At long last I've gotten through your tram and loop hole ticket fest. Very enjoyable read there young Quinn.
Congrats on clearing all the zings, a very note worthy accomplishment, its something I won't achieve, at the same time, I won't lose any sleep over knowing I won't either, being old school, I hated the damn things, now I can tolerate them to the point I prefer them to Blunts.
Was well jealous to read the tour behind the 47's, I'd have loved a spin on that and you certainly done well in Glasgow. Glasgow Central's a bit of a fave of mine and the Roundabout tickets just a bargain, if only Edinburgh would do a similar ticket. Jealous of 68017 on the fife circle leap too, need that for sight, nevermind haulage. Also, I don't know how anyone can't like the 314s above a 320. I'm not a massive Unit fan but a 314s got a lot more to like than a 320 in my eyes. All about opinions I suppose.
Glad to hear your still using the Clayton Street Chippy, it comes in handy, in fact too handy, if I've been away somewhere, as the bus stop home is just opposite it.
Many thanks for sharing. However I thinks it time you done a North West Rover and get a bit more variety flowing and left them zings alone for a bit
Thanks! The Clayton Street chippy really is a gem, and most certainly does come in handy - I can see myself in there when I do a North East Round Robin on the 21st! I'm not leaving the trams alone while they're still here - I'll have to when they go though
Looks like a nice day out, reinforcing the need for me to get over to Merseyside this year.
Oh, and 313s are great
Remember that there's the tunnel closure until June, and then Lime Street is shut for refurbishment.
Endings
My last trip out on the rails of 2016 was finally here. This would take place in London on the final day of 2016, Saturday the 31st of December. The Chiltern cats were running to the usual Saturday service so getting there and back wasn't a problem, and it was a date that Nathan, Cactustwirly and I could do. I was dreading the crowds coming to London for New Year's eve', but we hadn't met up for a couple of months, and I'm not one to flag a good day out in London!
It was arranged on the evening of the 30th that dad would take us down to Leam for the 08:25 and that one of Nat's folks would take us back, so I got to bed at about 22:30 on the Friday and was soon waking to the beeping of my alarm clock at 07:15 on the Saturday morning. I got ready for the day ahead and did a chore that I'd forgotten to do the day before, before going onto the laptop for a bit and having a grand total of 5 minutes on hellfire once it had loaded up. It was then to the car, dad taking us to the station this morning, and we picked Nat up on the way.
We were soon buying travelcards for the day and I also asked to get the reservations that I hadn't been able to get at Chester or Brunswick on my previous trip due to not having the ticket (I still didn't). This time I was delighted to have no problems with them being issued, and left the ticket office with my travelcard and reservations in 1st class on the 07:35 Mancc to Euston, the 11:05 Kings Cross to Leeds, the 13:45 Leeds to Kings Cross and the 16:40 Euston to Mancc for the 4th of Jan. It was then over to platform 3 to wait for the 08:25 Marylebone.
Before our train came into view a pair of 168s rolled in on platform 2 heading to Brum that Kite was apparently on but we could soon see our far superior traction approaching from the north. Both of us were hoping for GT, Nat because it was now his highest mileage cat and he wanted to get it higher, but we were both happy with the alternative, Nat particularly, because it was
68011. Nat confessed to having forgotten about 68011 and he was really glad to get it, as he hadn't had this particular cat for over a year, the last time being in October 2015. He was moaning about not getting it in 2016 just a month before this trip, so was delighted to get it on the final day, clearing all of the 8 cats that can work with the Chiltern DVTs for the year (I'd reached that by June with the same cat as Nat, but that's because Custard was off the Chilterns for most of the start of the year). This service was quieter than usual and we had no problems getting a seat on board. The guard soon came round and commented on my top as he checked our tickets (one with the BR logo on). I noticed that he had a badge with a couple of locos on pinned to him, so he's probably an enthusiast too.
After an uneventful journey we were soon approaching Marylebone. GT had been seen on a set at Wembley, so we knew that it wouldn't be on the 18:10, and we also saw 68010 with its new, rubbish nameplates, saying 'Oxford Flyer'. It'll always be Bagpuss to me!
For the first time in London when meeting up with Cactus, we were arriving early. We would have been about 5 early (at least), but we got held outside the station to wait for a platform and eventually rolled in just a couple of minutes early. This made a change though, as Cactus has always been early arriving at Paddington, but he was a couple of minutes late today. We headed off the platforms and to the concourse after getting a couple of photos of Custard, and went to sit on a bench as Cactus was meeting us here.
