That explains a lot
I've been off work for two days so lost track of time
Oh I know that feeling, I kept thinking it was Monday today
Andy, the Tilting Ale is super dud from November 2015's Anti-Frothmas bash!
Glad some of you also have fond memories of DuckTales, I believe the episodes are all online somewhere but they took some finding when I watched them in 2010.
And now ladies and gentlemen, Day 2 is ready:
05/03/2017 - Tech Tales, Day 2
Well this was different to how I planned to spend my night! I thoroughly expected to hit the hay hard, and struggle to get up in the morning. The reality was that I couldn't sleep, there was too much excitement and, the key reason for sleeping issues I suspect, I had a stomach that demanded feeding. I also felt in dire need of a de-rancify, so after exploring options on RTT I had a shower and got out for the night! Annoyingly I didn't have my ticket in time to do a Bus Stop Bash on required tram 2557, but never mind. Now I could have simply queued for ages in Burger King, which I was amazed at being open at 0130, or gone to the 24 hour McDonalds. That would perhaps have been sensible, although I've got quite a dislike for McDonalds food these days. So what happened? I got my travelcard and went down to platform 4 for the 0143 to London Victoria. I noted the last Thameslink service of the night, and that was dud 700114.
Double duds 377425+377124 took me to London, still with a raging stomach, and I knew exactly what I would do after finding food. Night Tube! It took me forever to find anything I wanted, but eventually found The Pasty Shop where I got a giant sausage roll for £3. Hardly what I wanted, but all the takeaways that used to be around Victoria have all gone! Double duds 11090+11089 take me to Green Park, and as the next one back to Victoria was also dud I gave up and went to the Jubilee line. Winner for everything
96091 led dud 96036 for the trip to London Bridge, and I discover I have an 8 minute wait here. I knew I should have alighted at Southwark! Double winners
96010+96043 took me to Waterloo where I had another 6 minute wait, and clearly there's a lot of places around Waterloo to get drunk as there are loads of revellers here!
Dud 96067 and winner
96066 take me east again, this time to Canada Water where I have a mammoth NINE minute wait! I've never seen what's at ground level here, so go for a walk. Nothing worth seeing whatsoever [not that I expected much! - Ed] and a waste of the long walk from the Jubilee platforms! No doubt I'll have missed a winner now too, and my Travelcard doesn't like the barriers it seems. Oh this could be a fun day...My next available move back to the city was 96036+96091, the same pair I started on earlier. OK, flag that and see what does the Stratford. Good call, as it produced winner
96019 and winner for everything
96106. Even better at Canary Wharf as I had an ultra quick cross-platform change onto the next city-bound train, which produced double winners for everything
96030+96083!
By now my feet were reminding me of the need to have a proper lie down, which I had been denying them after all! Still, it turned out to be a good series of moves with a good few scores! As a result I decided it would be a good idea to return to the hotel for a few hours, and forget about doing the Boundary Zone 6 to Gatwick Airport fare to score some 387/2s. Which had been the plan around 0100 but no matter. Kite, if I was a little unsocial at any point during the day then please accept my apologies! Sadly it was double duds 11013+11014 to Victoria, and it was double duds 377413+377406 for the trip back to East Croydon. 8 winners already today, a good start!
After a few hours in bed, I make myself get up and moving. There's been overhead line damage during the night in the town centre, so all trams were terminating at East Croydon. If it hadn't been so windy and wet I'd have got the crossover done! The pair of 377/3s on the East Grinstead were dud but happily winner
455825 turned up and took me to Purley. Double duds 377106+377115 take me back north to Clapham Junction, where I got my first 707s for sight! Some 458/5s also scored for sight before winner
378139 took me to Wandsworth Road. No trains back to Clapham for 26 minutes, so I investigated bus options and found route 77 to Waterloo which would suit me just fine for meeting up with Kite.
Go-Ahead London's PVL375 was quite a noisy and rateable machine and I was at Waterloo after only 18 minutes, a most useful link and worth remembering. I passed the site of Nine Elms LU, and the construction I could see looked like it was coming on well so far. I still got to Waterloo before Kite, after he arrived a meal deal from Tesco was sourced for breakfast, which I didn't get round to eating for a good while later anyway! To the Jubilee line, and it was onto double winners
96123+96124 all the way to Stratford. No-one will be surprised to learn the Central line was our first target, as it is a line we both need a lot on.
