A free first class return from East Croydon to Uckfield!
Ok people.
Sooo, with my brother busy today I took a trip to Kent by myself, albeit not with cruddy SouthEastern but with SWT and Southern. I bought a return ticket from Farnham to Cowden for £11. Bargain. Why Cowden? Mainly because that is where I can go in order to get a pair of lovely 171s and not have to wait an hour for a return train - connection time is 8/9 mins.
Unfortunately as I said earlier, my data for Southern & SWR was lost in August, therefore I wanted to get what I lost back in my books!
So I started the day with
450005 and
450006 taking me from Farnham to Aldershot, where I enjoyed empty declassified first class travel to Guildford on
450003. Here a rather nice cappuccino flapjack was bought as I’d skipped breakfast and planned to skip lunch too to fit in more trains. The picture shows my empty first class cabin.
450002 and
450084 took me to Woking. I went to bay platform 3 and rode
455904 to Surbiton where I changed onto
455860 which took me to New Malden.
455706 and
455722 took me to Raynes Park, I crossed the island platform to board
455874 and
456003. They were winners and transferred me to Wimbledon.
455919 formed my train to Clapham Junction.
There it was time to leave SWR for a while and transfer to Southern.
455842 took me to Wandsworth Road. The SN 455s are much nicer than SWR’s I think. From there I went to Balham on
455811 which is seen below:
377610 was my next train. I prefer the 377/6s to the 455s without a doubt, but unfortunately I didn’t get a repeat of luck when I changed trains at Streatham Common as my next train was
455830 taken to Thornton Heath followed by
455817 which I rode to Selhurst. I got
377705 then off of Milton Keynes Central and after quite a lengthy pause on the bridge over Selhurst Depot I found myself at East Croydon.
I took
377149 and
377444 to Oxted. I was really looking forward to the upcoming Turbostar as I really love 171s.
171804 turned up which I planned to take to Cowden as there is a good connection time there. Unfortunately some chav kicked up a fuss because he had no first class ticket (yet sat in first class) in fact he had no ticket at all and refused to buy one! Swear words were said, fist were clenched and soon the train was being held while the BTP came.
The train left and I was told by the guard I’d have to leave the train I’d scheduled to be on four stops to Cowden two stops early at Edenbridge Town if I wanted to make the connection. This was annoying as this pretty much halved my journey time on the 171. But then, he said “Or to make up for it, if you like the Turbostars I’ll let you stay on to Uckfield and back, but you’ll be returning to East Croydon an hour later.”
I chose the second option, especially as he asked if I wanted to go and sit in one of the two first class sections for no extra!
First class on Southern’s Turbostars is very different from on their original Electrostars. You’ve got doors separating first from Standard, you’ve got 2x1 seating and reclining seats. The seats are wider and have more legroom. I was very happy to just enjoy the train for two hours or so as I went down to Uckfield and back to East Croydon. The only shame was it meant missing out on getting another 171 unit in my book, but hey, first class for two hours is much better than standard class for twenty five minutes! The longer I have on 171s the better.
377109 and
377209 took me to Clapham Junction where it was back to SWR again.
455740 took me to Wimbledon. Here I decided to double back towards Clapham and so I took
455739 and
456009 to Earlsfield and
455704 and
455906 to Clapham from there.
After all of the 455s of the day the cushiony seats of non refurbished
159021 and its unidentified partner (please can someone help me find out what unit that was!) were very welcoming and I relaxed with a table to myself for the 25 mins stretch to Woking. That left as the 1646 off to Exeter and I went across the road to Taco Bell because it was now 5pm and I hadn’t eaten since 9am, so I was pretty hungry! I do love Taco Bell, got two crunchy beef tacos with Mexican fries and Pepsi. Their fries are great, they’re very similar to Burger King’s but instead of salt they have paprika.
450033 and
450123 took me to Guildford where
450105 was waiting for me. The final train of the day and also the only dud of the day, so that’s pretty good for a day of travelling, just one dud. All others but 450105 that day were winners! Well, I probably had loads of duds but since I’d lost my notes as I said they were now counted as winners. First class was declassified and I reclined my seat with pleasure for the final journey to Aldershot where I was driven back to Farnham.
So I didn’t stick to my plan but still had a awesome day.
2x 159s
1x 171s
6x 377s
8x 450s
14x 455s
2x 456s
33 trains in total including 2hrs 30 mins in first. Ticket £11.
