2021 Quiz – Answers

On By In Christmas Quiz, Long reads

There weren’t many answers received this year which did not surprise us. The subdued response matches the subdued passenger numbers and lack of positive transport news in 2021. We will endeavour to let you know soon how those who submitted answers got on.

Onto the answers.

Question 1

Geoff Marshall

The question showed an incorrect diagram of the Northern line and asked what was wrong. This was a deliberately easy question to get you going. As Geoff Marshall pointed out in his Twitter post, the two things wrong are that Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms stations are transposed, and the service to Battersea Power Station is shown as a shuttle service from Kennington rather than a through service.

Question 2

The minister who fell off his bicycle was Grant Shapps – the transport minister. This was reported by various newspapers so should have been easy to answer. It was also reported on the BBC website.

Question 3

Control tower at RAF KENLEY – ON WHEELS!

More difficult was Question 3. We deliberately try to include a very hard question to prevent too many people getting all the answers correct. So it was surprising that some people managed to work out at which active airfield in Greater London where the picture of the control tower was taken. Of course, there aren’t many active airfields in the Greater London area which makes it a bit easer.

The answer we were looking for was RAF Kenley, though we will settle for Kenley. It is technically still an RAF active airfield though it is more of a memorial site these days. It is still owned by the Ministry of Defence and there are official notices warning you about trespassing. Despite this, people are welcome to walk across the airfield when there are no aircraft flying. It is in Greater London – just.

Nowadays it seems to be exclusively used by Surrey Hills Gliding Club who operate the control tower. As can be seen in the photo above (from which the picture in the quiz was cropped) it is on wheels as it is a mobile control tower so the unusual feature was that the control tower is mobile. It (or another one) is usually towed into the appropriate position by a Land Rover.

signs at raf kenley

Question 4

The Thames Bridge that TfL has spent so much money on in recent years is the abandoned-before-construction-started Garden Bridge. Quite why TfL got suckered in to paying for this under former London Mayor, Boris Johnson, is open to debate – but not in the comments section here, please. We had published many of the subsequent enquiry’s transcripts, such as this one.

The original, slightly misleading, article pointing this out was published by New Civil Engineer and can be found here.

The Thames crossing (note the subtlety of the wording) due to dwarf this is the Silvertown Tunnel. Hammersmith Bridge was suggested as the answer but it is unclear where the money for this will come from and, not being a TfL-maintained bridge, TfL hasn’t committed a large contribution to this.

Question 5

We asked what station had no service at all for some weeks due to the ‘pingdemic’.

The answer we were looking for was our favourite station in these situations – Birkbeck. So this station once again features as an answer in our quizzes.

Several people suggested ‘Pimlico’. There was nothing in the question that made in Underground specific. We are not aware of Pimlico having no service for some weeks although, like many Underground stations, it did have pingdemic related closures for a number of hours at a time.

Question 6

We showed a blanked out road sign and asked where it was. In fact it is the same sign as used in the 2020 quiz – only that time it was not blanked out. So this must be a first for us not only having a same answer as before but a same question and answer as before. It is at the southern end of Beech Street in the Barbican.

The second part of the question asked why it was blanked out. There two are possible valid answers:

1) due to road closures in the area because of road works, Beech St became a diversionary route,

2) The traffic order implementing it was successfully challenged in court. Rather than try to rectify the situation, the City of London simply let it expire. You can read more about this in a post by Diamond Geezer (sixth photo down) who, yet again provided the original photo.

Question 7

We listed the following:

  • An approach road to IKEA Wembley Park,
  • Hogarth Roundabout,
  • Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, and M&S Simply Food in South Woodford.

and asked what they had in common.

They all lie within the North and South Circular Roads but are excluded from the expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone which was introduced in October.

The reason for the IKEA approach road is fairly obvious. The IKEA branch is outside that North Circular but you need to turn off the North Circular and go inside the North/South Circular boundary to get to it and there is no alternative.

We cannot see why the other two instances are exempt. Perhaps someone will tell us in the comments.

Question 8

The question was:

In 2021 it became known that a train manufacturer is planning to build railway carriages without any wheels.
Which train manufacturer is intending to do this?

Why ?

The answer is to the first part is Siemens. The trains in question are the new Piccadilly line stock and it is a rather clever arrangement (not uncommon in trams) to suspend a carriage between two carriages that do have wheels.

