roversfan2001
Established Member
Given that it's been three and a half years since my last trip report on my first report thread, it makes sense to just start a new one...
ALR Day 0
So, it’s been 4 years (ish) since I last wrote trip reports, thought I’d come back with a bang!
I’ve thought about doing an All Line Rover for years now but never been in a position to do one thanks to various things, then in the spring once it became clear international travel wasn’t going to be much of a thing this summer I had the idea of replacing a typical abroad holiday to somewhere hot in Southern Europe with a week seeing what the UK has to offer!
I know a lot of people don’t think the ALR is good value, and for an adult I’d be inclined to agree, but just under £360 for a week isn’t terrible with a railcard. Living near a station on the WCML helps as it’s quite easy to come back home for a couple of nights, cheap hotels are aplenty for when that isn’t possible and I can put up with the sleeper seats while there’s a guarantee of having two seats to myself to spread out a bit.
I did have the entire week meticulously planned weeks and weeks in advance before I started over-thinking it and kept tinkering about with it for the sake of it.
England qualifying for the semi-final of the Euros put a last-minute spanner in the works too...that’ll teach me for not having a backup plan just in case!
My plan did have me joining the northbound sleeper at Preston shortly after midnight on Monday morning, however a couple of weeks before the trip I got a text that the sleeper was leaving Euston earlier than normal – no mention of the fact it wasn’t stopping at Preston anymore! Once I found out for myself that it was leaving early as it was diverted via the ECML I had the choice of either shelling out to get to London on the Sunday evening or staying at home and starting the trip on Monday morning instead...now I know I said the price wasn’t terrible, but that’s assuming I maximise the time spent travelling, I wasn’t in any hurry to waste a few hours of validity... so down to London it was. I had a complimentary Northern return ticket thanks to a previous delay so that could get me to any number of places to catch a train to the big smoke. My procrastination cost me a cheap LNR advance from Stoke/Crewe to Euston so, thanks to £5 LNER Perks credit, Doncaster was the chosen interchange.
Getting to Doncaster from Leyland using only Northern services isn’t the easiest, or quickest, of journeys, and the total travel time to Kings Cross was set to be 6 and a half hours, thanks to a poor connection at Donny. The first train of the trip was the 12:27 from Leyland to Manchester Piccadilly, formed of 331021 and 331025. As standard for Northern, this was a few minutes late throughout its journey down to Manchester where we arrived at 13:19. I had an optimistic goal of asking the guard of the 13:20 Cleethorpes if I could catch that all the way to Doncaster, but if the late arrival didn’t put that in enough doubt, the fact that service was cancelled put it to bed completely.
I therefore had to stick to the original plan and catch the Northern stopper. The last time I caught this was back in March 2017 when 142s were the order of the day, and even with the nice weather it was a horrid journey. Obviously, the Pacers have gone to the branch lines in the sky now so at worst it was to be a 150. I was pleasantly surprised when 195117 rolled into the platform to form the 13:44 to Sheffield. This train was relatively full, with most seats taken and plenty of people standing by the doors. The train didn’t really empty out during the trip across the Hope Valley so I assume a lot of people were meant to be on the cancelled TPE. Arrival into Sheffield was 4 minutes late, which just cut down the wait for the Scarborough service slightly. I bought a bottle of Pepsi Max from a vending machine and headed to the platform where 158789 was sat waiting. This service runs fast to Donny, only stopping at Meadowhall after leaving the steel city.
Just the one minute late into Donny, not that it mattered much as I had just over an hour until the southbound Azuma. There’s only one thing to do with a spare hour...off to ‘Spoons!
One pint later and I was back at the station and before long 801201 arrived for the 155-mile journey down the East Coast into Kings Cross. This was actually my first time on an Azuma and although they don’t quite have the charm of the HSTs, they’re pretty decent trains. Charging points came in handy, being used to Pendolinos and Voyagers with Avanti I see them as a rarity. The trip south went by without a hitch and we arrived 3 minutes early at 18:39, 6 hours and 9 minutes after leaving Leyland.
