Any time before departure?
3 - not sure about the size, but I seem to remember that you have to be able to carry them all at once, by yourself, unaided. Really not sure this is enforced, though!
It's actually up to 10 minutes before departure, and yes, it is three bags of luggage
Right, time for me to start the trip report!
On Saturday 12th October, it was a relatively early start (as it always is!), with a 07:45 alarm, followed by a long shower, which meant I was pretty rushed getting out. With all my stuff ready, I legged it down to the bus stop, and fortunately the bus was a few minutes late. I caught the slow bus through town (route 44), thinking that the fast one (route 4) wouldn't arrive for a while, but it just came round the corner as I was getting on! Didn't really matter though, as I had ample time at the station. I got there at about 08:45, bought a bacon baguette from upper crust (very crunchy!), before standing on the footbridge, watching the 0857 to King's Cross, and the 0857 to Manchester Airport arrive and depart, while waiting for the doors to be opened on my service, the 09:11 from York, all the way through to Blackpool North.
I had thought of lots of different plans for the day's travel, as it's the first time I've had one of these Northern Rovers, and all of them involved me going over to the West Coast, as I've hardly done anything over there. My first couple of plans involved going to Lancaster and Carlisle, but I wanted to go a bit further south, without having to buy an extortionately priced Virgin ticket down to Preston, so I decided to do the Blackpool North service, which I've seen leave York all the time, without ever having a chance to do it.
The service was completely empty from York, a 3 car 158759 with only three people in the front coach! A few more people joined as we stopped at all stations (except Ulleskelf
) into Leeds, where a lot of people joined, and it started to get quite packed. A middle aged woman from Newark sat opposite me, and we started to chat a little bit, which was pretty interesting! By the time we got past Bradford, it was full and standing, including 8 guys who were dressed in baby onesies, who were obviously going to Blackpool for a stag do (the north eh!). The service was packed, all the way through to Preston (I'm sure I saw Lampshade there!), where the three seats around my table were now filled by a young mum and dad, with a 5 year old, who thought Poulton-le-Fylde was the North Pole, and that he was gonna see santa out of the window (I couldn't help laughing to myself, it was adorable!). Just before Poulton-le-Fylde, we ground to a halt, due to apparent signalling problems. I wasn't too worried, as I had 20 minutes to change onto a service back to Preston, and it turned out not too bad as we arrived only 8 minutes late.
Blackpool North by
Mikez2605, on Flickr
I was warned that the staff at Blackpool were "pesky sods" (no names mentioned!), and they were certainly on top form when I arrived. I went out into the concourse, before checking the trains back to Preston. I had a choice of two trains, the 12:20 or the 12:29, and I'm glad I had a choice, because the 12:20 was delayed by 20 minutes due to missing train crew, but fortunately the 12:29 was on time, being formed of 158759, working the service back to York. I was let onto the station at about 12:15, so I went to take a picture of the 12:20 which was waiting to depart from platform 4 (my York train was on 6), which prompted a member of staff to quickly walk over to me and point towards my train. I then moved over to Platform 7 to take a picture of a TPE 185, and the staff followed me, telling me that my train is on Platform 6, before closing off Platform 7 with a barrier!