The main benefit of this is that it allows fewer bogies whilst still being able to provide ‘walk through’ trains. The other benefit, which is also acceptable as an answer, is that it frees up space under the floor for bulky air-conditioning equipment.

An excellent article by Malcolm Dobell about this (and more) can be found here.

Question 9

We featured an article on the MyLondon website and asked why re-opening York Road station on the Piccadilly line might not benefit visitors to Granary Square in the way the article suggested.

We were quite relieved that people gave at least one of the reasons we intended them to give on such an open question.

Readers grasped that:

Granary Square is, in fact, closer to King’s Cross Underground Station (even its most distant entrance) than it is to the former station at York Road. They could have added that the walk would be much more pleasant from King’s Cross than it would be from York Road.

Some answers pointed out that, even if York Road was nearer, it wouldn’t be worth the hassle of changing at King’s Cross for one stop and you might as well just leave the station at King’s Cross. So the only people who could possibly benefit would be those already on the Piccadilly line

In the second part of the question we asked why, if it were to be reopened, ‘York Road’ might not be a suitable name. Apart from the fact that York Road station was never on York Road, there is no longer a York Road as the road has been renamed York Way.

Question 10

We asked you to identify various projects:

a) A service due to be operational in Spring 2021 that still hasn’t started operating and, it was recently announced, will probably never do so. The need for it was created by an infrastructure failure that TfL wasn’t responsible for.

This was an oblique reference to the proposed Hammersmith Ferry to provide a service to cyclists and pedestrians when the bridge was closed to all users. Before it could become operational engineers decided that some fairly straightforward strengthening and monitoring would enable the bridge to re-open to pedestrians and cyclists.

b) upgrade that was due to complete around 2014 or 2018 or 2023 depending on whether you go by the original contract, the replacement contract or the current contract. In 2021 it did not even make all of the revised expected progress for the year. Some of the upgrade has now been abandoned and there is currently no published date for when the revised project will be completed.

This is the Four Lines Modernisation resignalling on the London Underground (LU). Over-ambitious during the PPP era it was immediately cancelled by TfLon the collapse of PP. They re-tendered but it became clear that the winning tender was based on technology that could not be demonstrated to work and it too was cancelled by TfL. The current works in place has been making progress but much slower than the agreed timetable and, due to the TfL budget issues, all non-essential parts of it have been abandoned.

To quote from Underground News (January 2022 issue):

… it does highlight the delays in SSR resignalling over the years – Westinghouse (40 stages from December 2008 to December 2014), Bombardier (12 stages from December 2015 to 2017 and Thales (originally planned in 14 stages March 2017 to September 2019 – now to be October 2024).

c) A critical upgrade in the long term plans of TfL but there are no current plans to begin work. However, the project was kept alive (safeguarded) by the purchase of a school.

This is Camden Town Station Capacity Upgrade which will cost well over £200 million and is completely unaffordable at present. The current scheme relies on the purchase of the former Hawley Infants School so this has been purchased in order to prevent the scheme becoming even more expensive if revived in future. It is not a scheme TfL would like to let go, as it is crucial to the long-term improvement of the Northern line.

d) It involves a temporary closure that was due in 2020 then 2021 and now 2022. The latest closure plans are slightly more radical than what was originally intended. A temporary replacement bus service will be provided.

This is Bank Station Capacity Upgrade which got delayed by a year then further delayed due to the pandemic. The temporary closure is now due to start in January and involves a temporary bus route (number 733). Plans to run an extra service northbound via the Charing Cross branch and southbound (only) via the Bank branch after the first seven weeks of closure have been abandoned.

Question 11

We asked what exceptions there were to the rule that London Underground Working Timetables are timed to the nearest half minute, except for lines with Automatic Train Operation (or the part of the line with Automatic Train Operation).

The answer we were originally looking for was the Piccadilly line. To quote from the working timetable:

Following the commissioning of the PICU signalling system, the resolution of the timetable has changed to a ¼ minute with the exception of the Rayners Lane – Uxbridge section.

It turns out that the current Waterloo & City line temporary timetable (introduced on 22nd November), and probably its predecessors, operates to the nearest quarter minute so the Waterloo & City line is also a valid answer.

Question 12

In reference to various literary references:

  • In Love On a Branch Line, Jasper purchased a ticket at Liverpool Street to a station on a branch line that had been closed for four years. A video of the TV series can be found here.
  • In the play Mrs Warren’s Profession, Praed leaves for Italy from Holborn Viaduct station. Video here.
  • In Agatha Christie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans published in 1934 we gave the following quote and asked you to identify the station.

