3rd February – The Sky Moves Sideways
A trip to Leeds was in order, as I took advantage of the VTEC seat sale from last year, however around the middle of the week I was feeling quite down and ready to throw away the money spent (£16) and have a lazy day, however in the end I changed my plan around and got talked around to making the most of the trip.
For the 2nd week in a row it was a walk to Grateley station for the 05:27 service, for the uneventful run into Waterloo on 159018, another 72.6 miles onto the total for that unit, and is it bad thinking that next week due to engineering works in the Salisbury area, that service is retimed so it departs Basingstoke at 05:45 [instead of ~06:00] so the passengers coming up from Southampton & Winchester have to remain on their 450 which turns into a stopping service after Basingstoke. Anyhow arrival into Waterloo was pretty much bang on time, giving me time to head to Sainsburys for a bacon sandwich before heading to the Underground, cursing as once more the TVM has given me a faulty travelcard [happened on the Friday and would not operate any gates whatsoever]. 3544/3248 took me to Oxford Circus with 11079/11080 zooming me to Kings Cross St Pancras, exiting LU with a good 20 minutes to spare.
The 07:35 to Leeds would be the service taking me to Doncaster (shock horror, I was breaking the terms of my advance by breaking my journey early!), so after the platform was confirmed, I made a note of the DVT (82210) before walking up to ID the 91 leading, my first 91 for a good 4 months, as I did a double take thinking “that doesn’t look like a 91” as I came closer the dark blue became clear as it would be 90034 hauling me to Doncaster (sadly a dud from the final Virgin WC Mk3 service), my allocated seat was in coach C, which looked busy, but with coach D being empty of reservation labels I took up a table seat in that empty coach (after-all why not?). An uneventful run on the ECML, a ticket check taking place pretty soon after departure, calling at Stevenage & Grantham only, and as is the case the train did lose time, but I had a nice bit of cushion at Doncaster before my first move of my South Yorkshire Connect+.
After a quick walk around, I headed towards the newish platform 0 to tick another bay off into my book, with 158844 working a Hull stopping service, with the bay platform safety into my book I bailed at Kirk Sandall for a tight connection with a Sheffield bound stopping service, formed of 142048, the run to Doncaster tipping it over 10 miles where I bailed from the busy Merseytravel unit, for a fast walk onto 220018 which was running a couple minutes late, but saved me some time for the run to Sheffield (plus allowed me to charge my phone as the plug sockets on that Mk4 wasn’t working and I couldn’t be bothered searching for another seat). Once at Sheffield, I headed up towards the tram platform with tram 109 taking me around the corner to Castle Square where my fester was for a matter of a few seconds as winner
399203 was rolling in on the opposite platform.
The new trams for Sheffield are quite nice inside, the seats are not as comfortable, but you get a good view from the front, anyhow I decided to jump out at
Arena Olympic Legacy Park which got renamed from Arena Don Valley Stadium in the last few months so it counted as being semi-required (my rules are funny like that). Tram 110 took me to Meadowhall where I leapt onto a busy 185128 for a PNB on the short hop to Sheffield, returning to the tram platforms to jump onto 105 for the run to Castle Square, bumping into forum member “TC60054” for a little social, leaping onto
399204 to West Street for what felt like a day and age before 102 appeared to take us to Cathedral for a short wait before
399206 arrived on a purple route to take us to Spring Lane (the other 4 were sitting on the depot), impressive acceleration on these trams, especially on the hilly sections. 125 took us back to Castle Square, and 117 back to Sheffield as I said farewell to Tom before jumping back onto 399206 to Castle Square once more to have a look in a couple of the local shops.
