milkcct trip reports.

[miklcct]

Day out in London 2022-03-12​

I've completed my day out in the city and returning home. As I live so far away currently, it costs me about £40 (more on a Saturday, less on a Sunday) and at least 4 hours round trip (probably more if engineering work closes the SW main line) just to get to the city and back, so I have to treasure every day when I have something special to do in the city. I signed up for a half marathon 3 days beforehand in Battersea Park, and just before 18:00 yesterday I decided to visit 2 museums, and as a result of ticket availability, I decided to visit National Maritime Museum first, and London Transport Museum afterwards. As it is very likely that going back via Paddington would be the fastest route, and there isn't a through ticket valid to cross London between Paddington - Farringdon to Greenwich, I bought a Bournemouth - London Terminals ticket and used Oyster inside London.

The race started at 09:30. Due to engineering work closing the line at Woking, I had to take the first diverted London train to Clapham Junction and change to a train on the Windsor Line for Queenstown Road. That left me just enough time for preparation and warm up in the park.

For the race itself, I didn't perform great as I didn't have systematic training since the start of pandemic. I completed it in about 2:11, nearly half an hour more than my PB in 2019, and I didn't expect such a huge difference between a systematic training plan and just casual running. I then had lunch in a nearby restaurant before continuing my journey to Waterloo.

Queenstown Road is a trainspotters paradise since one can easily film the whole SWR fleet there. I have a few videos to be uploaded later as well. The PIDS to London is in metro-style countdown without times, but the one to country is in the traditional long-distance style showing scheduled and expected times. There is also a ticket machine on the platform, but I think it's useless as it's not an interchange station since all trains are to/from Waterloo, and the station is gated.




I changed at Waterloo exiting in my national rail e-ticket and entered Waterloo East using Oyster, then changed at London Bridge for Greenwich to visit National Maritime Museum. I was an hour behind planned schedule and finished the museum when it closed, so it was not possible for me to visit London Transport Museum afterwards and decided to return home.

I popped out Google Maps, all options given were via Paddington so I trusted it, and got on the DLR at Cutty Sark. I tapped in at Cutty Sark, travelled to Tower Gateway but I was 10 minutes later than the scheduled time on Google since I was so tired and wandered the wrong way when walking to the DLR station, missing a train there.

I made a transfer to the Circle Line at Aldgate but I had to tap my card again to enter the gateline. When I exited at Paddington I was shocked that the gateline at Aldgate didn't continue the journey but started a new one, leaving the DLR journey incomplete! I will wait for 48 hours for the system to resolve it, and contact TfL afterwards if needed.

I arrived Paddington at 18:15. Google initially suggested me to take the 18:20 service but changed that suggestion to take the 18:18 as I got closer to Paddington. I took note of the platforms for the 18:18, 18:20 and 18:28 services and would try each in order. The 18:18 service was the last valid connection to the CrossCountry service at Reading, the 18:20 was a tight but makeable connection (5 minutes) and the 18:28 would be an impossible connection (1 minute). And I eventually made the 18:18 in time, 30 seconds before departure at the moment the door lights were switched off so I caught back my 10 minutes lost and should be safe as I now had a valid connection at Reading.

The train started and it was full of passengers, but then it ran slowly on the line for a while before getting back to 200 km/h. The train was delayed!!! It was still a long way, probably close to 10 km from Reading at 18:41, the scheduled arrival time and missing that CrossCountry train would be disastrous as half of the trains on the Weymouth line were diverted (the exact reason I went through Paddington instead of Waterloo).

The train finally arrived at 18:50, leaving 2 minutes for the valid connection to Basingstoke and Bournemouth. Then the magnificent scene happened - dozens of passengers sprinted across the bridge from platforms 9 to 7 for the connection! I was in the crowd of passengers as well so I would be safe following the crowd, as the first passengers making it would result in the door blocked from closing. Thank God for preventing a complete chaos happening at the station and saving GWR hundreds of pounds of Delay Repay liability (since missing that train would cause 50% Delay Repay for everyone travelling further than Basingstoke on that train). The full-length CrossCountry train was also very full as well. I think it justifies an hourly departure instead of two-hourly in the current timetable.

I'll leave London Transport Museum for the next time I go to London again.

 

[miklcct]

I've just made my first Anglo-Scottish train trip in the UK on this weekend for orienteering races in Dundee.

Planning
The IOF Eventor lists world ranking races in orienteering, and for sprint orienteering in the UK, there are 1 in Swansea and 2 in Dundee this year. As there is a lack of proper sprint races (those with winning time 12-15 minutes) throughout the UK, I have decided to sign up even if it is so far away in Scotland.

