Coronavirus #7

It's clear that the Government dropped the ball in the initial handling of this; to be honest, most people did in one way or another. While the death toll is grim, we seem to have avoided the even worse scenario of a NHS collapse and infections are slowly coming down.

The question is of course how to lift the lockdown without risking a 'second peak'. A blanket "stay at home" policy cannot continue indefinitely, as we need to get the economy and society going again - we are likely to be dealing with this in some form or another for at least the rest of this year.

A lot of places will need to adapt for social distancing to minimise the spread of this; but let's remember how this is spread - by coughing and saliva. So, it seems to me that cloth face masks are the best way to reduce further spread and I would wear one on public transport if that was recommended.

For one thing, staying at home is boring and I want to see the world again.

The Lord of Hope - Easter 2020

Since the churches have closed, we've been having services online streamed from the home of our minister. They're somewhat shorter than usual as it is rather difficult to sign hymns in a case like this, or to take a collection (people have been advised to use Justgiving or send a cheque when we resume "normal" activity.

It's a pretty unpleasant time for everyone, although of course much worse if you are affected by Covid-19 directly or indirectly. A lot more people are likely to die around the world before this virus is dealt with.

But things will get better and not just with regards to this virus. Things will improve across this whole fallen world. The Risen Lord will come back at some point (we do not know when) and create a new world, where the righteous will live free from the chains of death, fear and sadness.

Happy Easter. Have a good time at home.

Coronavirus #6

Working from home gets a bit boring after a while. While I can talk online at with my colleagues, the lack of noise is something I miss. I might end up putting Spotify on...

Coronavirus #5: It takes as long as it takes

5 days into what is currently a three-week "lockdown" and it feels like longer already. We've had over 28,000 deaths from this worldwide so far and that number is likely to increase yet further. As testing becomes more widely available, the number of confirmed cases will skyrocket, but that figure is going to become increasingly meaningless as time goes on.

Going out for daily exercise and shopping, there's still a reasonable number of people around, but they're of course keeping a distance and it's not like there is that many shops available. Most foodstuffs can now be acquired, but you have to be a bit less choosy than normal.

As to how long this lasts, your guess is as good as mine. We cannot operate on artificial timetables - any decisions have to be data-driven.

We're just going to have to be patient. At some point, this will be over and we can file it as a bad memory. For most of us at any rate.

Coronavirus #4: We need a lockdown - and it probably still won't be enough

Judging by the number of people I saw out and about during a walk today where I got some food items as well, it's clear that the social distancing calls from the government are not getting through to many people. Especially in Havering.

To slow the spread of this disease and release the pressure on the NHS, we need to close more non-essential shops (estate agents, furniture stores, hardware stores), as well as forcibly break up mass outdoor gatherings.

Even then, that might not do it. We don't have the police capacity - we arguably never had - to enforce a nationwide lockdown. Many will happily run the risk of a fine and a jail sentence because "it's just the flu".

It's probably a matter of time before we get scenes like in Lombardy in London.

Coronavirus #3

It's now very likely that we're going to have disruption from this for weeks, if not months. With bans on big events likely for at least March and probably April, it's probably not a very good time to be planning anything major because it will likely be closed or called off.

The question is ultimately how quickly we can develop an effective treatment that isn't reliant on the body fighting this off - not always possible, especially if you've got other conditions - or a vaccine. 'Herd immunity' through the bulk of the population getting the regular version of the disease is going to result in a lot of deaths and take a long time indeed.

I think we're going to be dealing with this for a good year or two and will to adjust our behaviour to adapt.

Coronavirus #2: Northern Italy on lockdown

With the announcement of movement restrictions for large parts of Northern Italy and other prohibitions that will heavily restrict social life in the country for nearly a month, the impact of Covid-19 is having some real effects on this people. It appears that the quarantines imposed in Wuhan worked in slowing down the disease; which is buying us time to develop treatments and ultimately vaccines.

However, it's likely to be a pretty unpleasant next few months in any event; a lot of people are going to get this disease and a noticeable percentage of them will die of it. There are about 3,500 new cases a day and around a hundred deaths. We've not yet reached the peak and it might not be done this month.

Also, I suspect that No Time To Die will not be the only film put back because of all of this - however, with Black Widow not out until May, Marvel will likely hold off on a decision until April.

Coronavirus

With over 20 cases of Covid-19 in the UK and over 85,000 known cases worldwide with nearly 3,000 known deaths, we're dealing with a particularly nasty new disease. However, not one to panic about.

Sensible precautions seem to be the way to go; for example, washing your hands, being careful how you sneeze and knowing when you're badly unwell. For many people who don't get sick pay, going into work with a minor cold is something we have no choice but to do - but if things get more major, it's probably best to stay at home. Face masks are needed for health workers - don't buy one unless you genuinely need it. A lot of people will likely get very mild Covid-19 and recover without even knowing they have it.

The impact from this is far likely to be economic for those not directly affected due to global supply chain disruption and major event cancellations; remember that a lot of small businesses around a football stadium will lose out if a game is called off.

Hopefully this will be contained and run its course within the next couple of months.

Deactivation of Twitter account

I have today decided to deactivate my account on Twitter. It is too toxic and the time I am spending on there is time I can use on other things.

Bern Notice - or the US Democratic nomination process

It's looking increasingly likely that Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic candidate for President against Donald Trump in November and this contest will be interesting to put it mildly.

While Sanders will be the furthest left Democratic candidate since at least George McGovern, he will be going up against a scandal-tarred Trump whose approval rating, unlike Nixon's (whose slump came in his second term) is in negative territory. He's also polling well.

Sanders isn't Jeremy Corbyn - he doesn't have some of Corbyn's toxic associations for one thing. Also, with the US political system as it is, he will be likely heavily constrained by Congress in any domestic policy - in the way Trump kind of is. So businesses won't necessarily be as scared of him as a PM Corbyn.

I think there is a very good chance we end up with a Jewish President next year, although it ultimately depends on the economy. With Covid-19 in particular, there's a chance we could be in a recession come November.

Armchair Time Traveller #4 LNER Continental Timetable October 1935 to May 1936

Playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order, I'm now jumping back almost 30 years to a vintage timetable that I picked up for Christmas in 2018.

Going back to the Grouping Era, it's time for this bad boy:

OK, it's not a man or a woman, but there's plenty of Bad in it... as in towns called 'Bad something'.

With a momentary pause in the bad puns, let's go...

The context

1935 was a year when the international situation very much began its slide down the slope to the depths of the Second World War. The Luftwaffe was formed and conscription was introduced in Nazi Germany as Hitler openly went against the Treaty of Versailles; the Nuremberg Laws were introduced that stripped citizenship from non-Aryans. Mussolini invaded what is now Ethiopia in a quest for imperial glory that was a brutal campaign from the outset.

On the other side of the coin, canned beer was invented.

The popular conception of railways before the war is of a world full of steam locomotives. Certainly steam engines were the norm in most places. Electrification was the norm on tram networks and it was starting to spread to railway ones as well, who wanted to compete with them and increasing numbers of coaches as roads improved. Steam locomotives aren't the cleanest of things and they're not the fastest either. The 'sparks effect' of electrification increased passenger numbers and helped develop suburbs as people moved to cleaner areas away from city centres, commuting into work on electric trains.

