alexf380
Established Member
Let's see how long this lasts! 
My (probably part time) return to trip reporting kicks off with a round up of last month's activities.
October started with a trip down to London with my partner, as the NFL were back to playing three games a year in the UK after a Covid-related break. Our team, the New Orleans Saints, were one of the teams coming across this year and so we made it our misssion to see them in action. Our original idea had been to take a train down to York on the Saturday evening after work, stay the night in York, then catch a morning train onward to London. The rail industry had other ideas, as Saturday 1st October was to be a strike day and with nothing leaving Edinburgh after 6pm it just wouldn’t be possible. We also didn’t want to resort to the 7am train on the Sunday as we’d be exhausted by the time the game was finished, so to Flixbus it was! Neither of us had done the overnight bus to London before so it was to be a learning experience if nothing else.
We made it to Edinburgh Bus Station with about 45 minutes to spare before our bus departed, and clearly we weren’t going to be alone in slumming it on the bus tonight. In fact to our surprise, there were quite a few departures after ours. Our bus soon arrived and it was McGill’s Volvo 9700 SJ21NDO “Christina” that would be carrying us down to Victoria Coach station tonight. All things considered, it was actually quite a comfortable journey and after some partygoers alighted at Newcastle just after midnight we even managed to get some proper sleep! Arrival into Victoria was about 15 minutes early, which meant we had buckets of time to freshen up before going in search of breakfast. Spoon’s was decided upon pretty sharpish and once it opened at 08:00 we were in and eating. After food, we went in search of our bag drop location (shout out to the Stasher app) via the Underground before we had to think about heading over to the stadium. Finally, some trains! A walk up to Highbury & Islington station saw us onto a westbound LO service formed of 378201 to Startford, before a twenty minute wait for 720552 took us up to Tottenham Hale along with many more American Football fans.
Although our team lost, it was still a fantastic day as we will no doubt be back in the future. After the game we settled on a location for dinner before following the masses down to Seven Sisters tube station, where we took the Victoria line down to King’s X St Pancras. Dinner and a quick beer was had in a nice wee pizza place about 5 minutes walk from King’s Cross station (Can’t remember the name, sorry) before it was back to the tube, down the road to Euston. Yes, I had convinced my better half to splash out on a Caley Sleeper room on the way home. Boarding commenced about an hour before departure and as we were in the Glasgow portion, we had to walk more or less all the way to the front of the train. The Edinburgh portion would have cost about £40 more on this occasion. We were in room J6 which turned out to be one of the accessible rooms. Great for the extra floor space, but as it turned out, much worse for the ride quality as you could really feel the bounce. A good sleep was still had all round, and before long we were arriving into Glasgow Central.
It turns out dud 92020 was on the front here, that loco now being on 776 miles. As we were drinking our free Caley Sleeper tea on the concourse, we realised there was an XC service departing to Edinburgh in under ten minutes, so a mad dash over to buy tickets was had before jumping on board winning 221132, which was terminating short at Edinburgh due to overrunning engineering works.
A shame about the strikes forcing us onto the bus, but not a bad start to the month.
Just three short weeks later, I was heading out on my October big trip. I’d settled on Merseyside for this one, my intention was to score a few more 507s and 508s as a potential goodbye to them. That of course meant a return to the 06:52 London Euston service which on this occasion was in the hands of winning 390118. I took this unit all the way down to Wigan North Western, and if I wasn’t on an advance ticket I’d have bailed sooner as it was absolutely roasting on board, even after moving carriages at Carlisle.
390118 @ Wigan North Western by Alexander Fleming, on Flickr
From one extreme to the other as my next train was 319372. Still in scruffy plain white livery, and with not much heating, it was endured the full way down to Liverpool Lime Street. After purchasing my Saveaway ticket, it was down to the low level platform for six and a half hours of PEP bashing. First up was 507029 for a short hop round the loop to James Street, where I had a bit of a wait for a West Kirby train. Soon enough, 508122 arrived and took me off to Bidston. It was here that I realised I’d made a mistake. You see, the plan for today had been sitting on an Excel doc for the best part of two years and in making it suitable for today I must have deleted one two many rows. I was supposed to take that train up to Leasowe before doubling back to Bidston, then continuing. This meant that I was now not going to clear the West Kirby branch shacks today. Oh well, just an excuse to return sooner rather than later. 507011 then took me up to Manor Road, where I then had the pleasure of 508122 once again back to Moreton (Merseyside). I had fifteen minutes here to wait in the wind as the waiting rooms appeared to be closed. Up next was 508128 for the run to Hoylake, and I made sure to position myself in the front coach as I only had a +2 on a service back the other way. As it turned out, I made it over the footbridge with perfect timing as 508117 arrived to take me up to Meols. A short wait at Meols saw me onto 507014 all the way to the end of the line at West Kirby.