There is no direct flight from Southampton / Bournemouth - Dundee. The closest is Southampton - Edinburgh or London City - Dundee, but they are all extremely expensive that I'm not willing to take. By taking multiple transfers between advance-booked trains and low cost flights, I can squeeze the travel cost to about £110 but that's too much hassle for me - I don't consider it a hassle if the multiple transfers are between flexible trains. Using trains all the way with advance tickets costs similar as well which I don't think it's worthwhile. However, a super off-peak return valid all weekend (without Friday restrictions) cost £136.80 with railcard before price rise which gives me unlimited break of journey in the return, so it has become a good value by taking multiple breaks of journeys on the way without a fixed schedule. I bought the ticket on GWR with 2 Bournemouth PlusBus and 2 Dundee PlusBus tickets for my 4 travel days, and earned hundreds of Nectar points as a result.

Outward journey
I started the journey at Bournemouth at 09:43 Friday but the barrier rejected my ticket starting at Bournemouth. The attendant waved me through immediately. I boarded a CrossCountry train to Basingstoke with my ticket stamped upon inspection and left the train at Basingstoke for the next Waterloo service. When I left the train at Basingstoke the guard actually came to me on the platform and asked if I was good, so I responded I was going to Waterloo. I then used an abnormal but valid route - transferring from Waterloo / Waterloo East to Charing Cross than the Tube to Kings Cross as I wanted to have a break of journey at Charing Cross. My ticket didn't work the barrier on the southeastern route and I noticed it showed 125 at Charing Cross, but I also got waved across without problem.

I took the 14:00 service from Kings Cross to Aberdeen. I asked for forward table window for my seat reservation but the seat allocated only matched one out of three preferences, so after the train started I went to a better seat instead.

It was a comfortable ride in general, but not as smooth as the GWR between Paddington - Reading despite the trains are the same series. The view was spectacular near the Anglo-Scottish border. The train ran on electric until Haymarket and diesel afterwards.



I arrived Dundee on time, checked in the hostel and had nice dinner.

Return
The final race was on Sunday morning. After completing the race and having lunch with my friend, I took the 15:03 LNER service back to Kings Cross. However, due to engineering work, the train was diverted via Leeds and as a result would get passed by a non-stop Grand Central train between York and Kings Cross.

Due to a planning failure, I actually had a seat reservation all the way to Kings Cross on the LNER train, but it only matched 2 out of 3 preferences. Again after the train started I went to a preferred seat as well. It was only on Saturday I realised that the train would get passed by another en route, but I had no way to get a seat reservation on the Grand Central service, and when I turned up at Dundee station, the ticket office responded me no availability, so I expected the train would be overcrowded.

I arrived York on time and changed trains on the same platform. The PIDS said seat reservation was recommended (while the timetable data was marked as reservation mandatory). The Grand Central train was delayed from the start for 5 minutes.

I boarded the train. As I didn't have a reservation, I just went to a vacant seat and surprisingly there were many. But I had already got a very bad first impression about the service.

- the seat reservations are still done in the 15-year-old way of reservation coupons.

- the reservation coupons are not for this service!!!

- The train is so noisy and so shaky, compared to proper high speed trains which is quiet and stable. (This train runs on diesel only)

- My under-airline-seat-legal bag can't even squeeze in the overseat luggage rack on the train! Which isn't a problem on other high speed intercity trains such as those class 80x on GWR or LNER.

- The WiFi doesn't work at all

- The train was delayed and it could only pass the LNER at Peterborough instead of before Doncaster, and Grand Central is one of the very few operators which don't do Delay Repay.

So in the future under normal circumstances I'll stay with LNER. It's like getting back decades in time travelling on Grand Central.

I've booked a hostel in London and will complete my final part of my journey tomorrow.

 

[yorkie]

So in the future under normal circumstances I'll stay with LNER...

We did try to tell you

 

[telstarbox]

Good detailed reports, thanks for writing them up!

 

[miklcct]

Easter trip to South Wales

I went to Wales in Easter to attend orienteering races, JK 2022. There were 4 days of racing, being sprint (Swansea University), middle (Brynmawr), long (Blaenavon) and relay (Caerwent) in order. We travelled in a group of 4 - me, my 2 friends (Himmy and Jason) living in London (all 3 having 26-30 Railcard), and an overseas visitor from Poland (Mikolai). Himmy and Jason travelled from London to Bristol by coach while Mikolai flew into Bristol Airport, so we met at Bristol Temple Meads train station.

