The strike on the north day 7: What can an hour late give you?
Answer? Crowds, and lots of them! On the Friday of our North East, Nat and I found this out. Granddad had an appointment in York so asked if we'd be OK getting dropped off an hour later at Malton so he could just drop us off on the way to York. This was fine with us and granddad said that we could stay out for an extra hour instead, to make up the time. This was good because it meant that we could have a little lie in, getting up at 08:30 on the 19th of August.
The usual routine was went through an hour later than usual and we all headed off in the car at 09:30 for the ride to the station, getting there with about 25 minutes until our cart through to York. We immediately noticed that the platform was busier than it had been for the 09:13 on any day at this point and it gradually got busier and busier as departure time approached. We knew that we'd need to be close to the doors for any chance of a seat so, as dud
185127 rolled in, we got in line with where the doors would open. The moment we saw the interior of the unit, we knew that there wasn't a chance of us getting a seat. There were already many people standing in each vestibule and, with loads of people already waiting for this train, we knew that it'd be heaving on departure. This was most certainly true, with me standing in the middle of an aisle, with little space between me and the next person, and Nat in one of the most crammed vestibules I've ever seen with no possible movement as he was rammed next to the wall and loads of other passengers. It wasn't a fun journey, that's for sure!
It was announced that we'd be caped at York with a different train continuing on to Liverpool so I assumed that it'd be a 6 car. I've no idea the reason it was caped in the end because it was just another 3 heading onward to Liverpool, with this one forming the next Scarborough! I didn't mind though as it meant that I got the lesser used platform 2 at York and, although I don't do platforms for scrachage, it was nice to get it.
I'd asked for some gen on Nat's winners once again and we found out that the only gettable one was 208, which would be coming south from Aberdeen. We knew that it had headed north the day before so didn't know which of the two it'd be coming south on but we got gen to say that it was the first one, meaning that we needed to head to Newcastle on the 10:55 milkfloat. We got in position for it, hoping for a winner, and groaned when
91119 arrived. This was a winner two days before when we'd had it from York to Newcastle. We then had it the day before as a tram vice from Darlo' to York so it was most certainly a high mileage one by the time we alighted at Newcastle. It wasn't too busy in the front coach and we easily got seats for the race up the East Coast to Newcastle and, with no problems en route, we arrived en time with a few minutes to get onto the other platform for our southbound tram set, hopefully with 208. I was most certainly OK with getting this set as 208 is my favourite VTEC powercar and my second favourite overall. We were glad to see that it was indeed the tram set we were hoping for with
43208 leading and
43238, complete in its NRM branding, trailing. It was great to get Lincolnshire Echo (208) again and, even though we couldn't get seats, it was still a good enough ride south to York with some tram thrash, getting back on time.
The front end of 238 by
fishquinn1, on Flickr
We wanted to be on the northbound chieftain so had about 50 minutes to kill with time to get some lunch and go to the NRM for a bit. Sainsbury's local was visited for the usual meal deal and we then wandered over to the NRM via the station and, after getting there, immediately headed for the best thing they have - 87001. It was great to see it again and we spent a while next to it before moving on to the roundhouse, seeing the stuff there. A kettle was on the turntable (not as good as 26007 which I'd seen at Barrow Hill over a year before, that's for sure!), which attracted loads of people, so we tried to avoid the crowds as we made our way around and up to the balcony with the ECML. As there is a PIS for York up there, we saw that the chieftain was running about 6 late, but we decided to head back now anyway. We were there about 10 minutes before booked departure so sat down to eat lunch while waiting for arrival. It was soon approaching with
43305 and
43307, once again, and we got on board for a journey back up the ECML. We were hoping to bail at Darlo' for the second ex Aberdeen but it was already in the platform due to the delay so we decided to continue to Newcastle. The journey from Darlo onwards went OK and we were sorely hoping to make the now tight connection onto the 15:00 milkfloat south to York. We had to run for it as it was arriving at the same time as us but we managed to get on, not getting the milkfloat number of course. At York we found out that it was dud for me (winner for Nat)
91103. It was an uneventful bounce back through to York, stopping only at Darlington en route and we were glad to see that it was a tram on the 16:02 to Kings Cross as booked. We were to take this to Retford (yea, right) for another tram back (yea, right) in time for the 17:40 back to Malton. We got on board and got settled down, waiting for departure.
About 5 minutes after booked departure, the guard came over the PA and said that we were just having a problem with the front locomotive, then saying that the train had two locomotives, one at the front and one at the back. He said that the driver and fitters were in attendance trying to fix the problem and that we'd hopefully be on the move shortly. Bye bye Retford! About 10 minutes later, the guard updated us again saying that the front loco had been declared a failure and that we'd go with just the back powercar powering and that we'd keep on losing time on the way to London due to slower acceleration and a lower top speed. Damn it - loss of mileage!
