18th April – Derbyshire Wayfarer
The day began with a walk to catch the 5:59 service, which connected up with the 7:10 departure from Reading to Birmingham which I was booked on, however when walking down the road and seeing a unit pulling in got me into a run, had SWT decided to bring the departure time forward to 5:56 as they sometimes do? Jumping on board 159012/159007 (a double unit at this time of the morning?), I looked up to see that it wasn’t the 5:59, but the 5:27 which I normally catch running 28 minutes late! Something had happened around Laverstock as the 5:47 departure from Basingstoke was stuck behind it. To try and pull back some lost time it ran fast from Andover to Basingstoke and was due to run non-stop to Waterloo (which in all fairness it managed to get back 18 of those minutes).
I had tickets to Reading with the idea of seeing which FGW 165 would make an appearance on the shuttle to Reading and link up with the XC Manchester service, with the late running XC service behind, arriving into Basingstoke 47 minutes late (gained a few minutes back from a fast reversal at Reading, but looking at RTT lost more time to Oxford, and terminated at Birmingham 57 minutes late. Although with 2 XC services heading to Manchester arriving within a few minutes of each other at the likes of Oxford, Banbury & Leamington Spa meant the unit I was on was rather quiet. Anyhow, the 5:47 was a dud 221, so I turned over to see which 165 had rolled in to form the service to Reading and that was also a dud, so back to the original plan to get onto the XC I was booked on for the long trip to New Street.
The unit in question was dud 220003, and a nice trip to New Street arriving a couple minutes down, the service only really getting busy after International. Quick turnaround as I attempted to find P12, and getting confused and ending up on P10/P11, and eventually found P12 just as the Edinburgh bound dud 221138 rolled in, taking my nice table seat for the run to Derby. Quick look at what units were around the station to make my first winning move of the day, a 156 was on a Derby-Crewe run which was dud, a 153 was on a Matlock run, which was also dud, a winner 170 arrived but sadly ran fast to Nottingham (should have bailed at Burton and waited the 10 minutes for that service to catch up), but the next Birmingham bound service was winner
170117 so I jumped on for the run down to
Burton On Trent my first new station of the day.
However it is a station where the Birmingham bound services arrive a couple minutes after a Derby bound service had departed, so I had a 25 minute wait. Seemed that the town centre was a fair walk away, so decided to take a seat in the nice little area to await the arrival of the next 170 to Derby, and it was winner
170105. Back at Derby and the next service which I could catch was winner
222016 which I took for the 24 odd miles to my 2nd new station of the day at
Chesterfield, with a 20 minute wait for the next service (seems XC stop 1 train an hour [South West to North] at Chesterfield, the other [Reading to North] running fast), like Burton the town centre seems to be a fair walk from the station, so after 15 minutes I was back onto the station, noting the subway as the next two departures were within a couple minutes of each other so if one was dud I would make a quick dash to P1 to see what was heading north. The platform dash wasn’t required as heading south was winner
222005 so it was back to Derby for a fast turnaround to jump onto winner
222018 back north, knowing that Chesterfield would be another wait I stayed on until Sheffield.
An eye on departures saw a late running Norwich service, which was formed of dud 158864 with winner
158863 behind, so back to Chesterfield where due to late running it was routed into the lesser used platform 3, I guess the signallers wanted it onto the slow tracks as soon as possible as 222016 was making its way back south. Next service southbound was a XC, and was winner
220023, so happy days. Into Derby to see the next Crewe service being formed of a double dog-box, leading was required
153302 with dud 153310 [last had nearly a year ago on the same service] which took me to the first call at
Tutbury & Hatton. Nice little platforms at Tutbury, with a factory producing coffee by the side (lovely coffee smell), pretty soon dud 153374 rolled in to take me to Derby, passing the lesser used station at Peartree, a task for another day to try and clear that station which will probably involve a bus (or a bike) to avoid a near 2 hour wait for the next service which calls there.
Back at Derby, my eyes was on the next northbound service, formed of winner
222012 taking me to Sheffield, with an eye on catching the Hope Valley stopper, which was a wise choice as the next service from Chesterfield was a delayed Northern Leeds service, which we passed heading out of Sheffield, heading over to platform 2C (new platform and tiny new bit of track), to await the probable Pacer. The NRDMUG was being kind and didn’t throw up a 142, but instead winner
150269 which I took to
Bamford, another new station for me. Nice to get some 150 tunnel thrash before a sudden brake to arrive at Grindleford near the western end of Totley tunnel. Bamford was reached with a quick hop over the bridge, sadly the road is busy so I couldn’t grab a picture of the 150 departing west along a beautiful line. I didn’t have long to wait before dud 142057 popped up to take me back to Sheffield.