Jason booked accommodation in Newport, which was 2 rooms only with no kitchen facilities. We had a lengthy discussion about what transport to use over the 4 days and I successfully persuaded Himmy and Jason to discard their pre-booked Advance tickets on day 1 from Bristol to Swansea then Swansea to Newport under the Book with Confidence scheme, with a slightly cheaper alternative (Bristol - Newport advance, then day returns Newport - Cardiff + Cardiff - Swansea) departing slightly earlier using a combination of Advance and flexible tickets offering greater flexibility in order to save Mikolai a great deal of money as the cheap Advance tickets on the original booked departure were gone when Mikolai finally decided to join us. So on that day, Himmy, Jason and Mikolai all used Advance tickets from Bristol to Newport, while I used my through Trowbridge - Cardiff ticket as part of a longer journey (Bournemouth - Swansea split at Trowbridge and Cardiff), while between Newport and Swansea, the Railcard holders used regular off-peak tickets splitting at Cardiff, and we bought Mikolai a First Bus and Rail Card on board despite the buses in Swansea were free because it was cheaper than the rail tickets alone, with a limitation that we could only use GWR services in the return.

We all raced in the elite class in sprint, getting some good results on that day.

The race on day 2 (Saturday) was near Brynmawr, however, the organiser told us not to travel there, but instead to Rassau Industrial Estate where the organiser arranged buses from there, as there was no parking near the arena. There is a direct bus X15 from Newport to Brynmawr, then continuing via Rassau to Ebbw Vale so there was no reason for us to hire a car when we could pay £17.40 to have a group day ticket on the bus. However, the bus X15 makes a detour to the south west of Newport, skipping our accommodation which is on the direct route, therefore Google suggests taking 56, which departed Newport later than the X15, to the mid-level and transfer back to the X15. However our team didn't want to risk an extra 4-minute connection en-route and instead walked 15 minutes down to take the X15. Despite the race being a major race attracting more than 2000 participants we didn't see others travelling on the same bus to get there. The arena was actually within walking distance from Brynmawr bus station so we didn't use the organiser bus after our race, instead we walked there directly to take the bus back to our accommodation. This time we did make the extra connection such that we could buy supplies in a Lidl at the connection node and save an uphill walk back to the accommodation.

However, public transport failed us on day 3 because it's a Sunday where buses started late. As I am a member of a car club I hired a car. The nearest cars of my car club are in Bristol so I had to return to Bristol to pick up the car. After dinner on day 2 I took the train back to Bristol myself, using the return portion of Cardiff - Trowbridge ticket which the Cardiff - Newport part was used on day 1. Although there are dozens of cars in Bristol, availability actually ran out during Easter and I hired the last available car in the region, which was a manual. I have a manual licence but I have never driven a manual after passing the test 6 years ago so the experience was not smooth, with my car stalled a few times in junctions and roundabouts when I tried to shift to gear 1 but accidentally selected gear 3 instead. I got back to Newport without accident. On day 3 I drove everyone to the race. My group were all elites on both days 2 and 3 except me, as I didn't have elite ability in forest orienteering races. I didn't even sign up for day 3 as my intention was that, if I couldn't join a relay team on day 4, I would return home after day 2. So I did an entry on day on the light green course, which was a non-championship course (championship courses were in age classes).

Then we came to the final day, relay in Caerwent military area. The only bus route serving there doesn't run on a holiday with the closest available public transport at Caldicot by train, about 5 km away, so the car came handy here. Mikolai was leaving the country departing 21:00 Stansted so the time was tight, Jason and Himmy would take a coach back from Bristol to London at about 20:25, while I, using flexible train tickets, had no time limitation before the last train connection back to Bournemouth via Salisbury.

Himmy and Jason were in the same team with another member in their club, Mikolai was in another team, and I was in a team in my own club. I and Jason ran the last leg, Himmy ran the second while Mikolai ran the first leg. If I drove everyone back after the race, Mikolai must take a high-speed train from Bristol Parkway to Paddington to have enough time to catch his flight, but as the high-speed train was much more expensive than a coach, he would prefer leaving earlier if possible that he would try to find someone else to drove him to Severn Tunnel Junction for a train to Bristol after he ran the first leg of the relay (or if he couldn't find a lift, walk 5 km back to the station). So Mikolai eventually left us early, leaving only 3 of us after the race.

There was still some useful afternoon time after the race before I had to return our car, and Himmy introduced us to Clevedon Marine Lake where I could have a swim. On the way from Caerwent to Clevedon there was traffic congestion upon entering the bridge back to England, and I used mainly small roads to Clevedon as I set my navigation software to prefer fuel-saving routes (which are significantly shorter than the fastest motorway routes). I swam for about 50 minutes there and Himmy just "had a dip". After that when we got back to Bristol we had to pay a £1 toll to go over a bridge.

