Recent content by Dr_Paul

I've read somewhere that Aldersgate was renamed Barbican because people confused it with Aldgate. Not quite fitting the topic of this thread, but perhaps of interest, a pal who was walking near Charing Cross station was asked by a man where Charing Cross Hospital was, and the latter was more...

I don't recall anything properly proposed in Kingston, although I may have missed an announcement. There have been vague ideas mooted, but nothing more than that. Another scheme which was proposed and then dropped was Uxbridge to Shepherds Bush, I believe mainly because of congestion problems...

Many times that I've driven on motorways, I've encountered a lorry that's taken several miles to overtake another one, clogging things up somewhat, with all faster traffic (that is, all motors, most vans) squeezed into the overtaking lane. There was on, I think, the Newsthump a spoof tale of a...

Quite a lot was done in my area too during the first lock-down, taking advantage of the low level of traffic. Unfortunately, some of the repairs look like they've been done by those dodgy blokes who offer to tarmac your front garden; just tar slapped down with no attempt to roll it in, so...

I'm amazed that this trackbed stayed unused for a century, seeing how much of London has been built on during that time. Was it pure luck, or was it kept in reserve? Did the land stay in railway ownership all that time?

I've been on this one a few times. Not only are there the driveways, there is a very awkward junction where Coombe Lane meets West Barnes Lane, at which the bike lane disappears into a pedestrian crossing. If you're travelling eastwards, the bike lane ends at a bus stop outside the railway...

I remember a couple of tatty carriages in the weed-ridden sidings at Twickenham, parallel to the Windsor lines. I have a feeling that they were from a 501 set, the EMU used on the North London Line, although I'm not sure. There were also some carriages in a similar tatty condition at Strawberry...

I used this service when I worked in the government warehouse on Brooke Green in the mid-1980s. It was advertised -- or at least it was by then -- in the timetable and it was sometimes a WR DMU or a 4TC hauled by a 33 diesel. It was a right pain when waiting on platform 2 at Clapham Junction to...

I agree -- I've found Stratford completely confusing. Yes -- I think there is good reason for a footbridge across the town end of Wimbledon for an LT/SW/Thameslink/Tram interchange. Whether this is feasible is another matter. I've long thought that about Waterloo, but I'm not sure what can be...

The Bridlington Agreement ensured that one union could not -- at least in principle -- 'poach' another union's members, that is, recruit members in trades represented by another union. It was formulated in the late 1930s and was operative until relatively recently. There were always grey areas...

Thanks for the information.

Can anyone answer a question about union representation in BR days? Were skilled workers at BR depots members of the NUR or of the union related to their work, such as the engineers' or electricians' unions?

I was once told that the Waterloo and City line was where drivers who had some trouble with management were sent as a punishment, although I have a feeling that this might not actually be true.

Middlesex as a county sadly expired in 1965 with the implementation of the 1963 Local Government Act, with most of it going into Greater London, and the remaining bits parcelled out to Surrey, Berkshire and Hertfordshire. However, it lives on in popular lore, and even today many inhabitants...

There is a page-long description of the event in the Kent Weather Book (Westerham, 1991). It mentions the Lourdes pilgrims' train, and also that lines were blocked by landslides and floods between Mottingham and Dartford and between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks, and that Clockhouse station was...