Bus Runs Routes 41A and 64 Finished

The day I lit out to finish the 64 bus route on the Bus Runs Project I planned to catch the tram to Wednesbury, cover a few other bus route segments, then pick up my targeted route segment on the run home. My timing was impeccable as I arrived 2 minutes early to the tram stop only to find that the tram arrived 2 minutes and 15 seconds early. Rather than wait it out, I decided to reverse the plan and headed up the bike path along the tramway. There was a little bit of new graffiti out including the tag by the WTAS Crew, above, under a bridge between Dudley Street/Guns Village and Black Lake.

Whilst adding the 11 February run to the various maps I realised I also completed the 41A:

Being Sunday lunchtime, there wasn’t much foot traffic — nor, in fact, traffic — in Wednesbury. It was kind of a breakthrough run, though, the kind that comes a few weeks after returning to heavier activity following a long period of injury and illness. Still not fast (nor ever expecting to be again), this was the first run that felt…pleasurable. 

Route 41A was completed with runs on January 6, 7, and 14 plus February 4 and 11. Route 64 was covered using all of those dates plus bits of January 20 and 28 plus February 10. 

Kidderminster Rainy Day

The first pedestrian subway I met in Kidderminster surprisingly didn’t smell like a urinal: surprisingly because of the quality of the graffiti and the young couple drinking beer at 8 in the morning.

However, the graffiti improved as the day progressed from the politically eloquent to some sublime Republican sentiments.

It was new TrigPointing territory, as well, and I found my first on Exchange Street as I hiked between the Swan and the library (helpfully highlighted in yellow chalk):

Peckish, I headed toward the Home of Souvlaki for a gyros and stopped by an old Telephone Exchange to bag another Cut Mark. But, I was also treated to a quite special post box (yes, I’m still doing THAT, as well):

The building also had a lovely Blue Plaque for the ‘instigator’ of Penny Post (so I got to triple dip at this tourism site):

The mark itself was somewhat anticlimactic:

Lunch done and the rain chucking it down, I worked my way back to the station withonly a modicum of exercise under my belt. Only one of the four Cut Marks on my list still exists, the one at 31 George St.

Soaked but safely back at the station, I noted an old horse trough (how 19th century of these people).

There is also an old but still operating Bundy clock there. When still used, there was a spool of paper inside and the bus drivers reaching this point would stick in a key unique to them and the time of arrival would be stamped on the paper spool.

Likewise well preserved was this Victoria Regina post box, on the short walk to the King & Castle pub in the Severn Valley Rail (historic steam trains here) portion of Kidderminster Station:

Sunbeam, Wolverhampton tourism

Walking around Wolverhampton on a rainy Friday looking for something else I spotted these fantastic plaques on the side of the Garden Centre.

The Sunbeam Tiger was Maxwell Smart’s (Agent 86’s) car. The company was from Wolverhampton, originally.

These fence decorations are better than the strip mall deserves.

But, spectacular.

Phil Lynott bust, West Bromwich

After this loop through West Bromwich in which no benchmarks or other triangulation points were accessible (a lot of refurb in de buurt), I uploaded the only photo of the day. A google query of homeboy (at least he was for a few days after birth) Phil Lynott cross referenced with search terms such as ‘benchmark’ or ‘pointing’ returns rich material but nothing I can really crowbar into a TrigPointing post — but I really like this sculpture so here is something else that fits in the blog.

Not a big Thin Lizzy fan, me, but I love their version of Whisky In The Jar (which apparently Mr Lynott hated). I, on the other hand, despise The Boys Are Back In Town. Then, there’s Jailbreak…”Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town.” Perhaps, and just hear me out on this, it might be at the jail? {Credit for this joke may be claimed by any number of Twitter Twats who use it without such attribution but I first heard it from one of Todd McBride‘s friends back in high school around 1979.}

Edgbastards: Trig Desert

I made a morning loop while waiting for the security gates to open at work — I can get in before 8 but the alarms are a pain in the ass to turn off. There were potentially 13 Cut Marks, Poles, and Rivets to find in front of the monstrously large houses along the way in the posh bit of Edgbaston; but, most, as you see, were Not Found (probably destroyed when the walls with integrated security systems replaced the old fortifications).

I had seen the Pritchatt’s Road mark from the bus a few weeks ago but the turn onto Somerset Road held only promise.

Up Farquhar I found one closer to the gate of #10 than it was supposed to be and, since the benchtop was nowhere near to horizontal, I reckon the wall had been rebuilt at some point.

The electrical substation is locked up and though it would be a simple fence-hop to access the structure the authorities take The Grid fairly seriously and I didn’t really fancy explaining my trespassing.

But, it was a pretty morning and I made the most of the other finds. About a hundred meters down from the BOOBS graffito, the nursing mother statue at the Women’s Hospital soaked in the sunrise.

