Tag: views

Comrie 2024 – The Journey There

The public transport elements of my journey from King’s Lynn to Comrie.

This is the first of what I plan to be a series of posts about my recent holiday in Scotland. This post looks in detail at the public transport elements of the journey there.

KING’S LYNN TO PETERBOROUGH

I booked my train tickets to and from Peterborough because it is significantly cheaper that way and also the train journey to Peterborough involves a change at Ely. With the train on which I had a reserved seat leaving Peterborough at 10:18AM I assessed that the right bus to be on was the 8:30AM bus, which meant I needed to leave before 8 o’clock to be sure of catching it. This did not prove to be any great problem. The bus ran smoothly and I arrived at Peterborough with plenty of time to find the correct platform and the correct place on that platform to wait to board the train at the right point (I was in coach H, which was shown on the information screen as needing me to be in zone 5 of the platform…

PETERBOROUGH TO EDINBURGH WAVERLEY

This was the longest leg of the journey, but compensated by also being the fastest. Finding my reserved seat was straightforward, and no one had unthinkingly occupied it, so I was able to seat myself without having to ask anyone to move (even though reservations are very clearly indicated as such it is not unknown to find a reserved seat already occupied, and I will get the person occupying it to move if that is the case). I had booked a forward facing window seat, and on this occasion that was what it proved to be – and it was on the better side of the train for photography. This route provides plenty of fine views, especially between York and Edinburgh (though there a few good bits south of York as well). The task at Edinburgh was to locate the train I was to travel on as far as Stirling, which I did…

EDINBURGH TO STIRLING

This was on a stopping service which was ultimately headed for Dunblane, and passed through a few interesting places. At Stirling I had to change trains for the final leg of the journey to Perth, but this did involve moving platforms, for which I was grateful.

STIRLING TO PERTH

This was a non-stop journey on a Scotrail Intercity service heading towards Inverness. Unfortunately I was unable to secure a window seat for this final leg of the journey, though I did spot one or two interesting things on arrival at Perth. The train arrived at Perth at the scheduled time, which meant that seven and a half hours of public transport travel involving one bus and three trains had ended with the traveller in the right place at the right time – which in 21st century Britain comes close to qualifying as miraculous.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Taking photographs through the windows of buses and trains is often frustrating, but yields enough good pictures to be worthwhile….

The first 15 pictures are King’s Lynn pictures, some taken on the Monday evening, a couple while walking to the bus station on Tuesday morning.
This picture and the next two were taken while passing through Wisbech.
The train pictures start here.
Our first stop.
On the approach to Alnmouth.
The train would soon be crossing this viaduct.
Looking along the Tweed as the train moves from England into Scotland.
This is now a Radisson hotel, but it would have been built by the original railway company as the station hotel.

Cornish Winter Break 10: Tintagel 2 Exploring the Ruins

Continuing the sub-series about my visit to Tintagel within the series about my Cornish holiday. Also taking the opportunity to pitch for votes for NAS West Norfolk for Lynn News Charity of the Year.

INTRODUCTION

I continue my account of my Cornish holiday with the second of what will be three posts about Tintagel. In my previous post I ended with the new bridge that one uses to enter the grounds of the castle. Before getting into the body of this post I have small piece of business to attend to…

NAS WEST NORFOLK ON SHORTLIST FOR LYNN NEWS CHARITY OF THE YEAR

NAS West Norfolk, of which I am branch secretary, is now the only organization in West Norfolk to whom autistic people can turn for help. We are run by volunteers, all our money comes from donations, and is all used to run activities that help autistic people. For more details about The Lynn News Charity of the Year and to vote please click here. Please also help to publicise this any way you can.

THE CASTLE GROUNDS – THE ASCENT

Excavations are ongoing, but already a huge amount has been revealed – this place was massive back in the day. Within the castle grounds the official walking routes are well kept, and the ascents and descents are all fairly manageable.  When the weather is good, and we were lucky to get an exceptionally benevolent day, there are some stunning views in addition to the ruins. Time now for some photos…

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The first of a number of interesting info/ story boards around the castle.

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The sun prevented me from getting a really good picture of this view, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Links, Puzzles, Pictures

Links, puzzles and pictures. Public transport features, as does some general politics, and mathematics. The pictures are of course my own.

INTRODUCTION

I have many links to share with you, and wilkl be setting a puzzle. I will be putting up another of my tree posts immediately after this one, so my pictures feature stuff other than trees.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

This section comes in two parts, starting with…

NEWS FROM MY LONDON TRANSPORT WEBSITE

Just before lunchtime today I received the following email:

Dear Thomas.