As the sleeper wasn’t due to start boarding for another hour, it was time to have a little wander and locate the ‘Spoons in St Pancras. After a bit of Twitter assistance from @185143 , the pub was found and I had another pint to kill some time. I was feeling particularly lazy so I caught the Victoria Line one stop to Euston – though it was probably quicker just to walk! I had checked RTT and the sleeper hadn’t even left Wembley yet so I headed down to platform 1 hoping for some more information from staff. All the info they had was the same as me, so I got chatting to a fellow passenger as we waited for the train to roll in.
The sleeper eventually arrived at around 9pm, 40 mins after it was due to depart, never mind board! Boarding was done relatively quickly and we left Euston at 21:36, 75 minutes behind schedule. I was in the seats for this as £120 for a berth supplement wasn’t really in my price range. The seats themselves aren’t awful, them essentially being first class seats. However, they barely recline at all and the fixed armrest next to the window makes it nearly impossible to get comfortable, even with a spare seat next to me to stretch out into. I had little naps here and there in between reading the forum and watching YouTube videos but didn’t get any decent amount of sleep until after we left Newcastle at half past 2 in the morning.
It wasn’t a particularly good sleep and I woke up frequently but it wasn’t until we arrived at Stirling at 5am that I properly woke up. We had made up the large delay and were now running to time, and with the stops all being set down only due to Covid we were going to be considerably ahead of schedule up the Highland Main Line. Arrival into Aviemore was at 07:20, 19 minutes ahead of time, meaning the trip north took 94 minutes less than it was timetabled to. 94 minutes less than expected in the seats was good enough for me! It was raining heavily so I just nipped to the Tesco down the road for a bite to eat and snacks for the day ahead then went back to the station and wandered round until my next train was due.
___
My reports are quite lengthy so I’ll write/upload them day by day so you aren’t all faced with a wall of text to conquer at the end of the week. As always, all comments are appreciated, good or bad.
ALR Day 0
So, it’s been 4 years (ish) since I last wrote trip reports, thought I’d come back with a bang!
I’ve thought about doing an All Line Rover for years now but never been in a position to do one thanks to various things, then in the spring once it became clear international travel wasn’t going to be much of a thing this summer I had the idea of replacing a typical abroad holiday to somewhere hot in Southern Europe with a week seeing what the UK has to offer!
I know a lot of people don’t think the ALR is good value, and for an adult I’d be inclined to agree, but just under £360 for a week isn’t terrible with a railcard. Living near a station on the WCML helps as it’s quite easy to come back home for a couple of nights, cheap hotels are aplenty for when that isn’t possible and I can put up with the sleeper seats while there’s a guarantee of having two seats to myself to spread out a bit.
I did have the entire week meticulously planned weeks and weeks in advance before I started over-thinking it and kept tinkering about with it for the sake of it.
England qualifying for the semi-final of the Euros put a last-minute spanner in the works too...that’ll teach me for not having a backup plan just in case!My plan did have me joining the northbound sleeper at Preston shortly after midnight on Monday morning, however a couple of weeks before the trip I got a text that the sleeper was leaving Euston earlier than normal – no mention of the fact it wasn’t stopping at Preston anymore! Once I found out for myself that it was leaving early as it was diverted via the ECML I had the choice of either shelling out to get to London on the Sunday evening or staying at home and starting the trip on Monday morning instead...now I know I said the price wasn’t terrible, but that’s assuming I maximise the time spent travelling, I wasn’t in any hurry to waste a few hours of validity... so down to London it was. I had a complimentary Northern return ticket thanks to a previous delay so that could get me to any number of places to catch a train to the big smoke. My procrastination cost me a cheap LNR advance from Stoke/Crewe to Euston so, thanks to £5 LNER Perks credit, Doncaster was the chosen interchange.