507014 @ West Kirkby by Alexander Fleming, on Flickr
I didn’t get out here to go exploring, just remained on the train for the trip back to Birkenhead North. I kept the pace up here and awaited my chariot onto the New Brighton line. It turned out to be 507028 that would take me up to Wallasey Grove Road. A short wait produced 508130 for the even shorter journey back to Wallasey Village. I was getting rather hungry now as it was approaching 2pm and I hadn’t eaten since the Pendolino earlier. I noted there was a Morrisons not too far from New Brighton station, and I was taken there courtesy of 508103.
507018 @ New Brighton by Alexander Fleming, on Flickr
A word of warning, it’s all downhill to the Morrisons at the seafront. Meaning that it’s uphill on the way back to the station. I sat on 507018 and ate my meal deal before it took me down to Conway Park. I got a bit confused here as it looks like the stairs to/from the platform are behind some rather imposing looking doors, so I had to dash into the lift over to the other side just in time for 508103 to make its second appearance of the day and take me to Birkenhead Park. 508130 was another repeat offender today, and this time it was off to Hamilton Square and time to play around on the other side of the Wirral Line.
First up, 507008 takes me to Rock Ferry. It’s school finishing time now so there’s many a school-child about (boo!) and I don’t really feel like hanging around, so I’m happy to see winning 508108 arrive and carry me off to Bromborough Rake. There’s a bit of a wait here as only the Ellesmere Port trains are stopping, but soon enough winning 507003 arrives and carries me onto Birkenhead Central. It appears there’s some building work taking place on the footbridge here, so it’s not the nicest place to wait. It’s also getting a bit cold now, and 508120 is a welcome addition to the haulage book for the ten minute run down to Spital.
Another fifteen minute fester here as I await 507021 to take me onwards to Bebington. 507029 then makes its second appearance for the day, and takes me to my penultimate shack score of Bromborough. This is as far south as I’m coming today as time is ticking and I want to make sure I have a decent meal before I head home. I’ve one more shack to visit on my plan and that’s the delightful sounding Port Sunlight, 508136 doing the honours on this occasion. Unfortunately, there isn’t much sunlight to be had, so I eagerly await the next Liverpool bound service, which turns out to be 507003. I take this all the way to Liverpool Lime Street to end the day’s activities.
On arrival at Lime Street, I realised why I couldn’t find any reasonably priced hotel rooms; it’s Friday night. The Wetherspoons on the station is absolutely bouncing – no chance of a table for 1 in there so I go for a walk around the immediate area and settle on a McDonald’s instead. Before long I’m back at the station and it’s crawling with police, apparently on a drugs operation. It doesn’t bother me though as I’m straight onto the awaiting 319361 on the Blackpool North train, and once we’re past Wigan we get some lovely motor noise going. Preston is reached in good time to see that Avanti is running about fifteen to twenty minutes late across the board.
319361 @ Liverpool Lime Street by Alexander Fleming, on Flickr
The next leg of my homeward journey is aboard 390151 as far as Carlisle. I get talking to a young lad from Canada who is here visiting his partner at university. A lovely chap but not the best welcome to the country’s transport network for him, as not one but two TPEs from Manchester Airport had been cancelled! We part ways at Carlisle and I await my Voyagers home, which tonight are 221109+221113. I’m glad that I’m on the homeward stretch now as I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s been too long since I’ve had a full day on the rails like this and it shows. Edinburgh is reached twenty minutes late at 22:42, and I’m home not long after half past eleven.
How did I do this month? Well, an impressive yet frustrating 982 miles. If it weren't for those stikes at the start of the month I'd have surpassed 1,000 easily. 14 winners for haulage isn't too bad, though. I hope you enjoyed the read, and I guess I'll be back next month.
