Thanks chaps.
Anyway, without further ado, here's a recap of our holiday.
Our Cornish trip started with a seven-and-a-half-hour drive from West Yorkshire (including a couple of breaks, naturally) on the Saturday, so obviously no trains then.
As might be expected most of our holiday was not spent chasing trains, however we did manage something rail based every day, which pleased me no end
The first few days went like this:
Sunday – A visit to Falmouth and the National Maritime museum.
Trains involved were:
43140 &
43012 Redruth – Truro
150121 Truro –
Falmouth Town
150121 Falmouth Town – Falmouth Docks
150121 Falmouth Docks – Truro
43023 &
43034 Truro - Redruth.
150121 emerging from the undergrowth at Falmouth Town:
DMU 150121_2016.10.02_2_Falmouth Town by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
Monday – St Michael’s Mount
150202 Redruth - Penzance.
150926 Penzance – Redruth
The walk from Penzance to St Michael's Mount took us past Long Rock and this little beauty:
08410_2016.10.03_4_Penzance Long Rock by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
Tuesday - The Minack Theatre.
150233 Redruth - Penzance
43133 &
43005 Penzance – Redruth
A new liveried HST:
HST 43005_2016.10.04_1_Penzance by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
Wednesday was the day when I was free to do my own thing.
The frequency of trains in that part of the country means that hanging around awaiting winners is pointless, so I devised a plan that would rope me in a load of winning shacks and just hoped one or two new items of traction would feature.
As always when having my free day, the main proviso was that I be back no later than 18.00.
I soon realised that I would have to begin the day quite early in order to achieve all my aims.
The tickets were purchased the evening before, as we returned from the Minack Theatre (well worth a visit, by the way) – a Ride Cornwall ranger and a Redruth to Lelant single.
I needed the single as I would be out well before the rover became valid.
It was still dark when I arrived at Redruth and began my day.
What a start it was – the Night Riviera, the first time I had done it since 2007.
Then it had been from Liskeard to Paddington but today it was for a much shorter run, doing it to St Erth.
Still, it was nice to have a loco and that loco was 57603.
I'm on holiday, what am I doing out and about before daylight?
57603_2016.10.05_1_Redruth by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
As can be seen from my choice of ticket my first target was one of the most lightly served stations in Cornwall (and that’s saying something),
Lelant has just a handful of trains stopping in each direction daily and even then it’s by request, with none at all between 09.30 and 16.50.
This was the move that had caused my early start.
150124 was to be my steed for the next couple of hours as all the shacks on the St Ives branch were captured.
There's a nice view from Lelant platform, although you can't see much of it in this view:
DMU 150124_2016.10.05_4_Lelant by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
After Lelant I headed back to St Erth on a service that was Penzance bound.
That meant that 150124 used the cross-over from the St Ives branch to platform 2 at St Erth; this was a new bit of line for me.
By the time it had returned from Penzance my rover was valid.
From St Erth it was out to
Carbis Bay, then back as far as
Lelant Saltings followed by a run to the end of the line at St Ives ( the last time I had been to St Ives, it was also on 150124), with me finishing by doing a none-stop run to St Erth.
With the St Ives branch now cleared I had a main-line station in mind.
Dud HST pairing 43163 & 43131 took me to
St Austell before another unrequired pair, 43030 & 43153 whisked me back to Truro.
I still needed two stations on the Falmouth branch and so that’s where I went next.
I’m not a big track basher and don’t know how rare certain cross-overs might be, so I’m not sure how big what happened at this point might be, but certainly it surprised the Truro station staff.
That part of the network is still controlled by semaphores and a signal cable had snapped, resulting in the bay being out of use.
This meant that the incoming unit from Falmouth had to cross over to platform 3.
Obviously, that meant the return, on which I was sat (formed of 153333 and 153368), went the same way.
So the question is, how rare is Truro platform 3 to the Falmouth branch?
I’ve had a look on RTT and see that the first couple down the branch go from platform 2 at Truro, after arriving from Penzance in 3 and crossing over empty.
Despite all the announcements, over the station tannoy and on the train itself, there were still a couple of people who jumped up looking very surprised when we left heading West and went and found the guard to say they should be heading the other way.
I stayed on board the 153s until
Penmere and then boarded them again on their return, doing them to
Penryn.
For those that don’t know it, Penryn is a funny layout, it has two platforms but is on a single track, with a passing loop.