68011 by
fishquinn1, on Flickr
We weren't waiting long before we spotted him. I suggested going for a Marylebone brekky, so we decided to do that, but found out that it was annoyingly shut (probably for the period between Christmas and New Year). We, instead, heading straight to the tube and got onto the first one to arrive heading towards Baker Street, winner
3234 and dud
3537. As we were heading to Waterloo and were mainly going for the South side of things today, we decided to take this to Baker Street where the cross platform change to the Jubilee line was used to get onto double winner
96011 and
96070 through to Waterloo, due to the fact that it's quicker. We were soon bailing at Waterloo and heading up to the main concourse, to see when the next 450 would be leaving to Surbiton.
We found out that there was a service in only a couple of minutes, s we headed over to the Basingstoke service and got on board, winners
450014 and
450003 providing the power. We took a seat in the rear unit for the non stop run to Surbiton...
... Or not. Alas it seems that this service is pick up only at Clapham, so we stopped there before continuing towards Basingstoke, but I did see my first 707s there (along with 20142), which was a bonus. We had soon left Clapham and then had a fast run onward to Surbiton. After Raynes Park it was onto track that I hadn't been on since 2013 (on a tram!) and it was a quick run along the fasts to Berrylands, where we crossed over to the slows for the rest of the ride to Surbiton, shack score 1. After getting off a departure board was looked at and we toyed with the idea of doing a return to Hampton Court, but decided against it after seeing that the 455s are only formed of 4 coaches on that stretch and that there was a Waterloo bound 450 pairing that stopped at Clapham in just under 10 minutes. A platform change was had to get over to the correct platform and, after watching a few units come through non stop, double winner
450027 and
450123 were arriving. We got on board and had to walk through to try and find a seat, getting to the other side of 1st class, but we'd soon settled down for the ride back along to Clapham Junction, getting there a short while later on the fast platform towards Waterloo (I believe platform 7). This put us right next to 20142 when the 450s had left, so we all got a photo before looking at our options. A 444 was wanted and, as I'd looked at RTT on the 450s back from Surbiton, I knew that there was an ex Weymouth at 11:13. It was now only about 10:50, so Cactus and I decided to do a return to Earlsfield as a fill in move, with Nat staying at Clapham to do some spotting.
20142 by
fishquinn1, on Flickr
We headed over to the platform for the next 455 and we could soon see the 10:55 to Chessington South arriving. I wasn't too pleased to see that it was a dud out of the few that I've had,
5864 taking us to shack score 2, Earlsfield. We had a couple of minutes to change platforms here before the next, and it isn't an easy station to change platforms in a hurry due to the two sets of barriers you need to go through. My travelcard didn't work the first set, so I had to wait for the RPI to let me through, but the second set were open so we could just wander through to get up to the other platform, where winner
5709 (with the new motors) took us back to Clapham. It was then a walk back over the footbridge to platform 7, where we only had to wait a few minutes.
Nat showed up from the platform that he'd spent time spotting on (it's the best because you can identify most of the Southern and South West stuff) at the last minute, as our 444s were arriving. I was glad to see that it was a pair of winners
444040 (a winner for sight, too) and
444012. We got in the former for the short ride along the line to Waterloo and were soon leaving the station.
The plan was now to go to Waterloo East to get to Charing Cross and then tube it over to Blackfriars to do some Thameslink, but we headed to the Sainsbury's just outside the station first. I did a price comparison with Sainsbury's and Tesco, which was next door, and went for Tesco, soon emerging with a meal deal. It was then back over to Waterloo before heading across to Waterloo East. I was hoping to get a treble 375 over the bridge, but it'd be a while to wait until the first 375 (10 minutes), which was only an 8 car anyway. Because of this we just went for a pair of 465s, double winner
465181 and
465240 providing the power across the bridge and into Charing Cross.
If you need to District/Circle line at Charing Cross it's quicker to walk to Embankment, so that's what we did and we were soon waiting for a District line service. I wanted to shack score Temple on the way so I asked Cactus and Nat, neither of which minded (as it gave us another chance of getting a D stock). Winner
21438+21437 was soon arriving, and we got on board for the short hop to shack score 3, Temple, before waiting for another District line service, which was right behind it. This was another winner
21370+21369, but unfortunately wasn't a D stock.