I’m still hunting the meaning of LCE Tubular, but I found several of these plates on the older hospital buildings during the final leg of this journey.

Jimi TrigPointing

{Note: this was about two months ago…he’s since been through medical hell and is now recovering, we hope.}

We were walking home from our annual vaccinations when Jimi spotted the Cut Mark on the wall at 12/14 Hilltop. Thanks, buddy!

As a reward, I took the Ridgacre Canal path down the road to get away from the noisy traffic.

It dumped us out at the tramline walk adjacent to Black Lake. Halfway to Dudley Street, my thoughts were echoed by a rogue reviewer with a Sharpie:

Amateur Graffiti Trig Pointing

An after work run around Wolverhampton was punctuated by the ‘advanced placement’ school kids stencils spotted while chasing benchmarks. It is only defacing a wall when the paint and not the message is the point. Kids, huh?

I had baled out of Wolverhampton Station with a bolt — TP14189 — in my sights. But, I only had a map and the description with me and no elevation so I mistakenly looked for it embedded in a wall cut up on the 9th floor. Nice up there and I’ll be back to complete the task now that I’ve seen it is actually rivetted into the driving area.

I was thorough, though, and checked down at ground level, too, finding this funny — if grammatically dodgy — effort from someone who left their stencil kit at home.

I’ve really stuck to a small area of Wolverhampton on my visits so far. So, just expanding my footprint a few streets north and east yields wonderful new territory. Mickey Rat, here, seems to be Trig Bagging as well:

But, the weather was intermittently foul and I soldiered on back to streets with which I’ve come to be familiar. On Stafford near the bus stops this one turned up (Bus Stop Wet Day Benchmarks My Way I’ve Got No Umbrella):

Heading to St Pete’s, the Art Gallery had a mark near to this old plaque of the house’s former use:

Worn but still there (like me!):

The skies were darkening behind me as I finally bagged TP14159, the flagstaff on St Pete’s. There may also be a Cut Mark at the corner to the left but I suspect the wear on the sandstone there has obscured it.

Finally, there was one to find at the Tiger public house:

Now the North Street Social, it has neverbeen open when I pass.

The Electric Cinema, Birmingham

Pub #2620:

While not a pub, as such, the Electric Cinema is a truly fantastic drinking establishment. Sure, we paid an £8 entertainment cover (for Oppenheimer on 35mm…it’s alright, you should see it), but the bar itself was reasonable. The bar is reasonable and the cinema is fantastic.

Opened in 1909, it was the first cinema in Brum and is the oldest in the country still operating as such. My new favourite place.

Willy Wonka TrigPoints

The run, that day, was down the canal slowly to confirm existence (or lack thereof) of some TrigPoints near work. Indeed, most of my list came to nowt but I did spot some features I have repeatedly overlooked these last few years.

This bollard-looking post actually should have a waymarker on it with the distances to places along the canal on it. Someone has this for a souvenir, I’m sure.

Down at Bournville, the Cadbury Bournville Works may still have a pin (TP19754) on the roof but I think this is the best shot I’ll ever have of it (if it still exists).

Continuing down the canal, I found another — intact this time — way marker:

Stirchley is kind of hipster and kind of hippy. A family or organisation of one or the other flavour put out some wildflower boxes since my last sojourn down Mary Vale.

On the corner of that building (the Alexandra Street side), was my first Cut Mark of the day.

Heading toward Cotteridge I suddenly came over a bit ill and faint (this was back during the skin cancer dosing and my normally low blood pressure was prone to precipitous drops). I cut the trip short and turned on to Fordhouse Road to catch a bus but also picked up this nice one on the wall at the juncture of numbers 17 and 19:

Day out in Digbeth

Jackie spotted a small poster for a vintage furniture place (the Moseley Vintage Hub) near Bordesley Station and, since we need a piece to put our turntable on and store CDs within, we headed down on a Saturday, mid-July. We actually had success and it was delivered a week later, but we’ll definitely be back.

We killed a few minutes going through the vinyl there while a rain outbreak passed, then made our way to the Rainbow for a beverage. We passed an enormous wedding party at a big venue on the way then, as we prepared to turn to the pub I stopped for a Cut Mark I knew was close (another one, on the pub, turned out to no longer exist).

Refreshed, we headed back out and looped by the central bus garage, a magnificent and massive building.

Jackie was really taken with the heraldry above the bus door, pointing out art and industry having a lean against the shield of, perhaps, the monarch or maybe the City or the County. The arm and hammer out of the parapet remains a mystery but I’ll update this if we figure it all out. FORWARD!

Voce Books was our other target, a small independent shop hidden by the arches just down from the cop shop on Alison Street. We could have bought the entire inventory, but settled on a couple of tomes we both wanted to read.