Jonathan Stott

2008 is a little way off yet, but the Department for Transport has already published indicative timetables for the new West Coast Mainline franchises starting from December 2008. This is of particular interest to me as the Trent Valley stations (Atherstone, Polesworth, Tamworth, Lichfield, Rugeley) have suffered for the last six or so years from decreasing services and disruption due to upgrading the West Coast Mainline. The line between Tamworth and Lichfield is currently being upgraded to four tracks, thereby allowing slow stopping services to run without getting in the way of the trains going to for’n parts up north.

I have extracted the timetable showing all services that stop at Tamworth and Lichfield. Bear in mind this is only indicative, so I wouldn’t use it to plan those journeys for Christmas 2008 just yet!

Compare this with the current timetable:

An invasion is about to get under way in Bournemouth. No, it’s not the Germans or the Americans, but the Labour Party! From the 22nd to the 27th September, the Bournemouth International Centre will be the home of 14,000 Labour Party members at their annual conference. That means a few important people like the Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be there. As well as the delegates, a few more thousand people will appear to demonstrate about various things, no doubt generally causing a nuisance and getting in the way (even if they do have valid points). Oh, and not even counting the plethora of media people waving TV cameras and microphones around.

The whole shebang means a fortnight of road closures and parking restrictions. The ring road through the town will be closed at the discretion of the police and parking restrictions extend as far as where I live, over a mile from the BIC. 170 CCTV cameras will be installed around the town. Even left luggage facilities at the town’s train station are closed for the week! Operation Pegasus (what the police have called the security operation) will cost the tax payer £5.3 million.

Hopefully come the 28th September everyone will have gone home and things will return to normal!

After exactly four years, I finally submitted my PhD thesis on Thursday with just 1.5 hours to spare! Now I can relax for a few months as it looks as if my viva voce won’t be until January.

It was tough in the end - I’ve hardly had any spare time in the last three or four months. It still seems strange not having anything to do, but hopefully I will get used to that shortly!