Sunday 17 March 2024

The Biggest Working Steam Engine In The World

Saturday 16th March

 

and I paid another visit to Kempton Steam Museum to see what is believed to be the largest running steam engine in the world. Located in the Kempton Park Water Works in the New Engine House (completed in 1929) the Sir William Prescott Engine is 62 feet tall, weighs 800 tons and is named after the then chairman of the Metropolitan Water Board.

Sir William Prescott Engine, triple expansion steam engine.

One weekend a month from March to November the museum have a steaming weekend on which they run the huge triple expansion steam engine that once supplied fresh drinking water to much of London. If it looks familiar that might be because it has stood in on film on several occasions for the engines of RMS Titanic, whose engines were very similar but are now unavailable for filming 😉

As well as The Sir William Prescott the museum contains two steam turbine pumps (not working) and a wealth of other associated waterworks equipment to see and lots of information and audiovisuals to keep the kids amused.

The Lady Bessie Prescott Engine. Triple expansion steam engine.
 
At the other end of the engine house sits The Lady Bessie Prescott Engine. This is the second of the pair and is not currently running, which means they give free guided tours of it from top to bottom. I've been up it before but not this time as the next free slot wasn't for about two and a half hours alas 🙁 The museum hope to have Lady Bessie running as well within the next five years 🙂

If you can get to Kempton Park for a steaming weekend do it, you're not going to see its like anywhere else.

 
Kempton Steam Museum

Tuesday 12 March 2024

Rustival

9th March 2024
 
Clapped out to concours every vehicle is welcome! was the strap-line for a very different car show organised by British Youtubers Ian and Carly from HubNut, Matt from Furious Driving and Steph from idriveaclassic. Rustival was held at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, Warwickshire, a nicely central location with good access to the motorway network and only about 90 minutes drive away for me. I follow two of the organisers channels and fancied a Saturday trip out. Now I don’t have a particularly interesting car but that’s rather the point of Rustival - all wheels are welcome - and since it was also cheaper to go as an exhibitor than as a general visitor I booked my space. I even gave the car a wash and polish a couple of days before, something that happens… shall we say infrequently? 
 
Exhibitors were allocated into two car park areas named Van den Plas and Mayfair, I was allocated to Mayfair and entry was from 10:00 a.m. I arrived a little before 10:15 and the exhibitor areas were mostly full by that time so I was parked up almost at the far edge of the show. 
 
 Rustival, Toyota RAV4 Hybrid
 
 It looks a little lonely here but the area quickly filled and my Toyota RAV4 Hybrid was framed by a Porsche 944 and a Vauxhall the details of which I cannot now recall. I’d been a little concerned that my boring and reliable modern car would look a little out of place but it was far from the newest car present. As far as I could tell it was, surprisingly, the only RAV4 present. As my sister pointed out it was bound to win the prize for “Car I’m Most Likely To Go Home In” :-)
 
I’d planned ahead and taken a flask and a picnic lunch because who wants to spend time queuing at the burger van when you can be checking out the exhibits? So first I took a cup of coffee for a walk around the Mayfair section which contained some interesting, ordinary, and rare cars
 
 Rustival, Morris Marinas
 
 and other vehicles, not all of which had seen wax or polish recently
 
 Rustival, vans from Renault, VW,  LDV, and PSA
 
which sums up the ethos of the show nicely.
 
I popped back to my car and ate lunch then headed down to the Van den Plas area where the various Youtubers’ displays, portable stage, stalls, and a lot more exhibits were located.
 
 Rustival, Betty the Ford Fairmont AU by Ian (Hubnut)
 
 And I spent the next few hours wandering around looking at what everyone had brought and chatting with or listening to exhibitors and visitors. There was getting on for 900 cars exhibited and although my ticket included entry to the British Motor Museum I never actually made it indoors (though I have visited before). Time flew and soon it was nearly 3 o’clock, prizes were being awarded
 
 Rustival, prize winners line-up
 
 and it was almost time to head home. Particularly since I set my alarm for 0600, woken at 0355, and failed to get back to sleep before it was time to get up so having been mostly on my feet I was starting to flag.
 
