S. Worthen | Weblog

1. My train from London to York died in Doncaster. Fortunately, it developed its fault while we were in the station. But we still all had to vacate the train and decamp to one which came not long after and onto which we were urged, standing-room only and jam-packed. Except, of course, many people then found they had invalid tickets, since the new train was Cross Country and the original one East Coast.


2. The next day, I met up with two historians of science on a bus in York city center. They had meant to arrive an hour or two earlier and have time to see the Minster, but their train had died just outside Doncaster, and it was half-an-hour of waiting before they could be pushed into Doncaster station and catch a different train.


3. Today's train from York to London died in Doncaster. Fortunately, the train which came 20 minutes later had some seats left. It's really just as well I wasn't stuck standing since tracks at Grantham were closed and we rerouted via Lincoln. It took hours; but I'd known in advance it was a hazard of traveling today.

I am disgruntled with trains in Doncaster right now. But I did see Lincoln Cathedral today, albeit from the train.

While in York, I stayed in a house well-stocked in books for young children. One of my hosts was shocked I had never read Meg and Mog. Or Pants! I have now, but he still hasn't read Pat the Bunny or Goodnight Moon.

I read some other books too. Apropos of the first line in Pointy-Hatted Princesses, I have a question for you:
[Poll #1790861]

I went to a talk on the trams of Walthamstow this evening (1905-1939). The Tram Act passed in the 1870s apparently authorized districts to build tramways - but only up to their borders. As a result, all tramways ended just before the next set began. No connecting tracks. Less than a decade after installing on the cheap, Walthamstow - like many places - considered replacing their trams with newfangled autobuses. Trams were given a further lease of life by the first World War however: they were powered by electricity from coal mined within the country, rather than imported petrol.

Trams are only ever really a feasible method of transport in cities and major self-contained tourist attractions which have the numbers to justify the dedicated road space. It was odd being in an audience mostly consisting of people who thought of trams as a long-time-ago thing, long since replaced by more modern transportation. But that's not how it works. Greater London has a sprawl of narrow streets. Boulevarded cities of the continent have done just fine with trams. As does Toronto with its streetcars. Many of them were looking back to trams; I was remembering commuting to the U of T.

Speaking of justifying transit, I, along with fourteen-or-so other Smith grads, met up with the college president last weekend, while she was in town. She talked to us about all sorts of changed and developments at the college. What most excited me wasn't any of those things: it was learning that, thanks to federal stimulus money, the railroad from New Haven to Vermont is being rebuild along its former path, and Northampton (MA) will have a railway station once again!