My (probably part time) return to trip reporting kicks off with a round up of last month's activities.
October started with a trip down to London with my partner, as the NFL were back to playing three games a year in the UK after a Covid-related break. Our team, the New Orleans Saints, were one of the teams coming across this year and so we made it our misssion to see them in action. Our original idea had been to take a train down to York on the Saturday evening after work, stay the night in York, then catch a morning train onward to London. The rail industry had other ideas, as Saturday 1st October was to be a strike day and with nothing leaving Edinburgh after 6pm it just wouldn’t be possible. We also didn’t want to resort to the 7am train on the Sunday as we’d be exhausted by the time the game was finished, so to Flixbus it was! Neither of us had done the overnight bus to London before so it was to be a learning experience if nothing else.
We made it to Edinburgh Bus Station with about 45 minutes to spare before our bus departed, and clearly we weren’t going to be alone in slumming it on the bus tonight. In fact to our surprise, there were quite a few departures after ours. Our bus soon arrived and it was McGill’s Volvo 9700 SJ21NDO “Christina” that would be carrying us down to Victoria Coach station tonight. All things considered, it was actually quite a comfortable journey and after some partygoers alighted at Newcastle just after midnight we even managed to get some proper sleep! Arrival into Victoria was about 15 minutes early, which meant we had buckets of time to freshen up before going in search of breakfast. Spoon’s was decided upon pretty sharpish and once it opened at 08:00 we were in and eating. After food, we went in search of our bag drop location (shout out to the Stasher app) via the Underground before we had to think about heading over to the stadium. Finally, some trains! A walk up to Highbury & Islington station saw us onto a westbound LO service formed of 378201 to Startford, before a twenty minute wait for 720552 took us up to Tottenham Hale along with many more American Football fans.
Although our team lost, it was still a fantastic day as we will no doubt be back in the future. After the game we settled on a location for dinner before following the masses down to Seven Sisters tube station, where we took the Victoria line down to King’s X St Pancras. Dinner and a quick beer was had in a nice wee pizza place about 5 minutes walk from King’s Cross station (Can’t remember the name, sorry) before it was back to the tube, down the road to Euston. Yes, I had convinced my better half to splash out on a Caley Sleeper room on the way home. Boarding commenced about an hour before departure and as we were in the Glasgow portion, we had to walk more or less all the way to the front of the train. The Edinburgh portion would have cost about £40 more on this occasion. We were in room J6 which turned out to be one of the accessible rooms. Great for the extra floor space, but as it turned out, much worse for the ride quality as you could really feel the bounce. A good sleep was still had all round, and before long we were arriving into Glasgow Central.
It turns out dud 92020 was on the front here, that loco now being on 776 miles. As we were drinking our free Caley Sleeper tea on the concourse, we realised there was an XC service departing to Edinburgh in under ten minutes, so a mad dash over to buy tickets was had before jumping on board winning 221132, which was terminating short at Edinburgh due to overrunning engineering works.
A shame about the strikes forcing us onto the bus, but not a bad start to the month.
Just three short weeks later, I was heading out on my October big trip. I’d settled on Merseyside for this one, my intention was to score a few more 507s and 508s as a potential goodbye to them. That of course meant a return to the 06:52 London Euston service which on this occasion was in the hands of winning 390118. I took this unit all the way down to Wigan North Western, and if I wasn’t on an advance ticket I’d have bailed sooner as it was absolutely roasting on board, even after moving carriages at Carlisle.
390118 @ Wigan North Western by Alexander Fleming, on FlickrFrom one extreme to the other as my next train was 319372. Still in scruffy plain white livery, and with not much heating, it was endured the full way down to Liverpool Lime Street. After purchasing my Saveaway ticket, it was down to the low level platform for six and a half hours of PEP bashing. First up was 507029 for a short hop round the loop to James Street, where I had a bit of a wait for a West Kirby train. Soon enough, 508122 arrived and took me off to Bidston. It was here that I realised I’d made a mistake. You see, the plan for today had been sitting on an Excel doc for the best part of two years and in making it suitable for today I must have deleted one two many rows. I was supposed to take that train up to Leasowe before doubling back to Bidston, then continuing. This meant that I was now not going to clear the West Kirby branch shacks today. Oh well, just an excuse to return sooner rather than later. 507011 then took me up to Manor Road, where I then had the pleasure of 508122 once again back to Moreton (Merseyside). I had fifteen minutes here to wait in the wind as the waiting rooms appeared to be closed. Up next was 508128 for the run to Hoylake, and I made sure to position myself in the front coach as I only had a +2 on a service back the other way. As it turned out, I made it over the footbridge with perfect timing as 508117 arrived to take me up to Meols. A short wait at Meols saw me onto 507014 all the way to the end of the line at West Kirby.