A couple of my show highlights:
 
 Rustival, Austin A40 Farina MK1Rustival, Austin A40 Farina micro-camper
 
 This Austin A40 Farina Mk1. I’m always going to be drawn towards one of these as a 1961 Countryman model was my first car. The young lady owner of this example has also adapted it into one of the smallest micro-campers I’ve ever come across. So that’s my choice for car of the show because I’m partisan :-)
 
 Rustival, Reliant based trials car
 
This slightly scary Reliant Robin based trials car, complete with quite a lot of countryside still stuck to it from its last trials event. The gent who owns and built it was happy to explain to visitors the why’s and wherefores of his creation and yes, it’s street-legal and yes he drove it to and from Rustival so I guess he was as glad as anyone else that we had fine weather on Saturday!
 
Here’s 63 photos that I took on the day in a Flickr Album
 
 Rustival
 
 Rustival was a great success and the organisers plan to do it again next year so I hope to do it again too, I’ll be keeping an eye on https://www.rustival.co.uk/ and suggest you do as well if you’re interested in all types of cars not just the “special” ones.

Wednesday 31 January 2024

Battersea Power Station Light Festival 2024

30th January 2024

More winter lights, this time at the shopping mall that was formerly Battersea Power Station.

I made a wee video.

I also took some photos, available in this Flickr Album.


Battersea Power Station Lights Festival 2024

Verdict: Worth a look if you're nearby or really like this sort of thing. Could be a bit underwhelming if you've come a long way. Battersea Power Station has much too high ambient light levels to really pull this sort of display off.

Saturday 20 January 2024

Canary Wharf Winter Lights 2024

19th January 2024

A quick look around the Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival for 2024. It was bloody cold and I'm glad I arrived early to avoid most of the crowds.

There's a bunch of photos here on Flickr

Canary Wharf Winter Lights 2024

Monday 8 January 2024

Walking from Roding Valley to Hainault

5th January 2024

This was the first day of 2024 on which there seemed to be a low risk of getting seriously wet. Wanting to relieve the winter cabin fever I took a long ride on the Piccadilly and Central Lines to a station I’d never been to before. It’s a station that most people haven’t been to either as Roding Valley is the least used tube station with only 259,271 entries and exits according to the latest official figures, 2022 at the time of writing. (Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2022. Transport for London. 4 October 2023.) So I’ve added 1 to whatever the 2023 figure turns out to be.
 
 Roding Valley, least used tube station.
 
 Served by the Central Line Woodford to Hainault shuttle there’s not a lot at Roding Valley station - not even a ticket barrier just Oyster/Contactless validators which must affect the accuracy of those entry and exit figures a little. I arrived from Woodford a little before half past midday a little disappointed not to have ridden on the newly refurbished train with its new moquette which is supposed to be running on the shuttle service. 
 
My “plan” was to take a short walk to either Grange Hill or Hainault and then head back into London again. I’d plotted a route on my phone which took me via Loughton Rugby Club, a short way along the River Roding under the Central Line to a bridge over the river and along Luxborough Lane to cross over the M11. Having crossed the edge of the rugby field I found that the Roding had other ideas.
 
 The River Roding in flood at the confluence of the Chigwell Brook.
 
 There was about six or seven feet of the path flooded to “needs wellies” depth so I retraced my steps and found an alternative route via Ray Park, crossing over the river and under the M11 at Woodford Bridge, pausing for coffee at Costa on Chigwell Road. 
 
 ULEZ land, Woodford Bridge
 
 Suitably caffeinated and having taken advantage of the other facilities I carried on past St. Paul’s Church and across the green by the pond then continued along Manor Road towards Grange Hill. A fairly busy road but with broad pavements and more importantly dry underfoot.
 