Once we'd got to Blackfriars it was up to the heavy rail platforms and the Farringdon bound ones. Cactus had never had a 700 so that was our aim but when a required 319 was seen waiting to leave on the 12:00 Luton I wanted to get it for the short hop to City Thameslink. Nat and I ran for it, but Cactus missed it, and we got off winner
319381 at shack score 4 (no kidding), City Thameslink. A 700 was already in the other platform so we attempted to run over to it for the ride back to Blackfriars (as it'd save the fester here, and made winner
700115 back through to Blackfriars. As we were at the back of the train we decided to go for the two sets of barriers to change platforms and, as we didn't have long before the Bedford service that Cactus was on would leave (it was already in the platform), we didn't like it when the RPIs questioned us because our tickets had been rejected. They're travelcards for goodness sake! We luckily made the Bedford which, much to Cactus's annoyance, was a pair of 387s, dud
387101 leading. We found out when we bailed (but only just, as I was starting to think that I wouldn't ID it) that it was winner
387124 on the back.
Back to City Thameslink, where we knew that, if we made the 319s that were arriving just after we got off, then we'd get back to Blackfriars in time for the next Bedford. We luckily made them, double winner
319437 and
319459 taking us all back to Blackfriars, where we walked along the platform to change sides at the end without barriers. The next Bedford was due in 7 minutes and was 'formed of 12 coaches', so we thought that it'd be a 700. After having a little sit down we were proven right, and winner
700103 took us all along the line to Farringdon, where we'd just missed a Brighton service. We changed platforms again and found out that we'd need to wait 10 minutes for the next unit heading towards Blackfriars. There was a service towards St Pancras in 7, but it was going to Luton and would be a 319 so we decided to wait for the one heading back towards Blackfriars. The Luton was, indeed, a 319, but Cactus wanted to take it after finding out that it was a /2, as he'd never been on one. I don't really like the /2s (or any 319s for that matter) but I needed it so I gave the decision to Nat and Cactus, and we decided to go for it, getting onto winner
319220 for the ride to St Pancras.
Once we got there it was a platform change onto what should have been a Brighton bound 700. Alas it turned out that this service, which we'd seen on the boards at Farringdon as on time, was now 'delayed' so, after a couple of minutes waiting, we decided to leave and head to Kings Cross, getting the Eurostar numbers on the way.
We were soon at Kings Cross where we got the numbers of the many locos there, and I got photos of two powercars that I needed (for phots), before we looked for the next service to stop at Finsbury Park. It was the 13:04 Cambridge, so we wandered over and found required
387116 waiting in the suburban platforms. We got on board the lightly loaded service and were soon on the move, my first 387 out of Kings Cross. A couple of minutes later we were arriving at Finsbury Park, where we wanted to get to Victoria for a run to Bromley South on Southeastern. None of us wanted to get the Victoria line direct from Finsbury, but Cactus wanted to get it from Highbury and Islington (with a 313 to get there). Nat and I most certainly didn't want to do this, so decided to head back to Kings Cross and get the Victoria line from there. We decided to call it a race, finding out that Nat and I had 9 minutes to wait for our Kings Cross service, Cactus 15 for his Moorgate. This may seem like an unfair advantage to us, but it's just a cross platform change to the Victoria line at Highbury, whereas it takes years to get to it at Kings Cross.
We all ended up heading to the same platform face, an island platform with ours due to arrive on one side, Cactus's on the other. We chatted for a bit, watching our service get later and later before gaining another minute and then losing it again, before seeing a 317 approach from the distance. I immediately assumed that it was our service, but we were proven wrong when we saw that it was arriving on a platform a long way from us. That is until we heard the dreaded 'platform alteration' announcement. RUN!
We luckily made winner, and first of the GN bunch,
317338, which I found out to be my last of the GN bunch required for sight! Score! We were soon on the move on this run down, tatty unit, and got to Kings Cross when Cactus's train was booked out of Finsbury Park. We ran over to the Victoria line, taking about 5 minutes (at least), and we had a couple of minutes to wait for the first service, which I was very annoyed to see had dud
11089+11090 on. I've had very few of the Victoria line sets!
I looked at the option of continuing to Pimlico for the shack, track and potential required unit back to Victoria instead of just waiting for Cactus, who we knew would be a couple of sets behind at least. Nat wasn't keen on the idea but we did it anyway, and were bailing at shack score 5, Pimlico, just as a set was arriving on the other platform. It's an easy cross platform change here so we managed to get onto winner
11086+11085 for the ride back to Victoria, where we headed upstairs to find that, because we'd continued to Pimlico, Cactus had won the race! Typical! We decided that it takes about the same amount of time to go on GN to Kings Cross as it does to do GN to Highbury though, so at least we didn't completely lose...
