London Banter - Transport sights for a London day trip

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sat, 01 Nov 2014 17:24:57 -0500,
wrote:

I'm planning a day trip around London for some Cambridge students who may
not know it well. I'm trying to work out an itinerary for early December,
either Friday 5th or Saturday 6th. I've got an initial list of places or
feature to visit or pass through:

DLR
Overground, inc East London, Crystal Palace
Tramlink
Woolwich ferry
New Routemaster
Old Routemaster, H15 or H9

There's a specific reason for including Crystal Palace. Anyone see
anything or anywhere worthwhile I'm overlooking?

Not sure if your objective is "see the sights" or "see the transport
sights". I've included a mix of suggestions.

Definitely the latter. What I'm not entirely up on is what there is of
novelty or incipient heritage interest.

Might be worth stopping off to view Crossrail works - Canary Wharf or
Pudding Mill Lane for the new stations and / or portal construction
works. The latter allows them to also see the Olympic Park /
Stadium.

Thanks for mentioning that. I did think of Canary Wharf Crossrail station
site earlier but then we thought we might try to arrange a proper visit to
Crossrail works separately. However, passing either or both on the DLR route
should be easy enough.

You might want to show them the Shard, London Bridge station rebuild
and scoff your faces at Borough Market ;-)

Somewhere to eat lunchtime would be a good plan, I agree.

Double check engineering works for 6th Dec - you never know.

The original plan was for the 6th but the risk of engineering works made me
think of the alternative of the 5th, partly for that reason and also because
students will tend to be free on the 5th and going home for Christmas on the
6th.

Don't use the GOBLIN on the Friday in the PM rush hour. Your students
may not survive. ;-)

I did that once. Fun, isn't it! Luckily I got on earlier than many.

Consider avoiding anything near main shopping streets on the Saturday.
Shopping pressure and crowding starts to build in December.

I found Overground today pretty full southbound at Shepherd's Bush too.
Looked like early Christmas shopping at Westfield.

Then we made the mistake of arriving at Highbury and Islington just after
the end of the game. :-)

There is no Heritage 9 bus any more. Went a few months ago.

Thanks. I knew it was going but didn't realise it had already gone.

I assume you're One Day Travelcarding rather than Oyster or
Contactless Cards (the latter doesn't work on the 15H). I suspect that
will be the simpler option.

As we will be coming from Cambridge that would be the plan. Simplifies all
sorts of things though Saturdays are quite a bit cheaper.

If you are very, very lucky Arriva might have managed to get their two
new all electric single deckers into service at Croydon garage.
They've just been delivered and are due to run on the 312 service.
Alternatively there are the BYD all electric buses that run on the 507
or 521 (you will only see those on Friday - they can't come out at
weekends as Waterloo garage is shut then).

Another reason for looking at Friday was the thought that all sorts of
services might not run at weekends. That said, the main reason for including
a Boris bus was that they are so unique in all sorts of features so people
not living in London would find them of especial interest.

They're certainly going to see the sights (!) of London if you're
dragging them on the Woolwich Ferry (took me 30 years to have a ride
on it!) as well as on New Routemasters and to Croydon.

The Woolwich Ferry idea (we could use the foot tunnel) was also that it
might not last much longer! In the early 1970s I took convoluted routes to
Liberal Party Assemblies which included ferries and other services which no
longer run. Travelled to Tilbury Riverside and the ferry to Gravesend
(gone), to New Holland Pier and on the Humber Ferry (gone) and on the Mersey
Ferry and then on one of the few trains from Lime Street to Southport which
no longer run. We may have taken the Woolwich Ferry on the way to Brighton
in 1974 but none of us can remember any more. :-)

While not wishing to design your itinerary in detail it might be nice
to include some greenery or scenic contrasts along the way. A bus ride
across Blackheath and through the village might be nice.

One of the reasons for looking at DLR and Overground was the chance to
sightsee as well as grice. A problem will be limited daylight by early
December so some features worth visiting in the dark are also a
consideration.

I probably don't need to state the obvious but the Friday will mean an
encounter with the school run / bus overload event sometime in the
afternoon. I wouldn't want to be dragging students round on buses
while battling with the vast numbers of school kids using buses from
about 1430 onwards.

Yes, that is a point though it is also when the light will be failing. Also
a reason to concentrate on rail. If we are using Tramlink the "wall of
death" from Wimbledon to Sutton might be worth travelling on.

Have fun.

That's the plan. I suppose ending up at a west end pub for a meal might be
part of it too.

--
Colin Rosenstiel