Virgin Trains Luggage collection/delivery service - Bag Magic

See www.virgintrains.com/bagmagic.

Virgin Trains has started a bag collection/delivery service called Bag Magic. For £9.99 a bag weighing up to 30kg can be collected from your home on Mon-Fri and delivered to your final address the next day. The price is £16.99 for two bags.

At weekends the charge is £8 (1 bag) or £14 (2 bags) but the weight limit is 20kg and you will need to take the bag to a collection point and collect it from one, too, and there's a size limit of 38 x 38 x 64cm.

Let's hope other companies will also offer this system which was universal at one time back in British Rail days.

Thanks to Barry Doe / Rail Magazine issue 763 for the information.

Cheapest Gold Cards

According to fares supremo Barry Doe, in Rail Magazine issues 761 and 763, the cheapest Gold Card - £108 at current prices - will be Lichfield Trent Valley to/from City. The former cheapest Gold Card was Ryde St Johns Road to/from Ryde Esplanade on the Isle of Wight. This now costs £164, but, if bought at a South West Trains station, it (and I assume any South West Trains Gold Card) entitles the holder to 6 free South West trains tickets in the year. This may save you more than the £56 difference in price from the Lichfield one.

The discounts obtainable with a Gold Card, which change from 2015, are explained here:http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46573.aspx

Train ticket splitting websites - save £ on train fares

Thanks to A to B magazine for pointing out https://www.splitticketing.com/ and https://raileasy.trainsplit.com/. (These are connected sites: the second can be reached via the "Need more options?" link on the first.)

The major breakthrough is that these sites can deal with more types of tickets, and you can buy tickets directly on them. The earlier sites were good for finding a split point, but then you needed to go off to another site to try out the splits on cheaper ticket types, and buy tickets.

My earlier posts on the subject are here http://stibasa.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/tickety-split-improved-version.html and here http://stibasa.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/split-train-tickets-and-save-money.html.

You can read up on the pros and cons of ticket splitting in A to B Issue 105 or on the above mentioned sites, but the sense of ticket splitting is that you buy several tickets for a journey, costing less in total than a ticket for the whole journey, whilst travelling on exactly the same train(s). The websites work this out for you (the train has to stop where your tickets are for) and the savings can be very large.

History in the making as Cullen Bridge joins Dagenham to Elm Park

Today I went to see a new pedestrian/cycling bridge being lowered into position across the R Beam, nr Western Avenue Dagenham, joining Beam Valley Country Park with Bretons Outdoor Recreation Centre. The bridge should be ready for use in about 3-4 weeks time - marki it on your maps now - and the formal opening will be on 28 April 2015, which is the 80th birthday of veteran walking campaigner Michael Cullen, who has doggedly campaigned for a bridge in this vicinity for many years.

The bridge is a Sustrans project funded by TfL. Some photos and moving pictures I took are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105158567856821703505/CullenBridge20141020

Times of Hammersmith & City Line Trains from platform 3 at Barking Station

This photo shows the poster at the top of the stairs to platform 6 at Barking Station. It explains that most H&C trains depart from platform 6 and gives the exceptions that depart from platform 3 (44 of them on weekdays).
 ---

Here is a transcription which you may like to copy and file fro reference:

Mo-Fr:

0611 0628 0650 0709 0748 0806 0828 0845 0857 0917 0925 0934 0946 0957 1005

1545 1555 1605 1617 1626 1637 1645 1656 1706 1716 1725 1735 1746 1755 1805 1814 1826 1835 1846 1856 1906 1915 1925 1935 1945 2344 2354 0005

Sat: 0606 0630 2345

Sun: 0641 - 0735 plat 6
0745 onwards plat 3

---
What the poster doesn't show is the times of District Line trains from platform 3 - I have seen someone making her way to platform 3 to catch what I assume she thought was an H&C. It was the wrong type of train for the H&C line, but a lot of people don't know the difference, and anyway the District line will soon be operated by S-stock trains like the H&C, so the train's appearance will be no indication.

The "changes" were, I've been told, caused by the introduction of the new S-stock trains.  It's bad practice that this poster is undated (at least as displayed) and it would be useful if it were available on line. I have yet to check whether the other locations that showed the previous version of this poster have this one, which I assume to be the latest.

TfL say that they do intend to add platform numbers to their journey planner, but this is a long way down the line. In the mean time, if you really want to know full details, you can plough through the working timetables at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables.


The information provided about Sunday is not terribly helpful, as it doesn't give the times of departures from platform 3, so we still don't know whether to set off down there or not.