The timetable itself notes that an Italian line is being electrified, while Germany, the Netherlands and Italy were starting to wire up main lines.

In the UK, the Southern Railway had pretty much done its suburban network in 1930, with mainline services next, using the third rail system. Brighton, Worthing, Eastbourne and Hastings were already connected, with Portsmouth being worked on.

The LNER itself had taken over electric suburban services in Tyneside and would start on wiring the line from Liverpool Street to Shenfield, although this was suspended with the outbreak of the war - British Railways would finish it off.

Europe had different political boundaries in 1935 - especially in the east of Europe, where the USSR was much smaller than it would become after the war and Poland was over to the east, including big parts of what is today Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania. Lithuania in 1935 used standard gauge for its network, a result of the German occupation in the First World War so it had a direct connection to the network of most of Europe; there also appears to have been a standard gauge line to Riga, Latvia.

The contents

There is a lot packaged into this 185-page affair, certainly far more than you'd get in any modern timetable. To give you some of the highlights:

• Plenty of terms and conditions stuff, including a statement that LNER will not be liable for any loss or damage at Sea (their capitalisation) due to, for example (and I actually quote):
• The King's enemies
• Accidents from machinery, boilers and steam
• Accidents of the seas, rivers and navigation of whatever nature or kind soever
• An eight-page index of continental stations
• No less than 45 pages of fare listings, including fares from London via Harwich to many European cities, fares from 'provincial stations' of the Big Four to Harwich and fares from Harwich to European cities. All of these are in £.s.d. so you might have a fair bit of complex adding up to do.
• Rates for a wide variety of luggage including:
• Motorcycles
• Cars
• Typewriters
• Sewing machines
• Nautical Instruments (15 shillings to the Continental ports)
• How to send telegrams from ships
• Information on sending goods and parcels via train and ship (a train ferry service for freight was also around) 
• A long list of agencies through which LNER sold tickets in both Europe and the US

The actual timetables themselves take up a minority of the book and employ the standard format for the international timetables I have in my collection; you read the times down on the left hand side for services going away from London and up on the right hand side for coming back - this means you only have the station names one i.e. in the middle. The details of the through carriages available and any variations are at the bottom. One thing that is obvious is that the icons are a good deal more detailed than you would find in a modern publication. An example of the timetables can be seen below. I couldn't scan from this book without risking damaging it:

There are also three fold out maps at the rear of the book, one of Belgium, one of the Netherlands and the one below:

These schematic style, not quite geographically accurate maps for the LNER and LMS were created by George Dow and in fact were the inspiration for Harry Beck's world-famous London Underground Map. More information and history of these can be found here. 

The fares 

International travel was not exactly cheap at this time. £1 in 1935 was equivalent to £70 now. If you wanted to go to Amsterdam to partake of the red light district (it existed, but was a lot less in your face than today), you were looking at £4 17s 10d each for a Third Class Return via "Flushing" (Vlissingen, which no longer has any ferry services to the UK since the Sheerness service was terminated in 1994). That's over £300 each before luggage, hotels and meals were included. You were able to get special weekend tickets that allowed you to travel without a passport, but the precise information on these is not provided in this timetable. 

(Yes, bachelor parties were around back then). 

If your stag do inclinations stretched further afield to the Estonian capital of Tallinn, you were looking at £12 1s 9d for a Second Class Single; a visa was also required from the Estonian Embassy at 167 Queen's Gate, SW7 - open only between 10am and 1pm. This said, at least you could get a through ticket all the way there - you can only get a through ticket to Warsaw from the UK now, with the need to buy further tickets in Vilnius and Riga. Interrail is a thing for the whole Baltics now, but the cross-border connections are limited as you get further east and you might be better to get a coach.

The travel times

London to Tallinn was possible with four trains and a ferry. Departing at 0930 GMT on Day 1, you'd be at Berlin Schlesischer Bahnhof, in English "Berlin Silesian Station" at 0733 the following morning, a journey time of 19 hours and 13 minutes, via the Harwich-Flushing ferry. This is now, after two rebuilds by East Germany, Berlin Ostbahnhof and remains a major starting point for international services, like the EuroNight Talgo sleeper to Moscow-Belorusskaya. 

Departing there 19 minutes later, you'd be in Riga at 0648 Eastern European Time on Day 3, with a two hour wait for a 2nd and 3rd Class only service to Tallinn, arriving at 1856. That's a 55 hour and 26 minutes journey.

In 2020, there is no overland route shorter than three nights... Driving takes 28 hours straight; something impractical with the need to refuel, go to the toilet and sleep.

London to Berlin was a 20 to 21 hour journey with a sleep either on the ferry or the train; although the former involved having to pay a supplement on the express train in Germany. Avoiding that would add another five hours to your journey as you had to wait for a later slower train,.

Other fun stuff

As mentioned earlier, this timetable has a large array of information on those wishing to ship goods via rail; as the railways were a 'common carrier', they were required to take nearly anything that was offered to them, no matter how profitable the market was. The exceptions were manure and stuff like lime that could damage their stock. So you could get ship propellers put on a flatbed.

Full details of the rates available required you to contact one of the Goods Managers or a freight forwarding agent; since this would entail me doing a seance, I can't provide them to you. There were special inclusive rates for express goods at 805 Belgian francs per metric tonne to Antwerp, which was just under £6 - although this did not apply to perishables. These had to be delivered to Bishopsgate Goods Station before 3pm on any weekday.

The most common freight wagons at this were 20-foot boxcars and those could be shipped to the continent without the need to tranship via the Harwich-Zeebrugge train ferry that ran from 1924 until 1987; these wagons could be sent as far as Poland and 'Roumania' (the spelling in English didn't standardise until 1975). LNER also advertised a through shipment company called All Rapid Transport Service, who said they could ship goods to Palestine (the British Mandate) in 9 days, China in 27 days "&c &c".

Rather relevant in today's day and age were Customs regulations. At time where the European Union was over twenty years from creation, every frontier required some form of customs examination and the items that were subject to duty, restriction or outright prohibition ranged from the normal to the downright bizarre, like:

• Tobacco
• Hats
• Field and Opera Glasses (there is a difference between field glasses and binoculars; the former lack internal prisms that can jolted out of alignment via rough handling)
• Gramophones and Gramophone Records
• Plumage
• Handkerchiefs

Also, don't try to bribe a Customs Officer or you could be fined £200. Also, you won't be allowed to pass Go.

Conclusion

The inter-war years are considered a golden age for the railways and to an extent that's true, with the sheer array of international services, along with some very snazzy rolling stock. However, it wasn't exactly the fastest of services and international travel could be quite bureaucratic, especially if you wanted to bring home some hats.

I'd go for a visit, but I wouldn't like to live there.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2020

Tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army.

Among the events being held to mark this is a reading at the former Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands of the names of the 102,000 Dutch Jews, Sinti and Roma murdered by the Nazis.

My Dutch is very limited, but hearing how young many of these people were when they were gassed - if they managed to survive the horrendous journey - brings it home in a new way. The footage we have is of the teenagers and younger adults who survived - not the children and older people who were murdered on arrival at places like Auschwitz.