I walked down to the front of my train, and saw that a Northern service from Liverpool South Parkway, so I walked to the side of Platform 5, and started to take some photos. I briefly looked behind me to see the guard of my train and the platform staff waving at me angrily! Not really realising what was going on, I continued to take photos, which prompted the guard to blow his whistle loudly at me, as he marched down the platform towards me, to tell me that I was a security risk and that I should board my train straight away
The train back to Preston left on time, and I was a bit wary that the signal failure that hampered my journey in, would do the same back out, and with a 9 minute connection at Preston, I couldn't afford to be too late :P Fortunately we arrived on time, and I had a quick hop through the station, taking a few pictures, onto the 12:59 to Omskirk, a short end to end journey of half an hour, on a 1 car 153324. Arriving on time at Omskirk, I made the "change of platforms" from 2 to 1, which was actually just one long platform (the same as Kirkby I think). I remember looking at this about a year ago and thinking how odd it was, and it was quite cool that I was actually there now
Omskirk by
Mikez2605, on Flickr
I changed over for the 13:35 to Liverpool Central, which was a nice journey, I was surprised at how rural it was out in Omskirk. The journey lasted half an hour again, getting into Liverpool Central at 14:05, before I quickly exited the station. I'm living with a roommate from Liverpool this year, so I sent him a quick snapchat story of my time in Liverpool, including fun snaps such as a picture of the NHS with 'getting my liverpool immunity jab' as a caption
I popped into Greggs for some lunch (wasn't really in the mood for fish and chips, but I did check out the Lobster Pot, so thanks anyway AntoniC
), before I made my way up to Lime Street, and it was about 14:35. I hung around for a little bit (mostly because I was confused at the station layout), taking a few pictures, before jumping on the 14:57 service, a fast service up to Blackpool North, which I took as far as Wigan. There were a few seats around, but I decided to stand in the middle of the two car 156425 so I could eat my baguette without getting too close to anyone! We arrived at Wigan North Western one minute early at 15:29, where a Pendolino was in the up fast platform, and fortunately my picture of it was pretty decent
Wigan North Western by
Mikez2605, on Flickr
After watching that depart, and a Voyager arrive bound for Edinburgh, I made my way out of the station for my second OSI, from North Western to Wallgate, which was much more simple than from Liverpool Central to Lime Street, as it was just down the road. I was surprised to see my train to Salford Central already in the platform as I arrived (about 10 minutes before departure), as I didn't realise it started from here. I laughed, seeing that it was my first Pacer mileage of the day, which I wasn't too unhappy about. I'm not too bothered about the Pacers, they're quite comically bad!
Wigan Wallgate by
Mikez2605, on Flickr
142032 took me via Bolton, but not without it's problems! Just before Westhaughton, we ground to a stop, and the guard of the train quickly walked up to the driver, before walking back down into her cab, and no announcement was made. At first I thought we were being held because of a single line section, but this wasn't the case in the end. We started back up after a while, and got into Bolton 7 minutes late, and I'm still none the wiser for the delay :P The pacer picked itself back up though, arriving into Salford Crescent 5 minutes late. This was the last of my problems though!
My connection at Salford Crescent was the 16:26 to Manchester Airport (I'd be alighting at Piccadilly), but unfortunately, this had gone up via Bolton as well, and had been held directly behind us when we stopped at Westhaughton, so it was now running about 7 minutes late too. I had planned a 10 minute change at Manchester Piccadilly, onto the Hope Valley stopper, and I was starting to get very nervous when it was put behind the 16:30 to Manchester Victoria! Fortunately it arrived very quickly afterwards, with a hybrid of 142063 + 150423 arriving to take me the short hop to Piccadilly. We left Salford Crescent 5 minutes late, and when we arrived at Manchester Piccadilly with only two minutes to run from Platform 13 to Platform 1, I had all but given up hope! I was very glad that I knew what platform I had to go to, because I didn't have a chance to check any boards on the way. I sprinted over the bridge, to see the guard just about to close the doors. Running down the full length of the platform, I was so pleased that the guard let me jump on, coughing and completely out of breath from the unexpected exercise! :P The guard was really nice, talking to all of the passengers as they waited to leave, and I had a small conversation with him when I alighted at Sheffield, about how it was impossible to maintain time on this service, with the tight schedule out of Manchester. As it turns out, 142043 arrived at Sheffield 7 minutes late, which wasn't too bad. I also swore to myself never to take a Northern stopper again, it was one of the most depressing things, stopping at the tiny shacks with no one getting on or off!
