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In message , Adrian
writes
Albert Ross wrote:
On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:36:14 GMT, Paul Ratcliffe
wrote:

Oh I dunno, London Gatwick and London Stanstead are rather a long
way
from London.
For now.
I was always entertained by my late aunt's version of the family
history, where a Yorkshireman swooped down and carried off a young
Suffolk lass to live in "a village near London called Notting Hill".
If you look hard enough, in most cities you can see the remnants of
the previous villages, farms etc. Especially in the south east I've
seen towns bypassed, and the space between town and bypass immediately
filled with houses, requiring the construction of yet another bypass,
rinse and repeat . . . . . . last time I was near to Gatwick they
were busy filling in the
green gaps with houses. Naturally I avoid Stanstead, well you would
wouldn't you?

There once was a nice quiet little village to the west of London,
called Heathrow.

There was once a nice quiet little village near Highworth, called
Swindon.
--
Ian

Zathras wrote:
On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:16:44 +0100, Bill Wright
wrote:

We were appalled when they built an airport at Doncaster and called it
'Robin Hood'. We aren't in Sherwood Forest or Notts, and Robin Hood has
no place in local history. No-one has any idea where Robin Hood Airport is.

Excellent. Airport names courtesy if Ignoramus Ltd.

Yes, you do get the impression that someone in London found the airport
site on Multimap and then just clicked around the wider area until they
came up with something.

If they'd really wanted to give the airport (ex RAF Finningley) an
apposite local name with some real historical clout they could have
called it Wellington Bomber Airport. We don't get many Germans round
here so it wouldn't have upset anybody.

Bill

Zathras wrote:
On Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:34:03 +0100, Bill Wright
wrote:

New builds are a disgrace in this country,

My pet hate is zero consideration for cars. 'Lovely' big (very
expensive houses) round here can only attract multi-4x4 car families.
You then see them abandoned all over the place

Well, you can blame the greenies for that. A lot of councils are
infested with the scum and so they make it a planning condition that
cars aren't encouraged.

They were going to build an 'eco-town' near here, but the idea seems to
have been dropped at the moment. Cars would be banned completely and all
the houses would be in 'walkable' zones. The one who really pushed for
it was Caroline Flint, which is odd because she was wildly enthusiastic
about Robin Hood Airport, which encourages people to go jetting off on
their holidays instead of going on bus trips to Cleethorpes in time
honoured fashion. Mind you, she's a funny socialist she is. You should
see her house.

Bill

On Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 14:05:29h +0100, Zathras wrote:

Maybe they hope to attract the likes or Ryanair looking for a cheap
'London' airport?

Certainly a possibility, but for other airlines I think, because
Ryanair already has one, it is located at Stansted, Essex, and is served
with a much better, faster, and more frequent train service than Oxford,
and also fairly good coach connections as well.

On Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 15:25:20h +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

Well, you can blame the greenies for that. A lot of councils are
infested with the scum

Presumably, because the voters vote them in.

On Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 08:28:17h +0100, Brightside S9 wrote:

Victoria platform 11 and Exchange platform 3, total length about
4/10ths of a mile, the longest in Europe.

Do you mean at the time of its existence and that it no longer exists?

I thought that the "Up" (towards Liverpool Street) platform at
Colchester was the longest platform in the UKofGB&NI with a length
of 620Â*m (2034Â*ft), and that it was not necessarily the longest in
Europe.

On Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 12:52:55h +0100, Albert Ross wrote:

I think it was Teeside PTE where the buses were painted turqoise.

Teeside did not have a PTE though, since it was not a metropolitan
county.

On April 1st, 1968, the Teesside County Borough was created and
resulted in the amalgamation of the operations of Middlesbrough
Corporation Transport, Stockton Corporation Transport and the
Tees-side Railless Traction Board (T.R.T.B) into the new
Teesside Municipal Transport undertaking.

When Cleveland County (a shire, non-metropolitan county) was
created on April 1st, 1974, the bus operations of the 6 year
old Teesside Municipal Transport undertaking were transferred
to the Langbaurgh, Middlesbrough and Stockton Joint Committee,
trading as Cleveland Transit.

So local bus services in Cleveland County were not operated by
a PTE but by a joint committee of the local boroughs.

Incidentally, for those living outside of metropolitan counties
who think that the PTEs were abolished in 1986 with the privatization
of the bus services, this was not the case. The PTEs continue to
operate this day, although no longer overseen by a county council
but a PTA appointed with members from each constituent city or borough
council.

Their job now is to provide local tax payer funded advertising of the
private bus services, usually in the form of distributing free timetables
and announcing the all too regular changes to services, and to hire
contractors to operate essential bus services: usually very early morning
pre-08:00h, and late evening after 18:30h, and lightly used daytime local
circular and hospital routes, which the private companies refuse to operate
because they are not profitable.

On Sat, 9 Apr 2011 15:55:38 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller wrote:

Maybe they hope to attract the likes or Ryanair looking for a cheap
'London' airport?

Certainly a possibility, but for other airlines I think, because
Ryanair already has one, it is located at Stansted, Essex, and is served
with a much better, faster, and more frequent train service than Oxford,
and also fairly good coach connections as well.

Is that the cause of the airport being where it is, or the effect though?

On Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 17:32:25h +0000, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:

Is that the cause of the airport being where it is, or the effect
though?

Partly the effect obviously, but more importantly, that the rail line
has been electrified for a very long period of time, unlike the continuing
diesel operated service to Oxford.

On Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 18:12:03h +0100, Java Jive wrote:

And I thought it was the main platform at Cambridge which was and is the
longest in the country.

The length of Cambridge main platform, according to

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17836

is 467m, which also gives Gloucester a longer platform length at 494 m,
whereas Colchester is 620 m

On another site

http://finance.groups.yahoo.COM/group/anglia-gen/message/97459

QUOTE

Cambridge island platform

Colchester is the longest walkable continuous platform, able to fit
in 24 321 cars in a single sitting, with space for a 31.

Cambridge was unique, but the longest... sadly not.

UNQUOTE

Even the BBC acknowledges Colchester as having been up until
recently the longest in the world.

http://www.bbc.co.UK/dna/h2g2/A1066510

According to one site,

(o) Longest platform in the world is at Kollam, Kerala
with 1 180,5 m (3 873 feet)(longest in the world)

(o) Second longest is at Kharagpur, West Bengal
with 1 072 m (3 517 feet)