First up was winner for everything
91095 with dud 92174 and double winners for everything
92164+91245 on the back to Mile End. Double winners
91019+92052 with winner for everything
92420 and dud 91343 took us to Bethnal Green. Winner for everything
91193 had double duds 92012+92056 in the middle with winner for everything
91231 for the leap to Liverpool Street. Winner for everything
91129 had winners
92408+92160 for company and winner for everything
91285 on the back, a now rare quadruple winner, to Bank. Winner for everything
91137 led triple duds 92162+92196+91297 on yet another Bus Stop Bash to St Pauls, and double duds 91339+92104 led winner
92202 with dud 91005 on the back to Chancery Lane.
Dud 91067 led winner for everything
92254 with double duds 92242+91053 bringing up the rear to Holborn. Winner for everything
91089 headed winner
92412 with dud 92264 and winner
91043 to Tottenham Court Road. Triple duds 91249+92218+92200 led winner for everything
91279 to Oxford Circus. Triple duds 91021+92116+92078 led winner for everything
91195 onwards to Bond Street, where we joined [Kite's results will have been rather different! - Ed] winner for everything
91045 leading the charge with triple duds 92110+92068+91263 on the back to Marble Arch. Triple winners
91215+92148+92002 led dud 91035 onwards to Queensway [the Central line moves are nearly over! - Ed], and we took winners
91135+92138 with 92150+91089 westward to Notting Hill Gate. Winner for everything
91187 was married to dud 92136 and double winners
91311+91059 for the leap to Holland Park. The final [and I bet you're all glad of that too! - Ed] leap on the Central line fell to winner
91023 with dud 92234, winner
92030 and dud 91165 also in the conga line to Shepherds Bush.
Phew, that took some typing! It was time for a refreshments break next, and after all that was done we march over to the West London Line. Now I had a coffee I was certainly feeling better, my first one since Clapham Junction. Dud 378232 takes us to Gospel Oak and Kite pointed out a 800 on North Pole depot. That was my first one for sight, but sadly no number could be seen so I still have none of them in my book. The GOBLIN [Gospel Oak to Barking Line for those unaware - Ed] was open again as of recently, following months of closure for platform rebuilding, track lowering and electrification works, so it was deemed worth a look at what Network Rail's Orange Army had been grafting away at. A lot of the posts, arms and so on were up, mostly missing beyond Walthamstow yet. No wires up yet either that we could see from Super Dud 172002, and wow wasn't this train busy! A fair bit of platform extension work was still being done, and I'm assuming there's to be another big blockade before the line is fully ready for electric trains. Overall though, it was certainly worth a look as I do get interested with major civil engineering projects like the LU extension, and of course the electrification works around the country. I was still glad to get to Barking though, felt much longer than 36 minutes, so I hope any linespeed improvements and the electric trains will make the journey quicker. We rush over to the c2c side to join a slightly delayed train we were booked to miss.
It produced a very busy dud 357043 [shame it wasn't 042! - Ed] and winner
357208 for the leap to West Ham. The next 357 was only a few minutes behind, and it was dud so we did a quick bit of S7 hunting before our next mission. Double winners
21382+21381 took us to Bromley-by-Bow and double winners
21393+21394 took us back to West Ham. To the DLR, as one of Kite's last 10 DLR sets had been noted earlier and naturally he wanted to get it in, it having toyed with him when it was sat on depot on multiple previous occasions. To our surprise, it was straight onto double duds 72+13 to Stratford, and you'll never guess what we did next...
Yes, Central line bashing! Double winners
91125+92260 led double duds 92228+91121 to Mile End. Double winners
21537+21538 took us to Mansion House, and after a few minutes of hanging around we get what may well be my final D stock working, 7018+7007, to Blackfriars as we had a new mission of hunting 700s. First up however was winner
319215 which was my last 319/2 to get, happy days! Kite informs me there's a number of 319s stored on Long Marston, and I'm not overly familiar with what's going on motive power wise these days, so this was a surprise. I really must find out what's where these days, as I still need 10 319s for haulage. 15 minutes festering at Farringdon, or more like up and down over the long series of stairs at the south end of the station [the bridge which also links to LU was closed due to no LU from here all day - Ed] eventually produced winner
377519 and dud 377515 for a leap to St Pancras. I had got excited to begin with as we thought it was 377509, but no matter.
Winner for everything
700020 took us back to Farringdon, where after 14 minutes of the same style of fester, I'm in luck. Dud 377521 led winner for everything
377509 for a leap to St Pancras, at long last the 377s are all dud for sight, HAPPY DAYS!