I am writing regarding http://www.londontu.be 

My name is Andrew and I work for Nicola at Tour London. Nicola is a tour guide in London UK who takes individuals and groups to the most famous landmarks in London, as well as discovering hidden gems along the way! We were wondering if it were possible for us to appear on your “links” page in any way given that we share such a similar topic.

Alternatively would you be interested in content pieces? Nicola has a vast knowledge of London and would love to share it with your audience. 
Finally, If not content, do you have any other advertising opportunities?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,

Andrew | Marketing Executive
Tour London
Tourlondon.org.uk

 

Naturally, I was delighted to receive such a communication, and I have since put in some links, done a special post about this site and ‘pressed’ a couple of their pieces. Please visit londontu.be to read about this in more detail, and then explore tourlondon to see what they have to offer.

WE OWN IT – TRANSPORT

The campaign group weownit have created a resource with the catchy title Privatisation Fails. Below is a screenshot of the homepage for this resource:

pf

Of course, I followed up the bus and train links. Here is a paragraph from Privatisation Fails Buses:

Buses

30 years ago, our bus services were deregulated and privatised. This has been a disaster for our buses. Fares went up and routes that weren’t profitable were cut, meaning you now pay more for less.  In 2017, the Bus Service Users Bill was passed, which included a clause which bans local councils from creating their own public bus companies. 

On this page are the Big Five bus companies that grew out of deregulation and privatisation in the 1980s – together they control 70% of the bus travel industry in the UK. Many of these companies either own, or are owned by, rail companies as well.

Read more about bus services, and how and why we want to bring them into public ownership, here.

Next up comes Privatisation Fails Railways:

Railways

British Rail was broken up and privatised between 1994 and 1997, and since then rail services in the UK have been provided by private companies. There are 16 rail franchises in the UK, where the government gives train companies funding to run services for a certain period. 

Many of the companies that run our trains are European state-owned companies who reinvest millions of pounds a year in dividends from their British operations into their own transport systems. As you’ll see, these companies often own franchises within franchises. You might be surprised to learn who owns your morning commute! We’ve also listed three ‘ROSCOs’ or rolling stock companies, who lease trains to rail companies.

Read more about the privatisation of rail and what we can do about it here.

POLITICAL LINKS

Royal Mail workers have voted by a huge margin to take strike action. The official voting figures are:

Turnout 73.7%
Yes 89%
No 11%

This means that 65.593% of all those eligible to vote cast their vote in favour of strike action. I did this calculation myself, entirely in my head, but here for the record is how to get there…

Calling Turnout T and Yes votes Y and Overall Percent Yes as O we have O = TY/100. Putting the known figures into this we have O = (73.7 x 89)/100. To avoid decimals until absolutely necessary we change this to O = (737 x 89)/1000. To calculate 737 x 89 we can reduce to single figure calculations as follows:

737 x 89 = (700 x 89) + (30 x 89) + (7 x 89), and then splitting these up 700 x 89 = (700 x 80) + (700 x 9), 30 x 89 = (30 x 80) + (30 x 9) and 7 x 89 = (7 x 80) + (7 x 9). We now have a series of multiplications which can all be treated as single figure multiplications, with in some cases zeroes to be stuck on the end. Multiplying them out gives us 56,000 + 6,300 + 2,400 + 270 +560 + 63. Adding these together we get 65,593, and dividing by 1,000 requires a decimal point to go between the first and second five, giving us 65.593%. PS It took a lot longer writing this out than performing the calculations in my head!

I have two links for you about this vote:

A SKWAWKBOX QUADRUPLE BILL

The Skwawkbox, one of the best new media sites around, has had several particularly outstanding pieces recently:

PHOTOS 1 – ANIMALS

From Monday and yesterday:

Swan IV
Mute Swan (first four images) on the section of the Gaywood near Kettlewell lane.

Swan IIISwan IISwan IDucks and drakesMallard drakeMoorhen

Squirrel with Conker
This squirrel was sufficiently occupied by its shiny new conker for me to get this picture.

A TEASER

This puzzle comes courtesy of brilliant:

PNQ

PHOTOS 2: VIEWS

Minster Lumiere
Although all these pictures were taken in varying degrees of darkness none involved the use of the flash, which is an absolute last resort for me.

CH Lumiere VCH Lumiere IVCH Lumiere IIICH Lumiere IICH LumiereCustom House IICustom HouseNar meets Ouse, high tideWL Churchtownscape at dusk