The more one reads about the Holocaust, the more horrific it becomes. 

The Wannsee Conference wasn't where the decision was taken to try to kill all 11 million Jews then living in Europe. It was a high-level planning meeting to determine how to put into effect a decision already made.

People came up with plans for all this, printed forms, typed reports, designed structures. This was the calculated and considered destruction of an entire ethnic group.

Yet it was just part of a wider plan that would also have, if completed, reduced Slavs into a semi-literate slave people and created a vast Nazi empire across Europe through puppet rulers or direct annexation.

The Nazi regime were the biggest criminals this world has ever known. Anyone who claims otherwise is at best wrong and at worst a bigot.

Blog plans for 2020

1. Finish the current timetable article I'm working on. This might take a while due to other things getting in the way.
2. Probably do another one - I'm thinking BR Southern Region's summer 1970 timetable.
3. Possibly post some photos.

Christmas 2019

In what has been a turbulent and frankly unpleasant year in many regards, where dodgy political leadership dominates in many countries and the opposition to it is often nearly as bad, it can become rather easy to lose hope of things ever improved.

This is where my faith in Jesus helps. The Bible foretells of a time when tears will end, suffering will cease and justice will be given for all. Those who have caused so many of the problems that we face today will have to face judgement. I'm looking at you, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

The good - and getting that status is easy than you might think - will get their just reward in paradise.

That is one thought that keeps me getting up in the morning. Another is that while I can't solve all the world's problems, I can help where I reasonably can.

So, help where you can. It will be appreciated one way or another.

Merry Christmas and I wish you a lovely New Year.

The next five years

Boris Johnson, after his emphatic win eight days ago, is secure in power for the next five years bar anything major happening in the Jennifer Acuri department or something that we can't yet see coming.

Johnson's coalition is reliant on a range of groups, including ex-Labour working class voters in the North; they switched en masse in the election and could just as easily switch back for a good Labour leader.

Unfortunately, I am not sure that Labour is going to end with a good leader; they may well try 'Corbynism without Corbyn' and without him for the media to pounce on, the policies might be subjected to more scrutiny instead. Many of them are popular, but a large feast of goodies was seemingly not.

The big question is Brexit. The Withdrawal Agreement will get through mostly intact - there will likely be some minor amendments during the course of passage; the Lords might want to add some bits that Johnson will accept to get the bill through by 31 January.

We will leave in an orderly manner then. The trade deal will the next more difficult stage. The EU holds most of the cards here; a No Deal would be far worse for us than for the remaining 27 members of the EU.

I personally expect a lot of noisy in public negotiations over the course of 2020, resulting in something that Johnson will call a deal, but will in reality be a very much interim agreement with more difficult issues punted until later on.

Free movement will end, of course, and the UK will move to the ETIAS visa waiver programme. I will almost certainly get a ETIAS waiver on a standing basis as soon as I can. I strongly suspect there will be real difficulty filling jobs in some sectors with British workers; our culture of handing off 'dirty jobs' to other people that frankly goes back to the British Empire is coming back to bite us in the proverbial backside.

Rejoining? Not before 2040 at the earliest and certainly not as a UK.

Scotland will likely be refused a second referendum in this parliament, but come 2024, the SNP will make it a condition of any support for a Labour minority government... if there is indeed a hung parliament.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes: Analysis of the 2019 General Election

The biggest Conservative win since 1987 has secured Boris Johnson his place in history. He will, for whatever happens after, be the person who takes Britain out of the European Union at the end of January. For all the incompetence, venality, lies and outright dodgy behaviour was not enough to stop him from romping home.

There are a number of reasons why this happened and a lot of them ultimately boil down to Jeremy Corbyn, along with his top team. In no particular order:

1. The utter gridlock and paralysis of the House of Commons in the last Parliament provided a powerful enemy for Johnson to use on the campaign trial.
2. 'Get Brexit Done' is a powerful and basic slogan that is easily understood. 'For The Many, Not The Few' needs explanation as to who is who... and tends to put off the self-defined few.
3. The media were hostile against Corbyn, yes. However, Corbyn made no serious attempt to persuade them to his way of thinking, instead railing against them, which doesn't tend to make someone like you. Hostility against the Labour Party by the British press is a fact of life and a better leader could have dealt with it.
4. Labour made gaffe after gaffe over the last few years that could have been easily avoided, Diane Abbott being a case in point. This handed the media ammunition to use against Labour.
5. The vile behaviour of Corbyn's 'outriders' towards anyone who did not bow down and worship the Dear Leader was more ammo for the media. It put a lot of moderates off voting Labour and of course led to a slew of defections. Insulting potential voters never works.
6. Antisemitism: this not only hit Labour with the Jewish vote, but gave major ammo to the media and trickled through to others who found the whole thing deeply repulsive, myself included. Also Jews are seen as far more integrated into British society than Muslims and Islamophobia more acceptable, alas.
7. All the defectors lost their seats. Change UK failed to define itself quickly enough, didn't have any clear policies and then split before it could do anything useful. It was an utter failure, which is a pity.
8. The Lib Dems had a leader tainted by her involvement in the coalition, lack of decent headline policies and as they were seen as unlikely to win in many seats, Remain voters went for tactical voting instead.
9. Labour's Brexit policy was too slow in developing and even then wasn't clear. Corbyn's failure to take a clear stance managed to annoy both Leavers and Remainers.
10. There was no serious attempt by Labour to form any Remain Alliance; it was 'my way or the highway'. Now we have crossed the bridge of Brexit.
11. Labour's policies failed to acknowledge the real aspirations of many to become wealthy. They were also a whole litany of shopping items that couldn't be boiled down into a single poster.
12. Corbyn had a metric tonne of baggage that could be used against him relating to the IRA and Islamic terrorism. It was highly prone to misinterpretation at best.

Where we go from here is the subject of further posts; I will do those at a later point.

General Election 2019 - Results

I'm going to do a fuller post in this when I'm less sleep deprived, but my reaction to the exit poll was "Woah!".

My thought this morning is that a lot of people need to get out of their echo chambers more, because in retrospect, this was pretty obvious.

General Election 2019 predictions

My 2017 prediction makes for interesting reading now

This prediction is made therefore with little actual confidence.

The question that this election ultimately rests on is whether Conservative gains from Labour in Leave-supporting areas in the North will exceed Conservative losses to the SNP in Scotland and the Lib Dems in Remain-supporting areas in the South of England.

Corbyn is toxic among many voters. Whether the 'smears' are true or false, they have worked and Labour's abysmal handling of antisemitism has not helped in the slightest.

Johnson isn't exactly popular among the wider electorate; I doubt you will get any huge fans of him anywhere. However, his 'Get Brexit Done' message has a certain powerful resonance that Labour's fudge doesn't.

The economy isn't great, but nor has it tipped into recession. "It's the economy, stupid" remains true and while we are likely to have another recession sooner rather than later, Johnson is lucky to have called the election when he did.