 Pond, Manor Road, Woodford Bridge
 
 Manor Road is peak Chigwell, isn’t it? Lined with very large detached properties behind big, often ornate gates mostly electrically powered. The front “gardens” nearly all paved over and accommodating a range of exotic or just large cars, many sporting personalised registration numbers (or twat-plates as I can’t help thinking of them). Visible alarm systems and CCTV adorn most of the houses. Every so often they’d got the builders in, refurbishing or extending the houses and blocking the footway with vans or skips. OK **** we’ll just walk in the busy road then shall we? Crossing the A23 the houses become more standard suburban fare and have suburban streets behind rather tan the golf course. On the opposite side of the road St. Winifred’s Church looks oddly utilitarian but is in parts at least older than it looks.
 
 St. Winifred's Church, Chigwell.
 
 I carried on along this less ostentatious part of Manor Road to Grange Hill Station. I could have got back on the Central Line here but Hainault is only a little further and I’d have needed to change trains there anyway. In fact the walk would have been shorter had I gone to Hainault directly but then I’d have missed the opportunity to make the obvious  low flying sausage joke
 
 Grange Hill Station
 
 So I passed by the station and turned down Long Green continuing along the alleyway at the end parallel to the railway. Rather unexpectedly there’s a World War II pillbox fortification here and a line of concrete tank obstacles along the edge of the line.
 
 WWII pillbox and tank obstables, Hainault.
 
 The alleyway emerges into Robina Close amongst blocks of flats and then via Clinton Crescent to New North Road where I turned right to Hainault Station entrance under the railway bridge.
 
 Hainault Stationentrance
 
 Hainault has some unusual tiled station name boards on the platforms which I thought reminiscent of a mid 20th century domestic fireplace particularly with the spaces intended for posters being mostly empty.
 
 Hainault Station tiled sign
 
 From the platforms the footbridge you can see the entrance to the Central Line Hainault Depot just north of the station. There are three platforms, one seems to be for the Woodford shuttle and the other two for trains towards London. Checking the next departures on both the TFL Go app and Google Maps showed completely different platform numbers to those actually being used so I followed everyone else onto the train at platform 3 that said it was bound for Ealing Broadway even though both apps said it was leaving from platform 1!
 
 Hainault Station
 
Roding valley ticked off I went to Gants Hill next but that’s another story. 
 
 

Sunday 31 December 2023

Deadpool 2024

 My annual guess at which celebrities aren't going to see another New Year's Day.

  • Neil Percival Young (Canadian Musician)

  • James Earl Carter Jr. (39th POTUS)

  • Michael Caine (English Actor)

  • Melvyn Hayes (English actor & voiceover artist)

  • Sir Thomas Hicks "Tommy Steele" (English singer & actor)

  • June Lockhart (American TV & Movie actress)

  • Elizabeth Lois Shields, nÊe Teare (UK politician, former MP for Rydale)

  • Vanessa Redgrave (English Actress)*

  • Kenneth Cope (English Actor and Scriptwriter)*

  • Billy Connolly (Scottish actor, comedian, artist, writer, musician, and television presenter)*

     

     

    So that's most of the above guaranteed a healthy and vital 2024 I expect đŸ˜

     

    *New entry for 2024 to replace those we lost in 2023, RIP to:

     

    Gina Lollobrigida (Actress, Photojournalist, & Sculptor)

    Anthony Dominick Benedetto a.k.a Tony Bennett (Singer)

    Burt Bacharach (American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist) 

My 2023 in Review

 

2023 was my first whole year as an idle sod (officially) so I've taken a look back through my calendar to see what I actually did and pick out some highlights.

January Started with a week of Rail Strikes so travel opportunities were a bit limited but after that managed to get out and walk from Catford to the Thames along the River Ravensbourne. I also paid a Sunday afternoon visit to Hanwell, and managed a trip to see the Winter Lights at Canary Wharf and made my only visit to the Tower of London thanks to a Christmas present of a year's Historic Royal Palaces membership.

February Saw a boat trip around Portsmouth Harbour, a visit to the shopping mall that is Battersea Power Station, a day down at the Army Flying Museum in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, and a trip to Hackney for the great Urban Good relocation map giveaway from which scrummage I bagged a decent number of maps of London and a couple of other cities. The big highlight of the month was my Hidden London tour of Shepherd's Bush Underground station, which turned out to be a personal tour since by coincidence I was the only customer to book that particular time slot on that day.

