M Shed

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be taken on a behind the scenes guided tour of M Shed, Bristol’s new museum which has gained a great deal of attention lately.

It has a remarkable number of parallels with Birmingham’s Think Tank and I thought it might me interesting to share here my thoughts about the place.

M Shed replaced the old Bristol Industrial Museum, a much loved attraction on the City’s dockside but one which was not particularly well known to visitors. It’s fair to say that the Industrial Museum had become rather “worn”, although this always begs the question of who allowed that to happen in the first place?

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Think Tank and miss Birmingham’s old Museum of Science and Industry very much. I don’t like over-reliance on interactive displays, nor a tendency to concentrate only on younger visitors. So it’s fair to say that hearing a lot of buzz-words used in conjunction with M Shed didn’t fill me with optimism.

First impressions were good, though. The new museum takes full advantage of its position on the docks, with huge picture windows giving a truly panoramic view of Bristol’s skyline.

The second Big Thing is that admission is still FREE. There are the usual donations elicited and nominal charges for things like guided tours but otherwise, people can come and go as they wish. Not an easy thing to achieve in this day and age and Bristol City Council is to be applauded for it.

We were led first to the Museum’s store, where objects not currently on display are held. As with most museums, M Shed can only show s relatively small part of its collection at any given time but they’ve approached this “problem” in an innovative way, undertaking to change a proportion of their displays every year. In this way, things don’t languish out of sight for ever and people are given something new to come and explore each year, encouraging return visits. The store was very reminiscent of Birmingham’s Museum Store in Nechells, although it’s much more regularly accessible and the labelling was especially good so that even though things were stacked everywhere, you could easily see what they were.

Then it was into the Museum proper, which is arranged thematically rather than chronologically. As a chronological sort of person, I found this quite difficult, at least at first. But there’s no denying that it’s a though provoking approach and it does encourage looking at things from a different angle. There are three permanent galleries, looking at “Bristol Places”, “Bristol People” and “Bristol Life”.

But this juxtaposing of related but different subjects does work to some extent. For example, in “Bristol People”, the section dealing with the difficult subject of the slave trade is cheek by jowl with sections looking at Bristol’s race relations and the famous (in Bristol anyway) bus boycott in the sixties, prompted by the local bus company refusing to employ non-white staff.

Talking of buses, bus building was a big Bristol industry and they have, as one of the most prominent exhibits in “Bristol Places”, a complete Bristol bus (an FLF Lodekka, for the cognoscenti!). This was used as a sort of “gateway” to exploring transport in the City generally, looking at waterways, roads, housing and factories.

The interactive displays weren’t overdone. Indeed, I found those examining the topography of the City to be the most effective way of telling that story. However, they had loudspeakers, not microphones and when two (or three or four) are being used simultaneously I could imagine it might be jolly difficult to concentrate or even hear your “own”.

The “Bristol Life” gallery was a bit too left of field for me (oh Museum traditionalist that I am!) but might well work in bringing the place to the attention and interest of those who don’t normally visit museums. And in any case, out on the dockside there’s plenty more stuff to keep me enthralled with the cranes (a real feature of the city) boats and dockside railway all integral parts of the Museum.

So, M Shed gets a pretty reasonable thumbs up from me; 7/10 for the statistically minded. Go and take a look.

(While you’re there, by the way, don’t miss out on the City’s many other attractions not least the splendid City Museum & Art Gallery up the hill near the University. This too is free and is felt to compliment M Shed. I rather liked the ethos that “M Shed shows Bristol to the World, while the City Museum & Art Gallery shows the world to Bristol.”)

London Midland's "Great Escape"

It's usual for anyone with children or anyone to work in education to complain about the way in which prices for holidays, etc., go up in school holidays. All attempts to explain to them that they don't go "up" in holiday time, they go "down" in term time fall on the deaf ears of those who do not wish to hear. It's also called demand-pull inflation.

So it's unusual to hear of something whereby a special, heavily discounted offer in only available during school holidays.

I'm talking about London Midland's "£10 Great Escape" offer. You download a voucher from their website, present it at the station and can get a full day's travel on their network for £10. bearing in mind that that stretches from London to Liverpool, that can be a very good deal indeed.