A look at the departure board said that the next service running fast to Bromley South would be the 13:52 to Ashford, which was due out in just over 5 minutes. We wandered onto the platform and I was irritated to see that it was just one 375, not two as I was hoping for. Still, it was a winner, with
375925 taking us out to Bromley South, shack score 6. I got quite a bit of winner track on this run, the bit after the Thameslink stuff turns off to go to Croydon after Herne Hill all the way to Bromley South, and it was a fairly quick run in parts. We were looking at the option of returning to Beckenham Junction from Bromley South to get the tram to Birbeck and then Southern to London Bridge but decided against this because Southern were, once again, on strike and we didn't want to risk no Southern service appearing. Instead we'd have a 15-minute fester before the next non-stop to Victoria. The fester passed fairly quickly and we could soon see our service approaching, but it annoyingly wasn't the pair of 375/3s that we were expecting from a 'formed of 6 coaches' service. It was instead double winner
465919 and
466007. Still, at least I scored winners on the journey back!
I went to the toilet on the ride back and could barely wash my hands, as the water in there was nuclear hot! Even just putting my hands under the tap for less than a second at a time really hurt my hands! I wasn't too pleased at that, nor the fact that I just missed a 700 number but, when I got back to Nat, he said that he'd got it but wasn't going to tell me because he didn't believe that I saw it! A 375 had passed just before I'd gone into the toilet so I asked him if he'd got the number of that and, when I got a negative answer, told him that it was 375826. I had no idea on the real number, but he said that he'd tell me the 700 if I told him the 375. Don't worry - I told him that I didn't really get the number once he told me that the 700 was 030! Other than that it was an uneventful ride back to Victoria, where we had a decision to make. Where next?
We looked at the boars and found that Southern was in chaos, with just a couple of services leaving in the next 20 minutes. We decided to select one of these, the 14:47 to Haywards Heath being chosen, and, unfortunately, I didn't have time to go over to the 'red' gateline and try to get through with my travelcard just to see what they'd say
. I was very glad to see that it was a treble 377 on the Haywards Heath, something that Nat told me he'd seen very few of when spotting at Clapham earlier. I was very glad, especially when I saw that it was treble winner
377470,
377145 and
377416 that would be taking us 2.75 miles to Clapham.
When we got there we needed to decide what to do next. Seeing a couple of 450s arriving on the Windsor side (on a Reading bound) when we got towards that side decided that for us, and we headed down for double winner
450118 and
450039 out to Richmond. It was a short journey and we were soon alighting.
A look at the departure board showed that there was another pair of 450s due in 10 minutes heading towards Waterloo, so we decided to do them. We got to see some planes flying really low here, including a massive A380 (I'm not even a plane fanatic but think they're hellfire), but our 450s back to Clapham soon put an end to that, double winner
450013 and
450126 taking us there. We now did an RTT check to see if what Cactus had in mind for next was possible. We wanted to do a return to Hayes and Harlington on a 360, and found out that we'd have about 40 minutes to get to Paddington when we got to Clapham. Easy. According to Cactus the quickest route to get from Clapham to Paddington isn't to go to Waterloo and then Bakerloo it, it's to get the Overground to Shepherds Bush for the Central line to Queensway, walk to Bayswater for the Circle or District forward to Padd, so that's what we decided to do. We got off the 450s at Clapham and went to see when the next Overground to Shepherds Bush was due, finding out that it was to leave in about 10 minutes at 15:31. Our service from Paddington was due to leave at 16:03, so this would give us 32 minutes. Will it be doable? I hope so!
Winner
378229 was on our service and we were soon on the move. The smell of curry and chips made me hungry - that'd go down so well right now. There was, unfortunately, no time to get it at Shepherds Bush as we quickly crossed the road and went down to the Central line, it looking unlikely that we'd make it now. Our '92 stock was soon arriving, winners
92167,
92440 and
92096 being the first 3 sets. I didn't have time to identify the rear one but, from reading Kite's trip report for two days later, I found out that it was winner
92275. We got on board the poorly designed stock and were soon on the move and arriving at Queensway, shack score 8 (Shepherds Bush was also a score). Here's a tip for trying to leave the station at Queensway. Don't. We headed up some stairs and found out that, despite no signs, this was one way only - getting down to platform level, and that the stairs here were for emergency use only. We went back down to the platform and up another small set of stairs, following the 'way out' signs that had just appeared, and were led to two lifts. We knew that we weren't going to make our 360 at Padd if we got the lift, as both were on a different level and seemed to take a while, so we decided to look for stairs again, finding out that the only ones were, again, emergency use only! The lift is the only 'normal' way to leave the freaking station! We waited for a couple of minutes having pressed the button and soon crammed in along with a lot of other people for the ride up to street level, finding out that the normal way to leave the station was shut, so we had to go down another corridor to exit a different way! The faff at Queensway had taken over 5 minutes off our time to get to Paddington, and there was now no way we were going to make our 360. Brilliant.