Getting to Doncaster from Leyland using only Northern services isn’t the easiest, or quickest, of journeys, and the total travel time to Kings Cross was set to be 6 and a half hours, thanks to a poor connection at Donny. The first train of the trip was the 12:27 from Leyland to Manchester Piccadilly, formed of 331021 and 331025. As standard for Northern, this was a few minutes late throughout its journey down to Manchester where we arrived at 13:19. I had an optimistic goal of asking the guard of the 13:20 Cleethorpes if I could catch that all the way to Doncaster, but if the late arrival didn’t put that in enough doubt, the fact that service was cancelled put it to bed completely.
I therefore had to stick to the original plan and catch the Northern stopper. The last time I caught this was back in March 2017 when 142s were the order of the day, and even with the nice weather it was a horrid journey. Obviously, the Pacers have gone to the branch lines in the sky now so at worst it was to be a 150. I was pleasantly surprised when 195117 rolled into the platform to form the 13:44 to Sheffield. This train was relatively full, with most seats taken and plenty of people standing by the doors. The train didn’t really empty out during the trip across the Hope Valley so I assume a lot of people were meant to be on the cancelled TPE. Arrival into Sheffield was 4 minutes late, which just cut down the wait for the Scarborough service slightly. I bought a bottle of Pepsi Max from a vending machine and headed to the platform where 158789 was sat waiting. This service runs fast to Donny, only stopping at Meadowhall after leaving the steel city.
Just the one minute late into Donny, not that it mattered much as I had just over an hour until the southbound Azuma. There’s only one thing to do with a spare hour...off to ‘Spoons!
One pint later and I was back at the station and before long 801201 arrived for the 155-mile journey down the East Coast into Kings Cross. This was actually my first time on an Azuma and although they don’t quite have the charm of the HSTs, they’re pretty decent trains. Charging points came in handy, being used to Pendolinos and Voyagers with Avanti I see them as a rarity. The trip south went by without a hitch and we arrived 3 minutes early at 18:39, 6 hours and 9 minutes after leaving Leyland.
As the sleeper wasn’t due to start boarding for another hour, it was time to have a little wander and locate the ‘Spoons in St Pancras. After a bit of Twitter assistance from @185143 , the pub was found and I had another pint to kill some time. I was feeling particularly lazy so I caught the Victoria Line one stop to Euston – though it was probably quicker just to walk! I had checked RTT and the sleeper hadn’t even left Wembley yet so I headed down to platform 1 hoping for some more information from staff. All the info they had was the same as me, so I got chatting to a fellow passenger as we waited for the train to roll in.
The sleeper eventually arrived at around 9pm, 40 mins after it was due to depart, never mind board! Boarding was done relatively quickly and we left Euston at 21:36, 75 minutes behind schedule. I was in the seats for this as £120 for a berth supplement wasn’t really in my price range. The seats themselves aren’t awful, them essentially being first class seats. However, they barely recline at all and the fixed armrest next to the window makes it nearly impossible to get comfortable, even with a spare seat next to me to stretch out into. I had little naps here and there in between reading the forum and watching YouTube videos but didn’t get any decent amount of sleep until after we left Newcastle at half past 2 in the morning.
It wasn’t a particularly good sleep and I woke up frequently but it wasn’t until we arrived at Stirling at 5am that I properly woke up. We had made up the large delay and were now running to time, and with the stops all being set down only due to Covid we were going to be considerably ahead of schedule up the Highland Main Line. Arrival into Aviemore was at 07:20, 19 minutes ahead of time, meaning the trip north took 94 minutes less than it was timetabled to. 94 minutes less than expected in the seats was good enough for me! It was raining heavily so I just nipped to the Tesco down the road for a bite to eat and snacks for the day ahead then went back to the station and wandered round until my next train was due.
___
My reports are quite lengthy so I’ll write/upload them day by day so you aren’t all faced with a wall of text to conquer at the end of the week. As always, all comments are appreciated, good or bad.
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