I decided it was time for a quick shack attack, the next Norwich train was due to call at Dronfield, formed of dud 158858 leading winner
158857, going the short near 7 mile distance to
Dronfield where I had around 10 minutes to fester before the next northbound service, formed of winner
158909, a quick idea had formed of trying to score Dore & Totley, but I had completely misread the timings (missing the Nottingham – Leeds train up with the Leeds – Nottingham) so my connection was in doubt but thankfully for whatever reason the Adwick to Manchester service was delayed, so I quickly jumped onto winner
142001 and eventually got moving to
Dore & Totley and a few minutes later duds 158788/158846 arrived to take me back to Sheffield.
Nothing much was moving south which was required, so it was a quick jump onto dud 222013 to Chesterfield, arriving a couple minutes late so the northbound service had already departed, next southbound was dud 220032 which I took to Derby with an idea of getting on a 170 to score Long Eaton (giving me two options back to Derby), however that 170 turned out to be dud, but required
220028 rolled in so deciding that Long Eaton could wait for another day took me back to Chesterfield. Next service I had to catch and was dud 221138 heading back to Derby, full of football fans, and Derby was full of police. Next service was a booked XC which ran fast to Birmingham, so my options was limited, so after grabbing a quick meal-deal from the WH Smiths (Derby, another station a fair walk from the town centre), I was back onto the station to await the Southampton bound service from Newcastle. Winner
220030 arrived (always a bonus to get a required unit on a booked service).
Going via Warwick (extension of a Reading service) seems to be quicker than via Coventry, although this particular service seems to have long dwell times [or just arrived early], 4 minutes at Leamington, 4 minutes at Banbury, 6 minutes at Oxford, 10 minutes at Reading for the reversal, deciding to stay on board (wise call as the service from Manchester was running late and would have meant an hour 20 minute wait at Basingstoke), although this did mean a 25-odd minute wait at Basingstoke, originally planned to use this time to grab a pizza from the pizza place, but I had food already, so back to my book, before 159004 arrived to take me back to Grateley.
Anyhow, pictures:
158864/158863 waiting to depart from Chesterfield P3
Coffee smelling goodness
Wide open space on the Hope Valley line
158858/158857 departing Dronfield on route to Norwich
142001 at Dore & Totley
An unknown 220 rushing past on route to Reading
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19th April – Overground shack attacks
With clearance of the Watford DC line last weekend, my attention turned to the remainer of the overground network, checking for any enginnering works saw that the only part which was closed was from South Tottenham to Barking (with the 3 stations required along that part cleared on the Friday evening before the forum meal) so with my target of clearing my remaining 21 overground shacks (and a rough idea of trying to clear the remaining stations on the Thameslink Sutton loop), I set up to Andover to join up with 159003 & 159105 to do something unusual and go straight into Waterloo.
First stop was to clear South Bermondsey, a station I couldn’t clear on Good Friday due to football, so it was to London Bridge on the Jubilee line I went, and upto the low level station, beating back the urge to score some winning 377s on a Gatwick service, and was rewarded with winner
455820 out the short way to
South Bermondsey, a nice island platform, and back to the Bridge on dud 455814. Down to the underground and the Jubilee (I love the sound of sitting in the leading car and hearing it accelerate) to Baker Street, with a Bakerloo service to Marylebone. With the FA Cup being on, meaning more services were calling heading south, the first service being required
165016, and spotting another required 165 which RTT was suggesting would form another Wembley stopper (Aylesbury via High Wycombe), I decided to jump onto the next southbound service to link up. Dud 165038 took me back to Marylebone. Couple required 168/0s spotted, but there was a unit swap and the one heading towards Aylesbury was dud, and with no more required units which I could catch hanging around, I headed to the Bakerloo line.
Paddington was my next port of call, next Reading stopper was formed of winners
165108 & 166214 (214 only being 2 car due to the centre car suffering damage), which I decided to take to a new station at
Southall, the West Coast Railway company sidings is full of old coaches and personally is a bit of a mess, and very quiet with the ban. Next Paddington service was duds 165125/165103 which I took back to Ealing Broadway, and crossing over to the district line. A D-stock train was waiting with only one door per coach open, before all the doors open and it was on its way to
Turnham Green, a brief wait before the next Richmond bound service took me to
Kew Gardens. Station appears to be hard to get from one platform to another, having to pass one set of barriers, go outside and underneath the tracks via a subway and through another set of barriers to get to the northbound side, by which time a district line service had already departed.
Dud 378226 took me up to
Gunnersbury where I had a 20 minute wait for the next overground service, so making use of the time visited a Subway on the street outside before returning to the station to catch dud 378216 to
South Acton. 10 minute wait there gave me an idea, instead of doing Thameslink, how about doing the remaining stations on the Shenfield metro as that would be easier to get to once in Stratford. My train of through was broken with the arrival of winner
378230 to take me the next big leap to
Brondesbury Park with another wait before dud 378213 took me to
Brondesbury. 10 or so minutes later another dud in the shape of 378234 took me to
Hampstead Heath with 378210 taking me back one stop to
Finchley Road & Frognal. Next up was dud 378224 to
Kentish Town West and 378226 back to Gospel Oak. The idea was to get onto the 172 towards South Tottenham, but when I saw required
378223 pull in I jumped on for the 47 chain hop back to Kentish Town West before winner
378256 back to Gospel Oak.