507014 @ West Kirkby by Alexander Fleming, on FlickrI didn’t get out here to go exploring, just remained on the train for the trip back to Birkenhead North. I kept the pace up here and awaited my chariot onto the New Brighton line. It turned out to be 507028 that would take me up to Wallasey Grove Road. A short wait produced 508130 for the even shorter journey back to Wallasey Village. I was getting rather hungry now as it was approaching 2pm and I hadn’t eaten since the Pendolino earlier. I noted there was a Morrisons not too far from New Brighton station, and I was taken there courtesy of 508103.
507018 @ New Brighton by Alexander Fleming, on FlickrA word of warning, it’s all downhill to the Morrisons at the seafront. Meaning that it’s uphill on the way back to the station. I sat on 507018 and ate my meal deal before it took me down to Conway Park. I got a bit confused here as it looks like the stairs to/from the platform are behind some rather imposing looking doors, so I had to dash into the lift over to the other side just in time for 508103 to make its second appearance of the day and take me to Birkenhead Park. 508130 was another repeat offender today, and this time it was off to Hamilton Square and time to play around on the other side of the Wirral Line.
First up, 507008 takes me to Rock Ferry. It’s school finishing time now so there’s many a school-child about (boo!) and I don’t really feel like hanging around, so I’m happy to see winning 508108 arrive and carry me off to Bromborough Rake. There’s a bit of a wait here as only the Ellesmere Port trains are stopping, but soon enough winning 507003 arrives and carries me onto Birkenhead Central. It appears there’s some building work taking place on the footbridge here, so it’s not the nicest place to wait. It’s also getting a bit cold now, and 508120 is a welcome addition to the haulage book for the ten minute run down to Spital.
Another fifteen minute fester here as I await 507021 to take me onwards to Bebington. 507029 then makes its second appearance for the day, and takes me to my penultimate shack score of Bromborough. This is as far south as I’m coming today as time is ticking and I want to make sure I have a decent meal before I head home. I’ve one more shack to visit on my plan and that’s the delightful sounding Port Sunlight, 508136 doing the honours on this occasion. Unfortunately, there isn’t much sunlight to be had, so I eagerly await the next Liverpool bound service, which turns out to be 507003. I take this all the way to Liverpool Lime Street to end the day’s activities.
On arrival at Lime Street, I realised why I couldn’t find any reasonably priced hotel rooms; it’s Friday night. The Wetherspoons on the station is absolutely bouncing – no chance of a table for 1 in there so I go for a walk around the immediate area and settle on a McDonald’s instead. Before long I’m back at the station and it’s crawling with police, apparently on a drugs operation. It doesn’t bother me though as I’m straight onto the awaiting 319361 on the Blackpool North train, and once we’re past Wigan we get some lovely motor noise going. Preston is reached in good time to see that Avanti is running about fifteen to twenty minutes late across the board.
319361 @ Liverpool Lime Street by Alexander Fleming, on FlickrThe next leg of my homeward journey is aboard 390151 as far as Carlisle. I get talking to a young lad from Canada who is here visiting his partner at university. A lovely chap but not the best welcome to the country’s transport network for him, as not one but two TPEs from Manchester Airport had been cancelled! We part ways at Carlisle and I await my Voyagers home, which tonight are 221109+221113. I’m glad that I’m on the homeward stretch now as I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s been too long since I’ve had a full day on the rails like this and it shows. Edinburgh is reached twenty minutes late at 22:42, and I’m home not long after half past eleven.
How did I do this month? Well, an impressive yet frustrating 982 miles. If it weren't for those stikes at the start of the month I'd have surpassed 1,000 easily. 14 winners for haulage isn't too bad, though. I hope you enjoyed the read, and I guess I'll be back next month.
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