Tuesday 9th October 2018, 9.20am (day 2,602)
One of the hi-vis army does his valuable stuff on the banks of the Rochdale Canal. A beautiful morning today, and a real ‘Indian Summer’ day. Fine by me.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Transport
Subway renovations, Hebden Bridge station
Wednesday 19th September 2018, 4.20pm (day 2,582)
We are getting longer platforms! And lifts to and from them, from the subway! It’s a miracle…. or will be, if we ever get the train service to match.
The Bridgwater Canal, Manchester
Friday 31st August 2018, 1.25pm (day 2,563)
Manchester’s a big city and I only tend to walk through a narrowly-defined part of it when following the usual beat. Got off this track today however, and here I am on the banks of the Bridgewater Canal, built in 1761 and generally reckoned to be Britain’s first canal in the modern sense. A roaring success economically. And still operational — not long after I took this shot of the reflections under the bridge (not dating since 1761…) a barge chugged past. It’s a peaceful spot.
The Hand of Stoke
Saturday 18th August 2018, 12.15pm (day 2,550)
Finding myself on Stoke-on-Trent railway station for half an hour today, and time therefore to ponder this sculpture: not so much why is it there at all (for there should be more public art if you ask me), but why tuck it down the very far end of platform 2 where hardly anyone ever goes?
The blue post may seem an intrusion but I like it. The photo becomes a study of the various lines going both across and down.
Can I stop going to work yet?
Tuesday 31st July 2018, 9.55am (day 2,532)
My summer holiday has been a long time coming this year and there’s the rest of this week to get through yet. Despite the later start to the day, I still feel like this guy.
This will probably turn out to be the last shot taken by my Canon Power Shot SX710 camera which since its debut on 27th June 2015 has put in sterling service every day since, including getting up to the top of Kilimanjaro and back. But the lens cover has been requiring the intervention of fingers to retract successfully for some time now and it’s been randomly freezing up, to be recovered only by removing the battery. I took the plunge and invested in another model this morning. Farewell then to the old one, it still does work so I’ll keep it as a backup.
Ullswater
Saturday 21st July 2018, 10.45am (day 2,522)
While the very warm and sunny weather seems to have come to an end, it was still a fine day for messing around in the Lake District.
I assume, incidentally, that one of the two boats is at least thinking of heading to the island to retrieve the people seen thereon. If not, it was quite a swim to the shore from there.
Keeping an eye on things
Wednesday 11th July 2018, 7.45am (day 2,512)
I assume that the camera (for some reason to do with techno-capitalist surveillance economies, etc. etc.) is keeping an eye on the fire exit, but the owner of this bike sure wants it looking after, as well….
Blue Pig race — the contestants gather
Sunday 17th June 2018, 3.55pm (day 2,488)
The annual Blue Pig Father’s Day race at the Blue Pig pub. Build a vessel of some kind that travels on water, make it look like a blue pig, chuck it off the bridge into the river and the first one over the weir wins. Thanks to a disastrous start (I feel I had better voluntarily resign as starter of our boat next year) we finished a comfortable last. The one with the kid’s face taped on the front was the winner. What this says, I have no idea.
6.30am trains
Thursday 31st May 2018, 6.30am (day 2,471)
Most of the local train service remains a scandal of national proportions (some 2,000 trains cancelled across Northern’s domain since the new timetable was launched, blunderingly, on 20th May) but I must admit I have been a small locus of punctuality all week. But no one should have to suffer a 6.30am train too often. Or, two of them.
Northern Fail (Rochdale station, unexpectedly)
Wednesday 23rd May 2018, 7.40am (day 2,463)
There is nothing to complain about regarding the weather, at the moment. It has been glorious, for about three weeks now, certainly since the weekend in Scotland, May 5-7.
There is everything to complain about regarding the state of our local Northern Rail service, a metaphorical view of which could see the recent timetable change as a pint of week-old milk poured into some already dodgy sauce and, consequently, it curdling alarmingly. Was turfed off my original train at Rochdale, hence here you see almost the entire population of said train trying to get on the next one, which will itself already be busy. I waited a little longer, got in 20 minutes late, and the sad thing is, this is now the new normal. Never have I encountered a large company offering such shoddy service before, close to collapse, and we might even have it better on this line than many others.
Being 42 