RochdalePioneers
Member
- Joined
- 2 Jan 2009
- Messages
- 527
Work drives me to do a week of increasingly silly transport moves, so thought I'd provide commentary.
Monday 2nd December.
Dropped off at Darlington to board the 09:26 express to Kings Cross. Darlo has 2 an hour to the big smoke, but the semi-fast arrives a few minutes before the express so I always catch that. It's an HST, as is the 08:25 I usually catch. Usual seat (C63) for ease of work on a table lined up with the window (not all do) and off we go.
Uneventful trip south with the one stop in York. Train is heavier loaded than the 08:25 usually is, probably due to super saver tickets being valid. One interesting piece of disruption at Hitchin where we run slow and cross to the platform road - I notice a northbound Mk4 set also on the slow. Just north of Stevenage we pass a dead Mk4 set on the Up Fast, with a 67 attached to the front. A quick check on Realtime Trains shows this to be a Leeds train that shows 141 late at Stevenage!
We make up the few minutes lost and arrive into Platform 0 on time. I've hot just over an hour before my train from Paddington, so buy the Z1-6 Travelcard and BZ6 - Gerrards Cross ticket I need for tomorrow then walk to Subway on Grays Inn Road to pick up lunch.
Into the Pentonville Road entrance to the tube station, and the closed ticket counters and shutters across various corridors demonstrate this used to be a bigger station. Down onto the Victoria Line (at the correct end) for an 09S leap to Oxford Circus, then walk around the northern loop tunnel to the northbound island and Bakerloo to Paddington. Edgware Road is still closed, but looks ready for retiling as it's due to reopen before new year.
At Paddington I once again consult Realtime Trains for my platform, and find P5 to be empty. The inbound from Penzance rolls in just before 12:45 and an army of staff blitz the train to turn it around for 13:03. And they do, an impressive feat from the team.
The HST is a High Density set (one table on each side of the coach) and I walk up to eyeball my seat reservation which isn't great, so instead I go into unreserved Coach E for a priority seat in the left. Plenty of legroom, just enough room to get a laptop open on the foldout table (do impossible on std seats), but I don't like the tombstone seats with their high backs. And do we sit very low down or is it just me?
Departure is onetime, then we lose 5 minutes at Southall as Didcot box let a West Coast ECS rake cross into the preservation centre across our path. I get gripped at this point, and it sounds like common practice on the Great Western.
Reading is still a building site but definitely getting there, and we turn into the Berks and Hants for my first run down here in over a decade. Twisty isn't it! We get a decent move on helped by a non-stop run to Taunton, but it's not the kind of speed I'm used to on East Coast. Frankly though unless you knew both trains today were HSTs you wouldn't know they were the same as the interiors are so different.
Stops and Taunton and Tiverton (a lot get off) then Exeter St David's before the run down the sea wall. The sea is in a mood and crashing moderately against the wall - must be entertaining in a storm.
Arrived into Plymouth on time and walked to my hotel. Tomorrow starts with a taxi to Cornwall then a few more leaps to a different seaside......
Sent from my HTC One mini using Tapatalk 2
Monday 2nd December.
Dropped off at Darlington to board the 09:26 express to Kings Cross. Darlo has 2 an hour to the big smoke, but the semi-fast arrives a few minutes before the express so I always catch that. It's an HST, as is the 08:25 I usually catch. Usual seat (C63) for ease of work on a table lined up with the window (not all do) and off we go.
Uneventful trip south with the one stop in York. Train is heavier loaded than the 08:25 usually is, probably due to super saver tickets being valid. One interesting piece of disruption at Hitchin where we run slow and cross to the platform road - I notice a northbound Mk4 set also on the slow. Just north of Stevenage we pass a dead Mk4 set on the Up Fast, with a 67 attached to the front. A quick check on Realtime Trains shows this to be a Leeds train that shows 141 late at Stevenage!
We make up the few minutes lost and arrive into Platform 0 on time. I've hot just over an hour before my train from Paddington, so buy the Z1-6 Travelcard and BZ6 - Gerrards Cross ticket I need for tomorrow then walk to Subway on Grays Inn Road to pick up lunch.
Into the Pentonville Road entrance to the tube station, and the closed ticket counters and shutters across various corridors demonstrate this used to be a bigger station. Down onto the Victoria Line (at the correct end) for an 09S leap to Oxford Circus, then walk around the northern loop tunnel to the northbound island and Bakerloo to Paddington. Edgware Road is still closed, but looks ready for retiling as it's due to reopen before new year.
At Paddington I once again consult Realtime Trains for my platform, and find P5 to be empty. The inbound from Penzance rolls in just before 12:45 and an army of staff blitz the train to turn it around for 13:03. And they do, an impressive feat from the team.
The HST is a High Density set (one table on each side of the coach) and I walk up to eyeball my seat reservation which isn't great, so instead I go into unreserved Coach E for a priority seat in the left. Plenty of legroom, just enough room to get a laptop open on the foldout table (do impossible on std seats), but I don't like the tombstone seats with their high backs. And do we sit very low down or is it just me?
Departure is onetime, then we lose 5 minutes at Southall as Didcot box let a West Coast ECS rake cross into the preservation centre across our path. I get gripped at this point, and it sounds like common practice on the Great Western.
Reading is still a building site but definitely getting there, and we turn into the Berks and Hants for my first run down here in over a decade. Twisty isn't it! We get a decent move on helped by a non-stop run to Taunton, but it's not the kind of speed I'm used to on East Coast. Frankly though unless you knew both trains today were HSTs you wouldn't know they were the same as the interiors are so different.
Stops and Taunton and Tiverton (a lot get off) then Exeter St David's before the run down the sea wall. The sea is in a mood and crashing moderately against the wall - must be entertaining in a storm.
Arrived into Plymouth on time and walked to my hotel. Tomorrow starts with a taxi to Cornwall then a few more leaps to a different seaside......
Sent from my HTC One mini using Tapatalk 2