So my prediction:

• Conservative overall majority of under 25, quite possibly under 15.
• Labour end up going backwards significantly and end up under 250 seats. Corbyn resigns and his replacement will be someone who carries forth a lot of the policies with less of the baggage.
• The Lib Dems will significant vote share gains, but barely any seat gains. 
• The Brexit Party will lose a bucket load of deposits.
• All the defectors and independents will lose their seats.
• The Alliance will gain a couple of seats off the DUP in Northern Ireland.
• We leave the EU on 31 January 2020 and enter the transition period; however, there will not be a 'No Deal' at the end of 2020 - there will be something that Johnson, who may be a coward but isn't that much of an idiot, will call a 'deal'. Trying for 'No Deal' would be politically suicidal and likely stopped by a Commons where 'Leave' means a lot of different things. Free movement will end after 2020, however.
• 'Austerity' will be officially dead and the Tories will try to repudiate it. What changes they make won't be enough to deal with some pretty major deprivation issues.
• The Fixed Term Parliament Act will be repealed and replaced with something that eliminates the 2/3 requirement for an early election.

56 Years of Doctor Who

Well, the Series 12 Trailer is out. It's rather staggering to think this is the twelfth run of a revival in a world where many shows don't even get twelve episodes total.

Got to say that I'm rather impressed with the trailer. It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun and hopefully some of the writing has improved; Chibnall's scripting was a major complaint among even those who like Jodie Whittaker's daughter.

No air date yet, mind and I think we're going to have get used to a season every 18 months or so from now on... well, 15 or 16 in this case.

But I'll frankly take what I can get.

Remembrance 2019

The First World War has nearly passed out of living memory - the oldest person alive, aged 116, was 15 when it ended and lived in Japan. All those who served in any combatant capacity on the various fronts have passed on.

It's very difficult to see a bunch of people in a black & white photograph as 'us', but they were. Peter Jackson's superb They Shall Not Grow Old, with colour images and reconstructed sound, helped really bring home the reality of that conflict. The slang may have been different, the fashion definitely so and the weapons far less advanced than those that appear on today's, still bloody, battlefield, but the emotions these people felt would have been just the same. Fear, disgust, friendship, relief, sadness, pain.

Let's not do this again and let's work to end the scourge of war worldwide.

We will remember them.

General Election 2019

There may be something of a resolution depending on the result of the general election. A Conservative majority would see the Withdrawal Agreement ratified and we'd move over to negotiating a trade deal during the transition period, which may get extended.

A Labour minority government (a majority is very unlikely) would give us another referendum, probably ending up with us remaining in the EU.

If we get a continuation of the status quo... who knows?

While I find the current Conservative government highly distasteful, I can't bring myself to vote Labour with the current leadership. Since I live in a safe Conservative seat, I will likely vote Lib Dem to help boost their national numbers and make a clear case for Remain.

Where next for Brexit?

After yet another government defeat yesterday, Boris Johnson sent a photocopy of a letter to the EU Council asking for another extension along with two further letters calling for them to reject the extension because he thinks he can get the deal ratified this week.

I'm not so sure; definitely not in its current form that's for sure. A lot of the amendments tried in the May era narrowly failed - but some of the people who helped vote them down were in ministerial positions and obliged under collective responsibility to vote against. These have now been purged from the front benches and some cases right out of the party.

Quite a few of these amendments will turn up again... and may well pass.

We're also very likely to get another extension from the EU27 and this whole process goes on and on...

Turkey, Kurds and Trump

The primary responsibility for the Turkish invasion of Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria is that of Turkey itself.

However, Trump's decision to withdraw US forces and betray the Kurds who had done the bulk of the fighting and dying fighting Daesh gives him a very high level of secondary responsibility. Especially due to the sudden nature of the withdrawal. 

Also, Trump seems to be of the "let the [offensive term for Muslims] kill each other" infant school of thought that is oversubscribed in Western society today. I've never liked that view. 

Utter humiliation for Boris Johnson

I tuned in for the tail end of the Supreme Court judgement. While I'm not in favour of having criminal trials broadcast on television, these appeal court judgements are something that I am perfectly fine with.

And, wow, it was damning for Boris Johnson. The summary and the full judgement available on online make clear that the 11 justices view a five-week prorogation as unjustified just to create a new Queen's Speech... as well as unlawful. To quote:

61. It is impossible for us to conclude, on the evidence which has been put before us, that there was any reason - let alone a good reason - to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, from 9th or 12th September until 14th October. We cannot speculate, in the absence of further evidence, upon what such reasons might have been. It follows that the decision was unlawful. 

The prorogation is null and void - the 2017-19 session is back on from tomorrow at 11.30am - and this crazy process has yet more twists and turns.

If Boris Johnson had any morals, he'd resign over this. I guess we'll have to kick him out via a Vote of No Confidence instead though...

A Bad Day to Wear Red (Review: 'Star Trek' 2.13, "Obsession")

While collecting samples of a very hard element, Kirk's landing party is attacked by a killer cloud. A cloud that Kirk has seen before. He's determined to hunt this thing down, because this time, it's personal...

****
This is a very bad episode for fans of red shirts. No less than five are killed during the process of the story, none of them in particularly pleasant manner. Another, the main guest star, has a major attack of survivor's guilt and also tries to Kirk Fu Kirk, which could have gone a lot worse than it did.

Survivor's guilt is a big theme in this episode, although not named as such. It had only recently been identified - and would later become combined into the broader diagnosis of PTSD - initially among Holocaust survivors. I'd imagine there were a lot of cases of it - especially among survivors of an attack that killed a large number of their comrades - but this was one area of PTSD that hadn't been identified at the time of the war; battle fatigue (aka "shellshock") was something that had been dealt with a lot better then.

Kirk's survivor's guilt is prominent in this episode, manifesting itself in an obsession to go after the creature at the cost of a time-sensitive medical mission. William Shatner may have a reputation of being a massive scenery chewer, but here he plays it fairly restrained, his anger and determination clearer to see without throwing something at a vent that jams it open, unlike Stephen Brooks' one-shot Ensign Garrovick.

This is a strong episode for everyone except Uhura, who doesn't have that much to do and Sulu, who isn't in it. Spock demonstrates that Vulcan logic isn't perhaps the best thing to deploy in a counselling role.

As a final note, the version on Netflix is the original broadcast version, not the remastered one, which makes an interesting viewing. Mind you, the dated effects don't really detract that much.

****
Conclusion

An excellent episode, helped by Shatner playing it pretty restrained and with a strong overall story. It's very much a hidden gem and deserves wider recommendation.

9/10

A massive week in British politics

The week I pick to go on holiday to the Isle of Man... and British politics goes even crazier than it has been lately.

Boris Johnson's majority was eliminated, pretty much through his own actions. He should have never made the Benn act vote a confidence matter, but he doesn't seem to be getting very good advice lately. Now, with Parliament prorogued until 14 October, he faces the prospect of being forced to ask the EU for another extension unless he gets some new deal by then, which isn't very likely.

So, what next? Possibly more MPs standing down; maybe even further defections from the Conservative Party.

I think we are likely to have a November General Election - whether it is during a No Deal scenario or after another extension, it will be very bad for the Tories.

We might just get Prime Minister Corbyn...

Forest fires in the Amazon

The rather large fires in the Amazon forest have led to considerable world concern due to their potential impact on the effects to combat climate change. The fact that these fires are now routine and this is apparently below average fire activity is concerning.