If/when the Barking & Gospel Oak Line service is extended onto the Tilbury loop, it will use platforms 7/8. This would free up platform 1, which could conceivably be used for Underground services terminating at Barking.

Even so, what we need is a proper train describer just like the c2c, B&GO and other Underground platforms have, giving dynamic information.

Myth of new trains on Barking & Gospel Oak Line

Apparently even London Overground staff are saying that there will be new trains on the line next year. They are mistaken *, as are the public address announcements saying the same thing. There won't be new trains on the B&GO next year, and here's why:-

1) Any new trains' engines would have to comply with the latest emissions regulations (stage 3b). The Class 172's (the current train type in use) engine and (possibly) exhaust design would need changing to make it stage 3b compliant. This would  be difficult - and probably prohibitively expensive for the small number of vehicles required for the B&GO - but not impossible.

2) (1) is not the main reason for not purchasing more diesel trains. If electrification - the obvious answer for the line - comes before any new / existing diesel trains have recovered their cost from leasing fees, Angel Trains, the company that owns them would have to lease them in a market in which much cheaper and more efficient older units will still be available. (These are unhindered by new emissions regulations - they are not retrospective; some diesel locos are being refurbished and brought back into service for the same reasons.) New diesel trains would give a poor return on investment, in other words. NB: The trains are leased to LOROL, not TfL.

3) Adding additional (unpowered) carriages to existing diesel  trains would not only be technically difficult (they are not designed for it) but would slow the trains down (reduce their power-to-weight ration) below the standard required by Network Rail.

 4) Additional trains cannot be run because there are insufficient paths (ie time slots) to run more without reducing the number of freight trains. There are currently eight paths per hour in each direction (per Wikipedia). This makes longer (higher passenger capacity) trains the only option.

5) As electrification of the remaining un-electrified stretches of line, along with associated works, has not yet started, it will certainly not be finished by next year. (Electrification work will take a long time.)

6) No new trains or carriages have been ordered, so none will be delivered next year.


* There will be additional carriages on other parts of the London Overground next year. Unfortunately this information gets passed on into the wrong contexts and repeated imprecisely, leading to the myth.

Note of caution

This article has been compiled from remembered information and some unclear/illogical/ambiguous published information to which I have attempted to apply logic and common sense. One source http://stibasa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/gospel-oak-and-barking-line-train.html is based on an e-mail (now mislaid) from Glen Wallis of the B&GO Rail User Group,and another is the 4th of the "notes for editors" in this BGORUG press release - http://www.barking-gospeloak.org.uk/documents/20130331_press_release.pdf

Get a loan to buy an annual travelcard on Oyster and save relative to monthy travelcards

https://www.commuterclub.co.uk/

This organisation is offering loans at 5.6% to enable people to buy an annual travelcard on Oyster, whilst paying out monthly. Not only are the monthly payments less than a monthly travelcard, but also you get a Gold Card with an annual travelcard and this gives substantial savings on off peak train fares for you and travelling companions. If your employer doesn't offer an interest free season ticket loan, this may be a good option for you.

(The cheapest annual season in the country used to be (and maybe still is) Ryde St Johns Road to Ryde Esplanade on the Isle of Wight, currently costing £164. Because Gold Card savings are more than with ordinary railcards, this could be cost effective for those who travel often enough.)

Tickety Split - improved version

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/split-cheap-train-tickets/

There's now an improved version of tickety split out, which doesn't cover just walk on fares, but advance fares too.

Tickety split works out where you can split your train tickets (not your journey - you use the same train) saving you substantial amounts of money on fares.

New path in Mayesbrook Park

A new path has been built in Mayesbrook Park, roughly bisecting the northernmost field (containing the cricket ground) running north-south. It finishes at the fence by Honour Gardens, one of the new roads in Academy Central - ie the former UEL Barking Campus site - I can only conclude there will be a new gate into the park there.

If this is the case, it will help form more routes avoiding Longbridge Rd, and particularly the junction with Goodmayes Lane, which will be attractive and useful.

From memory, B&D council has already started to pepper Academy Central with restrictions on cycling, such as no entries and one ways. I need to go and audit / take photos (or find previous photos). Then I will raise this with the council.

Essex churches bike ride 13 September 2014

There's a selection of photos, featuring 12 churches, and a short video taken at Moreton church while the bells were being rung, at https://picasaweb.google.com/105158567856821703505/FOEC_bikeRide_2014.

The day started off well as I travelled with bike on train via Leytonstone High Rd station, meeting a fellow rider on the platform at Leytonstone Central Line station. With my new Jobcentre Plus travel discount card, the fare from Barking to Theydon Bois was only 75p - the same back from Epping to Barking later.

