Such is the routine nature of weekend engineering works ruining any prospect of going out around London on the public transport system that when they have a rare weekend without any engineering works on this particular line, National Express to Liverpool Street Station, they need to make a poster about it in order to remind people that there might just be some transport available.
Otherwise everybody would just assume that weekend trips are more trouble than they are worth and stay at home.
weekend engineering works
Of course once you get into Liverpool St Station on one of these rare weekend trains, there’s no guarantee that the onward journey will be as smooth. The Circle line, District and Hammersmith and City lines are likely to be severely disrupted or not running at all so that leaves the Central Line or “London Sauna” as better described.
There are several large skyscraper building projects underway or planned in London currently. Some are just holes in the ground, but others are growing up into the skyline already.
Heron Tower - under construction
This one, called Heron Tower (46 floors) , near Liverpool Street Station seems to dwarf the elegant 30 St Mary Axe building nearby (The Gherkin, 41 floors) but it looks like a giant mechano set, brutal and unforgiving straight lines with a relentless symmetry. And when its finished, it won’t look much better. Heron Tower itself is due to be dwarfed in turn by another new skyscraper building close by dubbed “The Pinnacle” at Crosby Court or Bishopgate Tower ( 60 floors) which has a little twist on the top, in an attempt to ask forgiveness for excessively towering over the City of London and over on the other side of the river at London Bridge Station they’ve already started building “The Shard” or London Bridge Tower (87 floors).
The design for a new bus for London, heavily inspired by the Londoners’ favourite routemaster bus has been unveiled amongst controversy. The cost to Boris Johnson’s mayor office is over £7 million just for the design and first five buses, while design experts have criticised the snazzy curvy appearance of the new bus for ‘trying too hard’.
New Routemaster Bus
The joint submission by Sir Norman Foster + Partners and Aston Martin won first prize in Transport for London’s competition to design a new bus for the capital. The two teams worked together to challenge preconceptions of bus design with a vehicle that is environmentally sensitive, accessible, convivial and reinvents a much-loved symbol of London for the modern era. Or does it?
And what about those curves, do they perhaps break the design law which says that form should follow function and add unneccessary manufacturing costs or is there a green aerodynamic fuel saving advantage perhaps. Now if the curves were at the front perhaps…
You can’t help admitting that the design looks smart though, perhaps in a similar way to the reinvented VW beetle car or the new BMW mini. In all cases they are not the same thing as the original design they are inspired by, but are capable of drawing in fans from the newer generations who have got bored with brutal functionalism and appreciate a bit of style over substance. Which brings us back to the bendy bus:
A new section of the London Overground has opened in a limited way, weeks ahead of schedule says TFL
Dalston Junction – New Cross and New Cross Gate open 27 April 2010
This section of the line has now opened ahead of schedule with a limited preview service running Monday to Fridays between 07:00 and 20:00 only and will build up towards a full timetable by mid-May.
The other southern leg which extends from Dalston Junction to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon is due to open on 23 May 2010, while the joining section to the rest of the London Overgound outer circle line, from Dalston to Highbury and Islington is due to be completed in 2011.
Gospel Oak to Stratford on the other hand, remains closed for engineering works until 31 May 2010 with signalling and track renewal work, platform lengthening and the refurbishment of some stations. So there’s a London Overground replacement bus service there presently.
The new trains are more like bendy buses on rails though, with limited seating, lots of strap hanging and completely open connections between the carriages. Sitting sideways to the motion of the train is definitely less comfortable than conventional perpendicular seating whether facing forwards or back, but these mass transit systems are all geared towards alleviating congestion at rush hours rather than passenger comfort.
Bicycles are permitted on the trains except between 7:00–10:00 and 16:00-19:00 Monday to Friday.
The Orbit Tower unveiled for Stratford Olympics Site
I must have been out of touch recently because I wasn’t even aware there had been a series of proposals for building a large tower at Stratford East London, to make a landmark art installation at the 2012 Olympics Site. Now the winner has been chosen and launched under the title of “The ArcelorMittal Orbit” or The Orbit Tower for short, by world renowned artist Anish Kapoor, with engineering by Cecil Balmond.
The artist’s impression unfortunately fails to excite the imagination of many Londoners who have seen it online, leaving comments such as “It’s a mess”, “bloooming ugly” and “looks like a rollercoaster that’s been in an earthquake”.
The problem is that artists impressions normally manage to make ugly things look ok, but on the other hand anything by Kapoor is unlikely to look ugly in the flesh judging by his impressive list of current achievements.
Standing at 115 metres tall, the Orbit will be slightly taller than Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty, twice the height of Nelson’s Column, just short of the Great Pyramid of Giza and considerably shorter than the structure to which it is being compared – the Eiffel Tower.
As well as the aesthetics, the Stratford Orbit Tower is likely to be controversial for economic reasons. Boris Johnson, London’s current incumbent Mayor has spoken at the launch citing the need to justify all the investment that is being made in East London.
The structure gets its formal name from steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Mittal is the richest man in Europe, and he is the one funding the whole project. He said that this project is an incredible opportunity to build something really spectacular for London, for the Olympic games. This is something that can play a lasting role in the legacy of the games.
Mayor Johnson said that the structure will cost around £19.1 million to build. He went on to note that he is sure that some people are going to think that they are nuts, in the depths of a recession, to build the biggest piece of public art that Britain has ever seen. However, they are certain this is the right thing for Britain, and work has to be started on it right away.
Read more and view pics and video as the Orbit Tower is constructed brought into operation on the London Orbit Tower Blog
The Chinese New Year festival falls on February 14th this year, 2010 but celebrations in London’s Chinatown take place for a week or more around that time. It’s a moveable feast, also referred to as Chinese spring festival, and just as much belonging to south east Asia as China.
At last, since 3rd January 2010 we now have the Oystercard Pay As You Go machines installed and working on all main line railway stations in London. This means it’s no longer necessary to make the advance guessing calculation as to whether it’s better to buy a return rail ticket into Liverpool Street station plus a possible two bus or tube journeys, or buy the one day off peak travelcard. Single journeys are taken off the Oystercard at £2.30 a go, and then the whole days journeys are capped at the rate of a travelcard if you do make that many journeys in total. It’s nice because the range of Transport for London extends right out to Romford as well. The only disadvantage is that the Oystercard now needs topping up more often, but the railway station near where I live has no facilities to do this yet! So it’s a walk across the road to a local newsagents or else remember to top up when I’m out somewhere at a tube station, London Overground, or where the newsagent is right next to the bus stop.
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