The only downside (for us childless ones) is that it causes trains to be packed out with families! :-) Now that can plainly be a Good Thing.......but I do wonder how many of those journeys would have happened anyway (maybe not many, I don't know?) but why don't they try the (occasional) offer in term time, when presumably there are many more empty off-peak seats to fill?

Just a thought.

And overall it really is a good idea. I've now availed myself of it a couple of times and - apart from tiring myself out - can pronounce myself very happy with it!

A Word in Defence of London Underground

Many people will have seen, or rather heard, the recordings released for the first time at the inquest into the 7 July Terrorist Murders in London.

If you haven’t some examples are at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11518501

and

http://www.itv.com/news/77-bombings-inquest07608/

As so often happens with the media, journalists in search of a sound-bit type quote get emotionally charged friends and family to become angry and to use words like “shambolic” which are succinct but frankly inaccurate.

I think the staff of London Underground are getting very unfair treatment here. The "confusion" was very soon after the explosions (of which there were three at disparate locations within 90 seconds) and I think that no organisation could realistically have reacted differently. It may be that people would prefer staff to react in an excited frantic and dramatic way, they way we see on television or in the cinema. In fact, people remaining calm might not make a “good story” but it is the best way of dealing with a situation.

Indeed, some of the stories which have emerged about help, compassion and heroism from some of the station staff deserve a higher profile than this.

There were a lot of heroes that day. And I defy anyone to have reacted better, other than with that wonderful thing, “the benefit of hindsight”.

Arse v Elbow in Stratford-upon-Avon

I had a job in Stratford-upon-Avon this afternoon.

Whenever I work there, I endeavour to use the Park & Ride service, preferring to pay £1.50 to be taken in in luxury to searching for a parking spot and then having to take out a mortgage to pay for it.

I knew that the service doesn't operate on Sunday in the winter so before leaving checked the website to see if today had a service or not. Apparently it didn't. Okay, at least I know (even though parking restrictions aren't somehow eased when there's no P&R, which seems a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it).

So I drove down there and was surprised and delighted to see the matrix on the A3400 just north of the bypass proudly flashing "For Stratford Use Park & Ride", so I headed off to the car park to use it after all. I signalled into the car park.......and was immediately met by locked gates because indeed the service doesn't run on Sundays at this time of year.

Turn the matrices off folks, eh? It makes a bad impression. And if visitors didn't know better, they'd think the town didn't know what it was doing.......

Cycling and Cycling Facilities

A recent discussion on the excellent Blog of my friend Daniel in Australia regarding cycle facilities and the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets there prompted me to reply to the ensuing discussion from a UK point of view.

I don't cycle anywhere near as much any more as I used to, although I'm the proud owner of a Brompton. However, I have strong views on the subject of cycling as a means of transport and many factors, from the behaviour of cyclists, pedestrians and road users to the attitudes of planners usually get me a bit hot under the collar.

Anyway, I thought that my contribution merited reproducing on my Blog, too. so here it is:

The view of the general public here varies from outright hostility to cyclists (from motorists and pedestrians who only notice the many cyclists who ignore zebra crossings and red traffic lights) to well-meaning paternalism.

The latter sees both helmets and cycle paths as Good Things. In fact, I've seen as much evidence that helmets make things worse as I have that they make things better. Badly fitted helmets are a particular problem.

Cycle "facilities" are often very poor and frequently (and I mean FREQUENTLY put cyclists in more rather than less danger. Specifically, they confine cyclists to the extreme left hand side of the road, making them less visible and they create far more conflicts with other traffic flows, both regarding motor vehicles and pedestrians.

My view is that cycle lanes and paths do have a function but usually only at extremely busy grade separated junctions or to allow cyclists to avoid complex and lengthy one way system detours.

The problem is that few people seem to regard cyclists as what they are: traffic. Motorists think that "in this day and age"......."they shouldn't be on the road" as "it's too dangerous". Planners think that cycle paths "make cyclists safer" and cyclists themselves weave between being "traffic" and "pedestrians" when it suits them.

I can't offer a solution but I do think there's a lot of merit in treating bicycles as "traffic" just like anything else.