I arrived outside Theydon Bois station in good time for the 9.45 start, and the rider leader suggested that I go to see Theydon Bois Church (St Mary's) and meet the others back at the station where they would wait for me, so off I set. I found the Baptist Church, but it was closed and I could see no evidence that they knew about the churches ride day; no posters, stickers or signing in sheets were obvious. An encounter of the first kind.

I saw a road sign indicating St Mary's and found its church hall, but I could not see a church, and thought I'd better head back to the station, where the others would be wondering where I was, as I thought, but when I got back they were nowhere to be seen. I had a map (without the route indicated) and a list of the churches to be visited, but self navigating can be rather tedious and slow, but most of all I came to ride with a group, so I phoned the leader who confessed he'd forgotten about me, but he directed me which way to go out of Bois and I rejoined the group at Theydon Garnon (All Saints) which was closed - an encounter of the second kind.

Theydon Mount (St Michael the Archangel), an encounter of the third kind, was open and serving tea, coffee and biscuits, in which several of us indulged. They had forgotten to bring cold drinks, but the weather wasn't hot so no-one minded. Little did we know that this would be the only offer of refreshment from churches the whole day. I helpfully poured boiling water over a tray when the polystyrene cup yielded under the pressure of water (lid not on kettle tightly).

Stapleford Tawney (St Mary) was empty when we arrived, but - from memory - had evidence that they knew the ride was happening  - an encounter of the fourth kind.

The famous wooden church of St Andrew, Greensted was buzzing when we arrived, and prepared for churches bike ride visitors - an encounter of the fifth kind -  whilst also preparing for a wedding. I don't think they had refreshments for riders, but that is probably understandable with the number of visitors they get.

As we approached the bridge over the Epping & Ongar Railway near what was Blake Hall Station, some of us heard a train whistle, and one said he thought he'd seen some smoke. Some of us hurtled to the bridge in the hope of seeing a steam engine, but without luck. I expect some riders wondered what all the fuss was about; they just don't understand. There was some consolation in that we saw at least two of the E&OR's splendidly restored green buses during the day- one RT and one or two RF's

Bobbingworth (St Germain) was also preparing for a wedding: We were greeted with "can I ask you not to come in?" I did manage to sign the log sheet, which was handed to me in a bundle of papers like the one I am sent as a church organiser for the Essex ride(s), including the sheet with the woman's name and address on it (so the papers can be posted), stickers, sponsor forms, return envelope, etc. I will say an encounter of the fifth kind.

There was an extraordinary thing inside the church near the door; a large wicker-edged tray full of individual packets of tissues. Next to it stood a perspex picture frame of the kind I imagine one would keep an OBE certificate in, or something momentous - thick and on its own stand. It sported an explanation for the tissues, complete with a schmaltzy verselet about tears of sorrow and tears of joy. No sick-bags that I could see.

As we hung around outside the church, two smartly dressed young men came up to us (I assume the groom and best man), said they were an hour early as they had been given the wrong time, and asked if there was a pub in the village. We informed them that the nearest pub was in Moreton, where there are in fact two (bit greedy). We jokingly discussed how we might ferry them there on the recumbent tandem that one couple in our group had, but in the end they set off on foot.

Moreton (St Mary) summoned us by bells. A "ride-and ring"team of 8, travelling by bicycle, was ringing before we arrived and nearly till we left at 2pm after our lunch stop, by which time they had adjourned to the pub. I heard they were to be ringing for the wedding at Bobbingworth. No evidence of knowledge of the churches ride(s) at this building - another fourth kind encounter.

Little Laver (St Mary) was a bit dark inside, so I flicked on the light switch just inside the north door. The lights came on for a moment, but there was a pop and a spark and they all went out. Oh. I did my duty and phoned the churchwarden, who was clearly quite keen for me try to rectify the problem and save her a trip. She directed me into a vestry, which seemed locked, but following the instruction "pull the door towards you a bit", rendered the handle moveable and got me admittance. There were two possible candidates to be the "fuse box" as the warden put it- on the wall about nine or ten feet up). One was locked, and neither looked like the RCD boards that I have dealt with, but by this time the mobile phone call had dropped out, so we abandoned Little Laver to its fate. (I did find a switch in the vestry labelled "do not switch off". There was nothing to say that I should not switch it on, so I did, and the red lamp on it sprang to life - so I knew they weren't without electricity altogether.)

Like Little Laver, High Laver (All Saints) was empty when we arrived, and had nothing to evidence that they knew the rides were happening - the fourth kind of encounter. A largish group of cyclists arrived, however. One had had a fall and was grazed. I had some wet wipes which one of his friends used to clean his cuts.