43320 was soon pushing us out of York with 43310 being the powercar dead on the front. It was making a racket though as it most certainly had much more of a load and it performed absolutely excellently for the journey through to Donny, where we alighted for a short wait before the tram back to York. 320 thrashed out of Donny just over 20-late and it made one of the loudest noises that I've ever heard from a powercar as it left. We could really hear it for miles as it headed away!
The tram back to York was running just under 5-late so we had a slightly longer wait than planned but our tram set was soon arriving with the one that successfully got us to Retford the day before,
43306 and
43272. When we got on and left, the guard did an announcement saying that we'd been losing time due to a problem with one of the locos but, as it's flat between Donny and York, it should be OK. I wanted to confirm that all was OK so I wandered down to the guard and asked. He told me that 4 of the 8 traction motors had blown on 272 so it couldn't get enough power. I was very grateful and thanked him before going back, glad that one of the powercars wasn't completely dead. We were soon getting to York anyway, and had a basic platform change for the 17:40 to Malton.
I knew the 185 that it'd be so wasn't surprised when
185127 from earlier arrived and took us back to Malton, with drop down seats for both of us. It was an alright journey back (except the seats) and we were soon getting there. A walk out into the car park was had here and we were soon heading back to Pickering with granddad after an excellent day.
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The strike on the north day 8: Something different
The penultimate day of our trip, the Saturday, was to be spent doing something slightly different by request of Nat. He wanted a good run on GC so we decided to do a trip up to Sunderland with them. I was OK with this too so we started the day the same way as every other one and got down to Malton in time for the 09:13, granddad having taken us down this morning. We had another 20-minute wait for it and immediately noticed that it was a 'new' TPE liveried one, so I was hoping for 123 in order to get the winner. I was glad to see that it was indeed winner
185123 on the 09:13 this morning and it was certainly a large difference to the crowds on the 10:13 the day before, us getting a bay of 4 (with a couple of people opposite us). It was a pleasant enough journey through the countryside and, after a 25-minute journey; we could see the ECML and were arriving at York.
We had a timetable and knew that we'd need to wait longer today due to the times for GC being different on Saturday and, instead of it departing at 09:58 like on weekdays, it departs at 10:19. A Cross Country tram was due to depart York for the West Country during our fester so I was wondering (and actually asked Nat) if he'd go for it if it had 43207, his last required Cross Country powercar that had ben avoiding him for ages and ages, on. He said that he wouldn't but I wasn't too sure and I did want to see what it'd be in case he would go for the ride to Leeds or Sheffield on it. The reason he said that he didn't want to was because it'd be pretty rubbish mileage (true), although this is someone who has many powercars sat at a mere 17 miles. Still, I guess that's not as bad as dad's lowest (207 strangely enough) at a mere 6 miles or my lowest on many EMT powercars at 8.75! Anyway, back to the trip. When the tram was due in, I wandered down to the end of the platform so I could ID the rear powercar before it left (we were sat down close to where the front one would stop). I couldn't stop myself from grinning when I saw the front powercar - 366 - as I knew that the last gen post I saw had that with 207. Sure enough, 43207 was still on the back. I ran back down the platform to tell Nat, expecting him to go for the tram next to him instead of the GC but, much to my amazement, he just got annoyed and said that we weren't going for it!
After the XC tram had gone, we turned our attention to a GC that had arrived on platform 3 from the north. There wasn't a booked GC south for quite a while so we were confused and then it was announced as the 09:58 to Hartlepool! We had no idea why (it's not in the timetable) but it gave us the chance of a liniar move to Hartlepool before the 10:19 for a winner shack and more mileage of 468 and 480 so we ran over to the footbridge and to the door before being looked at like crazy people by the train crew, who said that it wasn't in passenger service! Oh, well. Back on plan!
The Sunderland tram arrived about 10 minutes before booked departure, with
43423 and
43467, both of which had already been cleared for 100 miles. We settled down in a bay of 4 for the journey north and relaxed as the tram raced up towards Northallerton, where we turned right and headed on the line towards Eaglescliffe. This was dud line for me but it was many years since I had it, and it was required for tram, so all was good. It was a nice enough line, especially when we got close to the coast, and the journey certainly didn't seem as long as it really was, us arriving at Sunderland about 5 late, an hour and 40 minutes after leaving York. I now know why 47403 compared it to Snow Hell although he missed out one small detail. It's worse than Snow Hell! Anyway, it was shack score 1 of the day and we thankfully didn't have long to wait before our service across to Newcastle. We weren't relying on Northern providing us with a non nodding donkey for this run as it was onto the Tyne and Wear metro, which is valid on the North East between Sunderland and Newcastle station! We were very glad at this as it meant we saved some money and got the metro, with winners for everything
4022 and
4033 taking us across to Newky. It was fairly busy but we got seats close to the front so could view out of the front of the train, which was pretty funky. How could we view out of the front? The Tyne and Wear metro does have drivers but they are located in a cupboard sort of thing to the left of the front, leaving the right hand side of the unit with a good view! We couldn't ID all of the ones passing us, which was a shame because I'd only ever identified 1 (at Wabtec of all places) and Nat had never had any. We got quite a few though and it was a fun ride across to Newcastle station where we alighted.