It was now back to Blackfriars, as the hunt for S7 winners was top priority. Getting us there was winner for everything
700018 and it was time for a coffee from WHSmith. My LORDZ that mocha was nice and well worth £2.70, highly recommended to all of my fellow coffee lovers! First up on the S7 leaping spree were double winners [as S stocks are officially half-sets they count as two halves - Ed]
21422+21421 to Temple and double winners
21319+21320 forward to Embankment. Yes, it's back to Bus Stop Bashing! Next were double winners
21465+21466 to Westminster where several duds were rejected and I finished my coffee. Double winners
21568+21567 were taken next to St James Park and double winners
21316+21315 onward to Victoria. Double winners
21333+21334 followed a few minutes later [we were never sat down for long! - Ed] to Sloane Square. Double winners
21417+21418 took us to South Kensington and we're on the island platform for less than 2 minutes before we head back east to Sloane Square on double winners
21481+21482. Ten minutes later, a long time on LU, after flagging multiple duds, we head back to South Kensington on double winners
21460+21459, camping out for 7 minutes before double winners
21502+21501 took us to Gloucester Road. Back once again to South Kensington on double winners
21405+21406 and it's a long 11 minutes before we head to Earls Court on double winners
21424+21423.
A rest stop was had here before we change tactics and join the Piccadilly line. Winner
152 and winner for everything
882 took us to Gloucester Road [Piccadilly line edition - Ed] and winner for everything
200 and dud 187 took us back to Earls Court. Winner
109 and dud 206 took us back to Gloucester Road, and winner
868 with winner for everything
190 to South Kensington. Double winners
207+210 took us to Knightsbridge, home of world famous store Harrods, before dud 149 and winner
186 carted us off to Hyde Park Corner.
Winner
188 and dud 181 took us to Green Park, and we needed to get Kite to Paddington for his homeward train to Reading. Much to my delight, it was double winners
96062+96117 to Baker Street for an easy change onto winner
3458 and dud 3266 to Paddington. First things first, we find out which power cars are on what services, and I score an HST trailer for sight much to my celebration. Kite finds one he needs and we part ways, the jammy so and so getting a de-classified First Class coach on his set. Meanwhile, it's very much time for food as it was a long time since that meal deal. Burger King to the rescue! With the stomach very much satisfied, it was back to the Bakerloo line and I got winner
3261 and dud 3450 to Warwick Avenue. It had been determined earlier that I was close to 100 winners today so I was keen to reach that target. Winner
3256 and dud 3453 took me to Baker Street after declining some duds, and an easy way to reach that target of mine was to go back to the Jubilee line.
A fantastic start was had with winner for everything
96005 which was in a relationship [I'm trying to find more exciting ways to discuss my LU moves if it wasn't obvious, not easy with such long sprees! - Ed] with dud 96060 on yet another Bus Stop Bash to Bond Street. Winner
96101 was getting involved with dud 96038 on the leap to Green Park, and my luck now got a bit better with double winners for everything
96055+96028 to Westminster. Onwards and upwards to Waterloo next, boarding winner
96021 and dud 96090. Kite's last 96 stock will not be my last one, as I got double winners
96045+96092 to Southwark. I spied a winner going west as soon as I arrived so floored it over the platform to join double winners
96058+96065 back to Waterloo.
As at Southwark, a winner was spotted going the other way so I ran over and jumped onto double winners
96089+96068 to Southwark. Winner for everything
96027 led winner
96032 to London Bridge, and by now a rest stop was most needed, so I terminate my very enjoyable Jubilee line spree and head upstairs. No fast trains to Croydon from here today, and no trains with lavatories were due away any time soon, so since I hadn't been on SET lately I head upstairs for a Dover train, RA Orpington. It was rather chilly here and it was sadly double duds 375816+375813. I should have started work on the notebook, as I had a LOT to write up by now, but I took advantage of the run to enjoy some peace and relax. I was glad I did this run after all mind when the next fast train to Charing Cross rolled in, as it was double winners
375822+375827! All the way to Charing Cross it was decided, and I'm very glad I did that too, as I scored double winners
375613+375625 back to Waterloo East!
I walked over to Waterloo next, and everything was delayed and cancelled. I pop over to Sainsburys for a snack then come back to find everything was starting to move again and there's lots of duds that I first come across, but good news ahead. My eyes found themselves looking at a winner, and it turned out to be double winners
450011+450001 which were due out shortly, nice one. Inspector Sands was busy tonight, and announcements kept sounding about a reported emergency and all passengers were to follow staff instructions. I don't know what happened there, as we didn't get asked to leave the train or anything and eventually we leave 5 minutes late. I gave up on trying to get to Wimbledon when the next train that way was a pair of dud 455s, and I settled for double duds 377405+377421 to East Croydon. I was rather tired by now, after all it was 2138 when I left Clapham Junction!
Some more snacks were sourced before I headed back to base camp absolutely exhausted. A winner tram was noted and I nearly went for it, but the wind and rain soon put paid to that. As did every part of me from head to toe, I needed a proper rest! After unwinding I hit the pillow and slept ridiculously well until the alarm!