Anyway, the whisper went round that amongst these riders was the group Song Cycle. We listened to four men perform a four-part a capella piece, which transpired to be an arrangement Simon Lindley's "God is a Spirit", which suited the acoustic nicely. (Lindley is Master of Music at Leeds Parish Church - and organist of Leeds Town Hall - and, I was told, wrote the piece for full choir and organ.

Magdalene Laver (St Mary Magdelene) was empty with no sign of knowledge of the ride(s) - again the fourth kind of encounter. North Weald (St Andrew) was another encounter of the first kind. From here we had a rather daunting single file ride along the rather busy main road into Epping, where I found St John's open, but not evidencing knowledge of the rides; the fourth kind of encounter again.

Some people rode home from Epping, but many got the train, mainly alighting at Snaresbrook. I changed at Leytonstone and made a perfect connection at Leytonstone High Road.

The riders made a generous donation of £100 of which half is to be attributed to me and half to an absent octogenarian friend who until fairly recently would have joined a ride such as ours.

Times of Hammersmith & City Line Trains from Barking Platform 6

Attached is a photo of the poster in the ticket hall which lists the times of these trains. It is undated, so I can only assume it is current, and I haven't checked whether the details are different from the last time I posted similarly.

London's Rail & Tube Services map

The 6 May 2014 edition of this map, valid from 18 May, shows the effect of some long running engineering work by omitting some interchanges. This is interesting as the map has no expiry date and often people keep and refer to editions of this map long after they are superseded. The absence of a station is quite misleading to the uninitiated who might not know of its existence and would not look it up.

At Embankment the Northern and Bakerloo line stations (so to speak) are not shown. Trains won't be stopping until early November and as the closure is not just shown by an obelisk, there must be a new edition of the map ready for the re-opening.

Similarly, the Gloucester Road Piccadilly Line "station", closed until mid December 2014, is not shown. I would have shown it with a white - ie unfilled / outline - tick.

Covent Garden is more complex - westbound trains are not stopping at weekends until mid November, and the station is exit only until then, too. This is marked with an obelisk, but no change to the map.

Bond Street is the oddity and I think may be an error. The Central line station was to open in late June, yet it is not shown even though the map is valid from 18 May. The Jubilee line station is shown, even though it is closed from early July to early December. I would have shown two separate Bond Street ticks, unfilled, with one name label and the obelisk.

Gascoigne Cycling

Sustrans' Gascoigne Cycling Project delivered by Trailnet and various volunteers goes from strength to strength. They now have a shop from where they operate their bike repair / training / exchange projects. See http://www.trailnet.org.uk/gascoigne-cycle-centre

Refurbished Bike Sale in Barking on Sat 26 July 2014

See http://www.meetup.com/Hubbub/events/196134442/

Bygone Barking By Bike

A few photos taken at this year's histiry bike ride.

https://plus.google.com/photos/105158567856821703505/albums/6027032924025679409

Unreconstructed B&D Council

Prospective and successful councillors in the recent council elections weren't the most supportive group in London of LCC's Space 4 Cycling campaign initiative. Maybe their support was passive, maybe they were unaware, maybe they didn't get around to expressing their support. Almost certainly at least some of them had, or believed they had, bigger fish to fry.

I thought, though, that cycling had made it from being the pariah of transport modes to the paragon - yes with some reservations about the behaviour of some cyclists sometimes, but basically cycling crossed the floor from loser-loony to normal, on trend, hipster, mainstream.

It's hard to describe my reaction to a newly built (or re-opened) road down which cycling is not allowed in both directions. Is it frustration that after about 23 years of cycle campaigning in this borough the council still pulls stunts like this, or is it amazement that the ostrich like organisation can still operate a de facto anti-cycling policy in the face of the cultural shift that even the most petrol headed myopic sand blinded ostrich must have got wind of.

Anyway, attached is an image of the offending road, off North Street in Barking. Yes, it is only short but it's the principle of the thing.And far be it from me to suggest that perhaps the car facing away from the camera was not illegally driven through the no-entry.

Ironically, the new block of flats in the background of the photo has apparently got a large cycle parking facility. You just have to get off and walk  to get to it from here.

a

London Cycling Design Standards

Tfl is inviting comments on the draft London Cycling Design Standards (LCDS).

Last published in 2005, this revised LCDS sets out the approach needed in London to deliver a step-change in quality. Now comprehensively updated to reflect established and emerging best practice, it is a document that should inform design options and promote an integrated and ambitious approach to delivering high quality infrastructure for cycling in all parts of London.

