DAY TRIP TO LONDON ON A TRAIN---YUK!

Coming south from Hemel i spotted this widebeam ahead and my first thought was shiny new


boat it must be Les D & Heidi on their newly launched "BLUE PEARL". No sign of you two being on board so we will have to meet another time. By the way Les the e mail is on the comments box & mine is 15a.


Further along whilst moored at Croxley i caught site of this narrowboat on the back of a lorry

crossing the canal. One place for sure it wasn`t heading was the Earls Court Boat Show because as you can see in the picture below it consisted mainly of high priced yachts.

I decided to have a day out in London to visit the show so clutching my off peak travel card, off peak? even insisting i was in the peak of condition it was still £7.80, i bravely ventured onto the train. Now the first part of the journey to Baker St. was fine although part of the underground system the trains are quite large but changing onto other lines in particular the piccadilly the tunnells are smaller so of course are the trains, height wise that is. Noisy and stuffy with people sitting with faces like you get at the dentist, not used to this i`m a fresh air man. Did you know boaters do it breathing in fresh air.

Anyway i knew knew in my heart of hearts there wouldn`t be much in the way of canal boats and i was right, in fact just 5 inland waterway boats. One was a Hoeseasons holiday boat another a Trail-boat ( can be towed on a trailer waterway to waterway) so that left just 3 builders showing their wares. Disapointed but not surprised the idea was to have a day out so i had a good walk around and at least there were some sales people on stands such as Solar to chat to.
Now this event is publisised as a Boat Show so can anyone tell me why Bentley had 2 of their cars there and hot tubs were on display next to Armchairs that gave you a massage!

Anyway i met Tony Brooks who answers technical boat questions in Canal Boat magazine and made a good usefull contact on a Vetus dealer stand. NB Valerie has a Vetus engine below decks.

So all in all not a wasted day.

Anyone been watching the BBC programme £800 million station recently concluded on BBC2.
Having watched and enjoyed the story of how St Pancras Stn. was restored and transformed into the new terminus for Eurostar trains i couldn`t miss out on a visit on the way back to the boat.
St. Pancras Stn. was designed by William Barlow and building started in 1866. It has a roof of 689` in length, although this has now been extended in glass to accomadate the Eurostar trains, the height was 100` and the 243`span made it the largest enclosed space in the world, a record held for many years.
The basement of the station was opened up and now contains many big name retailers, M&S,

and Hamleys being two that spring to mind. Upstairs at platform level following Wm. Barlows

record largest enclosed space another record has been set by way of Europes longest Champagne bar. Above not a clear picture but if you enlarge it just above the escalator rail on the left part of it can be seen separated from the Eurostar train by a tall glass panel.

On Dec 9th First Capital Connect are relocating from Kings X Thameslink stn so St Pancras station looks to be very much a major London Termini.



This 9 metre high bronze of a couple embracing is by sculptor Paul Day and its siting at the end

of the platforms is meant to become a meeting place for travellers, bit like `meet me under the clock at Victoria i`ll be wearing a carnation` well for a so called meeting place it`s a bit short of some comfortable seats in fact any seating would be nice.

Sir John Betjeman was mostly responsible for saving St. Pancras from demolition in the 1960`s and personally i`m glad because i think the new mixes in with the old very well.

So London-Paris 2hrs 15mins. I wonder how far the steam trains of the late 1800`s would have travelled in that time.