We followed the one sign for Bayswater, going down a not-too-pleasant street to get there. It would definitely have been quicker bailing at Notting Hill Gate, but we didn't know that before we did this. After 2-3 minutes of walking we got to Bayswater tube stop and found out that it is so much easier to get down to platform level here. Going from street to platform via a set of barriers took less than 30 seconds! Unfortunately we had to wait more than 30 seconds for the tube, which was due in 3 minutes, and it turned 16:03 while we were waiting. Close but no cigar.
We could soon see the lights of an S stock coming towards us, and I was very annoyed to see that I'd got my first ever dud S stock, with
21406+21405 providing this. Still, it isn't like it's far to Paddington. I was right and we were soon leaving the tube station and wandering over to the platform that the 16:10 to Oxford was due to leave from, because we could get to Southall on this for the same 360 that we would have got from Hayes back. The inbound working was only arriving at 16:08, so I was sure that winner
165112 would leave a few minutes late. It was a busy service but Cactus and I got seats. Just before the doors locked I got a call from Nat asking where we were. I told him middle coach, and didn't like the reply he gave me. 'What train'? Bearing in mind that the doors had just locked at this point, I didn't think he was on board. Luckily he was, and just wanted to confirm that we were indeed on the 16:10. Disaster avoided.
We were soon moving out of Paddington a mere 1 minute late. It was beginning to get dark but we could still identify stuff in Acton. Well, we would have been able to if I hadn't forgot about it and put my book away, leaving just Nat to scribe! Acton was probably the busiest I'd ever seen it, a row of 7 locos up front with at least another 5 behind it and another further along, but some of the numbers were unreadable, probably due to them having come off RHTTs. I managed to remember some, including Nat's last required DB 59, which he was very happy to get. We looked at RTT on the way and found out that it was unlikely to be much more than a +2 at Southall due to our delay, so we decided to go for the safer option at bail at Ealing. The slow lines were shut at Ealing due to engineering works so it was a large step down onto the fast line platform and a walk over the footbridge to get onto the other fast platform before our service back, which was apparently 'on tim'. I don't care about tim - I want to know if my train is on time or not
! There was a GWR to Paddington before our service that had a pair of winner 165s on, but I flagged it as the others wanted to get the 360. Still, it may give me a winner (I've only had one of the Heathrow Connect ones, and I've had it twice)! We wandered down the platform a bit and got to enjoy some tram thrash as they raced past. The ones heading west were certainly better than the ones heading east, that's for sure! After a few trams had passed through, our 360, running 4-late, was arriving. I was glad to see that it wasn't 360201 (the one that I've had before) and was instead winner
360203. It wasn't a busy service and we got a bay of 4 for the ride back to Paddington, identifying more things in Acton en route.
Nat and I wanted to be on the 17:10 from Marylebone because Nat wanted to get Custard again. We got back to Paddington at about 16:45, giving us ample time to get across to Marylebone for it. Cactus's train wasn't to leave Paddington until 17:21, so he decided to come across to Marylebone with us, and we all headed down to the Bakerloo line and got on the first set to arrive, duds
3244 and
3535. A couple of minutes after we'd left Paddington we were arriving at Marylebone, and we all headed up to the concourse, where we said bye to Cactus. Nat and I wandered onto the platform and, as expected,
68011 was waiting to become my last train of the year. It's an odd coincidence that it was this one, as it was my last train in 2015 as well! We got to the loco just as the doors were unlocked, meaning that it was easy to get a partition bay of 4. This service was much quieter than it usually is so we didn't get wedged out at all on the journey back and I enjoyed some patience (a card game) while listening to my audiobook (Firestarter by Steven King - well worth a listen) and the journey passed smoothly. We were soon stood on platform 2 at Leamington watching 68011 thrash its guts out as that became the last cat I saw in 2016. Well, last cat? Nope. Last train.
Nat's dad was waiting outside the station when we got there, so we wandered over and clambered in for the ride back. It was uneventful and I was soon getting out of the car and heading back to the boats, where I surprised mum as she expected me to be back an hour later. An hour later wasn't needed, as I'd had a brilliant day with the time I'd had, with loads of winners and great company. Thanks for reading guys and I hope you all have a good 2017! A mere 5 hours after I got home 2016 drew to a close, with an ending day that was just brilliant. What will 2017 hold? I've no idea, but I just hope it was nearly as good as 2016.