(Incidentally, I would draw a distinction here between cycling as a means of transport and leisure cycling, often involving young children, families and people going especially slowly. In such cases, scenic cycle paths like the Camel Trail which we recently sampled in Cornwall have much to commend them. Even there, though, the conflict between faster cyclists, slower ones and *very* inexperienced ones sometimes led to some hairy moments!)

Railway Rant

I’ve been trying for some time to use public transport to and from jobs whenever possible. I’ve always preferred trains and buses but they don’t always coincide with where I need to be when. Throughout 2010, though, I’ve made much more of an effort than before in this direction, even at the expense of taking longer to get to and from places.

Sometimes this is great. Sometimes, it isn’t. Today was one of the latter.

After an “unusual” day in Stratford-upon-Avon, I needed to return by train from Stratford to The Hawthorns. There was a 1727 train from Stratford, sue at The Hawthorns at 1830.

Having finished with my group, I arrived at Stratford station with 40 minutes to wait for the next train. Not the railway’s fault that I arrived there early, although an hourly frequency isn’t that brilliant for a route which isn’t exactly the back of beyond. The train was advertised as running 5 minutes late. The 12 minutes. Then 15. We actually left 13 minutes late at 1745. I’d then been at Stratford station (not an especially attractive site, though I’ve been to worse) for roughly an hour.

On the plus side, rather than stress with driving, I watched the lovely Warwickshire countryside and even had a snooze.

I awoke in Hall Green and decided to check if we’d made up time. In fact, we were later still, now 20 minutes down. At Birmingham Moor Street a rush hour sea of humanity descended on the train. I’m not sure what these trains actually are on the Snow Hill lines but I find their seats amazingly uncomfortable.

A few minute later we roll into Snow Hill station where more people pack in. Then came the clincher of the day. The guard announced that – as the train was running so late – it was going to run non-stop to Stourbridge Junction. Suddenly I (and much of this sea of humanity, some of whom had only just boarded) had to scramble to get off. We were also told nothing more than to “wait on the platform”.

The next train, er, terminated at Snow Hill and eventually the 1743 train, “due at 1753” arrived at, er, 1800. I arrived back at The Hawthorns 40 minutes later than I should have.

More significantly, I arrived there over two hours after I had finished my work in Stratford, a journey which by car, even with rush hour traffic, would have taken not much more than an hour and probably less.

And there’s the railway, nay the “public transport” problem. People like me want to use it but as long as it’s not providing a service where passengers feel “cared for”, where you get uncomfortable rides in delayed and crowded trains…….people will reach for their car keys.

A couple of weeks ago I tried a journey in the opposite direction. I arrived at The Hawthorns in plenty of time, only to find that the Stratford train, an hourly service remember, had been summarily cancelled.

Railways of Britain, do you hear me? YOU CAN’T JUST CANCEL THINGS AND ASUME THAT TELLING PEOPLE IT’S CANCELLED SOMEHOW MAKES IT ALRIGHT. I can’t just ring ahead to people who’ve booked me and say “sorry, I can’t come along today”. And you know what? You can’t either.

Two additional points:

1. The problem on both these occasions was “signalling problems”. I wonder if that means someone’s stolen a cable again? That caused me problems twice on trains from Manchester and Liverpool earlier in the summer which missed out stops at my local station with literally seconds notice.
2. To end on a positive not, one thing that London Midland trains really do seem to excel at is station booking office staff. The two chaps at The Hawthorns and the lady at Langley Green are always so happy, so friendly and so pleasant that I walk away from their ticket office windows feeling on top of the world. What a pity the managers who “manage” the line and the drones who reply to customer feedback don’t approach things in the same way.

Farewell, Old Friends!

After a job working in Moseley on Saturday morning, I was lucky enough to be able to get over to Acocks Green in time to watch the last ever operation by MCW Metrobuses.

For those "not in the know", the Metrobus was a late seventies design of double decker, born out of a collaboration between Metro Cammell Weymann (MCW) in the UK and Scania in Sweden. The resultant bus (called a Metro Scania) seemed especially popular on the streets on Newport and Reading for some reason! But they allegedly rusted quicker than they could be built!

So, an all UK version, the "Metrobus" was born. Manufactures in vast quantities at MCW's Birmingham factory at Washwood Heath, they found buyers all over the country. But local loyalties ensured that they would become the mainstay of West Midlands bus operation.

