www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWc4h30tdcY&feature=youtu.be
Probably totally boring for anybody else, but I thought Alanovic at least might enjoy...... (mind you, its 15 minutes long so fast forwarding might help)
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Thanks for that - a blast from the past for me, and interesting to see how little some parts have changed, bar the traffic. I spent a couple of years living in Caversham after being relocated to Reading in 1994, 18 months into a Grad training programme; Westfield Road, which even 'featured' in the film! Spent my first 8 weeks at the Calcot Hotel on the Bath Road, all on expenses, which meant I that I only had to pay for going out. Saved a relative fortune, and Reading attracted an Outer London weighting at that employer at the time - an extra £1,500 a year I seem to remember! Those two things helped fund the purchase of that house :-) I left them after 2 years and moved to London...
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I enjoyed that...good editing. The Streetview horse and cart must have been busy !
HO
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I'll have a proper shufty at home tonight, NF. Looks interesting. Thanks.
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So you are getting out and about, Vić? The closure of Sonning bridge is forcing so much traffic my way that it took ages to get home on Monday evening. Yesterday and today I haven't even tried - there's not much I can't do remotely and the coffee is better at home.
We're 40m above the river here, so fortunately floods aren't a direct threat. How is it round your parts?
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How is
>> it round your parts?
Wet, if in the bath or shower!
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Well, WdB, my house is at the top of a chalk escarpment, very close to the river but about 100 feet up from it.
The meadows in town are all under water, and the folks in The Warren are getting wet feet. I expect a few swimming pool filters are getting a bit bunged up. Monday traffic was very, very bad due to Sonning Bridge closure pushing traffic in to town - and Whitchurch Bridge is still out too. Bit better last two days, worse than normal but moving for the most part.
Home is only 3 miles from work, so no excuses for me. Have to get the wife to the station and the chilblains to their school in the morning anyway. In the summer when I don't have school runs I cycle to work along the tow path. No danger of doing that at the moment though.........
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I have a friend at Caversham and my normal route to him is M4 from London and Sonning bridge.
With you local know how, what is my best route now ? ( outside rush hour )
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There is only one, sadly. M4 J11 and up the A33 to Caversham bridge. Or just use your usual route and carry on down the A4 in to central Reading. But I'd got to J11 if I were you.
Barring unusual events/accidents, you won't get any hold ups outside peak hours.
Or get a boat. ;-)
Last edited by: Alanović on Thu 9 Jan 14 at 11:22
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Thanks for rapid response.
I will avoid Reading.
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Don't plan on lunch at The Griffin. It had a fire just before Christmas and isn't open yet.
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>> Thanks for rapid response.
>> I will avoid Reading.
>>
Always my recommendation...
:-)
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>> I have a friend at Caversham and my normal route to him is M4 from London and Sonning bridge.
>> With you local know how, what is my best route now ? ( outside rush hour )
How about through Henley?
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>> >> I have a friend at Caversham and my normal route to him is M4
>> from London and Sonning bridge.
>> >> With you local know how, what is my best route now ? ( outside
>> rush hour )
>>
>> How about through Henley?
Renamed Henley-in-Thames I think.
www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=39397
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Yep. The bridge is still open but with Whitchurch and Sonning bridges closed, you can imagine the traffic in a town that doesn't cope well with traffic at the best of times.
That said, middle of the day shouldn't be too bad, but you'll then have to negotiate the Playhatch flood (which is what has closed Sonning bridge, I understand) to get to Caversham.
Assuming the A4 is open again after this morning's ironic barn fire at Wargrave, you could get into Reading past the hospital and out across Caversham Bridge, but with the extra traffic there too I expect you'd still be quicker coming in from J11.
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>> Yep. The bridge is still open but with Whitchurch and Sonning bridges closed, you can
>> imagine the traffic in a town that doesn't cope well with traffic at the best
>> of times.
Yesterday evening was a doozy. I went to Hanwell to film a choo choo, and my route home - M25 - got clogged by a multi at Junc 11, and I needed to pick up some meds for the dog on the way.
All of which meant I suddenly realised what a job crossing the Thames was like. Chertsey Bridge? closed - flooding. Staines Bridge? nightmare, flooded from staines to windsor, flooded from Staines to chertsey past thorpe park and the road from staines to chertsey through laleham, In hindsight I should have gone downstream to Walton but hey.
This is Chertsey on Wednesday
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPPf67BMYVM
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 10 Jan 14 at 08:50
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Thanks for the update. That explains things.
I had an unusually slow trip from Hampton Court to the A30 at Staines yesterday evening.
Lots of traffic from Sunbury to H/C at that time and also later when the queue started at Kempton. I was able to bypass it fortunately . I am so pleased that many folks do not read maps or use their Prat Navs. I think I saved about 15 mins on a simple alternative route.
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>> Thanks for the update. That explains things.
This was the route home last night along the A320 - Staines to Chertsey
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O896PaMQbbM
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>> >> Thanks for the update. That explains things.
>>
>> This was the route home last night along the A320 - Staines to Chertsey
>>
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=O896PaMQbbM
Edit. This road now closed.
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>> you'll then have to
>> negotiate the Playhatch flood (which is what has closed Sonning bridge, I understand) to get
>> to Caversham.
Not Nessie's celery. I always go to/from Henley via Common Sonning and Greys Green. A lovely route and the possibility of a visit to the wonderful Greys Court kitchen garden/tea shoppe on the way. Love that place.
