Not much happened to day, I made the 6 round trips without major incident as usual. Tweenaway was it's usual ununderstandable mess. A road improvement scheme has been in progress there for seemingly ever. When the Universe was created Tweenaway Cross Roads were already a gleam in some body's eye. Some vengeful god I imagine. The problem is with the traffic management, or lack of it I should say, at the road works. I don't think enough care is taken to make sure everyone knows what to do. At the moment there is ane lane until 15 metres before the lights which turn into two lanes as you approach from the Zoo. The right lane is for turning right only and the traffic light for that traffic is on green only long enough for about 5 cars to turn right. The left lane is for turning left or straight on. Problem is there is no sign explaining which lane motorists should be in. It is tricky getting into the left lane so most motorist stay in the right lane and when the light turns red they stop and block the left lane which still has a green light for an other 20 seconds. The queue of traffic stretches back several hundred metres at time and I go that way seven times a day. Gives me chance to relax but I wish the contractors or Torbay council would take 10 minutes to look at the problem and sort it out. Trouble is the only ones who care are us poor sods who drive that way.
Apart from the above the only other moment of excitement was the car stopping on Torbay Rd. Well he had to stop, the car in front had also stopped in the usual queue of traffic that builds up while the barriers were down at the level crossing. After the train had gone and the barriers gone up the first 6 cars drove on to the crossing but there is only room for 5 cars to clear the danger area that the trains use. I was almost begging the barriers to come down but they didn't. There is no real danger of being hit by a train here. Trains coming from the left will be leaving Paignton Station which is only 10 yards away and trains coming from the right will be stopping in the station and have several hundred metres clear view of the crossing in which to stop. Would have been embarrassing for the driver of the car though.
Anyway here is a photo of a 600 year old oak tree to calm anyone who needs calming.
2 comments:
The signaller won't clear the train's path until the crossing is clear anyway due to the low speed, but that's no excuse as obstructing the crossing'll cause major delays all round
Would be jolly nice of First Great Western to rebuild Paignton Station on the other side of the line, so the level crossing isn't used by trains as frequently. But that's a distant hope.
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