Monday 17th July 2017, 3.35pm (day 2,153)
It’s actually not a bad place to catch forty winks, the train home — I manage it frequently. Like these two gentlemen, I am tired…. but have now just three days left before my summer break.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Transport
Boarding the London train
Tuesday 11th July 2017, 9.30am (day 2,147)
Another trip to London…. but just for the day. Platform 8, Leeds station, to which I returned approximately ten hours later. The first precisely timed shot for a while.
Catching the London flight
Friday 30th June 2017, 4.25pm (day 2,136)
I have been excessively mobile during June. The trips to and from Siberia and Norway had already taken 11 flights and eight different airports, and on the last day of June I added one more flight and two airports — Aberdeen to London City. Too much… I need to reconnect with home over the next seven weeks (the next major trip being the last two weeks of August to the USA). How is Aberdeen airport? Same as other airports, except that it doesn’t seem to have been refurbished since about 1980.
Handling the baggage, Schiphol
Sunday 4th June 2017, 1.00pm (Dutch time) (day 2,110)
It’s over four years since this blog featured a proper visit to the Netherlands (Maastricht, April 2012) but I seem fated to visit Schiphol airport on a regular basis. My flight to Russia saw me positioned in a seat right above the entrance to the hold, so I got to watch these guys do their jobs while settling in for the second of three flights in one day….
Sunny afternoon, Victoria station
Wednesday 31st May 2017, 3.40pm (day 2,106)
First trip into Manchester for nearly two weeks. Last week I stayed at home and worked, which was the easier option due to the closure of Victoria station. Half-above the station stands Manchester Arena, scene of what we could refer to as ‘The Events’ of Monday 22nd May but which one might also reasonably call ‘the slaughter of 22 people by a psychopath’. *Sigh*. And I had decided to try not to mention it.
Outside King’s Cross
Sunday 14th May 2017, 4.25pm (day 2,089)
Well, here we are again. And as usual – just for a quick visit. Things to do, then I’m off home again. This is how London has become the fourth most-depicted place on this blog. A place to come to and depart from…
On the 6:59
Tuesday 9th May 2017, 7.00am (day 2,084)
Ah, the joys of the 06:59 Hebden Bridge to Manchester Victoria service…. its cruddy carriages, standing room only by Todmorden, and then there’s that ‘6’ at the start of the time, which firmly puts it in the realm of ‘too early’. I dislike it, as you’ve probably gathered. Then again I doubt anyone has reached retirement age and fondly reminisced about the good old days on the 06:59.
Canal life, April evening
Wednesday 26th April 2017, 6.50pm (day 2,071)
A number of Hebden Bridge’s residents live on canal barges like these and I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to do so on a permanent basis. I’ve been on a couple of the boats and they are cosy, but I definitely don’t think it’s suited for anyone that has a really serious hoarding habit, which probably rules out me and (more especially) the wife. A sunny day today, but chilly, hence the stove bring run here at full operation.
Summit Tunnel, interior
Tuesday 25th April 2017, 1.05pm (day 2,070)
Some pictures make it onto here for the novelty value more than anything else — so here’s what the Summit Tunnel (the longest railway tunnel in the world when it was opened in 1841, dontcha know) looks like from the inside when the driver forgets to turn the interior lights on in the carriage. Which he then realised, and corrected, some two seconds after I pressed the shutter. Bet you are glad then that I was able to capture this fascinating study of Victorian tunnel architecture.
Shinjuku station
Monday 27th March 2017, 2.35pm (day 2,041)
Shinjuku railway station is a few hundred meters from my hotel, and is not only the busiest railway station in the world, but the busiest transport hub of any kind. 3.5 million people DAILY pass through here — that’s the entire population of Greater Manchester plus Leeds, or more-or-less the population of Los Angeles, through one single railway station. Every single day. It beggars belief. This picture was taken at a relatively quiet point in the daily cycle, but still gives an impression of it all, I think.
Being 42 