The train drew up at a station and Frankie saw that it was XXXXXXXXXXX. She had overshot Oxford Circus, where she meant to have changed, by two stations.

We gave a bit if a clue by suggesting that this would help identify when the story was set. The answer, which, alternatively, could be obtained by simply searching the story online was British Museum. British Museum station closed in 1933.

Our final section was the classic first encounter in The Importance of Being Earnest between Jack and Lady Bracknell, and asked why Jack was so anxious to point out that it was the cloakroom on the ‘Brighton Line’ at Victoria station. Various descriptions were given but all either emphasised that ‘the Brighton line’ was considered superior and more up market (and serving a better class of clientele), or they pointed out that the other side of the station was the London, Chatham and Dover side of the station which served poverty-stricken towns such as the Medway towns and therefore one did not wish to associate with it. Any answer that conveys the message that the Brighton line was somewhat better than the Chatham lines would get the point.

Question 13

The Underground line with the most stations underground is the Northern line with 35. This is to-some-extent intuitive as it has two sections running (underground) through central London.

And the Underground line with the least number of stations underground is, fairly obviously, the Waterloo & City line.

Question 14

The question was:

In what year, did London buses prevent a German invasion of England? And which town were the Germans trying to occupy as a bridgehead?

This was a reference to an article written in 2012 by John Bull concerning a military exercise. This took place in 1908 and was based in Shoeburyness (part of the greater area of Southend-On-Sea).

Question 15

We hope that no-one was naïve enough to believe that the picture really was taken at Covent Garden – at least not at Covent Garden Underground Station. The floor is wrong and the usual clutter is absent which gives an unrestricted view of the pristine tiles. This is the whole point. This display can actually be found at Jackfield Tile Museum in Ironbridge whose website can be found here.

Announcing the winners

We will announce winners in the coming days. Meanwhile, we hope 2022 turns out to be somewhat better than 2020 or 2021 which will give us a better opportunity to investigate transport topics and provide quiz questions.

23 comments

  1. Hi and happy new year all!

    I didn’t submit answers as I couldn’t get many and didn’t really have time to do a lot of research, but want to thank PoP and all involved in the quiz for doing it, especially in these difficult times…

    If it’s possible, could the image links on https://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/london-buses-and-the-battle-for-shoeburyness/ be fixed – they 404 for me and while not essential to the article, being able to see them would be great

    Thanks again!

    [It seems to be working for me now. PoP]

  3. Re question 7:
    One similar case has appeared recently: There is a MacD “restaurant” at the Yorkshire Grey roundabout on South Circular. You need to turn off onto A210 on the ULEZ side of South Circular to drive in, but the exit is on South Circular, so non-ULEZ. The ULEZ cameras are picking up their customers as they enter. And yes, they have an actual drive-in counter.
    If they don’t manage to get the camera moved slightly I predict there’ll be people trying to enter via the exit fairly soon.

    My source for this is various versions or Mr “Outraged Of Facebook” on some local groups 🙂

  4. B****** Birkbeck!

    Thanks for your efforts on this PoP, a shame that more didn’t enter this year as I thought it was one of the less difficult ones.

  5. Hogarth is similar to the LEZ M4/M25. TfL cannot enforce restrictions upon the motorway so the zones continue to the next roundabout to turn around.

    Similarly at Woodford there is no connection to the North Circular so to avoid vehicles doing u-turns upon the A1199 road the zone extends to the first available roundabout to turn back.
    The three supermarkets all have car-parks and all are within the ULEZ. Pedantically there are some on-street metered spots alongside those stores that are outside the ULEZ.

    I had 5 on my first read through with 3 bitsa, no clue for further research.

  6. I didn’t enter this year for the simple reason I hadn’t spent much time on it and not found convincing answers to several questions!

    For reference I got 1,2, all of 4,8, all of 9,10,&12, 13 and 14.

    3 – was working on it being the virtual control tower for City Airport, but found no conclusive evidence so suspected I was wrong.

    5 – I’d discounted Birkbeck because trams still stopped there, apparently. (When is a station not a station?) Pimlico is the only one mentioned in ‘pingdemic’ articles but I couldn’t find evidence it was shut for more than a couple days.