They proved surprisingly enduring and "last Metrobus Days" were held successively in Walsall, Birmingham and finally on three routes running from Acocks Green on Saturday.

Although not in the league of seeing off the last regular Routemasters in London, the event did attract quite a bit of attention from the enthusiast community. Actually, they themselves attracted a fair bit of attention from passing motorists!

Standards and Expectation in JelfWorld

Sometimes, when I fall out with service provides (railways, bus companies, the NHS to name but three with whom I’ve locked horns), I ask them to achieve what they say is “impossible” by working harder, earlier or later.

This usually elicits peals of laughter from friends when I tell them what I’ve said. But it comes from the way I work…….and the fact that I;ve just finished doing Something That Had To Be Done at 10.45pm.

And I’m absolutely certain that anyone I’ve expected this of was earning less than me, too…….

Railcards: I Want One!

The plethora of different tickets available is a well known feature of Britain’s privatised railway system.

Whether this is a Good Thing or a Bad thing largely depends on whether or not you’ve just managed to get hold of a Birmingham – London ticket for £5 or whether your sudden need to get to Newcastle-upon-Tyne for a family emergency has been met by a bill for £190.00.

But one feature of the railway system that can always help knock a few pounds off is the Railcard. Now once upon a time these came in versions for Senior Citizens (I think they may even have been called “Old People” in those non-PC days) and for Students.

Over the years, they’ve appeared for more and more groups. All “Young People” (ie those under 25; PC doesn’t seem to apply in this direction!); the Disabled; members of HM Forces; “Families”; and so on.

However, I can’t help wishing that there was a Railcard for people like me, who use the railways quite often and would do so more if this loyalty was rewarded with access to discounted fares. Now plainly, this would have to be set at a realistic price. I can hardly expect to be offered the same discounts as the other groups mentioned. But it would be an encouragement to travel by train more often. A bit like the way in which actually owning a car encourages you to use it since you’ve already paid a set of fixed costs.

Some countries, such as Switzerland (unsurprisingly) and Germany, already have such a card. Indeed, so does Britain, if you happen to live in the South East and can thus buy a Network Railcard.

So why can’t the rest of us get something similar?

Railway Complaint

I've been missing from the Blogosphere for some time due to all sorts of work and personal commitments.

I'm back though to post the text of customer feedback I've sent today to London Midland, concerning a train journey today. Their service (and especially their station staff) are actually pretty good, certainly when compared to their predecessors, Central Trains. Indeed, even what happened today wasn't the biggest catastrophe in transport history.

What managed to get my goat was that they did exactly the same thing last time I had a day out with them and it's starting to make me think it's a regular occurrence about which they don't care. Last time the reply took weeks. I'll keep you posted this time.


Dear Sir,

I took a trip from Sandwell & Dudley today, taking advantage of the Great Escape Offer. I think this is a super idea and had a lovely day out to Liverpool last time you offered it…….marred only by my train unexpectedly missing out Sandwell & Dudley Station on the return leg, with poor ( = virtually non existent) passenger information “given” when that happened.

I wrote to tell you about this then and – after a l-o-n-g delay received a very anodyne reply blaming Network Rail.

Well, I thought naively to myself, these things happen and a train trip can be a very pleasant way of making a journey. So today, Shrewsbury it was.

And guess what happened on the return trip (1547 from Shrewsbury)? Just as we approached Wolverhampton, the guard announced that the train would be proceeding straight to Birmingham and not stopping at Sandwell & Dudley. No advice of what to do, not apology, no concern, just a statement of fact.

This time, I quickly gathered my things together and left the train, managing to find a local train to complete my journey. (Wolverhampton station is curiously devoid of staff but I suppose you’ll tell me that “that’s down to Virgin”.)

Net result? A 40 minute delay to a journey that should only have taken an hour.

I know things go wrong (I heard on the connecting train that there had been vandalism to the signalling system “again”; can’t the railway guard its property in “known trouble spots"?)

As I said last time, whole sections of society, such as the majority of my social circle, simply never use trains because they don’t provide the sort of caring service people are used to today in the world of Waitrose, John Lewis, Lakeland or the hotel trade. I was on a train in Switzerland which caught fire once. Staff moved us onto another train within 10 minutes, our journey was replanned and we arrived on time at our destination. If the railway(s) want more types of people to use their services then they need to behave in a way that shows *care* for customers, not just tell them that what they want ( = need) isn’t happening.