172002 took me to
Crouch Hill where a quick hop over the road bridge to the other platform saw 172007 doing the honours back to
Upper Holloway, the old footbridge rusting away and fenced off. 172003 took me back to Crouch Hill and 172005 back to Gospel Oak, the stations on Goblin complete, quick dive to get winner
378228 boarding after the buzzer sounded to take me to the island platform of
Caledonian Road & Barnsbury, with dud 378223 back to
Camden Road. 10 minute wait as I had missed the next service to Stratford, before 378220 arrived to take me to
Hackney Central, with another doubleback from 378219 to
Dalston Kingsland, one more station on the NLL to go!
Dud 378226 did the honours to
Hackney Wick, last used by me a good few years ago (2008 time), for a Radiohead concert in Victoria Park, with 378256 completing the line to get me to Stratford. BZ6 to Brentwood ticket in hand as Brentwood is outside the travelcard zones, and the first service out east was a Southend bound semi-fast, formed of winner
321316, first port of call was the loo. To
Brentwood, with winners
315856 & 315833 taking me back to
Harold Wood. Few minutes waiting later and
321348 was coming back from Southend which took me to the island platform at
Gidea Park. A late running Norwich 90 delayed the arrival of the stopper (only 2 tracks of the Great Eastern open today), although my luck ran out with duds 315823/315850 to
Illford.
Doubling back to Seven Kings on winner
315803 & dud 315854 was a bit of a mistake as Seven Kings is a station where the services pass each other, giving me a 15 minute wait before dud 315819 arrived with winner
315815 in tow to take me to my final station on the soon to be TFL-Rail service at
Manor Park. Another brief wait and dud pair of 315s out west saw me onto dud 315827 leading winner
315813 back to Stratford. 5 new 315s ticked off which is always a bonus. To the Jubilee line where my remaining stations on the ELL were waiting, so it was a nice run to Canada Water. First service was a dud 378 to New Cross, with dud 378147 behind taking me to Surrey Quays (heading to Clapham), with 378137 doing the honour to
New Cross Gate, the massive footbridge present. Winner (and final 378/1)
378153 took me to
Brockley, and southern 455810 to
Honor Oak Park.
At Honor Oak Park I noticed the arrival of required
455806 heading towards London Bridge so I jumped on that back to Brockley, a southeastern line crossing over near the station. Dud 378138 took me to my final ELL station in the shape of
Forest Hill. Deciding to try and do the Thameslink loop saw me on winner
455812 to Sutton, before deciding against the loop as I had 2 remaining stations on the WLL to do to complete the set. Dud 377623 leading winner
377621 arrived to take me on a stopping service to Clapham. Across the platforms to get onto dud 378213 to
Shepherds Bush, with 378255 doing the honours back to my final LOROL station of
Imperial Wharf.
A large smile on my face as all stations covered on the current network (although will probably see me on the extended network come May the 31st to cover the stations between Hackney Downs & Cheshunt (plus the few stations on the Chingford branch). Back to Clapham J on a late running 377704, with a brief fester before the Alton/Basingstoke semi-fast arrived, formed of dud 450035 leading winner
450003, with my number of required 450s dropping, always a bonus to score one. Out to Woking and across the footbridge with the 159 trio which roared past us at Surbiton, with 159020 leading 159105 & 159003, another weekend featuring the same 159 on the return journey as it was on the outward trip.
With this weekend and last weekend, I only need 3 more 378/2s, so I can see some more festering around Willesden Junction to see if they show up to clear them.
Anyhow a couple pictures:
A delayed 90013 on a service from Norwich at Gidea Park
I was smiling when 378153 arrived to take me to Brockley
, at least the carrot cake slice was nice. Due to the blockade around Salisbury the Romsey rockets were only running in the circle, so the station staff at Southampton were telling passengers if they wanted Millbrook, Redbridge or Romsey not to board the 158 which had arrived on P1 heading to Romsey via Eastleigh, but to wait a couple minutes as 158888 arrived to take us back to Romsey. Where the PIS was displaying the next service would be to Romsey, whatever happened at giving it a false destination of Chandlers Ford via Southampton (or Redbridge via Eastleigh). Anyway a drive home where my bag was emptied out and washed to try and get rid of the pasta & sauce (where it is currently drying on a rack waiting for the sun to come out as the weather today (Sunday) is a bit rubbish.
Certainly a massive variety of stock and places visited.
