Tag: Station

#365daysofbiking Either end:

November 19th – Working late in Redditch, I found myself waiting for the train homewards in a brightly lit, but sparse station, surrounded by the light of the Kingfisher Shopping Centre and bus station. It really is a most odd place at night. It barely feels like a station at all.

At the other end, leaving Blake Street and slogging up the Chester Road in unexpected rain was very hard, grim work.

I was just glad to get home tonight.

#365daysofbiking Here I stand:

November 6th – One thing I forgot in the years I hadn’t been coming to Redditch is a small rule that also applies to fellow new town Telford – never risk an unknown shortcut when in a hurry.

I was dashing for the train. I took what I thought would be a route around by the bus station and under the subway to the station. Instead, I lost all sense of direction totally and ended up on a ringway flyover overlooking it, a good 10 metres above where I needed to be with no easy way back other than to retrace my steps.

Urban design on such an inhuman scale does not make for intuitive routes.

Redditch should come with a decent cheat sheet for those on foot and cycling….

#365daysofbiking Homeward bound:

November 5th – I’d been in Redditch, a place I used to work lots but in recent years, hardly had been to at all.it’s fair to say that following the events of the weekend, my heart wasn’t in life at all.

I didn’t get the camera out all day, until I returned to Shenstone – and there it was shining in the dark like a beacon.

This station is part of my soul and has been for 40 years. Coming back here after a hard day is reassuring, soulful, welcoming. 

Like Paul Simon, I sat on the railway station and reflected for a while. Then I got on my bike and rode, homeward bound.

#365daysofbiking Mystical:

October 31st – Passing Victoria Park on Station Road, Darlaston on a beautiful day on the cusp between autumn and winter I’m reminded how lovely this place really is. 

I’ll never tire of that view of the Mystic Bridge and the leaves turning.

Summer may be long since gone but there is still plenty of beauty around.

#365daysofbiking That same old feeling:

October 15th – A slightly late commute back from a meeting in Birmingham – thankfully mostly dry – was brightened up by the realisation that with the dark commutes come the return of my beloved stations in the dark obsession – what I call Late Night Feelings, after a lost record label.

Coming back to Shenstone after a round of delays, holdups and frustration, stepping into the chill night air, I realised how enchanting the lights, signals and reflections were. 

Shenstone Station is always lovely at night in that kind of nether worldly, desolate way, but also it pulls at the homecoming, journey’s end vibe rather well too.

This is my favourite little station – always a joy to start out from, but even better to return though!

#365daysofbiking Station to station:

October 9th – I’m curious about long term plans for Telford Station. At the moment, it’s a bit player in the huge new linkway bridge project, but for an interchange serving such a large area it’s a fairly poor facility: Just two platforms, a booking office with short opening hours and a couple of waiting rooms. 

There are just two trains an hour in each direction, 15 and 45 minutes apart which is a bugger if you miss the one and have a 45 minute wait.

The peak time trains are fiendishly busy and Telford doesn’t get a fair crack of the whip here at all.

This was destined to change with the introduction of the new timetable in Autumn with a ramping up to three services and hour with an extra, welcome, stopper: However with the Chase Line electrification not completed, the rolling stock is not yet available and the change has been postponed until 2019.

For such a large, economically powerful town Telford’s railway provision is pretty poor.

#365daysofbiking An impressive span:

September 17th – At Telford, a major step in the contstruction of the new station footbridge has been taken – the deck of the main span over the ring road adjacent has been lifted into place. It’s huge.

I watched it grow from a skeletal form on the central reservation of the road system, to see it glazed clad and wired, and now it spans the roadway in parallel with the facility it is to replace.

As a design, I’m ambivalent, but it will be a much nicer, convenient thing to use. But there’s a long, long way to go yet.

At least it provided the morning commuters with an interesting spectacle.

August 16th – Thankfully New Street is a rare delight these days, but on this grey and wet Thursday morning I wallowed in the damp brutalism of the concrete and metal, and the sounds of the people and traffic.

I spend many years now passing through this place, waiting or anticipating. It’s by turns grim, ugly, wonderful, fascinating and homely.

A real love-hate relationship.

August 13th – A brighter day when the morning got going and I found myself visiting Telford feeling better, even if my stomach was still uncomfortable.

The footbridge project is progressing well but there still seems to be an awful lot to do: No discernible structural assembly of the lifts yet, and the access point on the west side seems miles off completion yet, although in the way these things generally do, it’ll probably come together very quickly in the end.

Interesting to note the main span mainly constructed now, and it’ll be lifted in one piece onto the piers. I’d be interested to see if that ripples the roof skin.

At the station end – which this construction is already dwarfing – there are to large, green service cabinets in position by the steps. Perhaps it’s me, but they look really, really incongruous.

This gets more and more fascinating every time I visit.