And *don’t* tell me this is Network Rail’s problem. You’re the train operator, you have my money and if you want any more of it you’ll need to show me you actually give a toss.

Looking forward to a sensible, detailed and considered reply. From someone with a clue, please.

Yours faithfully

Ian Jelf

Olympic Pause

I’m currently half way through a course in London studying the venues to be used in the 2012 Summer Olympics, staying with friends in North London and being Northern Line commuter for a week or so. Great, I'm getting to admire some splendid Charles Holden architecture twice a day!

Anyway, despite the weather and “unpredictable” road conditions, I’ve been home for the weekend.

Weekends off are a strange experience for me, as they’re obviously among my busiest days for work. However, Louise and I popped into Birmingham yesterday morning (I needed to find a copy of “Chariots of Fire” on DVD as material for my course!) I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: what a horrible experience shopping in major centres is on Saturdays. I get spoiled by being able to indulge in such things on – say – a Tuesday morning!

The media do tend to get their knickers in a twist about the weather, though, don’t they? While I admit it’s been a difficult spell with the very low (sorry, “plunging” temperatures), as far as motoring on main roads goes, there have been no huge problems for us. Side roads are a different matter but the thought of local councils ploughing narrow residential streets lined with parked cars is really a non starter.

The press do love to do their “the glass is half empty rather than the glass is half full” routine, don’t they? Actually, in recent reports for “glass” substitute “salt depot”.

Anyway, in between all this I’ve been typing up notes (my handwriting is appalling; it’s so long since I’ve taken longhand notes) and just generally relaxing.

Just about to enjoy a “proper” and very late breakfast before setting off back South this afternoon. Now, what do I know about Theodosius I…….?

Some Treasured Christmas Presents

Belatedly, then, Happy New Year!

Well, with the festivities of Christmas over and the decorations (almost) all down, time to catch up.

I’ve been a bit remiss on Blog Writing, mostly due to work (I had some really interesting bookings for walks and coach tours over the festive period).

I do want to talk about some of the presents I was lucky enough to receive, though.

I love presents. I know that Christmas has a reputation for saddling people with unwanted gifts but I treasure the stuff I get!

For one thing, I have yet another new lens to lug around with me on the Occasions When I Set Out To Take Photographs (as oppose to when I take photos merely incidentally). I do enjoy photography but I get very little chance to practice it as much as I would like.

Then there were the The Books. I’m an avid reader and the house is stacked full (too full) of the things. Three of this Christmas’ library were related to transport in the Midlands, a subject which has always occupied more of my time than perhaps is good for me!

I’m actually going to do mini-reviews of the three, not because I think that that many of my Blog followers are into the finer points of Midland transport history but because they all convey so much more than that: the photos and texts give a fascinating record of the past of the area, often including material which is either different from that published elsewhere or which presents it in a different, more entertaining fashion.

City to the Black Country: A Nostalgic Journey by Bus and Tram by David Harvey was the first. David Harvey now has a welter of local transport-related books to his name and they are always enjoyable. This one looks at the tram and later bus connections from Birmingham out to Wednesday and to Dudley, via both Smethwick and via West Bromwich.

The routes concerned both have long pedigrees and they provide as varied a ride now as they ever did. Pictures of trams (even Birmingham’s oft-forgotten cable trams) are interspersed with the newest generation of Wright Gemini buses.

The captions give a great deal of background information and are plainly written by someone who isn’t regurgitating stuff but who understands it and is enthused by it.

A shame it’s all in black and white but that can’t really be avoided in most cases, given the subject matter!

The other books are both in colour and are both penned by another “great” in the local transport world, Malcolm Keeley.

West Midlands PTE Buses and Trolleybuses reminds us that the creation of an integrated transport authority for the West Midlands is actually a far from new idea, dating from 1969. The book, with some lovely colour illustration, most of which I’d never seen before and including some splendid vanished street-scenes, covers the period from the PTE’s creation in 1969 until deregulation of bus operation in 1986.

