetable change was on 4th January. Early morning journeys run 7 days a week from about 0430. Journeys after midnight run hourly only on Saturday night i.e. Sunday very early!

Above is the timetable at the end of Saturday and the start of Sunday.

What the report should have said is that "On Saturday nights from 10th Jan, buses will run hourly through until Sunday Mornng".

Variety continues tomorrow.

  Next Variety blog ; Mon 19th Jan 

Saturday Variety

Meridian Water Proposals

At the moment only two bus services actually serve Meridian Water and then they only reach the station and Tesco. Note that the bus shows Angel Road Superstores, whilst the stop shows ...

... Glover Drive IKEA which no longer exists. To be fair, the stop name may gave changed, although, knowing London Buses desire to avoid dramatic change, it probably hasn't.

But London Buses has a cunning plan to provide Buses that actually make it to the developing estate. The plan is out for consultation (don't  laugh).

Proposal 1

The 341 will be cut back to Northumberland Park whilst the 476, currently terminating at Northumberland Park will be extended to replace the 341. Here is a TfL map.

Just to confuse us all, the night service will still be 341. The proposed 476 will run to Kings Cross not Waterloo. Both N341 and 476 will make it to somewhere in the new estate.

Proposal 2

The 444, which used to whizz past on the North Circular will be diverted via Tesco, the new bit and back out again.

Proposal 3

Another swapsie! The 192, which used to run to Tottenham Hale with now run to Lea Valley Athletics Centre.  Meanwhile, the W8 which used to terminate at Lea Valley will run to, guess where, Northumberland Park. The W8 will serve a bit more of Meridian Water.

To an outsider living well away from the Metropolis, these changes seem odd. Why not simply extend the 341, divert the 192 and leave the 444 as the only major change. 

But who can unravel the tangled knitting that forms the mind of the TfL planners?

Maybe an emerging theory of the human brain may explain their thinking!

fbb read the news item and, of course, has not the foggiest idea what it us all about.

Anything with Quantum in its name is just weird!

And some find the idea of God difficult to understand. fbb can assure his readers that God us far more believable, hugely more understandable and really really helpful compared with anything that has 'quantum' in its name.

If you want to know more, you can find this book on-line.

fbb has a copy, has read it several times and ...

... he still cannot grasp it. Not only that, but there are even more things that involve the quantum than there were c 60 years ago when fbb first tried to grasp Mr Hoffman's oeuvre!

And there's more ...

... coming up is quantum on your 6G mobile phone.

A London Suburban Diagram

We all know Harry Beck's' London Underground map. But other operators pinched the same idea. Here is the pre-nationalisation LMS with its services based on London Euston.

Starting from the north we see that ...

... the branches between Watford and Croxley Green or Rickmansworth have long gone with those communities served exclusively by the Metropolitan line of the Underground.

The branch to Stanmore ...

... was also overtaken by the more frequent Metropolitan branch, later Bakerloo, later Jubilee line.

Services from Willesden ...

... are very much part of the Overground today. The detail has changed a little but the concept us still recogniseable.

Most services in the inner areas still operate ...

... with the exception of the line to Poplar. But the LMS seems to have annexed the Bakerloo Line!

fbb may return to some of these lines in a later blog.

The Transatlantic Tunnel Teaser

Four more daft "news" items have graced this often completely potty news items. Readers may like to wonder at the Appalling Inventedness of the illustrations.

We have a floating train ...

... another underwater train with very strange reflections ...

... and a very unrealistic tunnel.

And how about a tunnel that is too small for anything other than a fairground ride?

And they call it A I, (Amazing Incompetence), which, we are told, is the future of everything.

What To Do ....

.... with the other half of the gateway, its second round (actually octagonal) tower.

Answer ...

... make it into a smaller square tower.

Jackpot idea and a notable bodge!

And A Puzzle Picture

How much would you have to pay for the above, a brand new Hornby locomotive?

Answer tomorrow.

  Next Variety blog : Sunday 18th Jan 

Replacing The Angel (3)

What Started It : The Trains

We were at the now defunct Angel Road station, enjoying (?) its industrial landscape and relishing its total lack of facilities. We saw that this luxurious halt had a very "industrial" train service with peak hour stops north- and south-bound on Mondays to Fridays only.

But now we have Meridian Water ...

... glorious beyond desire compared with its predecessor. It has a covered entrance area with ticket machines ...

... lifts and platform shelters. And, excitingly, it has a bench seat on both platform areas. 

But the station is unstaffed and there is no ticket office. But hang on there, it has a Monday to Sunday timetables, so surely a huge improvement on that at Angel Road.

We need to remember that there is a complex pattern of services on these lines, a mixture of local stopping trains, what used to be called "The Stansted Express", fast trains to Cambridge and the locals to Hertford East.

Here is the faster service pattern ...

... with no stops shown for Meridian Water. Nothing calls between Cheshunt (for the Overground) and Tottenham Hale (for the Victoria Underground line). Note that there are two trains an hour between Bishops Stortford and Stratford, taking a left hand turnat Tottenham Hale.

So we need to look at the stopping service from Hertford East?

Disappointingly we only have a few trains stopping at Meridian Water. The last stop of the morning 'peak' is the 0922 to Stratford.

And that's it!

In fact the service is worse than the original at Angel Road. Seems a very poor timetable for a shiny new station. Maybe it will get better as the development develops.

And look at this:-

There is a brand new (well new-ish) third track between Meridian Water and just short of Lea Bridge on the Stratford line.

A search among the on-line timetables on the Anglia web site we find a full table for local trains from Bishops Stortford.

There is the service to Stratford mentioned above, every 30 minutes but it is joined by an additional 30 minute headway between Meridian Water and Stratford. Seems very lavish for a backwater service; maybe the crowds rush in their train loads to the Westfield shopping heaven at Straford?

This 15 minute frequency calls at Lea Bridge ...

... which appears on Nick Catford's disused stations web site. It closed in 1963.

The station was re-opened with the restoration of trains between Tottenham Hale and Stratford.

The service returned in 2016 with the 'new' Lea Bridge ...

... sadly lacking the character of the original station.

fbb guesses that the Stratford trains use the extra platform as installed at Meridian Water.

fbb is intrigued with that walkway leading from platforms 2 and 3 ...

... with a gate just across the road from Tesco.

Is It an official entrance?

So, apart from a few peak hour trains, the only places you can get to with any frequency are Northumberland Park, Tottenham Hale Lea Bridge and Stratford.

Lets hope the planners devise a better service to be in place as the new housing development actually happens.

STOP PRESS

Thanks to a blog correspondent for informing fbb of some proposals for bus route revisions at Meridian Water. They will feature in tomorrow's  blog

We Have Crenellations!

A very sticky job and not the best results. But castles can be a bit messy in construction after a few years! Well this one is, anyway. There will be foliage to disguise the worst bits. There has already been some lead pencil at work!

Today will allow the grade 1 bodger to begin to fit the new bit of castle to the old bit!

  Next Variety blog : Saturday 17th Jan