Category Archives: Transport

Nov 12 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

The Scarborough lifeboats set sail

Sunday 12th November 2017, 11.25am (day 2,271)

Scarborough lifeboats, 12/11/17

If one will decide to spend the weekend on England’s North Sea coast in November, one should expect some heavy weather; but today really took the biscuit. Storms washed over Scarborough in waves, every half an hour or so. Just as the foulness seemed to be gone, along came another bank of cloud and we were all drenched once more, with a foul wind to back it up. While on the castle headland this morning — one of the windiest places I’ve ever been, ranking up there with the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland — these lifeboats deployed; let us hope that whatever the reason, nobody had to be out there in the storms any longer than was necessary to get them back home.

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Nov 06 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

Gone to Liverpool (maybe)

Monday 6th November 2017, 11.15am (day 2,265)

Victoria bike, 6/11/17

Or Southport, or Bury, which are other towns named on the facade of Victoria station in Manchester and to where one can still catch a train…. unlike Fleetwood, Goole and other places where trains haven’t gone from here in a long time. Hope he/she locked their bike securely, wherever it was.

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Oct 27 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

Freight train, Victoria station

Thursday 26th October 2017, 1.45pm (day 2,254)

Victoria freight, 26/10/17No rest for me despite an 11pm arrival home last night, it was off for a full day’s work, even if I did the second part of it at home. 13:48 departure from Victoria delayed a few minutes while this very long freight rumbled through platform 3b. This is just the very back end of it.

A prosaic way to mark Clare’s 41st birthday: many happy returns to her, as mentioned tonight, maybe on this date next year she should take over the blog for a day, as its title will apply…

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Oct 19 2017
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Transport

Early start

Thursday 19th October 2017, 6.55am (day 2,247)

Early start, 19/10/17

First time I’ve pulled a duty on the 06:59 for a while. First time I’ve been at the station before sunrise in an even longer while. The world turns…

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Oct 11 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

Selfie, morning train

Wednesday 11th October 2017, 8.15am (day 2,239)

Selfie on train, 11/10/17

Not the greatest morning. It’s dark at 7am now when we wake up — when did that happen?! Profound demotivation on the journey in, though it did improve. My first proper selfie on the blog since 11th June 2016. There may be reasons for this.

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Oct 10 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

View from the train, Doncaster

Monday 9th October 2017, 4.15pm (day 2,237)

Doncaster rail yard, 9/10/17

Pretty much everything on the railways heading north out of London passes through Doncaster, which remains a major passenger rail interchange and has these immense goods yards too; one of the few remaining places on the UK rail network where you do get a sense of what a lot of it probably looked like sixty years ago. Taken from inside the train as it departed platform 8 and returned me home after my short and ultimately pointless trip to London (thank you, Mr Putin).

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Oct 06 2017
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Transport

Hebden Bridge station

Friday 6th October 2017, 8.05am (day 2,234)

HB station, 6/10/17

One of those days when the sun just comes up at the right time, two minutes before the train arrives to take me to Manchester.

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Oct 03 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

Setting out for work

Tuesday 3rd October 2017, 12.45pm (day 2,231)

Hav og Fjell, 3/10/17

This really was the view from my place of work this morning, with my University of Tromsø colleagues having installed us in a cabin on the coast of Ringvassøy for a couple of days. Call it luck if you like, but I’m not a complete idiot — I have generally managed to set up my life in certain ways so I do end up spending time in places like this. Mind you, the guy shown here gets to work here every day. To me, he’s the lucky one.

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Sep 17 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

High farce at Gate 21

Sunday 17th September 2017, 10.20am (day 2,215)

Cockup at gate 21, 17/9/17

I was supposed to be flying to St Malo in France today, for the ECIL conference (which in past years has been responsible for the appearance of Dubrovnik, Tallinn and Prague on the blog). However, what you see here is the aftermath of the reason why I have only thus far made it as far as Guernsey in the Channel Islands. There I was meant to change planes, but we ended up departing five hours late from Manchester as, when the first plane began pushing back away from gate 21, its wingtip managed to spear the catering van you see here in the centre. So off we passengers all toddled and returned to the terminal, while (count ’em) eighteen people, including a whole slew of hi-vis and two fully armed coppers stood around doing not very much that could be seen as productive. Nice to see so many people gainfully employed by such a cockup. So that’s me in France 24 hours later than scheduled then — just as well I wasn’t down to do my keynote speech on Monday morning.

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Sep 05 2017
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Daily Post, Transport

Bus stop on the moor

Monday 4th September 2017, 5.45pm (day 2,202)

Bleak bus stop, 4/9/17

There must be bus stops something like this one in Hell. It’s the blanket that gets me, too. What was I doing here at 5.45 on a Monday? Well, there could be many reasons.

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