It is easy to forget today, when the powers that be keep striving to “integrate” transport, that we achieved that pretty much more than three decades ago. A single organisation running all the buses and controlling rail operations, with a single Travelcard to cover everything, bulk buying locally built buses, building bus stations and transport interchanges and ushering in a renaissance in local rail travel. We had it all and it was largely thrown away in the interests of “ competition”. It made me feel distinctly nostalgic.

The Colours of the West Midlands was the second of Malcolm’s books in the Jelf stocking on Christmas morning. “Colours” is descriptive, too, a quality, large, hardback book filled with yet more never-before seen pictures of pre-PTE buses. And what a colourful period it was, too!

Midland Red, quite rightly, is dealt with first, its bright red (obviously!) buses seeming to cover the length and breadth of the Midlands. And having one of their D9s on the front cover just guaranteed that I would like it! However, the book has a distinct Birmingham City Transport bias, with their fleet of cream and very-deep blue buses looking distinctly pristine. This impression is only enhanced by the pages that follow of the other municipal bus fleets in the area. West Bromwich, Walsall and Wolverhampton successively show increasing signs of scruffiness in their various buses. Not that they weren’t of interest. Far from it.

The whole of the book is absorbing. And if those of you reading this who find what I've waxed lyrical about distinctly geeky, then I promise you the backgrounds and settings of many of the pictures are truly absorbing, reminding us how much our towns and cities have changes, not always for the worse, either.

In conclusion, one picture really stopped me in my tracks. It’s a mid-sixties shot on page 29 of The Colours of the West Midlands and ostensibly shows a Birmingham Daimler CVG6 at the Hamstead terminus of the 15/16 service. But there, right by the classic huge Birmingham bus stop is 372 Hamstead Road. This was the home of my honorary Auntie Kath and Uncle Bob (actually friends of my parents) with whom we used to spend weekends when I was small. It was at he front of that house as a toddler that I spent hours watching the buses turning around and – my family believe – developed the fascination in the subject I've had ever since.

The picture was utter joy to me and brought back some of the happiest memories I have.

If you’ve persevered this far…….thanks for reading!

In the Steps of Doctor Foster

I’ve been working in Gloucester today and travelled to and from the job by train.

I’d like to do that more often but a combination of often extortionate fares, lack of left luggage facilities at stations and the unreasonableness of wanting to travel early on a Sunday often conspire against it for my jobs.

Today, though (being a Saturday) I managed to get a good deal (cheaper than the petrol and parking) and trains ran “just right” from one of my local stations, so the train it was. Well done again, Cross Country. Oh and their online ticket booking site doesn't charge a booking fee, even for journeys with other railway companies,so I'm happy to give it a plug here.

The journey was actually rather lovely. I was a little surprised (and pleased) at how busy trains were at 7.00am on a Saturday and then speeding through the Worcestershire countryside as day broke was very civilized. It was helped by a largish coffee on board for the princely sum of £1!

I always enjoy Gloucester jobs. The place has loads of good stories to share with people: nursery rhymes, murder, Roman retirees, seventies BBC costume drama and a curious juxtaposition of both Beatrix and Harry Potter! Today’s enjoyment was helped somewhat by a group of regular clients, some of whom I’ve seen more of this year than some members of my family.

Coming back, the Cotswold and Worcestershire countryside was bathed in a lovely golden afternoon light and felt distinctly satisfied with the day. (Although the coffee had gone up: it was £1.50 on the return leg!) I also noticed that he train took the famous Lickey Incline, once such a barrier to steam-hauled trains, as though it wasn’t even there.

Warwick tomorrow.

Digbeth Coach Station

I would consider taking National Express coaches from time to time. Okay, they don't have the ability to cruise past traffic jams in the way a train does but they can be pretty comfortable these days and the prices can be very competitive. The only problem with that being based in Birmingham is the location of the coach station.

The much-vaunted new Digbeth Coach Station is due to open on Monday but it (like its temporary replacement) are that little bit “out” of the City centre in a still-not-very-brilliant area. If I arrive in Birmingham by public transport, it will be in the Corporation Street area, a fair haul (and an unpleasant one at that) down to Digbeth. Although I'll put up that in the day, it's not something I'd contemplate at night and it's not as if there's any reasonable parking nearby either.

When Digbeth was replaced, the opportunity really should have been taken to relocate the coach station somewhere more central. The Snow Hill site would have done. All other towns seem to have their coach stations in the middle, usually in a place used by local buses, too. Why not Brum?!