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Floods bring out just the same feebleness in our public services as snow.
The River Loddon is a particularly bad example, regularly bursting its banks in the same places, including taking out the Winnersh park-and-ride (which there is at last talk of relocating). Some bright spark has seen fit to allow a big new housing development on the Woodley perimeter road (the old airfield), right next to the Loddon.
I go to London via Twyford station about twice a week (until I retire in April !) Worst Late Western have been useless this week: there is a flood between Oxford and Didcot providing an excuse to cancel all manner of trains, including some from Reading to Paddington, not a journey that most people would expect to include Oxford.
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>> I go to London via Twyford station about twice a week (until I retire in
>> April !) Worst Late Western have been useless this week: there is a flood between
>> Oxford and Didcot providing an excuse to cancel all manner of trains, including some from
>> Reading to Paddington, not a journey that most people would expect to include Oxford.
The problem is that they might have some train sets caught on the wrong side of the flood, and some services are made up of returns of other services, disrupt them and you have knock-on.
Tho I have to confess South West trains now decide to cancel ALL trains on the slightest whiff of bad weather citing the excuse they can bring all scheduled services back quicker the next day. Which is fine if you want to travel the next day, mean time you are stranded.
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>> The problem is that they might have some train sets caught on the wrong side
>> of the flood, and some services are made up of returns of other services, disrupt
>> them and you have knock-on.
Similar on London Midland. Disruption between Northampton and Birmingham often leads to cancellations of Euston/Tring stopping services.
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>> >> The problem is that they might have some train sets caught on the wrong
>> side
>> >> of the flood, and some services are made up of returns of other services,
>> disrupt
>> >> them and you have knock-on.
>>
>> Similar on London Midland. Disruption between Northampton and Birmingham often leads to cancellations of Euston/Tring
>> stopping services.
Its amazing just how tight spare rolling stock is, (i.e. None) and how much during peaks they sweat that that is running. At peak, the sheds are literally empty of stock, and any unit that breaks causes chaos, and iyou can't now strip one unit of each set to make up another one, they come in sets or not at all. Another issue is route knowledge. The TOCs now only train the drivers for the route they need to know, any diversions due to track issues means that the TOC can't run them with the staff they have.
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>> Worst Late Western have been useless this week: there is a flood between
>> Oxford and Didcot providing an excuse to cancel all manner of trains
Came back from Kendal on the train on Wednesday evening. Route was supposed to include Banbury, but due to aforementioned flooding had to use London. So...
Kendal - Oxenholme - Crewe - Euston - Paddington- Reading - Earley
:o
To be fair it was a pretty easy journey, no one sat next to me, and trains were pretty much on time.
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Probably a silly question but....What happens to the water rushing down the Thames towards the sea when the barrier is deployed ?
Puzzled of t'Noorth.
HO
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The barrier is, I think, to prevent flooding to London from the North Sea direction. It would not be deployed when the river itself is flooding upstream I don't imagine. If it's coming at London from both directions, it's time to abandon island I expect.
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>> The barrier is, I think, to prevent flooding to London from the North Sea direction.
>> It would not be deployed when the river itself is flooding upstream I don't imagine.
It is and it has been deployed like that this earlier very week. The Thames can be allowed to flood upstream over a wider area and cause far less human and economic issues than flooding the centre of London.
The Thames floods at Chertsey I filmed are a direct outcome of opening the Jubilee channel to save Windsor and Maidenhead. Second time in 14 months. If one is prepared to build and urbanise a flood plain (the Thames Valley) one has to suffer at some time from the river flooding it. River and flood engineers can defend and change rivers as much as they like, the river WILL reclaim the plain at some time or other, often worse at some other place because it is denied space elsewhere. At the end of the day it only has so much total capacity. No-one here has got their heads around building houses against floods properly. They usually only need to be built on a 2 foot raised raft - how much agro is that?
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You're quite right, Z. Look at these houses which are standing on regularly flooded land near the Thames at Playhatch/Sonning Eye.
goo.gl/maps/Y1iDv
However, the downside is that if people can see that new houses are on ground likely to flood, which would be made very evident by such construction, developers may have a tough job on their hands shifting them.
I don't know how the people who live in those houses near Playhatch put up with it, and what possessed them to build or buy them in the first place. Nuts.
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>> You're quite right, Z. Look at these houses which are standing on regularly flooded land
>> near the Thames at Playhatch/Sonning Eye.
>>
>> goo.gl/maps/Y1iDv
>>
>> However, the downside is that if people can see that new houses are on ground
>> likely to flood, which would be made very evident by such construction, developers may have
>> a tough job on their hands shifting them.
Not if insurers are sensible and say, build flood proofed houses on flood plains and we will insure them. Build ones that aint and we won't. That will soon sort out the developers.
Of course at the end of the day you still shouldn't build there, because it stops being a flood plain, won't slow down and soak up river flow. Some poor sod down stream cops it worse.
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For me it wouldn't so much be an insurance issue, but one of suffering the regular hassle of dealing with living on a temporary island with no bridge. Sod that, I'll look elsewhere for a house.
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Yeah, half way up the hill is safer.
Except of course when it snows, and then you are trapped up there.
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That's where I am now, and happier for it. When it snows, I can walk through it. Don't want to go wading in flood waters, thanks.
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It has snowed here now and again. I don't seem to have had to replace my carpets/kitchen/plaster/electrics or car on a regular basis.
HO
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Caversham - PeterS