Hidden London, Shepherd's Bush, ventillation tunnel.
 

To finish the month I had a belated Xmas Drinks with some of my former workmates where vast quantities of drink were taken, resulting in a rather uncomfortable ride home by rail Replacement Bus!

March saw my first trip away of the year and despite a weather warning for snow had a good stay in a working water mill in Wookey, Somerset. From which I visited Wells Cathedral, Burnham On Sea, and a spectacularly wet Glastonbury. The HRP membership got me inside the spectacular Banqueting House on Whitehall and LT Museum Friends membership into the Depot Open day at Acton.

April 5th saw me take a midweek afternoon ride route 465 - Transport for London's most un-London Bus Route. On the 21st I hit the big six-oh and took my HRP membership card for a ride to Kensington Palace

May was the month for my big rail trip to the far north of Scotland which had been delayed since March 2020 when something screwed up my careful plans. It was worth the wait, nine days away stopping in Edinburgh, Inverness, and Thurso and finally setting foot in my original target of Wick on a very quiet Saturday 13th. Second highlight of May was going to Worcester to see Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp in concert. 


Toyah & Robert's Rock Party, Huntingdon Hall, Worcester. 27th May 2023.

June brought another bus trip, the Route 65 and 71 Heritage Event between Ealing and Kingston and Leatherhead. I also went away to Happisburgh in Norfolk to explore childhood holiday territory and visit the North Norfolk Railway again and the East Anglian Transport Museum for the first time, the latter fulfilling an ambitions a good fifty years old.

July Featured a trip on the LT Museum's Heritage 1938 Stock Tube train from Acton Town to Oakwood and back. 


1938 Stock special service Southgate from the rear cab
 

In between industrial action on the railways I managed to squeeze in a "pick a random city you haven't been to" trip away. Which this time was Nottingham for the trams, the Trent, and the castle.

August began with the Freddie Mercury exhibition at Sotheby's and then majored on buses, with a visit to the Oxford Bus Museum followed by an incredibly busy Imberbus Day

 
AEC Routemaster RM1005 5CLT at Gore Cross
 

Right at the end of the month into the beginning of September I got away for a long weekend in Paignton for some seaside walking and of course a seaside steam train.

September brought my second Hidden London tour of 2023, the newly introduced one at Baker Street station. I had to share this one but it was still good.
September saw Open House London run over two weekends and this year I managed visits to The City Churches: St Mary-le-Bow, Grand Junction at St Mary Magdalene Church, Paddington, and Fitzrovia Chapel on the first and National Audit Office (former Imperial Airways Terminal) and Lewisham Arthouse on the second. I went to the second LT Museum Depot open weekend of the year and finished off the month with a trip to the Chelsea Physic Garden which was having a free entry day as part of Chelsea Festival.

October was a bit quieter. Not entirely quiet as I went to Basingstoke and saw Toyah and Robert in concert again. Also a visit to Gunnersbury House to see the rather good Exhibition "Set to Stun: Designing & Filming Sci-Fi in West London". The end of the month marked the 1 year anniversary of my exit from wage-slavery.

November was mostly car related things. I spent the 5th standing at a Sussex roadside taking pictures of the VCC London to Brighton Run and at least this year it didn't piss down with rain.
I went to the Classic Car Show at Birmingham NEC for the first time in years, travelling up by train and staying in Coventry as it was easier - and cheaper - than finding a suitable hotel in Brum. Finally I saw Show Of Hands on their last tour, in Basingstoke again.

December is never up to much. The highlight of the month might have been putting four new tyres on the car but was edged out by meeting some former colleagues for beers in Reading. Lots of beers but fortunately no rail Replacement Buses this time. I made the LT Museum Friends AGM at Covent Garden and Barry Le Jeune's entertaining talk afterwards. In fact now work doesn't get in the way I've been able to attend many more of the Friends' meetings this year. Xmas? Meh. I had a good lunch on the day with family but I'm not really a Christmas person.

So ends another trip around the sun. Skimming the calendar to write this blog post I realize I've done more than I first thought. I've only included the more notable events here, there have been many other minor excursions. 2024 will likely be similar.