We had dinner in Bristol then went home afterwards. I resumed my train journey after the second overnight break of journey on the Cardiff - Trowbridge ticket, then switched to the Trowbridge - Bournemouth ticket to get home.

It's impossible to use Trainsplit to automatically generate the appropriate splits for such complicated itineraries, where the return starts on the same day as the outbound but with multiple overnight breaks of journeys afterwards. I bought the tickets by splitting manually on GWR into Bournemouth - Trowbridge via Salisbury, Trowbridge - Cardiff via Bristol, and Cardiff - Swansea, with the former 2 being period returns and the last being a day return, and my 2 overnight breaks of journeys totally within the middle ticket.

This was my first trip to a major orienteering event in the UK with my elite friends, and I'll probably do more in the coming months.

 

[miklcct]

My first long distance train experience in Sweden

I travelled to Värnamo for a race tomorrow. I got there by flying to Copenhagen (Köpenhamn) Airport and used trains from there.

Copenhagen Airport is in the core of commuter train system Øresundståg (Ö-tåg) which runs every 20 minutes between Copenhagen and Malmö and extended to various places beyond - like a sort of Thameslink across the strait.

However, once I exited the airside, I got a problem buying train tickets - the ticket machines didn't accept my cash which I got from the bank a few years ago! And there is no ticket office there for help! Eventually I saw a sticker on one of the machines saying "only Danish money" so there would be no way that my Swedish money would be accepted, and I had to resort to my card. Who would expect that one can't buy Swedish train tickets using Swedish cash?



The train ticket was 109 kr (Danish), which was equivalent to 152 kr (Swedish) - the symbols of both currencies are both kr so it added to the layer of confusions as well (Norwegian money is also kr but it has the same value as Swedish kr - however the Danish one is more expensive).


There were X2000 high speed trains passing through the station slowly non-stop which I missed them a lot since the disappearance from the Kowloon-Canton Railway.



The Ö-tåg is a commuter train, with a large multi-use space.



I travelled to Lund and stayed for a night in a hostel.

Today I continued my journey on an SJ high-speed train (SJ Snabbtåg) from Lund to Alvesta,




then a regional train (Krösatågen) to Värnamo.

The train is an old one.



Although I could buy a through ticket for my journey, it was actually priced as 2 separate legs.

The use of train numbers in Sweden is not widespread - on some older boards they aren't shown are all.

 

[miklcct]

I'm at New Addington now (17:55 Wednesday) and I'm going to take buses to get me as far south I can get in the evening, ending at a train station.

Let's hope that I can get to a substantial distance out of London.

 

[miklcct]

I boarded a 464 to Biggin Hill which runs on a narrow road unsuitable for HGVs, which goes through some rural areas before passing through an airport.



I transferred to a 246 there. There were about a dozen of passengers on board. During the journey I saw a Waitrose and also Chinese takeaways - I was so surprised that these things exist in such a rural area.



The bus, now with only 4 passengers, then went downhill where London ends and the country begins, and crossed the M25.



I rode to the end of the route, Westerham, a town in Kent without railways.



It marks the end of TfL and Oyster, where the world-class London system meets the "deregulation fail" buses in the country. TfL and non-TfL stands can be found next to each other. I read all the timetables, and apparently, there were no longer any buses to Sevenoaks or Edenbridge as they had all gone despite it was still early evening, and the only bus which allowed me to continue the journey was the final 595 to Oxted departing 19:15, in contrast to TfL's 246 which runs late into the night.



I am feeling that the London boundary is like an invisible border where the world steps back a quarter century, from where we have freedom of movement to where we have to rely on our feet to get around.

 

[miklcct]

I boarded the 595 bus to Oxted which ran through as route 410 to Redhill afterwards.

As it was not a London Buses, I couldn't use Oyster so I tapped my contactless card onto the reader but it didn't work, and it worked only after the driver asked me the destination and tapped multiple times on the machine. I was then charged £3.50 and got a ticket.

The journey was basically in the middle of nowhere on unlit roads, as night approached, it gradually became pinch dark outside, and signs of civilisation only appeared until it approached Oxted.



The bus carried no one except me on the whole 595 journey. I left the bus to take a train home while a few passengers boarded the bus which was now on route 410.

 

[duncombec]

I'm at New Addington now (17:55 Wednesday) and I'm going to take buses to get me as far south I can get in the evening, ending at a train station.

Let's hope that I can get to a substantial distance out of London.

