#365daysofbiking Devotional

Tuesday November 17th 2020 – One of the nice things about lockdown Remembrance has been the impromptu and additional devotional displays in towns and villages throughout the country. Decorating of railings, parks and war memorials have been undertaken lovingly and in line with guidelines, creating a sense of community endeavour that has sustained even in lockdown.

One beautiful example are the tributes at Darlaston Town Hall I passed while nipping to the post office on my lunch hour.

I particularly liked the purple poppy dog, the purple poppy symbolising the the sacrifice of animals in war.

My compliments and thanks to the people who created this. It’s gorgeous.

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#365daysofbiking A late arrival

January 14th – A grim, mostly wet journey to Telford and an even wetter one coming home that really wasn’t conducive to photography.

One thing I did notice in the morning though was that after about two years of being out of order, the information display on the Birmingham bound platform of Blake Street Station is finally working again.

Excuse upon excuse was made, with vvarious parties blaming each other yet nothing seemed to get fixed. Occasionally someone would clearly have a go, as the garbage the screen displayed would change, or it would throw up network status mesages.

At long last, due to the late arrival of the display, we can now see how late the arrival of the train is.

I suppose this is progress, of a sort…

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#365daysofbiking A careless display

November 26th – Just lately, local rail travel in the West Midlands operated by West Midlands Railway has been a shambles. Not enough staff, cancelled services, late running. The service this autumn has been atrocious, and little does more to sum up the careless attitude to customer service than the sage of the passenger information board at Blake Street on the Birmingham bound platform.

It’s been out of action now for about 18 months. Possibly longer, and displays an error message with completely the wrong time.

When asked why it has not been fixed, customer service waffle about overhead lines needing to be off to undertake the repairs and other stuff, blaming Network Rail. It doesn’t wash.

It would be relatively trivial to fit a working, temporary display in the safe zone nearby. That the company cannot do this, or make a proper arrangement with Network Rail within 18 months tells us much about the attitude of the operator to its customers, that pretty much they don’t care.

As long as they can blame someone else, who cares that your punters aren’t getting service information?

It might be amusing, but we’re paying for this crap.

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August 15th – The digital traffic signs, recently installed on the edges of Walsall town centre have been controversial, costly, and rather pointless. Since installation, they’ve either been blank, or displaying such crucial messages as ‘Tiredness kills – Take a break’. Today, with a major fire in central Walsall, they got chance to display vital road closure information, which made no difference whatsoever to the traffic, which was gridlocked at rush hour. It doesn’t help that several of the message displays – like this one on the edge of The Butts – are situated at a point where it’s virtually impossible to take any preventative measures to avoid the problem. Design in action.