Tag: railway

December 17th – Last commute until 2013. I found myself having to visit a place in the backstreets of Small Heath, which gave me somewhere new to explore. Leaving the oddly desolate Small Heath station, I noticed the great view of the Birmingham city centre skyline from the bridge. There’s everything in there – the new library, Beetham and Alpha towers, Selfridges, the cathedrals and various churches. This really is a wonderful view, all with the perspective-defing railway before it. I love this city. I love it with all my heart.

December 12th – the first local snow of the winter came today, in the form of a fine, icing sugar dusting over Tyseley. It stopped as quickly as it started, but left everything precious and beautiful. I love this weather, I love the way it creates new impressions of familiar things.

December 11th – It didn’t take long for the mist to settle in, but even that was enjoyable. Just as well, really, as despite the promises of a new dawn, the London Midland train reliability is still lousy, even with the new timetable. 6 out of this week’s 8 trains so far have been late. I still love the sights and views of the railway. I’m not interested particularly in trains, but I love the slightly unreal, meccano landscapes they create, with vividly pronounced perspective, repetition and reflection. I love the impression of distance and connection they create, and of the illusion of solid control, like a huge machine.
The machine is broken, and deserves some love and attention, and a master who loves it, but it’s still a wonderful and oddly beautiful thing. 

December 7th – Tyseley Station continues to fascinate me, and I still have no idea why. Coming up Wharfdale Road towards it last night on my way home, it looked stunning in the sunset. I think it’s the air of faded Victorian grand purpose that does it; a once proud architectural endeavour, surrounded by factory yards, industrial units and empty streets. I just love the welcoming glow of it’s lights in the darkness. It’s somehow more powerful in winter than summer. A conundrum.

November 29th – Walsall Station is an odd, ugly place. The original, stunning and imperious victorian station was demolished in the 1970s and the current concrete and steel afterthought bolted into the then new Saddlers Centre shopping mall. Partially in a tunnel, visually the external aspect is very busy and jarrs the eye. To use, it’s grey, dingy and unpleasant, full of dark spots and blind corners, which multiply and threatenn at night.

An awful place.

November 26th – Returning from Tyseley, the alternation flip-flopped again; it was raining. The drizzle was reasonably light, though, and I stopped to admire the view from the bridge. Winging it, I stood the camera on the Wharfdale Lane bridge parapet, and zoomed in on the city skyline over the train yard. I’m quite surprised at the result. The image is noisy, but I think I like it. Talk about unexpected beauty…

November 21st – An awful, awful journey to work. I’ve had some really bad commutes this year, probably more than any other year. I just hope that we get some fine, dry weather soon. When I left for Blake Street it was raining heavily. I fought through the rainstorm, to catch a delayed train. The driving I saw in some quarters – no lights, dangerous overtaking – confirmed my suspicion that rain does strange things to some people’s perception of risk. Arriving in Birmingham, I couldn’t get a forward train to Tyseley or nearby, and being in a hurry, I cycled out through Digbeth and the Warwick Road. It was a horrid journey. I love cycling, but I didn’t this morning. My waterproofs kept me reasonably dry, but the discomfort, the stress… sometimes, you don’t need it.

November 20th – At the ‘cute Victorian’ end of the railway station spectrum is Shenstone. Full of stereotypical metroland classic commuter charm, this was one of the last stations built on the old Cross City line, when the fillip was added between Sutton and Lichfield. It’s a gorgeous, terracotta brick, semi gothic marvel, sadly defiled by having it’s lovely glass canopy destroyed and chimneystacks truncated. In this dormitory commuter village, it is dark and quiet on the station at night, and I think, even in a steady drizzle, that it is beautiful. A good place to leave from, and a fine place to return to.

November 20th – It’s all about stations this week. Off to Telford for a meeting early, then back to Tyseley. A day of delays, missed connections and grim, grey weather. I get to see a fair few of the local rail stations around Birmingham and the Black Country, and they’re a varied bunch, from the Victorian to the modern, from the beautiful to the pug-ugly. This one is Smethwick Galton Bridge, built adjacent to the imposing, remarkable iron bridge canal crossing it’s named after. Straddling two canals, the station sits at the crossing point of the Snow Hill former GWR line and the Stour Valley Line between Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Everywhere you look from this complex, multilevel edifice there is history, be it Chance Glassworks decaying nobly down the line, or the historic, grim 60s architecture of Smethwick. 
A station so complex, I’m not sure how it was planned, in a place who’s history is far more convoluted. Not bad for a grey Tuesday waiting for a late train. 

November 13th – As I waited for yet another late train at Blake Street this morning, I gazed at the rails. The train service has been lousy of late – continual staff shortages and equipment failures have made the system terribly unreliable. This particular service hasn’t been on time for a fortnight at least. Normally at this time of year, London Midland, the local train operator, would institute a ‘Leaf fall timetable’. This is a much derided, but little understood thing. Falling leaves lie on the rails and get pulped by the train wheels, creating a slippery, sappy lubricant the causes wheels to slip and brakes to become ineffective. The pulp also forms an insulator which prevents signal detection functioning.

A leaf-fall timetable allows drivers to go more slowly and allows rail cleaning trains to operate in-between passenger services. The cleaning trains spray gelatinous substance on the rails called Sandite, which as it’s name suggests, contains sand to counter the grease. The rails I was looking at had clearly just been treated, and the residue could be seen. This is a huge problem for trains worldwide and not unique to the UK.

I’m unclear why there’s no leaf fall timetable this year, and the services on the Cross City line are woeful. Combined with cancellations due to staff shortages, bad signals and train breakdowns, I bet they’re losing punters hand over fist.