    6 – d’oh! I got the reasons and thought the building was familiar! I guessed from the number ‘two’ it was by a bridge or tunnel, and wondered if the building was the Barbican…

    7 – had discounted various answers involving George pubs, flooding in 2021, traffic light replacement car chargers, Covid tailbacks, and Covid testing sites… I did have ‘ULEZ expansion’ as a topic I suspected there would be a question on somewhere…

    8 I guessed the correct answers but wasn’t sure, after a lot of reading about maglevs and Hornby.

    11 – I didn’t get the Piccadilly line, having been diverted by the text below, and found suggestions of 1/4 minute intervals on the Bakerloo and H&C previously – no doubt there is a reason those don’t qualify.

    IanVisits 16 September 2021: “The upgrade has been underway since 2016 with signalling upgrades switching on in stages, but earlier this week, the first public-facing changes occurred that show the impact all those years of work will have. The latest timetables used for the Underground are showing faster journeys and a more refined calculation of the timings, initially along the H&C and parts of the Met lines.

    Previously the elderly signalling could only allow timetables to have timings resolution to the nearest half-minute, but the current stage of the modern signalling upgrade has already improved that to every quarter minute. So the new timetables are seeing the ¼ and ¾ symbols in them for the first time.

    Improving the signalling resolution to the quarter minute means that they will eventually be able to run trains a bit closer together so they can start increasing the number of trains per hour on the lines, and more trains per hour means more capacity on the railway to carry passengers”

    Previous exceptions: Bakerloo Last trains from Baker Street refer to 00:40 1/4 and 00:04 1/4 on working timetable
    H&C peak periods run with a 3 1/4 min interval

    15 – suspected it was part of the Hidden London exhibition, until I couldn’t find any pics at all. Couldn’t find references to Aldwych being dressed as CG, so suspected it was something further afield, but didn’t get round to researching.

    I’m interested in tiles but didn’t know the Tile Museum existed, so thank you for the pointer and I hope to visit it soon.

    And as ever, thank you for the entertaining quiz which is a highlight of our Christmas.

  7. Excellent Quiz, as always. And probably my best performance yet. The tile museum looks worth a visit next time I’m up that way.

    1. Brian B – that would be an error if it was missing, but the Overground interchange is shown

    3. Thought it looked like it might be mobile, but failed to identify it was Kenley airfield. I THINK this is the only one I got wrong

    7. Aleks – I think that is the reason for all three – nowhere to turn at the crossing point of the A406

    9. As well as Granary Square, the article suggested an across-the street interchange with the North London Line could be in prospect if a new station were built on that line, despite the fact that York Road station is a good quarter mile from the closest approach of the NLL

    11. There is a 1/4 minute timing in the Bakerloo WTT (for one of the sleet workings) but it appear to be a typo as it is inconsistent with the point to point timings of the other sleet workings.

    12. The information given could have led to Trafalgar Square, which no longer appears on the Tube map either, but re-reading the book identifies the right one.

  8. 3: Is also a Conservation Area …
    4: Does “Hammersmith” count as a valis alternative? Especially as the Garden Bridge fiasco was some time back?
    7: I got that utterly wrong – but – there is another location where a set of “shops” ( Large shopping warehouses ) are “inside the N Circular, but cannot ( I think ) be reached in a 4-wheel vehicle except from the A405 – just S of “the viaduct” on the Chingford/Edmonton boundary ??
    9: Is this, thus an invalid answer: Platforms are now too short for modern standards AND Entry/exit to ground level could be “problematic” ( Where do you put any escalators? ) – or not?
    York Rd, Belfast does not count?
    12c: Ah, the number of “X”s was NOT an indicator … no fair!
    14: Ah, so the London Buses taking troops to the trenches is NOT a correct answer?

    I’m miffed over the “No Wheels” answer though – they do have wheels, just fewer of them …

  9. Happy new year to all.
    Just to add that 450 (Kenley) Squadron, Royal Air Force Air Cadets are also based at Kenley.