It's good that EU nations are threatening to block the Mercosur trade deal unless Bolsonaro takes more action on this whole affair.

While people in the West can consume less meat, it's not going to do a thing unless wider action is taken to change agricultural production practices and indeed take other needed action. This is a global problem and it needs global solutions.

Unfortunately, the leadership sadly is absent in several key countries at present and I fear it might not turn up until it is too late.

In fact, it probably already is too late; we're going to have to move sooner rather than later to contain the damage corporate and other greed has caused. Which likely means building new, sustainable, cities for the refugees of the coming storms - literal and metaphorical.

Get Off My Space Lawn! (Review: 'Star Trek' 2.12, "The Deadly Years")

"The Deadly Years" is very much Trek by the numbers. Crew beams down to colony, discovers strange thing going on that starts to affect crew...

In this case the strange thing is that a bunch of young whipper snappers have all turned into old folks, four of which are already dead and the other two (both played by genuine old people, included the earliest born actor to ever appear in the franchise, who was born in 1882 in Switzerland and has a noticeable accent) are heading that way.

All of the landing party are affected, except for Chekov, who is immune for some pseudoscientific reason. With the three main characters plus Scotty all rapidly ageing, the makeup department get to have some fun making the characters look old. This is mostly a ship bound episode; the battle scene later was reused footage from a previous episode and I'm assuming the stuff on the remastered Netflix/DVD version is added specially.

It's interesting to see Kelley and Shatner playing in advance the old men that they would later become in real life. McCoy becomes even more crotchety - and even more Southern - than he normally is. I'm not sure what happened in RL on that front. Kirk on the other hand goes pretty much senile, what Shatner turning in an excellent performance here. It's good to note the now 88-year-old Shatner still seems very compos mentis, although alas Nichelle Nichols, just two years younger, appears to have advanced dementia.

The guest cast... are mostly pretty poor, especially one Commodore. Except for the old guy at the start. He's nice.

The science in all this stretches credibility by a long chalk, with a very quick recovery by Kirk once the solution is found. I'll let it slide partly because of the cool way in which Kirk deals with three Romulan ships without firing a shot.

We also have another old flame of Kirk, who again gets his shirt off and a comedy last scene. Like I said, Trek by the numbers.

Conclusion

For an episode whose deus ex machina involves radiation, it seems appropriate to use the classic line from Chernobyl.

"Not great. Not terrible."

7/10

Guess we're not having a silly season

With the current Brexit date two and a half months away, no-one is going to be getting a rest from politics.

Johnson is determined to get us out of the EU on 31 October come what may, seemingly without caring without constitutional norms he wrecks in the process.

Labour (which can't be called a Remain party) and the Remain parties are arguing in public over the shape of a Stop Brexit unity government; compromise is for many something the other side needs to do, not them.

I'm hoping - and indeed praying - this all gets sorted out before we have a No Deal Brexit... because otherwise it will need to be sorted out after.

Everybody Was Kirk Fu Fighting (Review: 'Star Trek' 2.11, "Friday's Child")

It's been a while. It's been a serious while. Like two years. A plan to watch all the episodes of Star Trek for the 50th anniversary fell completely by the wayside... and I've decided to rectify that.

With a flood of new Trek content coming over the next couple of years (Picard looks great), it does seem rather appropriate to go back onto this.

I'll link to the previous episode I reviewed here.

I'm going to be aiming for medium length reviews every week or so, but I can't guarantee anything...

****
So, "Friday's Child"... is full of woe. In multiple ways.

The Enterprise arrives on the planet Capella IV to negotiate a mining treaty with the warrior culture that inhabits the planet while wearing some very silly outfits, only to discover a Klingon representative has gotten there ahead of them. A coup happens and our main trio must flee with the pregnant wife of the former leader. It's suggested that McCoy might be the actual father... which sounds something more like Kirk would do.

There is an episode with a lot of problems in it. The guest cast is poor all around, with phoney accents and bad acting a plenty. Julie Newmar's whatever accent as Eleen is badly distracting, I'm not sure what Tige Andrews was trying to do as Kras the Klingon and Maab just looks silly throughout.

In fact, the whole Capellan portrayal is, shall we say, very much of its time...

We have some frankly dubious scenes where McCoy decides to touch Eleen's belly without warning, gets slapped twice... then slaps her back. With this show of  'male dominance' he then becomes the only person allowed to touch her!

The fight scenes are ridiculous with Kirk Fu galore and a lot of clearly polystyrene rocks.

Where this episode works is whether Lieutenant Commander Scott, Uhura and Chekov in fine form back on the ship as they deal with a reported distress call that is in fact fake. Scott's willingness to take firm decisions is great and we get a wonderful bit of him doing the 'Captain's Log' live on the bridge.

Finally, it is a law universally acknowledged that any pregnant guest character must give birth in an awkward situation... although we don't actually see the birth itself, probably because that wasn't acceptable in 1968.

Conclusion

This is really a rather poor episode, only saved from being awful by some very strong Scotty material.

5/10

Mass shootings in the US

With two mass shootings in the last 24 hours, apparently by white nationalists, the United States needs serious action on both domestic extremism and firearms control.

Unfortunately, there is no realistic prospect of either happening. Not with a President who is actively pouring fuel on the fire with comments saying that his opponents should go back to where they came from.

Trump is the worst US President in my lifetime end of. It's fortunate that he's incompetent, because I fear what an actual competent demagogue would do.

50 years since the Moon Landing

I've learned a lot in the commemoration of 50 years since the first walk on the Moon. The Apollo 11 in Real Time website allows you to experience the audio and the visuals for the entire mission, with much useful commentary.

In particular some highlights:

• The routine nature of much of the communication i.e. relaying positions and alignment is still very special.
• Buzz Aldrin taking Communion on the Moon as one of the very first things he did. His faith meant that much to him.
• Michael Collins, ship comedian.
• The fact that only the audio was transmitted live on television; the networks had to rely on models and animation to provide a visual update to the audience - and because of the need for Armstrong to take manual control, the CBS simulation finished early.

 Hopefully, we'll be watching another lunar landing live before 2030.

Update on things

Just to let everyone know that I'm still alive. The next timetable post is being worked on, but it might be a while before it is actually done.

I've arguably spent too long banging my head against the proverbial wall in debates with Corbynites on Reddit and Twitter...

Enter Boris Johnson?

Unless Boris Johnson manages to do something completely stupid in the next few weeks, he will almost certainly be the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister.

How long this man is going to remain in the job is much harder to determine. The Government's majority is 5. There is certainly not a majority for any No Deal Brexit.

The EU is not going to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement, certainly not without the Irish agreeing to look at the issue of the backstop. Personally, I'd require an Irish border poll as the condition of any end to the backstop; it's high time we had one. So, Boris will be banging his head against a proverbial wall.

Hopefully, Parliament can stop a No Deal, but they'd need to get their act fully together, ideally before the summer recess because time will be limited after it...

And if Boris decides to prorogue Parliament to make a No Deal, he will basically be acting like a dictator... and the Queen needs to stop him.

