17th October - Northern Ranger with a difference. ..
I surprised myself yesterday morning, being up and about at 5:30. Rucksack loaded with 3 bags of crisps, some squash and a fat novel (
Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher - a day for romance rather than fantasy or crime). Tokens safely glued to my downloaded form, I walked up to Rochdale station, passing the last of the previous night's revellers outside a late-opening kebab shop.
Ticket bought, I soon joined
158861 for the run to Manchester Victoria. Exiting hrre, I headed tramwards, thinking of the 0741 local to Sheffield. However Metrolink did not appear to be running across Manchester at that time of morning, so I abandoned thoughts of Lincoln and joined
156426 for a trip through the dawn to Huddersfield.
Comedy time here - the Northern Ranger wouldn't work the barriers. As I had to pass these four times (out to the ATM, back in to the shop to acquire newspaper and cigarettes, out again for a smoke, back in to continue my journey) I kept a member of RP staff gainfully employed on my own for a few minutes. Getting bored of this, I acquired a coffee and a sausage bap for breakfast, and joined
150113 for the run to Wakefield Kirkgate, then
144010 down to Barnsley. Here, I awaited the Nottingham train, which turned up in the form of a vilely yellow
158849.
Arriving at Nottingham, I headed upstairs to the trams, and commenced an orgy of winners and new shacks.
In order to avoid tedium - there's only so much one can say about trams - the next bit of this report will be in tabular form rather than the usual narrative
233 -
Central Station to
Royal Centre
201 to
High School
220 to
Noel Street
228 to
Beaconsfield Street
234 to
Wilkinson Street
(Ought to have been Shipstone Street, but I hadn't realised Nottingham tramshacks were request stops!
222 to
David Lane
204 to
Cinderhill
224 to
Phoenix Park
Time for a PNB and a half at the Harvester across the road. Then
209 to
Highbury Vale B
walk to
Highbury Vale A
203 to
Bulwell Forest
216 to
Bulwell
221 to
Butler's Hill
203 to
Moor Bridge
214 to
Hucknall
(Irrelevancy interlude - one of my great-great-great grandfathers was born in Hucknall)
211 to
Basford
226 to
Hyson Green Market
Walk to
The Forest
220 to
Shipstone Street
Walk to
Radford Road
219 to
Nottingham Trent University
234 to
Meadows Embankment
204 to
Wilford Lave
224 to
Ruddington Lane
205 to
Rivergreen
Here I saw the next shack in the distance, and the next tram was 8 minutes behind so
Walk to
Clifton Central
When I got here, the display suggested that the tram was now 13 minutes away, with the following one 2 minutes behind.
Dreadful! Something's Blown Up
However, as the chances of a pair of 20s being summoned to drag the offending tram were, frankly, nil, I thought I'd better join
224 going the other way. I took this as far as
Southchurch Drive, where we ground to a halt.
(Tbc)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
(Continued)
News came through via the tannoy - someone had fed hemp seed instead of sunflower seed to the electrical supply hamsters chained to the battery of wheels under Meadow Lane (Tales of the Riverbank updated for a post-modernist industrialised society
) and as a result there was a "power outage" between City Square, Ruddington Lane and University Boulevard. Time to make use of the kangaroo ticket and bale out for a bus back to town.
Nottingham Transport's double decker No.964 duly obliged for a run back to the railway station. Just before arriving, I noticed some thoroughly wedged trams starting to move over the affected section, so clearly fresh rodents had been sourced from somewhere. Nevertheless, I decided to leave the trams alone for a bit and headed downstairs to news of many cancellations and lateness. However, a delayed Matlock service was sat awaiting (as it transpired) a guard. This was formed of 156414, which is my default EMT 156 that turns up on all possible occasions, with a 153 attached. Obviously, I sat in the latter!
We duly departed, and
153376 was scooped in to the winning shack at
Beeston. I decided to rejoin the trams here, so walked into the town centre. I decided to at least clear the track, if not the shacks, so at
Beeston Town Centre I joined
225 as faras
Toton Lane. Being old school, I expected this to be a muddy embankment overlooking a Diesel Depot, but it turned out to be a huge car park! So I joined
203 for a long run back to
Lace Market (my last required shack on the old bit of the trams).
Here, I considered my options. I thought about clearing the track down ti Clifton South, but was now tired and hungry so decided to leave this for another time. So I jumped on
205 back to the station. Here, 66100 was just leaving on the Humber to Kingsbury tanks - the only loco I identified all day, curiously. I'd spotted a takeaway across the road, so acquired a crunchy chickenburge meal (decent enough, and good value at 3.75. I then joined
158845 on the 17:15 to Leeds for the long ride North.
I dined, read and snoozed, then was disturbed by a party of lads wh joined the train at Barnsley. There was no harm in them, but they were young, excited and a bit loud. Decanting myself at Leeds, and walking between the Barnsley lads and their mate who was taking a team photo in an accidental-done-on-purpose sort of way (SNH) and departed to the Wetherspoons exit for a slash and burn session. The burn was had, but spoons looked to busy to bother fighting my way through for the loos. So I returned to the station proper.
Here, I had a Eureka moment involving the 19:35 to Brighouse. So I boarded
158784 , headed to the loo once we'd got going, then baled out for a bonus shack scratch at
Bramley (W Yorks. That's the Calder Valley shacks finally completed then - only took 45 years...
158842 waa my final steed of the day, back to Rochdale. A walk down the hill, a quick beer (well, four actually - got nattering and discovered that a friend's sister works as a conductor for SWT of all things) then home to bed.
A damn good day out. At one point I had every intention of doing every shack on the NET, but in hindsight the power outage which stopped this was a good thing - home earlier, scored a dogbox and two NR shacks. And I like Nottingham and look forward to returning for the rest.