You can comment on the draft LCDS until Friday 25 July 2014. To view the document, and to comment,please visit https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/draft-london-cycling-design-standards

New look stibasa website

I have transferred www.stibasa.org.uk  to Wordpress, but I intended continuing to blog here at blogger.com, which is entirely separate.

Following the Wordpress site (which has a blog) will not give you updates from this blog. This may change, but for the moment, the website and the blog remain separate.

Led rides to/from RideLondon FreeCycle - help needed.

We are looking for marshals, back stops, and ride leaders for led rides to/from the central London circuit of RideLondon FreeCycle on Saturday 9 August. Please consider helping out in this way.

In particular we need someone to lead a ride back to Barking Station from Tower Hill at 3pm. This needs to be someone who has experience of leading, marshalling, or back stopping rides and who is a strong cyclist. Also s/he needs to know the route (which she can choose) well.

The back stop needs to be a strong rider as s/he may need to "catch up" with the leader, though usually the job involves staying behind the slowest rider.

Marshals need to be assertive riders who are adept at keeping the group together by facilitating crossing of roads and encouraging less confident riders to keep together with the group.

Useful / interesting railway websites

Depends what you mean by useful, I suppose, but here goes. Some sites have been mentioned here before, but here they are together:

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/maps/areas/swml/1 - is a link to the first of a series of 6 diagrammatic real time train information. There are no links to it on the main page and the levels of folders aren't accessible, but there are links to pages 2-6 on this page itself.

www.brtimes.com

www.brfares.com - see also http://data.atoc.org/member-area (previous blog post explains).

www.opentraintimes.com previously metioned here has closed down, according to Barry Doe, but was working when I tested during writing this.

trains.im (Open National Rail times, maps and stats).

Thanks to Barry Doe and Rail magazine - p48 of issue 746 - for the information.

How to download the free National Rail fares database

Barry Doe explains in Rail Magazine, issue 749 (28 May - 10 June 2014) page 42. Go to http://data.atoc.org/member-area and create yourself an account. The download to go for is the Avantix fares database.

Please don't ask me for support doing this - I'm just passing on the info.

Incomplete journeys on Oyster - swiping out and in mid journey.

Last month I travelled from Holborn to Barking changing at Bank and Limehouse (where one has to swipe out of the system and back in again to change between DLR and c2c). A couple of days ago I logged in to my Oyster account, and an incomplete journey was flagged up -  a very useful feature.

I looked in my diary, and saw that I had been to Holborn that day, so I supplied Holborn as the missing swipe. However, when I went to the journey history, it transpired that the missing swipe was the one at Limehouse c2c, so now I have a journey from Holborn to Limehouse and amother journey from Holborn to Barking.

Now it seems to me that Oyster should be able to work out the journey I actually took from the times, or make an assumption that as I live in Barking, and had travelled from Barking to Holborn, that my return journey was Holborn to Barking. Maybe this is a refinement that is on the cards.

In the meantime, this could be fixed by the way the Oyster website works. I can't reproduce the presentation of the problem  so I don't know what options I had, but I think that the user should be taken to the journey history to assess the missing swipes there.

LCC Space for cycling campaign 2014 - Parsloes Park at Ivy Walk

Many of the points I raised at our meeting regarding this campaign on 6/2/14 are on my list of access issues that I have been maintaining sporadically over many years. In some cases I have a photo to illustrate the issue. I saw this entrance to Parsloes Park last Autumn and I'm posting the photo here largely for the record.

Bastable Avenue

The controversy about the banned turn onto Bastable Avenue (see http://stibasa.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/special-pleading-at-thames-view.html) has been raised again (see https://www.streetlife.com/conversation/3fyzbtj7n9be6/).

I went and took photos on 4/9/12 to see for myself what all the fuss was about, but since then some of the signs shown here have been removed

The writer on streetlife says that " there is only one sign on the wrong side of the road [sc: and it is on the wrong side of the road] which [sc: and it] is obscured at one point by a traffic light and also by high sided vehicles. You would not look on the left hand side of the road to turn right".

As the photo below shows there were 3 sets signs on the near side (where signs always are). The middle set had the CCTV warning sign. The second photo shows the furthest away of those three from a bit closer.

Bikes now allowed on Docklands Light Railway (off-peak)

http://road.cc/content/news/108510-bikes-be-carried-docklands-light-railway-trains

Following a (successful, obviously!) trial last summer, bikes will now be allowed on DLR trains off peak. One of the best things about this is that it opens up two river crossings to cyclists.