Steaming on the Met

As part of the celebrations of 150 years of the London Underground, a steam-hauled service ran half a dozen times today between Harrow and Uxbridge. Tickets on the train sold out long ago. I joined a number of enthusiasts at Ruislip Manor to watch it go by.

It was rather a surprise when an "A" stock appeared first - I wondered if this was some form of tribute but it was the rail adhesion train going in the other way so just a coincidence. Quite nostalgic to watch it dwindle toward Eastcote -how many times in my commuting past have I run up the stairs and emerged panting on the platform to see this very sight?

Then with uncanny timing a London-bound Met managed to obscure the arrival of the sight we had all been waiting for, producing the odd appearance of an 'S' stock wreathed in smoke.

Fortunately the interloper moved off in time and the star appeared.

This was one of the most eclectic assemblages of rolling stock one could imagine. Behind the steam loco was the venerable electric loco Sarah Siddons. A Class 20 Diesel, looking completely incongruous on a tube line, brought up the rear. Sandwiched between them were a number of ancient carriages including an1892 'Jubilee'  which I snapped on its final run in the twilight, hence the flash and the slow shutter speed.

This grand carriage was once used for commuters from Aylesbury and beyond. They don't make 'em like that any more.

J. D. Salinger joke of the day

The highly secretive author is believed to have written various versions of his masterpiece. The earliest is based on his experiences as a short-order cook in a sleazy diner in Brooklyn and is tentatively titled "The Ketchup on the Rye"

The Comet - What's in a Name?

Comet Ison is about to swing around the Sun and may become a bright object in the next few days, if it survives. News broadcasts have mentioned the fate of another comet a few years ago - Comet Lovejoy. I had not heard of this celestial traveller before and fell to musing, as one does on a dull November day when the code writing and testing that I still do occasionally on a commercial basis has ceased to command my total attention, [Can't focus, that's his problem: Ed] whether any other of its ilk were named after moderately well-known TV characters. Comet Bergerac? Comet Foggy? Comet Trotter of Peckham? And what of the enormous commercial possibilities? Surely my dear friend and ex-employer Sir Richard Branson would pay dearly to have Comet Virgin? But it is too late for the most endearing and obvious of all - now it is no longer trading, we are unlikely to see Comet Comet adorning the skies.

We are nine

Yes, folks, nine years ago to the very day the world of online publishing was shaken to its core by the first post in this blog.  Back then I don't think I ever thought I would still be doing this for so long. But we enter our tenth year of issue with our standards undiminished. If there is something trivial to be reported on matters commutorial [Surely that's not a word:Ed]  then we will be there wittering away with the best of them. It is likely that my commuting, defined strictly to mean regular journeys between home and work, will cease altogether in 2014 (and there isn't much of it now, to tell the truth). But what the hell - I'll still be riding those steel rails through the green corridors of our verdant part of Middlesex and if there's anything worth saying, and even if there isn't, rest assured that I will be saying it. [and I will be red-pencilling it for all I'm worth: Ed].

And just for the record I took another trip to museum-land today, and therefore another jaunt on the Piccadilly, and this time the homecoming Rayners Lane train was not aborted at Acton Town. Good. The fact that it was the fourth to arrive, and that number two was only going to Northfields, and therefore probably started life as Uxbridge-bound, we will record, with that passive resignation that comes from regular tube travel, and pass on.

Back to Basics on the Piccadilly

As both Mrs.Commuter and me had a day off today, we decided to pop into London and drift around the Victoria and Albert Museum. This sort of low-pressure visit is very enjoyable - nothing particular to worry about seeing, no time limits, leaving when we felt like it - but of course it necessitated using the Piccadilly. The outbound journey was fine; we checked on the net and reached the platform just as our chosen train arrived. Coming home was pot luck. It seemed too good to be true when the first train at South Kensington was not only Uxbridge-bound, but had seats aplenty. It was. It turned into a Northfields and we had to wait at Acton Town [oh the horrific memories: Ed] for a Rayners Lane train thus enforcing a further wait for the Met back to beautiful Ruislip. And, just as it was all those years ago when I used to travel daily on this line to work, the indicators at Acton were singularly unhelpful, showing just the next inbound train and not those behind it, and getting it wrong anyway so that when we arrived the board said Uxbridge and the driver had to contradict it. God help anyone with a poor command of English. There was no explanation for the change of route but of course there were the usual announcements about a good service. Business as usual, really.