Paul Darrow 1941-2019

Big Finish have confirmed that Paul Darrow, best known for playing Avon in Blake's 7, has died. His role as the cynical computer hacker (although the term didn't exist back then) in the show was truly memorable and you never knew just what side he was on; his character was involved in one of the greatest cliffhangers in TV history. Avon also aimed for the head long before Mal Reynolds.

In his later career, he played quite a few judges with his truly marvellous voice... and also provided the voice pack I use in Elite Dangerous.

Rest in Peace.

US TV Upfronts 2019

It's time for my annual post on the state of the US television industry. I haven't been paying as much attention to this during the course of the year for various reasons. In any event, there was barely anything new that really excited me. OK, that's not entirely true.

So, here's some points:

AMC

• Into the Badlands' 16-episode third season proved to be its last. While the story was wrapped up, it could have gone on longer had AMC treated it better than they did. A revival in some form would be nice.
  

CBS

• Blue Bloods will go into its tenth season. The show has remained consistently good, but is a police commissioner in his 70s really realistic?
• I stopped watching Bull after Michael Weatherley's vile behaviour to Eliza Dushku (who seems to have had a lot of men mistreat her over the years) was revealed. Spielberg jumped ship at the end of the season. The fourth season was required by CBS for syndication purposes, but they could have made an example of this guy and fired him.
• The Good Fight... has kind of lost something. The musical number in each episode got tiring, the Trump stuff drags and Michael Sheen's Roland Blum outstayed his welcome.
• Madam Secretary's move towards issue-based episodes with a more liberal slant, while needing to be done in this time, probably cost it a lot of audience. A ten-episode final season in autumn will allow the story to wrap up.
• Star Trek: Discovery grew the literal beard for Spock and proved a highly enjoyable show in its second run. Michael Burnham is rather uninspiring, but the rest of the cast more than make up for it. Christopher Pike was brilliant. In any event, we're going to be swimming in spin-offs.
  

The CW

• The Outpost was the best new show that I watched. Rather enjoyable and I particularly identify with one of the characters for reasons I won't go into here.

FOX

• The Orville is at its most enjoyable when it isn't being a domestic drama. Its lighter-hearted approach stands as a useful counterpart to Discovery and I'd like it to stay around for a while.

HBO

• Chernobyl is going to be nominated for a lot of awards; it's near perfect in acting, design, sound editing, you name it.
• Game of Thrones arguably rushed its final series; some characters developed too quickly to make their decisions make overall sense. It will still go down as a genre-defining show, although some of its tropes ('sexposition', characters developing via rape) won't hold up well over time.

NBC

• No UK airing for The Blacklist at present, so I can't really comment on that.
• Moving to NBC proved good for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, whose standards continued to hold up. However, the ratings did not and the seventh run of 13 episodes may well be its last.

Exit Theresa May

Theresa May was fundamentally not up to the job of being Prime Minister. She lacked the political skills, the charisma and the necessary ruthlessness to hold the very top position. Home Secretary was really as far as she should have gone and her ascension to the top job was basically a historical accident.

It is true that "proper Brexit" without wrecking the economy is an impossible task. Like trying to jump the Grand Canyon on a bicycle. She however was doing it with a pogo stick.

Her successor might well be trying it with a skipping rope. I think there is a good chance Article 50 will be revoked, especially if the policy of a new PM is No Deal.

We have five months before we are currently due to leave. This sorry saga won't be done yet.

It's A Good Thing that The Good Place doesn't actually exist - Easter 2019

One of the best new comedy shows in recent years has been The Good Place, which explores ethical issues in a great way while being really rather funny and highly quotable to boot. It won a Hugo for "The Trolley Problem" and I wouldn't be surprised if "Janets" from the latest run does the same.

The key concept of the show is that whether you go to the "Good Place" i.e. heaven or the "Bad Place" is dependent on your actions in life, with good ones gaining you points and selfish or harmful actions losing you points. It becomes clear over the course of the run that it's a rather flawed system.

And it would be a flawed system in the real world too. Very few of us would be able to get into heaven on our own merits; my attempts to change some of my bad habits this Lent have been an abject failure by my own admission. The good thing is, we don't need to rely on our own merits; Jesus' death on the cross gave us so many points that he could share them around for everyone who follows him... and more. This doesn't eliminate the need to try to be good people - there is no place in heaven for the selfish or evil - but it does mean we don't have to feel bad over every failure.

Thanks, Jesus. To all my readers, Happy Easter.

Extinction Rebellion

So a bunch of eco-activists have decided to draw attention to the whole issue of climate change by disrupting public transport in London through various means. They've done that, but also managed to annoy an awful lot of people in the process. Getting realistic change generally involves getting the people with the power to make it happen on side somehow, not by antagonising them.

In relation to climate change, the boat has arguably sailed on any meaningful action to prevent it. We're not going to be able make the necessary changes by 2030, because humanity is at heart a selfish and greedy species. The best we can reasonably do is prepare ourselves for a 4 degree rise over the course of this century and once climate change really starts to bite (it already has), it's going to be very unpleasant for a large number of people.

I can take some grim comfort from the fact I'll likely be dead by the time it happens.

Forgive us Lord our selfish ways.

Brexit #2

The current Brexit clock stands at 3 days; it is highly likely that it will be extended at the European Council's emergency summit tomorrow, although how long remains to be seen.

There is an increasing frustration at this process among all parties:

• The EU wondering why we haven't managed to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement or figure out what we actually want instead
• Hardcore Leavers wondering why we haven't actually left
• Hardcore Remainers wondering why we haven't revoked Article 50 or gone for a second referendum when it was obvious we were sold a bill of goods
• Theresa May who frankly would rather have had this sorted out ages ago
• A lot of the general public who are just sick of the whole thing

Much of the problem is among people who think compromise is a synonym for surrender. The Withdrawal Agreement, with its possibility of an indefinite customs union without any say in its operation, is seen as Leave by the Remain side and Remain by the Leave side... who rarely can actually cite any EU regulations, let alone ones they disagree with.

There is no easy solution here, there never has been. Not without finding some unicorn and the only one we have is busy supporting our coat of arms...

The Mueller Report

I'd very much like to see the whole thing (or as much as gets released) before I can fully conclude on it, but I can believe that much of the Russian interference operation was conducted independently with the aim of weakening Clinton and electing Trump, whose views were much closer to the Russian world view.

Not exonerating Trump of obstruction of justice is the key finding, but I'd like to see why a decision wasn't made to charge him. If it was made by the Attorney General himself, then... well... the corruption is obvious.

Christchurch and Utrecht

The recent attack in Christchurch is going to be New Zealand's 9/11; in terms of the relative population alone, it is the equivalent in terms of size. Tightening of gun laws will follow.

The attack in Utrecht today saw three people killed. I've been to the city myself and it's a lovely place, now having joined a long list of names of places where murder in the name of bigotry has taken place.

Both white supremacist and Islamist terrorism are two sides of the same coin; an insidious ideology that believes the best way to deal with a perceived threat against your people is to attack not the source of the actual threat, but something with only a tangential connection to it.

What did the people in the mosques have to do with Islamic extremism? What did the people on the tram have to do with Donald Trump? Next to nothing at most.

