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HS2, transport armageddon and playing chicken
The weather chaos on roads and rail today is as nothing, the government is warning, to the travel network armageddon that threatens if HS2 is not built.
It’s been another day of industrial action affecting transport services.
The weather chaos on roads and rail today is as nothing, the government is warning, to the travel network armageddon that threatens if HS2 is not built.
I am on a deserted train to Oxford. Departing Paddington at 05.58, not a soul stirs all the way to Oxford – only the conductor, sorry the customer service manager. As usual the bike racks are half a mile from your seat. But that’s not my gripe. This train, deserted as it is, is classified…
Curiously, my brief sojourn in Colombia has fuelled me up, for Cartagena is straight out of Greene. Black-hatted priests bent against the wind, striding two abreast beneath the sharp shadows of the un-sunny side of the street. Large tolling bells. A white stucco church, pantiled houses beyond with assorted ochres, yellows, and reds. Somewhere beneath…
I am looking down on the Pacific waters at the mouth of the Panama canal. Below, evening sun splashes silver across the sea, silhouetting the shipping waiting to enter. I count 50 vessels: container ships, bulk carriers, cruise liners, each momentarily detailed as our plane descends to land at the airfield nearby. I haven’t been…
Once in a while the gods deal you an unexpected hand. I am attempting the apparently Latin-American impossible: Colombia to London inside 24 hrs. The signs are not good. An hour and a half to go to take-off, and no-one is at check-in either side of the desk. Then I see why. The previous flight…