shredder1
Established Member
London and the Chilterns.
London and the Chilterns. Saturday 3rd December 2016.
Another early start, love that time in the morning as long as I`m not going to work, up at 03.30 to catch the famed 05.11 Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth Cross Country Voyager, and down as far as Leamington Spa, with a change for a Chilterns service to Princes Risborough, as I wanted to travel on the branch line up to Aylesbury this weekend and the former Great Central section to Aylesbury Vale Parkway. The Chiltern Bubble car operates the service between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury, mid-week, but this being a Saturday she was parked up on a rest bite, fortunately outside the depot at Aylesbury though, so I was able to take some photographs of her.
I`d found an unusual ticket on National Rails Journey Planner website that allowed me to travel via Leamington Spa to Aylesbury on any permitted route and it directed me via Princes Risborough on the way out and gave me the option of coming back via London Marylebone for the return journey. I booked the ticket at Manchester Piccadilly to Aylesbury Vale Parkway, but was told by a very irate young woman selling the tickets, that I couldn’t use this ticket via Marylebone and that the National Rail website was wrong, but I paid my £40 anyway and boarded the 05.11, asking the guard on the train the same question. He however told me the opposite and said if it was listed on the National Rail website, it was valid, indeed out of curiosity I asked the Chiltern guard on the train from Leamington Spa and he said the same thing. Just to be sure I also asked the ticket office at Princes Risborough, but they wasn’t sure and said it wasn’t, so I asked again at Aylesbury and they told me it was definitely alright to use the Marylebone route, you have to ask how much confidence the public have in the railways when buying rail tickets, since many of the sellers don`t appear to understand how some tickets work, mind you it is a very complex system to be fair, (fare), so I do sympathise with them at times.
I alighted at Aylesbury and had an half hour to wait until the train for Aylesbury Vale Parkway, but on leaving the station my ticket was snatched by the machine, the silly girl at Manchester Piccadilly had sold me a ticket to Aylesbury and not Aylesbury Vale Parkway, the one that I had asked for and it wasn’t clear on the ticket, so I had to explain at the ticket office in Aylesbury what had happened, since it was the same price, £40, they simply gave me another ticket. After a few photographs around the station at Aylesbury, because it had been a number of years since I had been there, I made the run up to the Vale Parkway, a modern single platform affair, but on an island between two lines, an anti-climax from the Great Central days.
I next travelled from Aylesbury Vale Parkway direct into London Marylebone, which from Amersham follows the Metropolitan line for much of the way and arrived in London by around lunchtime and just in time to see 68010 arriving from the Midlands.
On my way back to the north, I also wanted to travel the new section of track between Haddenham and Thane Parkway to Oxford Parkway and I boarded a direct service to Haddenham from Marylebone and alighted at Bicester Village in order to buy another ticket out to Oxford Parkway return as I wasn’t sure my any permitted route ticket would cover me for that section and no guard was available on the train. While buying my ticket at Bicester Village station, a Chinese woman tried to push in, the ticket seller had to tell her he was already serving a customer, so ignorant, what’s wrong with these people, The line from Oxford Parkway to Oxford is due to open in a few weeks’ time, the first section of the plan to reinstate a line from Oxford through to Cambridge, another short sighted closure.
Returning to Bicester Village station I alighted again but this time I had a look at the Village proper. What an horrible place, lots of overpriced designer shops set up in what looks like a modern cowboy town built with wooden buildings with brick bases with a tight thoroughfare passing through the centre, no character at all and I was glad to eventually find a bus to take me across town to Bicester North Station, where I boarded a train into Birmingham Snow Hill direct. A pleasant walk through Birmingham and a bite to eat and I was soon on a very overcrowded Cross Country Voyager back up to Manchester Piccadilly, jumped in the car and after a 30 minute drive home I was back for 19.00, and another pleasant day out. Many thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the photographs.
https://www.facebook.com/nick.melling.104
London and the Chilterns. Saturday 3rd December 2016.
