October 23rd – Back in Leicester for the day, and passing through South Wigston station, I stopped briefly to study my favourite bit of wild land, not expecting much to be showing well. How wrong I was. Cotoneaster, a yellow berry I don’t recognise, roses, rose hips, clover all made for a fine splash of colour. The cotoneasters were particularly impressive, and they’ll make a handsome winter feast for the blackbirds.
A fine end to yet another wet commute.
October 21st – It’s going to be a hard week. The Monday morning commute saw me heading to Birmingham in a rainstorm. Visibility was bad, and I abandoned the Chester Road and headed for Shenstone, as I didn’t feel comfortable in the spray and slime of the main road. When I got to Shenstone, I realised just how heavily it was raining. It rained too, on my way home; another fraught journey where I rediscovered the lack of traction on wet road markings and the fact that my jacket waterproofing seems to be failing.
The weather forecast doesn’t seem to be predicting much of an improvement. Oh well, at least it’s warm…
October 2nd – I parked the bike and popped into the gents at Moor Street Station for a pee.
It didn’t apply to me. I wasn’t wearing a dress.
September 24th – my love affair with Darlaston is decades old and shows no signs of abating. I adore the place, from the grimy industrial backstreets, to the quiet loveliness of Victoria Park. Here, half a century ago, trains thundered through this cutting serving the freight needs of the Black Country, but now, landscaped into a lovely open space, it makes for a nice traffic free ride away from some of the worst traffic of the town centre. In spring, this spot is lined with snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils.
I always liked that footbridge, too; it’s an inspired touch.
August 31st – Chasewater Railway is a hidden gem, enjoyed by folk who know Chasewater, but it isn’t widely known outside the area. Running on a short, preserved section of the Norton Line, it goes from the south shore of Chasewater at Brownhills West to Chasetown, near the rugby club. Not a huge distance, but a great ride with lots of interesting trains and rolling stock, all preserved and run by keen amateurs. Today, I raced this fine red locomotive along the causeway. It looked splendid, and was smoking well.
A fine thing indeed.
July 23rd -By the time of my return, the sun was shining hazily, and things seemed to be drying out a bit. It was still threatening, but the ride home was dry and uneventful. At Nuneaton, the light was interesting, and highlighted the exaggerated perspective of the railway and it’s architecture. I love the accentuated vanishing point, the repetition and recursion. The forest of overhead metalwork – every member in that mess of stanchion, gantry and wire does something.
For a quite simple idea, the railway is incredibly complex and deeply fascinating.
July 16th – I noticed something today that’s puzzling me. I doubt many others have ever registered it, and even fewer probably care, but it appeals to my sense of lost history. I noticed today that Tyseley Station once had a lift, or at least, the evidence points to it.
I noticed some time ago there was a tower attached to the station building, contemporary with the rest of the structure, that had no apparent door or way in. It’s a few metres taller than the main building, and is about the size of a lift shaft, but there’s no evidence of it in the booking hall, where the tiles and fittings look original and undisturbed from new.
Down at track level on platforms 1 & 2, there is a low, bricked up doorway with a modern door built in. The platform island ramps down to it. It’s the only access to the tower I can see.
At pavement level, three sides of the tower are plain, and blank (the terracotta paint is covering graffiti, note the continuous texture of the brickwork underneath) – the other side of the tower can be seen in this image series from last week.
I do hope some passing railway buff can help with this. Was it a lift? If so, why? What did it convey? Who used it?
It’s an odd little mystery all of it’s own.
July 9th – One of the best things about sunny weather is it makes yo pay attention to shadows, and the way sunlight passes through things you might not ordinarily notice. Today, leaving Tyseley station, I noticed the supporting steelwork for the old glass canopy on the station front. There can be no doubt that when it was erected, this station was in a prosperous area, and was a grand affair. These days, the heavy, hand-wrought and hot riveted scrollwork is incongruous on a down at heel, suburban station.
It speaks of a better past, and is rather gorgeous.
June 27th – I came home in a rainstorm. It was drizzling steadily as I left Leicester, and it was steady, too, at Nuneaton. By Lichfield Trent Vally, is was heavy, and driven by an evil wind. I battled home without waterproof trousers, I was soaked, the traffic was horrid. Summer this year seems elusive…
June 26th – Interesting to see that the unusual solution to bicycle parking employed at Leicester station is now heavily oversubscribed. The station operators expanded to two more carousels, and have now had to put some in the car park, too. It seems almost as if when you create a pleasant, secure facility, people adapt their habits, and use it.
I do hope the people at Birmingham New Street have seen this.
Sadly, a minority still don’t seem to grasp the mechanics of these stands.
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