Tram 109 was my last tram move of the day taking me back to the station, where with my mileage log open I IDed the next Leeds stopper via Rotherham was a low mileage 144004 (surprisingly only 3 of the class are sub 10 miles) for a short run to Meadowhall, where I made use of my connection to visit the ticket office and purchase my West Yorkshire Train rover (even issued on the correct ticketing stock!), before heading over to platform 4 for the next Huddersfield service, a nice bouncing 142068 [must have escaped from the North East] to Denby Dale, with enough time for me to have a walk down the stairs and to the road to take a picture of the lovely viaduct overlooking the small village. Back to the station for a short wait before 144014 rolled in for the run to Meadowhall, where I bumped into 185143 before boarding the late running 142024 to Rotherham Central, not as a mileage requirement but I decided it was worth a look at the state of play for the Tram-Train extension, the wiring looks done with the new low platforms at the Sheffield end of Central being built (as was the platform at the terminus at the retail park). A short fester before 144006 rolled in to take me to Doncaster, where I was in for some good news regarding the next Leeds stopper.
I met up briefly with another basher on Twitter (don’t think he is a member of the forum) who was out stopping at some of the lesser served stations, and I didn’t believe him at first but when I saw 180103 sitting on platform 6 (I think there was issues at Grantham earlier in the day and hence it got terminated short), a large smile appeared as 322482 rolled into the lesser used platform 7 (only a few booked services a day, mostly at the start & at the end, and getting that platform means I don’t have to worry about staying overnight in Doncaster on a Friday to try and bag one of those late night/early morning services). 90034 reappeared heading to Leeds, but I jumped onto my lowest mileage 322 (was only in my log for a tiny leap) for the run to Leeds (mmm 322 motor noise), arriving around 17:12 with the next departure to Wakefield being the 17:15 VTEC service, which I had assumed was the set with 90034 on the blocks on platform 6, however leaping on board and it felt odd that it was empty, as I checked the seat labels to see “17:45 Leeds – Kings Cross” so exited, the 17:15 was going to be a short turnaround of the set rolling in from London, it was a nice HST with 43311 leading 43302 departing 7 minutes late (my backup option was that 322).
At Wakefield Westgate I headed outside the station for a short while before returning to board the next Huddersfield service, formed of 150111 which departed pretty much empty, even after the reversal at Kirkgate there was less than 5 passengers in my coach for the run past Headley Mills to Mirfield (meeting up with Jack once more) for the run to Huddersfield. I say run but we got caught up in some delays caused by a passenger being taken ill on a Liverpool bound service eventually rolling into Huddersfield some 20-odd minutes late, however the train went into platform 5 as booked (the lesser used of the Leeds facing bay platforms). After a short chat I said farewell to Jack as I decided to jump onto 185145 for the run back to Leeds, emptied out of football fans (leaving behind their usual mess) which meant I got a table seat. At Leeds I had a silly idea of asking the train manager of the 19:45 service to London if I could board (as I was booked onto the 20:15), so after purchasing some food from Boots I headed over to platform 9, located the manager and he gave me permission to jump on a quiet service)
Quiet, as in number of reservations, it was busy in the first couple coaches with day trippers heading home to Wakefield & Doncaster, but after Doncaster I counted 4 passengers in coach D. 91121 was giving me my first 91 action, with required DVT
82224 up front, it was a nice fast run after Doncaster, slowing down for Newark crossing and only calling at Peterborough before having a right time arrival at London, giving me 28 minutes to get to Waterloo. A walk to the Victoria Line with 11021/11022 to Oxford Circus for a short connection onto 3242/3549 to Waterloo, coming out into the cold air and a short walk over to board a busy 159001 on the 22:20 (one of the main reasons why I decided to ask permission to travel early, as it got me home 80 minutes early). Arriving back at Grateley with a short walk home, quite happy at a productive day with 3 out of the 7 399s into my book, plus a few more bay platforms ticked off my “required bays” list.
I did notice there is a weekday evening service from Huddersfield towards Sheffield which uses the connection, departing from platform 1 (as it arrives from Selby as a peak-time extra), something I need to look into for the future for microgricing. Similarly I noticed the north facing bay at Rochdale (normally has no booked workings) is being used on Easter Saturday, so I need to decide on my options if I want to go for that quite rare bay. I think the hardest bays to do which is on my list will be platform 4 at Rock Ferry, platform 3 seems to have a couple early morning departures on a Saturday/Sunday and there is a couple nearby B&Bs which look decent.
Anyhow some pictures:
90034 at Kings Cross
399203 departs Arena Olympic Legacy Park
Future Supertram platforms at Rotherham Central
150111 at Huddersfield