At Sheffield, I wandered out of the station to grab a Burger King, before wandering around the platforms, waiting for my connection, the 18:45 to Lincoln, so I had about 40 minutes to waste. There was still quite a lot going on at that time in the evening, so it wasn't too bad. Another pacer arrived for me (142016 this time), and it got pretty packed in there, although I did fortunately get a seat. I was dark by now, so I gave up looking out of the window, deciding to read my RAIL magazine, before arriving at Lincoln two minutes early, before meeting my girlfriend and spending the night at hers
Total Mileage for the day was 299m 76 chains, including about 240 miles of new track covered, which was pretty decent! Very pleased for a days work.
As mentioned, I decided to book an advance on the last train out of Lincoln to York, which started on the 21:26 from Lincoln. We got to Newark Northgate all fine, arriving at 21:56, however the fun was just beginning! My next train was the 22:59, so I had an hour to pass on this wet and cold night. I think the things I did are better summed up in bullet point form:
-Sat in the waiting room for 5 minutes before getting bored and going back outside
-Went to the toilet that was supposed to close at 9pm (thankfully it was still open because I was bursting!)
-Watched an empty HST from Lincoln depart from platform 3 (the station staff told me that there was a waiting room for me to wait in, which I was aware of already!)
-Sobbed as I was 5p short of a snickers from the vending machine (Why did it not allow coppers?
)
-Wondered why the past tense of headbang isn't headbung
-Went outside the station just to break my journey on an advance ticket
-Changed the parking ticket machines to French and Spanish
-Laughed at how evil I was for ages
-Read all the East Coast rules outside of the station (and made a fantastic quiz)
-Lift bashed (went up and down both of the lifts, laughing at how it says 'going down' when you're on the bridge level)
-Finally caught my service at 23:06, consisting of 91108 + 82224
But the fun wasn't over yet! We arrived at Doncaster at 23:34, before I jumped off, to catch the connecting train, which was waiting outside the station before my previous train had even set off! I hung around at the back so I could catch the rear HST number. After I had noted it down, I was quickly rushed onto the service, even though there was a red signal ahead of us, and it stayed this way for a hell of a long time!
The guard made an announcement that there was a problem up ahead, so I put my head out of the window and had a quick chat with the station staff, who said there was a broken down train at Shaftholme Junction. An engineer ran up onto the platform, and walked up, and some of the staff joked about how they were hoping he wasn't running all the way up to Shaftholme! As it turns out, he jumped in the cab, but we still weren't getting under way. I was trying to work out what was going on for a while, as we were still waiting at Doncaster until 00:14, when we finally left, passing D285 at danger. My head out of the window, it took me a little while to work out what was going on, and after a bit of discussion with starmill and Crossover on Facebook (if you don't have me on Facebook,
why not?), I worked out that we were on the wrong line, which explained why were going slowly, and why there were no north facing signals for us to pass. We approached Shaftholme junction, and we passed a broken down engineering train, which was on the down line, with an engineer on the track beside it, signalling us past. We then crossed over onto the down, before pulling up beside 66121, where the engineer we picked up jumped over to it, between cabs (I do wonder how safe that is), before we carried on, up the right line, finally getting back up to line speed. That was all pretty interesting for a Sunday night! We finally arrived in York at 00:44, meaning I can claim half of my £6.95 back on delay repay, result!
I got a taxi home from there, with a totally crazy cab driver, speeding through the back streets (aren't they all like that?), arriving back home just before 1, which was a great end to an awesome weekend
Man that was a huge story, hope I didn't bore too many people out of their minds while reading!
Thanks for reading (if you did!)
Oh, I also remembered that I found a HEX ticket on the train from Newark to Doncaster, it's on purple stock too!
love it
We'll have to keep a lookout for each other- it'll probably be a Pacer so it shouldn't be too difficult! I'll be with my parents and sister and will probably be a bit tired after leaving Retford at 7:40 in the morning to get there! 
