Burges Road and "The Arches"

I am pleased to see that people may now once again cycle into Burges Road (East Ham) at the Barking end as well as out, as a cycle track has been installed.

After years of works going on in the area, I thought I'd check whether it is still possible to get under "the arches" - in fact where Barrington Rd and Stevenage Rd (E6) join under the railway bridge by the East Ham train depot. It's just as much a dump as it ever was -disgraceful - but you can get through on foot or by bike.

It is from this point that we really need a path to Barking across the open space, under the A406 and over the R Roding.

Front Yard Company

The Front Yard Company makes some interesting, simple, elegant and useful products for front yards that may be useful in other settings.

1) PlantLock - a plant tub with a rail on either side for locking bikes to and a cycle decal to make it clear that's what it's for. A simple way of having secure cycle parking with a container for plants.

2) BoxDock and BinDock - an oak surround for your wheelie bin and recycling crate with a shelf for a second recycling crate. Can be made up to store more bins/crates.

3) BikePort - an array of bike stands (for 2-4 bikes) covered with an acrylic "canvas" to keep the rain off.

E A Cycles

I'm not 100% clear about this, but I believe this shop took over the business of Cycle Asylum of Manor Park/Little Ilford. It certainly has the same phone number - (020) 8478 2540. The shop is roughly opposite opposite First Avenue (and opposite where Cycle Asylum used to be). The address is 783 Romford Road, Manor Park, LONDON, E12 5AN. I've never used it, but it does, according to London Cyclist offer discounts to LCC members - 5% on bikes and servicing; and10% on accessories

Oyster discounted daily price capping - Railcards

Taken from www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/singlefares/6769.aspx:

"If you hold a National Rail Railcard, you can get an Oyster card and have the Railcard discount entitlement loaded on to it. You can then use Oyster to pay as you go at adult-rate, but your off-peak Oyster daily price cap will be 34% lower than the equivalent adult-rate cap.

Holders of the following National Rail Railcards can benefit from the discounted daily price capping:

• Disabled Persons
• HM Forces,
• Senior
• Young Persons.

You will need to get an Oyster card and have your Railcard discount concession loaded on it."

Mobile phone charging

There's a make of charger called Xqisit which switches off when you remove the phone from the cradle. A brilliantly simple idea that will save the energy wasted when chargers are left plugged into the mains. I hope power supplies more generally can follow this lead.

The system works by a simple switch. Here's a Nokia compatible model:
http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/16651.htm

and here's a Sony Ericsson:

http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/16659.htm

While I was searching for this I discovered that "After the Chinese government recently mandated micro-USB as the future national standard for mobile phone chargers, OMTP (the Open Mobile Terminal Platform), the forum whose members include Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG, announced that micro-USB will be the future common connector for the mobile phones." http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2007/09/23/mobile-phone-charger-one-is-enough/.

http://www.onlinereview.org.uk/blog/blog-2007-09-24-1337.htm says "The Manufacturers that will be using the new micro USB are companies like LG, Nokia and Samsung. Mobile operators such as Vodafone, Orange, 3 and T mobile have also joined declared a consensus [sic] as well. Apple and Sony Ericsson however will not be changing their charging system."

Circle line closure

I've written before about the plans to close the Circle line and replace it with Hammersmith and City (HC) services. Modern Railways (July 08) has an article on it (page 66) and although the main reasons they give for the change make no more sense to me than before, there are some real reasons behind what the changes are - and they make more sense, I think.

Most travellers, I believe, are uncomprehending at the idea of trains recovering from delays on the Circle line, as the trains jut go round and round in circles. Furthemore, practically all the route is doubled by either the District (southern part, western part), HC (Northern part) and Metropolitan (Northern part east of Baker Street). One just gets the next train along and changes where necessary.

The new pattern relies more on trains terminating at Edgware Road at Edgware Road, where there are concerns about congestion caused by more people changing! What's going on? I don't see why it's more covenient overall tochange at Edgware Road than anywhere else.

The article also says that if a Circle train has to be taken out of service, the replacement has to run empty from Hammersmith depot until it gets to the Circle. This is nonsense -I have been on a "Circle Line" train that started at Hammersmith.

Part of the propoposal is to up the frequency of trains on the Hammersmith branch from 7 or 7.5 trains per hour (tph) to 12. Aha! This means, as the article says, that trains will be near the depot more often, so if there's a problem with a train it can be tken out of service there and swapped with another one from the depot. Now that makes sense.

The second real change is that Whitechapel will lose 2 of its 4 platform faces to make room for escalators for Crossrail in the "middle of the layout". Therefore turning (terminating) slots at Whitechapel will disappear and will, I suppose, have to be taken up somewhere else - hence Edgware Road's increased use. Because of this displacement, about half the District line trains on the Wimbledon - Edgware Road branch will turn at High Street Kensington.

I think this makes much more sense as an explanation. But I have more comments on the frequency diagram. TheBarking branch's frequency gets reduced from 7 or 7.5 tph to 6. Assuming there's no corresponding increase in c2c or District trains, one has to wonder why te capacity is not left at 7 to relieve pressure on Edgware Road by running more trains through.

Similarly, the southern half of the Circle gets reduced from 7 or 7.5 tph to 6, Wimbledon to High St Ken is reduced from 7 to 6, Wimbledon to Edgware Rd from 7 or 6 to 3. The top half of the circle reduces from 14-15 tph (Circle and HC combined) to 12 (east of Edgware Road). The article calls this a comparable level of service to now, but I don't see that.

Admittedly the new trains proposed for these lines, the District and the Met (ie all the "sub surface lines" except the East London which is another story) would be longer and therefore hold more people-so the throughput in passenger capacity per hour is not necessarily to decrease (the article doesn't say but it seems unlikely that it will).