Tag: Station

December 3rd – A grainy, long-distance shot across Moor Street Station in a rain shower. I noticed this cautionary warning in the bike shed between platforms 2 and 3. Some careless cyclist – perhaps in a hurry – has locked their bike up by the front wheel. A thief has come along, and just opened the quick release, left the wheel locked to the stand, and made of with the rest of the bike. They may even have nicked a front wheel from an adjacent bike to replace it. Bastards.

If you’re locking your bike up, use 2 or more locks with the ‘Solid Secure’ rating. Use different technologies – one chain and one D lock, for example. Thieves rarely come tooled up to deal with both. Always lock through the frame, and a solid object if possible. 

Bike thieves a the lowest of the low. Don’t make it easy for them.

November 30th – When you have to be home for something important., that’s when fate trips you up. I was dashing home. I left work at 3:50pm, and the trains I would have caught from Tyseley or Acocks Green were all cancelled due to London Midland’s ongoing staff crisis. Catching a train at Spring Road, I managed to get to New Street in time to catch the Walsall train. When that turned up ten minutes late, it was only two carriages. With other service cancellations, there was no way I’d get on, and the crush I witnessed on the platform was nasty and dangerous. I opted to try for a Lichfield bound service, but they were all similarly stricken or curtailed. After 30 minutes of faff at New Street, I got a train to Four Oaks, and cycled home from there. After a freezing, tired ride, I arrived home at 6:40pm – nearly three hours after I left work.

The local train service operated by London Midland is crippled by bad man-management and operational difficulties. I could have cycled the distance in a third of the time, and wished I had. I’m seriously considering dumping the trains for Birmingham journeys. The farce that is the cancellation of services due to staff losses and mismanagement is harming the reputation of the service, and resulting in huge crowds of frustrated passengers at New Street. Quite how bad this will get with the Christmas crowds is causing me a great deal of concern. Awful.

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 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 19th – An unexpectedly grim commute home. Late trains, packed in like sardines, rain and a gusting wind. It’s not looking much better for tomorrow morning, either. Alighting at Blake Street for a change (and hopefully a tailwind) the station looked grim and harsh in the drizzle. It’s about time we all gave this winter lark up as a bad job…

November 11th – Returning via a rather dark and cold Rugeley bypass, at least I had the wind behind me. I stopped at the Bridge in Rugeley and checked out the view before me. I love Rugeley Power Station by night. This is one of the most advanced coal burning generation facilities in Europe, and the fume scrubbing plant, covered in lights, is futuristic and fascinating at night. Built as one of the postwar River Trent behemoths, most of it’s companion facilities have long since gone, like Drakelow and Willington. A stunning, and dare I say it, beautiful thing.

November 9th – The day was very grey indeed, and the train service lousy. Bad weather had been predicted for the evening commute, and with cancellations and slow running all round, I left work half an hour early. We’re in the days now of the nascent winter; grey, smoggy air, partial drizzle and heavy cloud makes for a greasy, unreal, not-quite-daylight feel. This is the worst bit of winter for me; not cold enough to be dramatic, or photogenic, or even challenging to ride in, but just headache-grey mundanity, rumbling from day to day. Stuff this, bring on some real winter, please. Snow, or crisp frosty mornings with bright air that hurts your forehead and clutches your chest when you breathe in. 

The only thing that looks good in the is murk is the light of the railway. Steady, bright, control.