  10. @Greg
    4. TfL have studiously avoided paying for Hammersmith Bridge, saying it’s Hammersmith & Fulham’s responsibility (although it is actually more of a problem for Richmond). The question spoecifically mentioned that the costs were over several years
    7. I think you mean the A406 – the ULEZ doesn’t (yet) extend to Watford and St Albans
    9. Underground station was specified, and I don’t think there has ever been a proposal to extend the Tube under the St Georges Channel
    14. The 1914 deployment of London Buses was to try to hold back the invasion by Germany of Belgium and France, not of England
    No wheels – the trains have wheels, but the question was about carriages, some of which won’t

  11. Hessie,

    Thanks for comments. On a couple of points
     
    – Birkbeck tram stop and Birkbeck station are two distinct entities with no way to get from one to the other without exiting to the street. It always was the case when just a railway station in that you had to exit at street level to get to the other platform. Next time we do a question about Birkbeck I will be careful to refer to a train service to remove all possible doubt.
     
    – The Hammersmith & City line has Automatic Train Operation (at least between Hammersmith and Stepney East) so is compliant with the rule. As a result of setting this question I now realise that this is all rather out-of-date and effectively all lines (except the Bakerloo) are timed to at least the nearest quarter minute with the Victoria line timed to the nearest 5 seconds. One can understand the Bakerloo only being timed to the nearest half minute given that it overlaps with Network Rail which only times to the nearest half minute and the relative infrequency of the service.

  12. timbeau,

    Thank you for your response to Greg – saves me having to do it.

    The renaming of Trafalgar Square underground station took place after Agatha Christie died (1976) so couldn’t have in any way have been relevant. I deliberately mentioned the date of publication (1934). One of the strange things about Agatha Christie novels is that she rarely gives direct clues to indicate when her novels are set. I think she has an idealised version of a fictional period in time (idealised to her) that she uses. I do wonder if she deliberately referred to British Museum station to indicate that she wasn’t referring to the present or whether she just didn’t know it was closed. It does seem strange that, of all stations to choose, she chose that one.

  13. @GregT – you may be thinking of CostCo only accessible from the A406. There is a one-way exit that takes you to the neighbouring Tesco Ikea from where there is a link south. All irrelevant to ULEZ as any premises inside the 406 are not permitted to older vehicles so you have to drive to Wembley Neasden where the same stores are on the right side of the road.

    @Timbeau – The interchange shown is for National Rail. On a TfL diagram the interchange should also be shown as a TfL service the Overground line.

  15. https://cdn.londonreconnections.com/assets/1905dedion1.jpg

    https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/70000241

    https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/system/files/styles/collection_item_component_600_px_wide/private/collection_item/2020-10/9877066.jpg?itok=CkRJL5DO

    https://scontent.ffab2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/69011374_10156705912139353_160261812682489856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=okOEFHCUgI8AX8mITtL&_nc_ht=scontent.ffab2-1.fna&oh=00_AT88tZQ8bdXiiKK3GDA52bCNsLshGktX2Od1Mq7pKzbbIw&oe=61F7CD19

  16. Thank you for another excellent quiz – I can’t believe I fell into the trap of thinking question 5 referred to an Underground station!

    Question 12 – There is another dated Agatha Christie Undergroud reference at the start of her novel ‘Secret Adversary’ where the main characters meet at Dover Street station. The Brighton side of Victoria may have been considered superior in the past but I’m not sure many people would be thinking that today as it continues to be a ghost station.

  17. Although I didn’t submit an answer I want to add my thanks to the team, Good fun – even if I only got about three answers….

  19. Re: Q7
    Without wanting to sound like too much of a pedant, according to the official map at https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/ulez-where-and-when , access to actual the car parks of Sainsburys, Waitrose and M&S Simply Food in South Woodford is inside the ULEZ as they all require you to turn off the excluded road to reach them. You could argue I suppose that Waitrose and M&S are private access roads and don’t count, but the Sainsburys car park access is via a public side road that surely must be within the zone.
    Only short sections of the A1199 and B168 George Lane are outside the ULEZ, presumably to allow non-compliant vehicles to turn at the roundabout on George Lane. I imagine you’re allowed to park a non-compliant vehicle on George Lane, if you can find a bay?

  21. Q9 – it strikes me that the newest entrance to Waterloo underground station is on a York Road. Not likely to cause any real confusion in this instance, I’m sure, but anyone asking Google Maps to “go to the underground station, York Road” could be in for a shock!

  22. An excellent and though provoking quiz as usual. At the end of the answers you said you hoped to publish the winners in the coming days and as it’s now March (just) I was wondering whether you have managed to find time to sort it all out, or have I missed the announcement?

    I have no expectation of being a winner, indeed I’d be astonished if I came anywhere close to being one, but it would be nice to know how well others did.

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