We went through the barriers without any problem, just showing our rover to one of the barrier staff, and got to the main concourse, ready for lunch and our next train. We were to go to the chippy again and get lunch there before falling onto the southbound chieftain (with 307 and 305) but we saw that the first ex Aberdeen was running 45-late and was due in a couple of moments. As we wanted to be on the northbound chieftain from York, we decided that it was a good idea to get this one south and get lunch in York instead. We were both hoping for the same set to be our one (as we knew the two that had overnighted at Aberdeen) but, alas, it was
43315 and
43309 taking us south. I was alright with this set though, as 315 was required for 100, but Nat wasn't as he got nothing out of it. It was a rather busy service and we were standing for the journey but it meant that we could do a bit of windowhanging as we wound our way through County Durham before getting onto the very dull bit from Darlo' to York. The journey went smoothly and it was over quickly enough, with us alighting at York with 15 minutes until the cheiftain.
It was raining out and I knew that Nat wouldn't run for lunch - something that would probably need to be done if we were to make the chieftain. It was my turn to buy lunch anyway (we'd been taking it in turns) so I said that I'd run over to get it while he stayed here, taking his Sainsbury's meal deal order. When we arrived, I said bye and ran over, getting what we wanted, before running back again and walking over to Nat as I had just over 5 minutes until it was due in. He was surprised at how quickly I did it but was glad at it too. Lunch was eaten on the train (we had seats!) and duds from yesterday (not that I cared, because of the rear powercar)
43238 and
43208! Hellfire!
As I said, seats were found on board and we were soon racing up the ECML. We ran into problems in the Northallerton area but it only delayed us by a few minutes so we were soon on the move again. We knew the connection at Darlington would now be missed but we wanted to make the one onto the 15:00 at Newcastle, as we knew that it had a milkfloat that had been really annoying me on. 91118 had been constantly avoiding me on this trip and had even been seen heading north this morning from York on the turn that we had got north on quite a few days of the trip (but didn't today due to wanting to get the tram to Sunderland) so I most certainly wanted to get it this time. I was getting worried about the delay as we got closer to Newcastle and really hoped that it'd make. To cut a long story short, it was leaving Newcastle as we were arriving. My reaction wasn't pretty.
We were now going to have to get the 15:30 south and, since we'd arranged to come back on the 17:40 again, we'd have to take it to Doncaster for a tram back up to York. We had a short wait at Newcastle and got very irritated when we saw that it was stupid
91125 pushing us back to York. We'd already had this one twice on the trip, both of those being on tram vices so it wasn't too nice to get it again, especially on a long journey. We got on board and it was a very poor quality ride south, bouncing all over the place. Not only was it poor quality, it was also really dull and we were very glad to get off at Doncaster just under an hour and a half later.
A rainbow formed while we were waiting at Doncaster so a photo was got. Shame about the traction that was in it - I would have much preferred a tram or milkfloat!
180 under the rainbow by
fishquinn1, on Flickr
A winner AGA 153 was randomly sat in the yard so we were both happy to get that in the books, and a blue death came in with a 465 to go to Wabtec so we had stuff to see while waiting at Donny.
Out of zone by
fishquinn1, on Flickr
We checked a departure board though and then got annoyed because the 17:05 to York wasn't there! This was a turn that we'd got the day before from Donny with tram 306 and 272 so we were wondering why it wasn't there - not even cancelled. Can you see what stupid mistake I made? It doesn't run on Saturdays! I didn't feel the need to check the timetable as we'd had it twice already on the trip and I completely forgot that it might not run on Saturdays! Calling myself an idiot aside, we knew that we'd still make the 17:40 from York, just by getting the 17:10 instead. This was a booked milkfloat, so no more trams for us today, but we were hoping for a winner. Nope! Stalker for the trip
91119 would be taking us back to York! We'd had this stupid milkfloat each day after scoring it 4 days ago so it'd been had 4 times and was on 237.25 miles by the time we got back to York on it. Stupid thing!
We didn't have long to wait at York now and I had no idea on the 185 that'd be taking us back to Malton. I was obviously hoping for a winner one but got ready for the dud as I expected it to be one. Score! It was winner
185120 that would be taking us back to Malton today after another excellent day on the rover. There was one bad thing though. One day left...
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