London Rapid Transit Suggestions

I have posted on this before, but then I have done much since. Many issues for London Underground and London Overground are now covered in my suggestions maps.

Explanatory webpage
Diagrammatic Map excluding Crossrail 2 and Barking Riverside
Diagrammatic Map adding Crossrail 2 and Barking Riverside
Geographical Map excluding Crossrail 2 and Barking Riverside
Geographical Map adding Crossrail 2 and Barking Riverside

The London Overground is turned into Chords so that routes are recognisable. They are named to be memorable and related. A Chord is an adopted name for an outer non-central serving railway, but for simplicity the Overground can call all its routes Chords. They offer travel choices: perhaps longer journeys but less crushed at busy times, different routes to the same place, negotiating pay zones better. In addition to Chords are the functional routes like for airports or crossing the river - all services would be part of the same ticketing, including the boats and the buslinks.

There are four stations on Holloway Road so Holloway Road is renamed Holloway. Caledonian Road and Barnsbury is renamed The Cally, as it says on the bridge. There is now only one Bethnal Green so the other is renamed Weavers Fields. The decision to call a station Battersea Power Station when it isn't one is reversed in my suggestion, where the line is extended to Clapham Junction one way and connects with the (missed) Victoria line the other via a new station of Lambeth South. That would be expensive, but the extension is for little real benefit and having to go to Kennington before turning north is ridiculous.

The Northern line as was is broken into its two logical lines: Unity line and Cricket line, according to my renamings. The District line is reduced so that the Tennis line runs between Wimbledon and Edgware. The Metropolitan line is less unwieldy by taking advantage of the Overground and Buslink so removing its Uxbridge spur and relocating West Harrow.

The Victoria line is extended to the north beyond its sidings to Angel Road and to the south beyond Herne Hill to Tulse Hill (for better connectivity). The Bakerloo line is extended but only to Lewisham - the Chords do the rest. The Cricket line, as renamed, goes into the Morden sidings and across the road to join the railway there and thus extend the Underground route to Sutton. The Tramlink is extended to South Wimbledon, across to Bromley - as its council prefers, rather than the Hayes line (Wolf Chord) becoming the Bakerloo - and the tracks to New Addington continue down along/ alongside the grassy areas and roads out across to Biggin Hill Airport and its settlement. This is why a Gatwick Express service must stop at East Croydon.

York Road is reopened as York Way and Maiden Lane is reopened too, providing a walking connection. It doesn't take masses of money to create some Overground connections. Brixton is awkward but not impractical.

What was the Northern Heights Railway, now Mill Chord, might cost some money, but the track bed is there - use of overlapping and single tracks can work with sufficient passing loops and double lines.

Buslinks link spurs and outer stations where useful. Goods lines are brought into passenger use, so better goods lines outside London are necessary. A podlink is driverless programmable vehicles on guided roads to help (in the case of Brent Cross) with the shopping. There are no guided buses.

One would like to see anything near this kind of investment in the north, but the capital city was starved of investment for a long time and needs it to get people moved about more effectively.

Some issues like Charing Cross being, really, two stations and Embankment as actually for Charing Cross are better left to sleep on. Dedicated walkways do the connecting and we now have walking down streets elsewhere. After all, if Crossrail 2 is built there will be one station called Euston Kings Cross St. Pancras International, and include Euston Road. I limit connections to 500 yards but even that is too far for many people. Such outdoor routes need to provide shelters and even covering. So many platforms are outdoors, but they provide shelters.

As for airports for London: there's Heathrow, Luton, Stansted, Gatwick, City and don't forget Biggin Hill.

Website in Eighteenth Year

My website has entered its eighteenth year of existence; it is eighteen itself next November, in 2016. In that time it has absorbed the relevant remains of a website I set up for YMCA Bonskeid House, once the facility closed, and has tested a Setam Mini-Website. The space I use hosts the Creative Learning Centre Website in Hull, that I wrote, and although there are links the two are separate. I was able to acquire the pluralist.co.uk name and have kept it ever since. It was based on a Unitarian faction, a sort of humanist and multi-faith progressive side contrasting with a liberal Christian conserving side. I was ahead of time in those days: the direction of travel has been mine. But Pluralist includes liberal Christian in the sense of its resources, just not exclusively. In between, however, I was out of the Unitarians and tried the Christian myth liturgically one more time, and it slowly then rapidly unravelled under a liberal theological critique.