Vulnerable young men (and it is nearly all men) are being radicalised via the Internet and via our prison system. Something needs to be done about that without putting our fundamental freedoms at jeopardy.

May all the dead rest in peace and all the injured recover.

Brexit

We are supposed to leave the European Union in 24 days. I don't think that will happen. I somehow doubt that any legal clarifications on the backstop (which is necessary because we have no idea how long a trade deal would take to thrash out) would ever be enough to satisfy the ERG. Come next week, Parliament will almost certainly vote against May's deal, against a no deal and in favour of an extension.

The EU will likely grant that, but the price may be a second referendum, which I would personally support. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of just revoking Article 50 without a second vote; while there was certainly criminal activity in the lead-up to the referendum, it didn't exactly involve ballot stuffing and much of the propaganda was called out at the time. In any event, just overturning any big vote like that sets a bad precedent.

At the end of the day, I really just want to go in the quicker queue at passport control and not need a visa to go to Europe for holiday. It's trivial, I know, but much of the stuff the EU is barely noticed in daily life. Free movement is nice, but I'm very unlikely ever to take full advantage of it due to my not exactly brilliant language skills. Customs checks aren't something I deal with at all in my daily life, except for the one time I had to pay £10 extra postage for the import duty on a game I bought from the US. Goods standards... if we left we can raise them ourselves. In any event, most companies would stick to EU standards to avoid having to do two different production lines; they're the global standard in a number of fields, I believe.

Ultimately, I'm just sick of the whole thing. Are you?

Armchair Time Traveller #3: BR London Midland Region Timetable, June to September 1964

So, back to Britain for the third part of this ongoing series, in which I look at old train timetables.

I acquired this tome (it's so big that 'tome' is the only word one can really use to describe it[1]) via eBay, which is the go to source for historical train timetables of all eras and countries. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, then someone is going to be selling my small collection on a future version of this site, I'd imagine/hope...

Anyway, an explanation. BR for most of its history was split into a number of regions, largely aligned with the boundaries of the pre-nationalisation Big Four, although there were differences and changes over time. The London Midland Region or LMR for short was based around the boundaries of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS - interestingly, these initials are trademarked by the Government so we might get a return of this to join the other three Big Four companies). In practice, this meant services from the four London termini in the picture in a generally NW direction, although the now closed and demolished Broad Street connected to the now London Overground line to Richmond. Services crossing the Pennines also came partly under LMR's aegis.

The historical context

While not the first electrification project carried out by BR, the West Coast Main Line electrification from London to Glasgow, opened in stages from 1959 to 1974, was arguably the most major event of the first half of the near 50-year existence of the organisation. Locomotives constructed for this operation, namely the AL6/Class 86, still ply our rails on freight operations to this day, with some now earning their keep in Bulgaria.

As a result, steam haulage continued on the London Midland at this time, with a major presence for the LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 mixed traffic engine, colloquially known as the "Black Five", along with the BR Standard Class 5, its post-war development. 

However, diesel and electric stock was well established. 

On the Chiltern Main Line out of  London Marylebone, the four-car diesel units later known as Class 115 were in operation. Their interiors were a good deal more luxurious than the more bus-like ones of other Mark 1 based units, to serve the better off commuters of Buckinghamshire. St Pancras had the Class 127, also a four-car unit. Both had the capacity for passengers to see out through the front window and watch the driver at work, although some would pull the blinds down.

The Sulzer Type 2 (Class 25) became so common on the LMR and elsewhere that enthusiasts nicknamed them "Rats", the standard term for them today, but plenty of other types were around.

Electrification from Crewe to Liverpool, as well as in the Birmingham and Manchester areas had resulted in the introduction of the Class 304, with a rather distinctive compressor noise.

However, 25kV was by no means the only spark game in town. The iconic Woodhead Line from Manchester to Sheffield has 1500V DC overhead with units and locomotives to match, some of which ended up in the Netherlands. 

The Bury Line, later converted to a tram line had 1200V DC side contact rail from its World War One era conversion and the Class 504. 

The Watford DC Line, operating from Euston to Watford Junction, shared with the Bakerloo Line (which also ran to the latter at this point) and now part of London Overground, had also been done at the same time, with 750V DC third rail; Class 501 units with bars on the windows to prevent passengers from leaning out were used here as well as to Broad Street and Richmond.

Now about Broad Street. This station, situated next to Liverpool Street, had been severely damaged in air raids in the Second World War and was progressively being run down over this time - the route had limited appeal for those going to central London as faster alternatives were available. It would finally shut entirely in 1986 and be replaced by the Broadgate shopping centre.

Speaking of closures, Richard Beeching was Chairman of British Railways at this time. This is of course a name very familiar to any British rail enthusiast for the wrong reasons. The Great Central Railway, while closed after his return to ICI, would lose its through services to London in 1966 and close entirely in 1969. It has services here in the London St. Pancras to Sheffield line, although many of the intermediate stations had closed in 1963.

Also noted are the closure of Normacot and Cheadle stations on the Crewe-Derby Line (today served by East Midlands Trains) and the closed Cheadle branch line off that respectively; the former had closed in March 1964 and no trace remains, while the latter went the year before with only the station master's house surviving. A proposal to run charter trains to Cheadle for Alton Towers in the 1980s did not come to fruition and the track has since been lifted.

The contents

After a couple of full page notices advertising freight services and warning about engineering work for the WCML electrification, we then have a 13 page index of stations, followed shortly after by 16 pages on seat reservations (2 shillings each) and Regulation Tickets (to enable you to ride at all on a particular service, no charge). A long list of trains that could have been much more simply with a symbol above the appropriate service in the main timetable, where people are going to look anyway!

We then have the sleeper services, which were much more extensive back in 1964, also operating out of St Pancras, Marylebone and Kensington Olympia, the last being an arrival point only for some reason. With many terminus stations being reached in the wee hours, BR helpfully would shunt the sleepers to one side so you could get a longer kip. Also, I have to love this line (emphasis mine):

Dogs or other livestock are not allowed to be taken into the sleeping cars.

This sort of line begs the question of just what someone took on a sleeper train to result in the need to specify that. I'm imagine a chicken clucking all the way down Shap...

We then have the boat train services to the island of Ireland, which has the option on the ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire to have an "open berth" with either a made-up bed for 8 shillings or "rug and pillow only" for 7 shillings. So, a big dormitory with a rug and pillow on some bunk? Who is running this ferry service? Ryanair?

The summary tables for key routes take us up to page 110 and then we get to a whole string of passenger information, including "Specimen single fares between principal stations", which like Ronseal, does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, giving a table of second class fares between the key station. Euston to Glasgow will set you visitors in 1964 back 84 shillings exactly i.e. £4 4s.

(For ease of use, prices were often displayed in shillings and pence only).

This is a walk up flat fare - discounted advance tickets were not a general thing in 1964. Basically around £80 at today's prices. You can get an Advance Single on Virgin Trains today for £65, but you're looking at £141.50 for the any off peak train variety.