I can't help but think at that time of day in this area, you chose the wrong direction. Heading for Selson/Purley, then 405 to Redhill and onwards probably would have got you quite a bit further (at least 100 to Crawley, for example).

I boarded a 464 to Biggin Hill which runs on a narrow road unsuitable for HGVs, which goes through some rural areas before passing through an airport.

I transferred to a 246 there. There were about a dozen of passengers on board. During the journey I saw a Waitrose and also Chinese takeaways - I was so surprised that these things exist in such a rural area.

Simple question... why did that surprise you?

The bus, now with only 4 passengers, then went downhill where London ends and the country begins, and crossed the M25.

I rode to the end of the route, Westerham, a town in Kent without railways.

Westerham has a population of about 4,500, and the railway (a single track branchline) closed in 1961, being used by about 200 passengers a day, according to Wikipedia!

It marks the end of TfL and Oyster, where the world-class London system meets the "deregulation fail" buses in the country. TfL and non-TfL stands can be found next to each other. I read all the timetables, and apparently, there were no longer any buses to Sevenoaks or Edenbridge as they had all gone despite it was still early evening, and the only bus which allowed me to continue the journey was the final 595 to Oxted departing 19:15, in contrast to TfL's 246 which runs late into the night.

I think you're being unfair to the geography here. It isn't the fact that you've left London that explains the reduction in bus services, it's that you've entered a deeply rural, relatively rich, high car-owning part of Kent - it's one of the richest areas of Kent and where bus services are weak even during the day, let alone in the evening, simply because nobody uses them... or wants to use them! The fact that the bus to/from Oxted, the railhead for Westerham, was the only one you could find should tell you all you need to know.

The bus to Sevenoaks was reduced through Covid, increased back to near pre-Covid levels, then reduced again to three largely shoppers journeys. Even before Covid, I took a bus to/from Sevenoaks and there were less than half a dozen on board. Sevenoaks people have no need to go to Westerham, and Westerham looks towards Bromley. Edenbridge is even less of a market, as the two-hourly bus hasn't run on Saturdays for more than a decade, let alone into the evening. It serves even smaller villages with little market that isn't already covered, and Edenbridge is more likely to look to Redhill or Tonbridge via train (plus it's also about twice the size of Westerham).

(Later edit: Also, unless I'm very much mistaken, Westerham Green (TfL) and Westerham, Kings Head (non-TfL) are not "next to each other", but two separate stops barely visible from each other, and only really there to enable some services to turn.)

I am feeling that the London boundary is like an invisible border where the world steps back a quarter century, from where we have freedom of movement to where we have to rely on our feet to get around.

Not always true. It's the area you chose. There is much less of a "London boundary" in Grays, for example, or Dartford.

I boarded the 595 bus to Oxted which ran through as route 410 to Redhill afterwards.

As it was not a London Buses, I couldn't use Oyster so I tapped my contactless card onto the reader but it didn't work, and it worked only after the driver asked me the destination and tapped multiple times on the machine. I was then charged £3.50 and got a ticket.

I'm surprised by the way you word this - I can't tell if you were genuinely unsure how to buy a ticket or just making a point. Surely you are aware from Bournemouth (and the discussion on ticket machines) that you know you have to wait to present your bank card, or it reads it as an OAP pass?

The journey was basically in the middle of nowhere on unlit roads, as night approached, it gradually became pinch dark outside, and signs of civilisation only appeared until it approached Oxted.

The bus carried no one except me on the whole 595 journey. I left the bus to take a train home while a few passengers boarded the bus which was now on route 410.

As you were planning to get as far as you could, any reason you didn't continue on to Redhill? 460 to Gatwick from there!

 

[30907]

I boarded a 464 to Biggin Hill which runs on a narrow road unsuitable for HGVs, which goes through some rural areas before passing through an airport.

View attachment 121417View attachment 121418View attachment 121419View attachment 121420

I transferred to a 246 there. There were about a dozen of passengers on board. During the journey I saw a Waitrose and also Chinese takeaways - I was so surprised that these things exist in such a rural area.

View attachment 121421View attachment 121422

The change in Biggin Hill since my childhood is amazing - from a between-the-wars ribbon development of self-build bungalows to a sizeable and prosperous outer suburb, unusual in not having a railway station. Its pre-WW2 (and WW2) history mean that it was not green belt land, hence the growth.

It is a quirk of history that it was part of Orpington Urban District (sic) and therefore incorporated into Greater London - and therefore gets TfL levels of bus service.

 

[telstarbox]

It's not uncommon to see a Chinese takeaway in fairly small villages - in some places it doubles up as the fish and chip shop.