I have given the website one big makeover in terms of look, to try and make it more consistent. it also had one big move. Well, starting from Freeserve it moved to several FreeUK accounts for a long time, but then moved to the Dropbox cloud that facilitates free broadband and not having to bother with File Transfer Protocol programs - the Dropbox is automatic FTP.

The website was subjected to a piece of research at the University of Lincoln, on the basis that it was principally a personal website on a similar basis of a photograph album. Yes, and no: it is simply a snail's trail of where I have been and what has interested me. But it is also of broader and general use. Elements used in teaching are available to all; the In Depth Group theology sessions provide a theological resource for anyone. I have just added a page on Search Engine Optimisation, perhaps scraping the barrel when it comes to website content, but it may show the odd employer that with SEO I know what I am talking about. I took the opportunity to overview and add to the Learning/ ICT menu and add in the Music Clips for NoteTab use and the existence of novel writing software.

Most recent changes are ongoing and are to the music list of CDs made for Unitarian services in Hull and to my novel effort that moves along with bursts and pauses. It houses a second place for Hull Unitarian Magazines because I write and compile them, and also because I'm the only one who uses impression software to produce front and back facing book-order pages.

Amazing then that this website is seventeen and a month old, and the very first Internet page is twenty five years old. It took me under eight years to join the number of websites. I remember how the first page I uploaded didn't happen, and it took a few goes with a deliberate choice of .html after the index page name before success. I learnt frames, CSS, how to bolt in Javascript, how to add in a few Java applications, and HTML 4 (XHTML) and then aspects of HTML 5. I understand it all comes under .XML and how that concept has expanded across all kinds of software documentation. My website remains simple, menu driven, mainly for reading and looking. I moved some galleries to Facebook and realised those running it changed the URL links. I asked to my website on a mobile phone and decided to keep frames but to retain the simplicity that other websites were forced to rediscover.  There are no video clips on it. I want it it without adverts and resource lean. It never takes long to load. I intend to do no more than add to it, and respond to anyone telling me something is out of date, if I don't find it first. The worst part for updating is external links, and so I keep these to as few as possible. I'll have to view the Learning external links again for dead ones. I see already that I have some work to do.

Sing Along Time

I don't like this time of year. So here are some carols (I hate) to celebrate. One is a bit naughty. Only one.

I hate carols so here are some made more relevant by me, these having appeared on Facebook:


Once in loyal David's city
Stood a local betting shop and pub.
There our hero drank then put his bet on:
Chose the favourite horse called 'Rub a Dub'.
There he watched it on a screen:
It came first; it ran just like a dream.

***

Silent Night? Noisy Night!
Live along the M1
The fence they put up doesn't them shush
For twenty four hours they go past in a rush
Never a decent night's sleep!
It makes the whole family weep.

***

It came upon a midnight clear
My friends had become rat-arsed:
They drank real ales to great excess
In emptying glass by glass.
Their thought was strained, the toilets gained,
Their talk turned into shout;
And then they tried to walk to homes,
In the gutters they did pass out.

***

Oh little towns of Hull and Barnsley,
They did once build a railway.
It competed with the North Eastern
It went in a round-about way.
It never was a total success:
The other was best for time;
But, in the end, the legacy is such,
It provided Hull's high level line.

***

This one I won't put on Facebook, for obvious reasons, and takes several verses to work through. Not for the faintly offended.


Ding dong merrily on low,
This woman came and slept with me.
Ding dong on my own pillow,
She lifted her legs and bent her knee.
Gloria, Maria in excessive!
Gloria, Maria in excessive.

E'en so here below below
I thought about an entry.
Had to get myself to show,
Be stiff and charged for plenty.
Gloria, my own self is elusive!
Gloria, my own self is elusive.

Come on, dutifully prime!
Her mouth worked on the donger.
So impressed was I this time,
My rear welcomed her finger.
Gloria, Maria in excessive!
Gloria, Maria in excessive.

Yet so, a girfriend did not land,
She left me to the season;
A flop, reject, one night stand -
It didn't stand to reason.
Gloria, Maria in exit lost!
Gloria, Maria in exit lost.

Since then I have shut my eyes,
To image what she was for;
Come to terms with the bye byes,
And online seeking one more.
Gloria, any for access there!
Gloria, any for access there.