Transport Watch – November 2011
The saga of the missing 607 bus stop
continues and has now reached the ear of Caroline Pidgeon,
Chair of the GLA Transport Committee. She agrees with EPTUG and the many users
inconvenienced by London Buses’ decision to remove the eastbound stop from
outside
Caroline Pidgeon,
addressing the Campaign for Better Transport in
Mention of Boris Johnson may jog one or two memories of a meeting earlier in January at Greenford Hall when he was challenged about the sudden termination and removal of work to install a lift at Greenford Station. He promised to reply about this and other similar situations at stations such as Osterley. At the busy Shepherds Bush Station used by many Ealing passengers, £64 million pounds refit had included sinking a lift shaft before the order to abandon work was given.
One of the leading railway magazines has
suggested that the Department for Transport has already approved the transfer
back to First Great Western, trains which it used operate. The magazine confidently
states that 5 sets of the 5 coach Adelante trains are
destined to return. If so, they are ideally suited to operate of FGW’s semi fast, middle distance routes such as
A recent debate in the House of Commons to
discuss HS2, the planned high speed rail line to the Midlands and the North
showed how divided MPs were about the project and also just how ill informed
many of them were. But for Ealing people there is no need to remain ill
informed for on Monday 7th November the annual general meeting of EPTUG takes
place and it will be preceded by a debate on HS2. This year the meeting will be
held at Christ the Saviour Parish Centre, and not
A landmark stage in the construction of
Crossrail has been reached. The tunnel portals at
The contract for the construction of the portals was a £25 million contract but it was completed within budget and completed 20 days early. Meanwhile the “boys in the back office” have applied for a Transport and Works Act Order to acquire land which they would need to acquire at Old Oak if HS2 was given the go ahead.
Fact or fiction? True or false? The short run between Paddington and Heathrow has many twists and turns but they all bend in the same direction. This leads to more wear on one side of the wheels than the other. So every few weeks on a Sunday and hauled by a diesel train the trains are taken a little outing through West Ealing and the Greenford Line and back to Old Oak so that they now face in the opposite direction and the wear on the wheels is balanced out.
The months and weeks of cancelled and
disrupted services on the North London Line have been compensated for by a
vastly improved and reliable service. Now LOROL have promised yet more
improvements including additional capacity on the Gospel Oak and the East
London Lines. From next month extra services will run through to
From next month the District Line will no
longer serve Kensington Olympia during weekdays (except special services). Instead the train will serve Wimbledon Branch,
the busiest of the branches. Passengers for
We have often bemoaned the lack of a reliable Countdown system at our bus stops and keep asking why development of it has not kept pace with similar systems outside London and been extended to more stops. Perhaps now the answer is becoming clearer for London Buses have unveiled a new service. Every bus stop has been allocated a unique number. It is usually a 5 figure number and can be seen at the top of the bus stop or, it can be looked up on the TfL website. By keying in this number and sending a text to 877287 you immediately receive a response showing the anticipated arrival times of all services to that stop. The downside however is that whilst looking at Countdown is free, the new service costs 12p plus the cost of a normal text message. You can still try and persuade London Buses to install Countdown at your favourite stop but the cost is said to be in the region of £10,000.
Finally a plea, if you are not too busy on
the evening of Monday, 7th November, do please come along to the EPTUG AGM
which this year is being held at Christ the Saviour Church Hall in New
Broadway. The meeting starts at 7.00pm but do remember that if you are travelling on the 607
towards