The move is that the train from Falmouth comes in, passes through platform 1 and stops in 2.
Then the train from Truro arrives in the loop, goes past the train in platform 2 and enters platform 1.
There’s really no other way of doing it as if the ex-Truro arrives first the other set can’t get to platform 2.
This means that the best way to get the shack in is to arrive from the Falmouth direction, bail out on platform 2 and make a rapid walk down to platform 1 just as the other set comes into view.
Which is what I did.
The second set was 150123 and, as every shack on the branch was now cleared, was done to Falmouth and back to Truro.
The view from platform 1:
DMU 150123_2016.10.05_1_Penryn_& 153333 by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
With the two most Westerly branches in Cornwall cleared I now needed three stations on the Penzance side of the Great Western Mainline after Liskeard.
Due to the timings I could only manage two today, but I had a plan for the third one later in the week.
I left Truro on 150233, dud for the week, heading towards my only requirement between there and Penzance.
My plan had been to do this all the way and have a fester of about an hour but I spotted a fill in turn that would give me a wait of about five minutes.
A bit risky but I decided to do it instead of enduring a long wait.
This was the only deviation from my plan and proved quite lucrative.
I left 150233 at Redruth and a few minutes later boarded winner
150239, which I took back to Truro.
It was over the footbridge and another short wait before required HST
43188 appeared, thankfully on time.
The rear power car was numerically adjacent 43187.
I did these to
Hayle.
It’s not the easiest station to transfer from one platform to another and I hadn’t long done the walk when 150233 (again) appeared to take me to my eighth and final new station of the day,
Bodmin Parkway
Bodmin gave me the longest fester of the day, forty-five minutes, but the wait was made easier by the strange sight I witness on the opposite platform.
There wasn’t a train off there for well over an hour, so my first thought when I saw a couple arrive was that they hadn’t researched their journey well.
In order to fill the time the bloke put on a massive pair of headphones and began to dance up and down the platform!
“What’s that t*t doing?” was my immediate thought.
Whilst he was doing this, the woman he was with started a phone call and despite the fact they were on the opposite platform every word was clear as day as her voice boomed out.
She was mentioning names that, for my sins, I recognised as dancers on Strictly Come Dancing.
She was moaning about her lot in life and having to teach the bloke, who was leaping up and down next to her, to do a “Bollywood Salsa” when she would have much preferred a Charleston.
I tried to identify said bloke but to no avail - with my less than perfect eyesight, I could see he was a white chap with short dark hair and a beard, although his features were unclear.
Imagine my delight* when, the following Saturday saw none other than celebrity quitter Will Young (white, short hair, beard) doing a Bodmin, sorry Bollywood, Salsa.
Bodmin Parkway, no celebrities visible:
DMU 150233_2016.10.05_4_Bodmin Parkway by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
Anyway, laughing at the dancing oaf helped fill some of the time and before long my train home arrived.
This was worked by winner from earlier 150239, which now had 153325 added to the front.
I did these back to Redruth, arriving at 17.40 and getting back to the campsite exactly on time.
On Thursday it was back to sightseeing, although I still had one required station in mind.
We visited Restormel Castle, which just so happens to be located within walking distance of said shack.
We did 150202 from Redruth to
Lostwithiel, viewed the castle then 150249 to St Erth.
The sad faced girl wanted our train - she made it thanks to a rapid opening of the crossing gates:
DMU 150249_2016.10.06_Lostwithiel by
Phil Wood, on Flickr
We were heading to St Ives because my wife likes the views from that line and so it was a round trip, once again on 150124.
When we got back to St Erth lots of people off our train went to Platform 2 to await the next London train.
We were also planning on being on that, but had a better idea in mind.
150122 was done to Penzance and we boarded the HST there.
This was worked by 43125 and winner
43190.
Once back at Redruth our Cornish train moves were over with.
The following day we drove to Derbyshire where my parents had rented a massive house for the week.
The reason for this was that it was their Golden wedding anniversary and they wanted all their kids, grandkids, etc to be there.
We had a few days with the family, which did manage to include a few train bits although I’ll come to that later.
Cornwall had given me seven new haulages and ten winning shacks.
I've now cleared the St Ives and Falmouth branches and had all the mainline stations from Liskeard onwards.
Not too bad.
*I wasn’t that delighted, truth be told.
.