West Midlands Day Ranger Meet - 23rd April 2011

[Crossover]

Inspired somewhat by Ivo's stories of days out and about on the rail network, following my first meet with the forum on the WMDR meet last Saturday, I have written a bit about our day which I hope you will all find interesting.

For anyone who may be interested also in seeing a little bit of a video from the day, it can be found here - many thanks to IanPooleTrains for giving me permission to link to it

 

[Railjet]

Great, thanks for reporting back.

Always interesting to find out what happened on these meets after all the build-up.

 

[Ivo]

Does sound good; makes me wish I had been able to go (well, apart from the 323s obviously ). Some places I've never been to either in that area also, although I intend to complete the LM network next tme I go up to Birmingham (without it being for interchange purposes as should happen on the 14th).

Have I started a little craze then? People used to do it occasionally (see 4SRKT's blog for instance), but I'm getting all the credit... Sig links must work!

 

[Crossover]

No problems Railjet
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Does sound good; makes me wish I had been able to go (well, apart from the 323s obviously ). Some places I've never been to either in that area also, although I intend to complete the LM network next tme I go up to Birmingham (without it being for interchange purposes as should happen on the 14th).

Have I started a little craze then? People used to do it occasionally (see 4SRKT's blog for instance), but I'm getting all the credit... Sig links must work!

Funnily enough, when we were on the 323's, it reminded me you have a loathing for them - I quite enjoyed the journey on them actually, and I rather like the sound they make

I'd not been to Redditch before, and having driven it on many occasions on OpenBVE, it was something I wanted to do. As for the Chase line - I've done it in bits before, but only towards BHM and not away from it - last time I was on it, only managed a train between Hednesford and Walsall, the rest of it was by various buses!

Oddly, I'd not really noticed your sig links - I just recalled reading your Great Escape one, and although I wasn't originally going to do any report of the day, I felt compelled to. Besides, it was a welcome relief from uni work - and a much more enjoyable writing style to boot!

 

[SS4]

I'm surprised you managed to get anywhere around New St and WCML especially given all the platform maintenance at the former! I got caught up in it trying to get to London, it didn't help that it was so damn hot.

I do enjoy reading these though although I'm a bit surprised at why PDF seems to be the chosen format for what it essentially text

 

[Crossover]

I'm surprised you managed to get anywhere around New St and WCML especially given all the platform maintenance at the former! I got caught up in it trying to get to London, it didn't help that it was so damn hot.

I do enjoy reading these though although I'm a bit surprised at why PDF seems to be the chosen format for what it essentially text

The platform maintenance at New St actually didn't seem to cause a problem.

As for the PDF, it is because I'd seen Ivo's Great Escape so thought it was the way to do it. Having seen the others since, (4SRKT, I will read your blogs later when time allows, looks pretty interesting ) next time I will probably just do it straight into the thread

 

[Ivo]

It *can* be the way to do it, but for the most part isn't necessary. It was for my GRE because...

It reduces memory usage

My GRE report went well over the 2 MB limit on here because of its length. As a PDF, its size was reduced to less than 800K.

 

[Simon Poole]

Inspired somewhat by Ivo's stories of days out and about on the rail network, following my first meet with the forum on the WMDR meet last Saturday, I have written a bit about our day which I hope you will all find interesting.

For anyone who may be interested also in seeing a little bit of a video from the day, it can be found here - many thanks to IanPooleTrains for giving me permission to link to it

It's a great report, i just seen it and its great! mind you i did hear about the day first hand from my Brother IanPooleTrains, i was working that day as well

 

[bb21]

Comprehensive report it is. Well done.

Btw I did manage to get my 390 after all. The 1950 Wolves Pretendo finally pulled into New Street 27 late, but luckily it did stop at Sandwell & Dudley, just as i was giving up hope. So I managed a quick trip on that and back in time to catch my 2052.

Pretty awesome day.

 

[Crossover]

Cheers

Funnily enough, I was thinking about it earlier and was going to message you to see if you got a VT in the end (there was a Pendo sat in Wolverhampton when I passed through but thought it was too early to be one you were on)

Kind of wish I'd hung about since it turned out to be the Pretendo! Couldn't count on it though but hopefully will get on it at some point

P.S. Didn't think the Pretendo usually came out to play on a Saturday...

 

[Jordy]

Good report! Glad you enjoyed the meet

 

[bb21]

Cheers

Funnily enough, I was thinking about it earlier and was going to message you to see if you got a VT in the end (there was a Pendo sat in Wolverhampton when I passed through but thought it was too early to be one you were on)

Kind of wish I'd hung about since it turned out to be the Pretendo! Couldn't count on it though but hopefully will get on it at some point

P.S. Didn't think the Pretendo usually came out to play on a Saturday...

Yes when you left the board changed from 2001 to 2003, then as I got down to P5 it changed to 2005, then 2010, then just 'delayed'. I figured that I wouldn't make it into Wolves and back in time and didn't really fancy hanging around for another hour and half which would also mean I miss my bus home and would have to walk. As I took a seat in the waiting room on P5, there came the announcement out of nowhere that the train now pulling into P5 is the one I wanted, and it stopped en-route. So it all worked out alright after pure manic during the day.