Former tin tabernacle, Chandlers Cross between Amersham and Watford on the Ring around the Underground
With more time at home, I have managed to revise and update more routes. These routes include
the nine cardinal-points routes out of Trafalgar Square, collectively calledGet out of London!, to Southend-on-Sea, Epping, Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Maidenhead, Guildford, Gatwick Airport, Sevenoaks and Gravesend
That makes about 2000km of routes worked on in the past few weeks. Most of the revisions have been editing references to closed pubs, new restaurants, reshaped road junctions and the like, but near the end of the final route, I came upon a new housing estate on top of my route through the grassland which is no longer green.
Circumstances have meant that I have not been out and about exploring new routes too much recently, but I have been busy overhauling a number of routes, checking details, resolving ambiguities, and generally trying to improve the information content. This means that there are fresh versions of the routes covering
One of the nuggets I unearthed was that a London-based film had cameo parts for Audrey Hepburn and Valerie Singleton. The name of the film is in the text, but I am not divulging which route.
The three arms of the tram network which links Croydon with Beckenham Junction, New Addington and Wimbledon provided three interesting mornings out recently, the route from Beckenham Junction picking up Elmers End stop on the way round the outside of Beckenham Cemetery.
Waiting for the tram — bear, gorilla, dolphin and vulture at New Addington terminus
I was pleasantly surprised by the quantity of green space on the route, whether parkland such as Ashburton Park and Lloyd Park, or wilder areas such as the descent off Gravel Hill and Mitcham Common. Of course there are streets, but often the route follows off-street paths parallel to the tracks.
Yes, another two Underground lines have been walked and written up — the Jubilee Line and the Piccadilly Line. For good measure, I have also written up the Watford DC Line (to be called, hubristically, the Lioness Line) of the Overground.
Planted cattle trough, Wood Green (Piccadilly Line)
The Piccadilly Line and the Overground line were fairly straightforward in terms of paralleling the line. The Jubilee Line, on the other hand, crosses the River Thames on four occasions, so the walking route involved huge detours to cross the river on foot, bringing to bear the foot tunnels at Woolwich and Greenwich, and Tower Bridge. The crossing between Waterloo and Westminster stations was very simple, though, as was the route as far as Neasden. The primary route from there to Wembley Park crosses the line by the North Circular Road and picks up Great Central Way before following the River Brent and the Wealdstone Brook to the north end of the Wembley Park area, continuing to the station. However, some might want to visit the sporting shrine and trudge along Olympic Way, now crowded with insipid flats and restaurants. That would be madness on the days surrounding a major stadium event, so as well as the main route and the stadium-veneration route, there is a northern alternative which passes through the Great Central Railway Company’s housing estate known as “Quainton Village”. .
Great Central Railway Company housing, Quainton Village, Neasden (Jubilee Line)
Two Underground lines (Central and Northern) remain to be completed and written up, plus the trams, three Overground lines and the Superloop buses.
I recently spent a few days commuting to Bristol and back. Having looked at the map, I thought I could make a decent fist of linking up Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway, and then I looked farther: Severn Beach station beckoned, After that, the only sensible option was to loop back to Temple Meads. The walk turned out better than I had expected (let’s quietly forget about Smoke Lane and St Andrews Road in Avonmouth), and the Bristol Rail Round was born.
I had a flat calm day for the high-level route from Portway Park and Ride station to Temple Meads via the M5 bridge (pictured above) and the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but I was still buffeted by gusts from passing lorries on the motorway. The railings on the bridge look flimsier than they are, but that does not help anyone without a secure head for heights. That gave rise to the low-level alternative via Sea Mills.