However, discounts were available including:

• Mid-Week Period Return: Go out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, return on those same days in one of the following weeks within one month.
• Excursion tickets: To go to principal towns, holiday resorts and for special events.
• Holiday Runabout Tickets: A rover ticket
• Circular Tour Tickets: For when you want to take a more indirect route.
• Ramblers' Tickets: Travel to one station, come back from another

The vintage terms of the 1960s appear as we work our way through the rest of the passenger information. There are a list of charges for bicycles, perambulators ("prams" being the contraction from the 19th century that has superseded this word[2]) and humanity's best friend, Canis familiaris i.e. the dog. Dogs at the time had to be tied up or caged in the guard's van in many cases - they also needed to be "efficiently muzzled" to prevent them from barking or requesting other stations on the LTS line[4].

It was common at the time to send luggage you didn't need on the trip ahead of you when going on holiday or up to university (or public school!). This cost 2/9 for each package to be collected and conveyed or conveyed and delivered within Great Britain i.e. part of the road journey being included. For the whole trip, you'd pay 5/6.

Finally, we have a quick section on London Underground services with a tube map.

The rest is timetables with adverts for various services repeated throughout to save space.

The travel times

So, how long is it going to take you to travel through the London Midland Region of British Railways?

I'll cover three types of services here: a London region commuter service, a London to Scotland journey and a 'Regional Railways' service in North Wales.

London commuter service

The Chiltern service from London to Aylesbury Town in 1964, using Class 115 DMUs, took 58 minutes in the peak times, stopping at all the stations on the route - the service frequency was every 15 minutes. For example, 5.57pm departure would get you to Amersham at 6.55pm.

Today, you can do that journey in 54 minutes; the service also goes on for a further nine minutes to the 2008 opened Aylesbury Vale Parkway. Not really a huge difference, but remember that the 115s had a lot more doors.


Long distance

One of the key railway journeys in the UK is from London to Glasgow; the Lowland Sleeper goes there and it is the limit of long distance electrification on the West Coast Main Line. There were in fact three main stations in Glasgow at this point in time - Central, Queen Street and St Enoch. The last of these was closed in 1966 and the site demolished; it is now home to a shopping centre.

The Royal Scot, the 10am departure from Euston to Glasgow Central, arrived after a stop at Carlisle at 5.10pm, a journey time of 7 hours and 10 minutes. Today you can do the journey in 4 hours and 29 minutes on a Pendolino, which is of course considerably shorter.

Regional Railways

Liverpool to Manchester is the oldest inter-city railway route recognisable as a railway in the world (opened in 1830) and can be done in under 40 minutes today depending on what train you get, although the average is around 54 minutes.

In 1964, the journey lengths were about the same, but with a much lower overall service frequency. Today I believe the actual issue is congestion...

An important note - Manchester Piccadilly was not the main station at this time (for one thing undergoing rebuilding as part of electrification), with Manchester Exchange being one of the main calling points. This was closed in 1969 and is now home to the Manchester Central Convention Centre, connected to the Metrolink tram network.


Conclusion

The long distance times here show much electrification sped up journey times nearlywherever it was introduced. I've been on steam hauled rail tours and while they are limited by the need to fit in with other traffic, they're not exactly very fast affairs. And you might only have one book to keep you entertained; for many members of the public, steam only became glamorous once it had disappeared.

1964 would be the end of an era for British Railways; for one thing, it would be British Rail from 1965 onwards...



[1] It weighs 868 grammes or 1lb 14.6 ozs in old money.
[2] Not the only contraction superseding the original world. You have a (tele)phone, women generally wear bra(ssiere)s[3] and many fly on a (aero)plane.
[3]Be careful not to mix that word up with brasserie.
[4]Thank you, I'm here all night.

Star Citizen: Removal of 'Kumar Chameleon' from this blog

As Cloud Imperium have instituted a new policy requiring any fan-fiction published online to be submitted for their approval via a rather onerous progress and an actual legal release form, I have decided to terminate writing Kumar Chameleon and remove the six posts so far from my blog.

I still intend to play their game, but it's a deep shame they seek to limit fandom in this way.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2019

The sheer level of evil carried out by the Nazis during the Second World War is staggering and not just carried out by a few people. People built the camps (or directed those who built), planned the transport trains and directed the arrivals to death or 'life'.

It arose out of deliberate dehumanisation and fear. Things that are sadly on the rise again in this world.

We must work very hard to prevent more genocides from occurring and remember those murdered without any justification whatsoever.

Plans for 2019

To be honest, I've not really got any firm ones. I intend to carry on with the timetable posts, but those will be done as and when I find the time/inclination to do them.

I may well do some other posts; I've really gotten into Rimworld lately...

Christmas wishes

At the end of what has been a rather crazy year in world events (and it will probably be crazier next year), I think it's time to sit back, relax and enjoy the festive season.

Remember who created us, who saved us and who continues to watch over us - i.e. the God in Three Persons. Go with hope and expectancy of a better future in this world or the next.

Also, try to be nice to everyone, even the Twitter bots.

With that, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Some random thoughts on Brexit #2

• I think No Deal is very much off the table now. Parliament will not let it happen and the Government doesn't want it to happen.
• Why couldn't the full legal advice be released on a confidential basis to MPs? If they can't keep a secret, then that's their lookout.
• Deal May is pretty much dead and I think may not actually see a full Commons vote at all. I think a second referendum is getting increasingly likely - Norway for Now has many of the same problems as Deal May.
• A General Election isn't going to happen - the DUP will back the government, so there is no way a confidence vote can succeed.
• A second referendum would probably go for Remain, but I doubt they would get more than 55%. That will be a problem going forward.
• I just want this to be over one way or another...

55 Years of Doctor Who

So, I can't imagine that William Hartnell would have ever expected that he'd turn into a woman at some point...

55 years for the show. The first female incarnation has proven to be brilliant indeed, although some would like to see a bit more (Sheffield) steel in her. We'll get it at some point I'm sure. Chibnall may not be the best writer, but give him time - the second season will be better than the first in that regard.

Love the new theme and the new look of the show; not so keen on the new TARDIS interior, but I can live with that.

Anyway, looks like we'll be here for the 60th...

Happy Anniversary!

Stan Lee 1922-2018

Getting to 95 is an achievement. Creating an iconic comic character is a major achievement. 

Creating iconic comic characters in their dozens makes you a complete and utter legend. 

So long and thanks for everything. Not least all the great cameos, which were a highlight of any Marvel movie.

Rest in Peace. 

100 Years Since The Armistice

I was in time to see the moment yesterday where Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel were together in the replica of the carriage used to sign the Armistice in the morning of 11 November 1918, resulting in the guns falling silent at 11am that day. The end of that war started a very turbulent century for the latter's home country, something that she experienced all too well as she grew up in the former East Germany.

The world isn't perfect, not by a long chalk. There are threats to the international order from many directions. I won't name them, everyone knows who they are.

However, seeing that sight today showed us just how far most of Europe has come since the horrors of the two world wars. Because people didn't forget. They worked to build bridges and tear down walls, both metaphorical and literal. 

Today, German built high speed trains transport passengers from London to Amsterdam through what was once the land of mud and death.

Those who fought there are now all in the next world. It is our job to make sure that the events of the first half of the 20th century are not repeated in the 21st.

When all have gone, we will need to take up the torch of Remembrance and remember those who gave their lives.

We will remember them.