Not yet had a 185 Liverpool to Manchester via Eccles, I still want to give that a go but not if I can get a good deal on a Northern 319! Good grief they make a good racket!
11/05/2017 - 88% Cleared And Counting, Day 1
First things first, I recently decided to terminate my Live Trip Reports on Twitter. I will still attempt to come up with clever trip titles though, which leads me nicely into this one. I still need 12 shacks to 100% clear LM, so each shack is worth 1% for the purposes of achieving the goal. Just after payday I decided to book another trip. Bearing in mind my need to get on with clearing LM, and having not scored a shack in quite some time, my goal of 150 shack scores in 2017 was looking unattainable. Before this trip, I had only scored 42 shacks in 4 and a bit months! Watford Central Premier Inn got booked, as did some Advances, the return journey being deemed worthy of an extra £15 for a First Class Advance. The St Albans Abbey branch was to finally get cleared as Priority Alpha for this bash, the Marston Vale would take a lot more planning.
Unsurprisingly I couldn't wait to finish work and get on the rails, having had to implement Ultra Tight Fisted Mode lately, due to spending way more than I should have done and impulsively buying a new suitcase on Bank Holiday Frothday [not that that stopped me consuming two expensive bottles of beer on 5th May, or a post-work mini bash on 10th May! - Ed] after all! A much needed combined lunch and tea was needed, so I got a large meat feast pizza from Pizza Hut. I got a surprise lift to the station, and gave two slices of my pizza to my sister as a result. I realised slightly too late I had a chance to make the 1639, but if I had I'd have been standing all the way to Worcester at the least. I still had my food to finish off too, so after a while I got dropped off before the weather changed. Two minutes later it got well nasty with lightning and heavy rain, well timed! A coffee was sourced from Pumpkin before I got on early for a good seat on 153354+170515 on the 1739 to the Bat Cave.
390128 was waiting for me to join it on the 1930 to London Euston, and it was time to put the charger on as I was down to a mere 15%, having not charged my phone the previous night as per the plan. The tunes were on too of course, and it took me a good while to realise I was on Kite's last 390! Unsurprisingly I don't think he was overly amused at that! It was a good run to Watford Junction, and after getting slightly lost I made it to base camp, on this occasion it was Premier Inn Watford Central. I had had the option of getting a 378 to Watford High Street then walking over, but as it was dud 378211 I rejected that idea. Check in was done in less than 3 minutes which was nice, and the window was left open thankfully as it was a rather warm night!
Now bring on the 319!
12/05/2017 - 88% Cleared And Counting, Day 2
0615 and I was wide awake, the curse of being awake at that sort of time every day. It surprised me though, considering I didn't hit the hay until gone 2330, but no matter. After a more than mandatory de-rancification, and a bag pack, it was downstairs for breakfast. This must be the first time I've not used a lift in a hotel, but then there was no need to as I was only on the first floor. £8.99 and about 45 minutes later my enormous breakfast was consumed and I felt mighty ill for at least 20 minutes afterwards. Given what I've listed below as my breakfast, I think that should have been expected:
- 5 mini pain au chocolat (hellfire things!)
- 1 decent size croissant
- 2 rounds of toast with Nutella spread
- 1 small Yeo Valley strawberry live yoghurt (surprisingly nice)
- 3 sausages, 3 slices of bacon, 3 hash browns and baked beans
- 3 small glasses of orange juice
- 3 cups of coffee
Worth £8.99 as it effectively was designed to cover both breakfast and lunch, but oh my days I felt proper ill after all that! My stomach is no longer used to big breakfasts, after all it's been made to get used to going to work all day on a couple of toasted muffins and caffeine! Note to self, don't do such a breakfast move again, it's not worth having to sit on the bed for more than 20 minutes complaining about it! Once the recovery was done, it was a slow walk back to Watford Junction. £4.40 later I was armed with a day return to winner shack How Wood, and I get a large coffee from Upper Crust from the slightly flirty lass serving. Upstairs for urgent business first, then I discovered I could have got a Puccinos coffee! D'oh! Over to platform 11 and I joined 319216 for the run to How Wood. Much to my incredible surprise, tickets were checked before departure, credit where it's due to LM for being proactive on revenue checks.
A nice noisy run in the motor coach saw me endure a boring 16 minute fester, rejoining 319216 to winner shack Garston. I discovered where Asda is and went on what turned out to be a long walk and WOW, this Asda is ENORMOUS! I came out with more than expected, then did the walk to winner shack Watford North and joined 319216 yet again, turning it into a Super Dud, to winner shack Bricket Wood. That cleared the St Albans Abbey line shacks, just 8 more to go on the Marston Vale so I'm now at 92% Cleared on LM.
It was a fester for 378s next, and to avoid boring you all it was dud followed by dud followed by more duds! I was going to see if I could travel on the 1237 instead, but upon discovery it would be a single 221 I voted against that idea! I ended up scoring The Flag next to the station, but as it turned out my choice of beer was a dud, not much luck for me in the dump of a place better known as Watford! Eventually time passed and I joined 390047 in First Class, a rare treat, to find someone sitting in my seat so I sat in his one, typical snobs for you there. I had a coffee soon followed by the drink I've been wanting for some time, Virgin Trains West Coast's weekday First Class only Tilting Cider. Oh my LORDZ that was nice and thoroughly worth waiting for. As was the escape from Watford, I cannot, on a family friendly forum, describe how glad I was to leave there after the best part of 2 hours! The other adult beverage of choice was Redwillow's Wreckless, which is dud from my Beer52 days, should have checked it before I ordered otherwise I'd have had more cider!
As I was surrounded by the expenses crew, I had my earphones for most of the journey. Good thing too as just as I took them out in the Midlands that horrid iPhone ringtone started. Until then I had lucked out, oh I hate that noise and was so glad to go back to Tech's Mobile Disco for what a slow run between Coventry and Birmingham International. It should be noted now I didn't think much of the First Class hosts, just because I wasn't dressed like a snob and wanted to be fussy with my food and beverages I got less than a friendly attitude!
I'm not used to that on Virgin West Coast in Standard let alone First, so imagine how annoyed I was as I often rave about how good VTWC are for customer relations! I would have had at most 90 seconds to try and make the 1449 homewards, having arrived 2 down, so I didn't even try and went to the First Class lounge.
This one is different to the one I did years ago, in a new location, and is actually quite nice. Those armchairs are awesome, and the host here was much better than the on-board crew, so I made a point of tweeting that much to Virgin too. Eventually I headed out for my train home, after sourcing some of that hellfire orange juice of course, and join 170501+153371 for some DBT homewards. The atlas was finally updated with my first shack scores in quite a while, and of course the moves book got its update having done my RM update with Virgin's free WiFi.
Once back in Hereford I went to my new favourite pub, Hogarths, and had a winner cider before getting the bus home. A limited amount of scores, and I have yet to get a winner in May, but that will soon change!