Another early start, love that time in the morning as long as I`m not going to work, up at 03.30 to catch the famed 05.11 Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth Cross Country Voyager, and down as far as Leamington Spa, with a change for a Chilterns service to Princes Risborough, as I wanted to travel on the branch line up to Aylesbury this weekend and the former Great Central section to Aylesbury Vale Parkway. The Chiltern Bubble car operates the service between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury, mid-week, but this being a Saturday she was parked up on a rest bite, fortunately outside the depot at Aylesbury though, so I was able to take some photographs of her.
I`d found an unusual ticket on National Rails Journey Planner website that allowed me to travel via Leamington Spa to Aylesbury on any permitted route and it directed me via Princes Risborough on the way out and gave me the option of coming back via London Marylebone for the return journey. I booked the ticket at Manchester Piccadilly to Aylesbury Vale Parkway, but was told by a very irate young woman selling the tickets, that I couldn’t use this ticket via Marylebone and that the National Rail website was wrong, but I paid my £40 anyway and boarded the 05.11, asking the guard on the train the same question. He however told me the opposite and said if it was listed on the National Rail website, it was valid, indeed out of curiosity I asked the Chiltern guard on the train from Leamington Spa and he said the same thing. Just to be sure I also asked the ticket office at Princes Risborough, but they wasn’t sure and said it wasn’t, so I asked again at Aylesbury and they told me it was definitely alright to use the Marylebone route, you have to ask how much confidence the public have in the railways when buying rail tickets, since many of the sellers don`t appear to understand how some tickets work, mind you it is a very complex system to be fair, (fare), so I do sympathise with them at times.
I alighted at Aylesbury and had an half hour to wait until the train for Aylesbury Vale Parkway, but on leaving the station my ticket was snatched by the machine, the silly girl at Manchester Piccadilly had sold me a ticket to Aylesbury and not Aylesbury Vale Parkway, the one that I had asked for and it wasn’t clear on the ticket, so I had to explain at the ticket office in Aylesbury what had happened, since it was the same price, £40, they simply gave me another ticket. After a few photographs around the station at Aylesbury, because it had been a number of years since I had been there, I made the run up to the Vale Parkway, a modern single platform affair, but on an island between two lines, an anti-climax from the Great Central days.
I next travelled from Aylesbury Vale Parkway direct into London Marylebone, which from Amersham follows the Metropolitan line for much of the way and arrived in London by around lunchtime and just in time to see 68010 arriving from the Midlands.
On my way back to the north, I also wanted to travel the new section of track between Haddenham and Thane Parkway to Oxford Parkway and I boarded a direct service to Haddenham from Marylebone and alighted at Bicester Village in order to buy another ticket out to Oxford Parkway return as I wasn’t sure my any permitted route ticket would cover me for that section and no guard was available on the train. While buying my ticket at Bicester Village station, a Chinese woman tried to push in, the ticket seller had to tell her he was already serving a customer, so ignorant, what’s wrong with these people, The line from Oxford Parkway to Oxford is due to open in a few weeks’ time, the first section of the plan to reinstate a line from Oxford through to Cambridge, another short sighted closure.
Returning to Bicester Village station I alighted again but this time I had a look at the Village proper. What an horrible place, lots of overpriced designer shops set up in what looks like a modern cowboy town built with wooden buildings with brick bases with a tight thoroughfare passing through the centre, no character at all and I was glad to eventually find a bus to take me across town to Bicester North Station, where I boarded a train into Birmingham Snow Hill direct. A pleasant walk through Birmingham and a bite to eat and I was soon on a very overcrowded Cross Country Voyager back up to Manchester Piccadilly, jumped in the car and after a 30 minute drive home I was back for 19.00, and another pleasant day out. Many thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the photographs.
https://www.facebook.com/nick.melling.104
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I see as a result 168327 is definitely around now, so that's potentially good news for me 