That said, I do look forward to seeing the new coach station. I hope it manages to match the similar fine facilities now in Manchester and Bristol (for example). I just wish it was more central!

Chiltern Railways

Chiltern Railways is again becoming something of a victim of its own success. Travelling on a morning trip from The Hawthorns to London yesterday, I was amazed at just how full the train was, with people standing from after we left Banbury.

It's good to see so much more use of trains generally these days. I'm aware that I seem to have been using them much more lately, not just to and from London, either. Unfortunately, if people's experience of rail journeys is negative (“I had to stand all the way to London”) then they will just head back to their cars, leaving public transport back in the status of being a “distress purchase”. In particular, although I'm used to Chiltern providing only a trolley service (and then only at peak times), I'm surprised that there's no buffet car on Cross Country Trains between Birmingham and Manchester.

But despite all this, rail still has much to commend it. Certainly, I prefer to relax, read, write and watch the changing panorama from a train than to slog up and down the M40 or M6 in the car, which is the ultimate alternative. If there's a station near when I'm going and if there's a train when I want it (two big “ifs”, those!) then as long as the price is roughly comparable (another big consideration) then I'll take it.

Merry Hell

Took Mum Christmas shopping to Merry Hill today. Sorry, "Westfield Merry Hill". Does anyone ever call it that?

Anyway, if there is a recession on, there wasn’t much sign of it there, judging by the full car park and the crowds inside.

Mum still isn’t terribly mobile (although much improved over this time last week) so it was a car job, which of course added to the congestion approaching the place, even on a weekday. Dudley Council appear to have been digging up the same stretch of Saltwells Road in Dudley Wood since before the Norman Conquest.

It also struck me that the centre really isn’t a brilliant place to reach by public transport, despite not really being “out of town” but embedded within the built up area of the West Midlands. Yes, it has a large network of bus services; but when the roads get congested, they get held up, too. It really needs a segregated rail (well, Metro) connection. I know that Midland Metro’s Line 3 is supposed to serve the place one day but at the current rate of progress on that, I’ll travel on the first tram free of charge as I’ll be a Senior Citizen by the time it gets built.

So, although Mum liked it and we managed to get a lot done…….it’s not really my sort of place. Rather than a "real town", it looks like Paradise with a Frontal Lobotomy. In any case, it doesn’t have enough bookshops!

Ronnie Biggs

Had Ronnie Biggs served a long sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery, then he would probably have been released quite some years ago now.

However, he did not serve that sentence. He instead escaped from Wandsworth Prison and lived the life of Riley in Australia and then Brazil. He basked in the “limelight” of being a “celebrity”, posed for photos and mocked Scotland Yard Detective Jack Slipper on television.

Yes, he returned to the UK voluntarily. In 2001, when the money ran out and his health failed.

He spent a lot of time when he should have been in prison out of it. Now he can spend a lot of time in it when – had he acted differently - he could have been out.

He can stay in for the rest of his natural as far as I’m concerned.

Bristol Bus Station

On Sunday I was in Bristol so went for a look around the new(ish) bus station. (I do like my cultural sights, don't I?)

On passing the National Express counter, I heard the lady on duty there saying in a distinctly fed up voice "Why do people keep coming here for local bus information?"

"Yes," I thought to myself "I bet they get a lot of that. People don't read signs, do they?"

However, a few metres further on I found the FirstBus Information shop.......which was closed being Sunday! No wonder people head for National Express!

I know that not everything can open 24/7/365 and that these things have a high (labour) cost. However, at such a major (and busy) bus station, there really ought to have been somewhere to get local bus information, even on a Sunday.

This is one of the things that makes public transport the resort of the desperate and always makes me a bit sad as I think it should be a good solution attractive to everyone. That said, I was very impressed not so much with the design of the bus station but its cleanliness and the fact that it felt "pleasant", with none of the sometimes slightly threatening, down-at-heel fee you get in a lot of them (have a look at Redditch Bus Station sometime!).

Yes, there are LED displays but these are only of limited use for people who aren't familiar with local geography, being a bit short on detail.

Still, maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Enquiry offices, like timetable books, are just so twentieth century, aren't they?