Special Post: Farringdon

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope that you will enjoy it and be inspired to sahre.

FARRINGDON

The current Farringdon station opened in 1865, when the Metropolitan Railway (as it then was) expanded eastward for the first time from the old terminus just to the south of here at Farringdon Street (it had already reached west to Hammersmtih in 1864). As the colours of the heading indicate it is currently served by the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines. There is also an overground station served by Thameslink.

I have a couple of shots from an old A-Z to show the area at surface level…

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For three months in 1997 I worked (for experience plus travel expenses) at Interpretations, based in Bakers Yard, the near the junction of Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue, the first job I ever had.

Also, tying in with two of my interests (real ale and English literature), just to the north of this junction is a pub called the Betsey Trotwood, which I would recommend anyone to visit.

Just south of here is City Thameslink, a train station with exceptionally long platforms, owing to the fact that it was created by amalgamating two old stations, Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Hill into one.

I end but setting this historic station in context with the aid of the Diagrammatic History…

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Special Post: Alperton

INTRODUCTION

Welcome the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station” I hope you will enjoy this post and be inspired to share it.

ALPERTON: A MINOR STATION WITH A MAJOR QUIRK

Alperton was originally opened in 1903 as a District Line station, but since October 1933 has been served only by the Piccadilly line. The transfer of services on this branch occurred in two phases as shown in the following extract from the Diagrammatic History…

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Of course, typically, this important paragraph straddles a fold on the map, as you can see.

A legacy of the period of joint service is that all stations on this branch have platforms of a compromise height between that of tube and surface stock.

We come now the the sole reason for this very brief post – the quirk referred to in the title. Escalators can be found all over London Underground, but those at Alperton are there for an unusual reason on this network: to carry passengers up from street level to the platforms.

A couple of pics to finish…

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Photography and Scanning

INTRODUCTION

I do not have a lot of links or infographics to share, but my title piece will be accompanied by plenty of pictures. I hope that you all enjoy this post and will be inspired to sahre it.

NEAR MIRACULOUS CATCH UP OPERATION

Because of all the fuss over the Great Charity Centenary Auction work for James and Sons own June auction was somewaht delayed. However, unlikely as it seemed only a few days ago, the catalogue for this auction will be back from the printers by the end of Thursday, and we should be up online at the-saleroom by not long after that as well.

I was working with the scanner and the camera all day today. An example of scanner work is this collection of militaria (nine lots in total, which I show as the original scan, and then the individual images I extracted from it…

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Another set of images that I used the scanner for were these very old coins…

755 756 757 758 759 760

Also, as mentioned, I took photographs of a wide variety of items, some of which are below…

181 274 425 425a 681 682 687 688 688a 688b

This image of a set of gold proof coins from Jersey was obtained with the scanner.

A LINK AND AN INFOGRAPHIC

I am treating these together, asthere is only one fo each. The link is to one of Vox Political’s recent offerings. The blog post ends with the feature image, this infographic courtesy of Jon Swindon..

Special Post: Hainault

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest post in my “London Station by Station” series. These posts do not contain anything other than the title piece, and any links and pictures relate exclusively to that theme, as is not the case with my regular posts.

A BELGIAN PROVINCE AND AN OUTPOST OF LONDON UNDERGROUND

Hainault was important duchy in what is now Belgium in 14th century, although the modern province has subsequently lost the l and is now called Hainaut. The connection to this country dates from that same period, when Phillippa of Hainault, daughter of the then duke married Edward III. For more on this, I have a link to a short academic article.

As with the rest of the eastern end of the Central line, Hainault was originally served by the Great Eastern Railway before being transferred to London Underground in 1948. Hainault gives it name to the Hainault Loop, which the following extract from the diagrammatic history shows…

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For many years, Hainault was a terminus station, with the northern segment of the loop being run by a shuttle service, but nowadays trains taking the loop run all the way round it to Woodford.

At one time the southern part of the Hainault loop was going to form an eastern extension to a planned Chelsea-Hackney line, but that line never got beyond the planning stage, and I have not heard it mentioned in the last couple of decades. This 1994 speculative map from Ken Garland’s “Mr Beck’s Underground Map” shows the plan along with one or two other plans of the time, some of which did come to fruition (though by no means all)…

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As for the place itself, the only point of interest as that there is a country park, which would probably provide a decent walk if you were so minded.

