train journeys

i took my last journey on the gospel oak to barking route this morning, last of this week's journey anyway, i'll probably be darkening those train doors again someday...

and i have 2 things to say...

firstly there are some nice things to look at from that train, i was filming videos through the windows this morning, much to my fellow commuters bewilderment...

around blackhorse road station the train goes across the lea valley, the river lea, the reservoirs... lots of nice water in amongst the industrial & residential landscape...

also there is a strange site underneath the north circular, just before the train reaches barking station... as i was looking at cycle maps before i started this week, considering the mad cycle journey i was curious about the north circular, as it seems there are not nearly enough points to cross it on a bicycle...

and then from the train i spied these strange looking tents that you can just see in this satellite image... a little scifi looking, or radioactive or... you know how you're brain makes things up on little sleep..?

ok so the 2nd thing... advice to people avoiding conductors on that train line...

the conductor starts at different ends of the train on different days and doesn't seem to make it all the way through the train, even though it's only two carriages... so the days when i had my bike with me i picked an end, hoping to pick correctly and both times i picked wrong, and couldn't move to the other carriage because of the bike... but the two days without the bike i was able to slip through to the other carriage when i spied the conductor - i still picked the wrong carriage but it didn't matter...

it's a train line without proper stations so you can't buy a ticket until you're on the train anyway so you don't get stung for a £20 fine if you don't have a ticket, but it is pricey if you meet the conductor, £4.20 for a single (9 stops)...

and i never saw a conductor on the return journey @ rush hour...

if i was doing this work for more than a week and i was still without money i would do a proper study of the ends of the train that the conductor starts at... because you never know, they might have a pattern...

oh the way that my mind works in these non-financial summer periods...

x