My First Year in London: Confessions of a Transport Geek

Evening all. Hope you’re well.

I don't usually jump straight to today but I had a really cool day (IMHO) and must tell you about it immediately...

ULTra PTR

A few weeks ago I asked why you were intimidating my wife and one of the PS’s showed a video about ULTra PRT and their pod system at Heathrow Terminal 5 - future transport technology and clever IT systems rolled into one. Well today, four of us headed across London all the way to Heathrow for a tour of ULTra’s offices, workshops and control centre as well as TWO rides in the pods. At the moment the pods are only available from T5 to the Business Class car park but over the next 5+ years will expand to incorporate the other terminals, car parks and possibly even airport hotels. I never thought I was a transport geek (no really, I didn’t!) but after riding in the pods on the elevated guideway over the dual carriageway and over a little lake in the baking sunshine with a Boeing 747 very close overhead…well, it was all pretty incredible. I’m a massive fan of the system; it’s the only one of its kind in the world at the moment but the build of the second system in Amritsar, India is due to begin in the near future and be complete in 2014 - I'll be the first from TfL to volunteer my time for a business trip to see it in action! The system in Amritsar will mostly be used by tourists and some locals heading towards the Golden Temple. The temple is made from real gold which is the reason it is surrounded by an exclusion zone for motorised vehicles to prevent damage from emissions…which makes these battery powered pods perfect! And the IT system that runs the whole thing is really very clever and stuff too.

So, today was pretty ace. But that's enough about that...

We’re getting ahead of ourselves! Let’s go back to last week and Thursday. I had my final day of ICSA training. I have now completed all of the modules and just need to do the practical test on Victoria station, making anouncements on the platform and helping customers at the gateline and ticket machines. Unfortunately it looks like I’ll have to do this once I’m back from down under (NINE DAYS TO GO PEOPLE!) so may have to refresh my knowledge by doing a few online-learning courses on my return.

Other things that happened on Thursday include this:

Before

Which, some hours later, turned into this:

After

Both images are the result of a night out at the bingo. But not just any kind of bingo, oh no, this was Underground Rebel Bingo. And it was chuffing fantastic. Michaela and I headed into Shoreditch for a night of royal proportions – we "lived like queens". It next comes to London in June – which is probably best because almost a week on and I think I’m still recovering.

I’m sure you’re thinking I must have been off work on the Friday then – you’d be wrong. After scrubbing my face for a long time I headed in to sit, quietly, at my desk with a blotchy green and red complexion. Not my finest look, but totally worth it. Safe to say I had a quiet one on Friday evening.

Regent's

On Saturday we had the first great weather of this mini-heatwave/early summer we’re having at the moment so I headed into London and to Regent’s Park to doze in the sunshine with the newspaper and some cold cider whilst I topped up on my Vitamin D. I visited Stratford to do a bit of a shop and was back just in time for the start of the reality TV season – The Voice vs BGT. I liked The Voice but with David Walliams on board and Simon Cowell back, BGT won hands down.

On Sunday I was up early, primarily for the rain-delayed Malaysian F1 race, which I ended up missing because at 11am I spent 2 hours frantically clicking the refresh button on the tickets page for Hackney Weekend. At one point I got lucky and paid for my ticket…or so I thought. After reading the confirmation page more closely, I realised the confirmation was not for my ticket, but for two tickets in the names of Naomi Brennan and Jessica Brennan!! Shocker. I had to leave to get up to Hertfordshire and the Womens FA Cup quarter final tie between Arsenal and Everton so I left my computer (and my hope) with housemate Dave who got in touch shortly after I got to Elstree & Borehamwood to say he’d managed to get me one just before the tickets sold out. GREAT NEWS. So on Saturday 23rd June I’ll be heading to Hackney Marshes with the little Brennans in tow to see Jay Z and co. WIN.

I got to the ground at Boreham Wood FC (no idea why they spell it differently to the place name) just after KO and found my friend Sinead in the stands. The sun was shining again and it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Arsenal won 2-1 in the end but with 5 England internationals on the pitch it was a lively game with even livelier Arsenal fans who all seemed to be very…’local’. It took a fair amount of time to get all the way out there but with the Women's Super League 2012 season about to start I’ll probably head up there again at some point this summer.

Arsenal vs Everton

Monday morning came around quickly (about an hour quicker than usual). I was really looking forward to netball; after taking a couple of weeks off everything, giving my knee a chance to recover, I was ready for the last game of the season. And what a game it was! After the 3^rd quarter WE WERE WINNING 6-5!!!!!! Then we lost 7-11. But y’know, an improvement, right?! You can see our dismal (but great fun!) season record here.

And here we are, we’ve come full circle and it’s Tuesday (henceforth known as Transport Tuesday?...no??).

On the cards over the next week: after-work drinks in the sunshine, a pre-holiday haircut and a 3-day weekend. Great stuff.

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, Connie and Jenny have been totally amazing and sorted out my entire first week in New Zealand. Check it out!

Pps, Here is a (blurry) video of the ULTra PRT pods system at Heathrow. No sound due to the fact that I got totally over excited and sounded ridiculous…

Ppps, Other pics from this week (mainly pod-based):