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and that you will be encouraged to share it, and I leave you with one last picture…

Operation Catch Up

INTRODUCTION

As well as my title piece I have some photos which connect to that and some cracking links to share with you. Read, enjoy and please share…

OPERATION CATCH UP

The combination of two auctions happening in the space of four days and a degree of failure on the organsiation front has made things somewhat hectic of late. However, after a full day imaging for our June auction today, I believe that we will be able to give our online viewers a week to look at the items that will be going under the hammer, which did not look likely at one point. Today’s imaging has been very varied, including some lovely Hornby toys (Hornby for the uninitiated are THE name when it comes to railway themed toys and models). There were also some decent stamp lots and some interesting militaria. To end this section here are some pictorial highlights…

277 277a 283 283a 294 503 503a 506 506a 512 512a 519 594 594a 596 596a 600 618 623 623a 623b 641 658 664 665 685 764 764a 767 767a 794

LINKS

Here as promised are those links, starting with a fistful on the subject of…

RELIGION

My first three links are all related to the same organisation:

1)Atheist Republic home

2)Atheist Republic blogs

3)Atheist Republic’s brief explanation of atheism.

Patheos, so often a source of good material have done it again, this time with a piece about Christian extremist opposition to higher education.

A CHANCE TO BRING A VILE CRIMINAL TO JUSTICE

A single link, being given a subsection to itself. This is a petition being run by Avaaz to ensure that the South African government does the right thing and takes the opportunity to arrest and incarcerate former Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir

SCIENCE AND MUSIC

An unusual juxtaposition, but both my science related pieces are concerned with planets, and there is a very well known piece of music called The Planets, so I considered it acceptable on this occasion. The music related link is to a piece by Charlotte Hoather about Madama Butterfly, in a production of which she will soon be appearing. My two planets themed pieces both come from Cosmos Up:

1)Juxtaposition of Jupiter and Venus

2)A possible preponderance of Neptune sized planets in our galaxy.

A FINAL SELECTION

Three more links, starting with this from Jayne Linney.

Stop Homophobia have collected some superb responses to hate mail.

Last but most definitely not least is this piece from network autism about gender dysphoria and autism.

Special Post: Hammersmith

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. Whereas my regular posts contain links, photographs and sometimes infographics as well as the title piece, these posts contain no links, no infographics and only pictures that relate directly to the matter in hand.

HAMMERSMITH

The colours of the title are those of the modern lines that serve the station. The Hammersmith and City line, in the days when it was the original Metropolitan Railway reached Hammersmith in 1864, although the current station for that line was opened four years later in 1868. From 1877 to 1906 a viaduct diverging from the current line at Goldhawk Road and having a station called Hammersmith Grove Road connected to the District at Ravenscourt Park and thence to Richmond. The District line station at Hammersmith opened in 1874, and it was the original western terminus of the Piccadilly line in 1906.

The station which now serves the District and Piccadilly lines was completely redesigned a few years back, although the track layout remains the same – District line tracks on the outside, Piccadilly line tracks in the centre. Except for occasional services which also stop at Turnham Green, where the Richmond branch of the District diverges from the Ealing branch, Piccadilly trains run non-stop between Hammersmith and Acton Town. Just west of Hammersmith on the District and Piccadilly lines one can see the remains of the viaduct referred to in the opening paragraph.

Hammersmith is home to a major shopping centre (the reason for the redesign mentioned above) and also to the Lyric Theatre, at which I saw several good plays.

Here are a couple of pictures to conclude the post…

A close up of the key area for this post.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and I encourage you to share it!

A Hard Day’s Imaging

INTRODUCTION

I have a few links to share with you, but most of the post will be taken up with the title piece.

CATALOGUE FOR GREAT CENTENARY CHARITY AUCTION IN PRINT

The catalogue for the Great Centenary Charity Auction is now available in printed form. For more detail please consult the official post on www.greatcharity.org, which can be viewed here. Just to whet the appetiite further here is a glimps of the cover…

GCCA Catalogue

A HARD DAY’S IMAGING

Having knocked the Great Charity Centenary Auction on the head, today was almost entirely devoted to imaging for James and Sons own June auction. I imaged a wide variety of lots today, and reckoning that pictures speak louder than words, the rest of this section will be images of some the better lots…

This is lot 1 - starting as we would like to continue! — This is lot 1 – starting as we would like to continue!

517 589 626 626a 630 630a 647 647a 647b 777 777a 786 786a 791

INTRODUCTION

This is going be to what I think of as a ‘standard issue’ blog post – my title piece, a couple of infographics that have caught my eye, some interesting links and a few of my own photographs.

IMAGING, IMAGING AND MORE IMAGING

With James and Sons’ own June auction and the Great Centenary Charity Auction which is being conducted by James and Sons happening within four days of one another I have a heavy load of imaging to get through. The last of the GCCA stuff was done yesterday, and I then got back to imaging for the regular June auction, on which I had made a start before I was commandeered to image the stuff for the GCCA.

At least today, with the GCCA stuff out of the way, I will be working at my usual location the whole day, and should get a lot done.

Towards the end of yesterday I got a few bits of June imaging done, some of which I shall share now…

LINKS

I am grouping these links by subject matter, because although there are only a few of them, they cover a wide range of topics…

RELIGION

I have two pieces in this section, both courtesy of Patheos:

1)A piece on the Caitlyn Jenner story

2)Much more important than one, a piece introducing my readers to the Freethought Rescue project

SCIENCE

Just the one science link today, to a piece my Marcus Chown about the Cosmic Microwave Background.

LOW PAID JOBS

Two pieces in this section, one from Tax Research UK about social security payments and, following the brook back to the parent lake, the inspiration for the Tax Research UK piece on flipchartfartfairytales.

AUTISM

Just the one piece, but it is an excellent one, and it is feel-good story to end my links section on an upbeat note, courtesy of ramblingsofaspecialmom – a story about finding the right kind of support.

INFOGRAPHICS AND A CLOSING NOTE

I hope you have enjoyed this post and will be encouraged to share it.

Special Post: King’s Cross St Pancras

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next installment in my station by station guide to London. Following the success of my piece on Paddington I have gone for the other main line terminus among the original seven stations on the Metropolitan Railway…

HISTORY

King’s Cross and St Pancras are next door neighbours to one another, and therefore served by the same Underground Station. Although this was one of the 1863 originals, the platforms that now serve the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines have been resited – the present ‘surafce’ level station dates only from 1941. The Piccadilly line station was part of the original section of that line which opened in 1906, while the City and South London Railway (now the Bank branch of the Northern line) got there in 1907. Finally, it was part of the second section of the Victoria line to come on stream in December 1968.

ST PANCRAS

Although King’s Cross (of which more later) is by some way the larger of the two main line rail terminals here, St Pancras is an extraordinary building, resembling an outsized fairy castle. St Pancras is now an international terminus, running trains to the continent, and meaning that over a century after he just failed to make it happen the dream of Edward Watkin, who guided the Metropolitan in its great era of expansion, of being able to travel by rail from Paris to Manchester by way of London is now a reality.

KING’S CROSS

King’s Cross is a station of two parts – the main concourse and platforms 1-8 which run long haul trains to the north and scotland, and off to one side platforms 9-11 from which trains to much more local destinations such as Peterborough, Cambridge and King’s Lynn depart. It is here that you will find the sign to platform 9³/₄ from which the Hogwarts Express departs in the Harry Potter stories. Having mentioned one literary association, King’s Cross plays a passing role in more than one of Edward Marston’s stories involving Inspector Colbeck a.ka. The Railway Detective.

MAPS

I have my usual style map images to help those of you not familiar with the area to orient yourselves:

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CONCLUSION

I hope that you have enjoyed this piece and that you will be encouraged to share it.

Travel and Other Stuff

INTRODUCTION

As well as my title piece I have some links, and few photographs to share. I am producing a post specifically about travel because I have always enjoyed travelling and also because in honour of a forthcoming visit to the UK one of my favourite bloggers, Autism Mom

THOMAS ON TRAVEL

PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND SUTCLIFFE’S FIRST LAW

Not only do I not drive, I knew long before I was of an age to drive that I would never do so, so all travelling that i do under my own steam is done on public transport. Since I am now 40, my experience of public transport is long, and because I am British it is also not entirely happy!

The second part of my title refers to a law I have coined for travelling by public transport which reads as follows:

Sutcliffe’s First Law of Travelling by Public Transport – If you allow time for things to go wrong they won’t but if you don’t they will.

The practical application of this somewhat cynical ‘law’ is that when planning a journey where you need to be at your destination by a certain time you should work out the particular bus or train you need to catch and then aim for the one before to allow for mishaps.

These pictures of an RAF rescue helicopter were taken through the window of an X8 bus on the way home from work…

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IN TRANSIT

When in transit I either seek to enjoy the scenery (if I am not familiar with the route) or to read a book (if I am)

Another reason that travel is much on my mind at the moment is that my local bus station, which I use frequently is in the process of being refurbished. Here are a couple of pictures…

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LINKS

My first link comes courtesy of Autism Daily Newscast and features some advice from Jamie Lee Curtis.

Next, we have a little gem of a post from my friends at Faraday’s Candle.

Now, a new discovery for me, seabirdwatchireland

Next two items concerned with the 50:50 campaign for gender equality in parliament:

1)A blog post on Huffington Post

2)A link to a petition related to the above blog post.

My final link, to end this section on an upbeat note is to news of a victory of a campaign in Hackney.

CONCLUSION

I hope you have enjoyed this post and will be encouraged to share it.

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