Sad Sprinter
Established Member
Yesterday I had what was my first trip on a Chiltern Railways service out of Marylebone in a very long time. I last made a journey from Marylebone in 2005, so it was lovely being able to use the GCR's little terminus once again. This time I took the mighty journey from Marylebone all the way to...Wembley Stadium
Now before you leave, hold on a minute. As I said, I hadn't used Marylebone station in almost 20 years, and whilst getting the Underground to Wembley Park clearly would have been the best option for my journey, I couldn't resist going a more "interesting" way, as I did the Metropolitan Line only recently, my little Chiltern journey was actually pretty exciting. I only took one picture of my trip - one of the front of a Clubman (Turbostar) unit, and a video of a cat walking across the rooftops of the houses on the street that runs alongside the station, so I'll have to do my best to paint my journey with my words.
I started my trip getting off the Bakerloo Line at Marylebone and to my surprise, quite a lot of people alighted at the station on what was a Friday evening - a work from home day, and Marylebone isn't exactly Waterloo in terms of passenger numbers. Nonetheless, me and the trainload of Chiltern commuters climbed up the escalators out of the Bakerloo Line and straight onto the late Victorian concourse. It was pleasing to see the brown brickwork of the station immediately greet you as you get halfway up the escalators, complete with the departure boards which, being from South London, were interesting to study Chiltern's haphazard stopping patterns. I looked around to find the Network SouthEast branding above the ticket machines, and for one terrible second I thought it had been removed, but then I found them next to Marks & Spencers - the first M&S to be put in a railway station by British Rail, I believe.
I saw a DVT in the platform at the end of a loco-hauled rake, I was meaning to go up and take a picture of it, but I had only turned around and walked to the M&S and back to find the train had vanished! Oh well, there was the Clubman in the platform which I went up to to have a closer look at, thinking it's pretty strange that I have a Bachmann model of one of these units.
Marylebone is a bittersweet station. It's got a nice variety of rolling stock to look at, and it's got quite a pleasant atmosphere, but as a train enthusiast, I can't help feeling the place is tinged with a bit of sadness. Not sure if it's the lingering air of missed opportunities for the Great Central, the lack of buzz that the other London termini have, but it does feel slightly melancholy. The overall roof was quite short, and appeared to had been shortened at some point - probably in the 80s. Perhaps a bad move considering that the smell of diesel fuel was quite strong, and does upset the station's neighbours.
Speaking of neighbours, as I wondered over to my 2-car class 165 on platform 6, I was pretty shocked to see that, at the end of the track, on the other side of the retaining walls, is literally a block of flats! The station is at ground level, so surrounding the station's western edge, new-ish build flats sit right next to station boundary. Meaning someone on their balcony can get a clear view at the activity across platforms 5 and 6.
Anyway, I boarded my lightly loaded Thames Turbo for the short run to Wembley. My train was only going as far as West Ruislip, so unsurprisingly was quite sparsely used. The interior of the Chiltern Turbo units have been refurbished to a nice standard, and I thought it was a shame that South Eastern did not do the same to their Networkers which are such similar trains. Inevitably though, the seats were quite light on the padding and had a bit of the dreaded "ironing board" feel. Nonetheless, I was waiting for departure was when I noticed the black cat scampering high over the rooftops of the houses lining the eastern side of the station, which kept me occupied as a useful amount of passengers continued to board the train for what is a short run over what must be London's most meagre suburban service. It seemed that the few passengers on the train were regulars to that particular service, as I couldn't help feel that they looked at me with glimpses of surprise and suspicion to see me on their service!
Anyway, the train left the station around 40 seconds late, and I settled into the journey. Over the simple station throat of Marylebone, clearly not built to handle high volumes of frequent commuter traffic. I noticed an interesting milepost - milepost 203 beside the tracks, and I wondrered where that could be measured from. Sheffield, perhaps? Across the Grand Union Canal, where I noticed some sad unused bridge spans that led towards the housing development alongside the tracks, and remembered that's where Marylebone carriage sidings were once upon a time. No Metropolitan trains joined us over the Grand Union, and soon we dived into St John's Wood Tunnel, where I caught a glimpse of a sign displaying the tunnel's name just beyond the tunnel's portal, written in that characteristic 1950's/1960's typeface. I wondered what it would be like to walk through the tunnels, to see all the possible nooks and crannies left over by the Great Central Railway for future expansion into a busy trunk route that obviously never came.
The train began to jog through the tunnel, and pools of light periodically fell onto the tracks below from the brief gaps in tunnel to let the old smoke out of the handsome GCR engines. I tried to remind myself I was on the Great Central mainline. Sharing the same rails that once upon a time expresses to Sheffield and Manchester ran on. Again, as a train enthusiast, it seems pretty sad to have lost this epic piece of railway history. And as we sailed over the bridge over the West Coast Mainline (no Avanti trains to see speeding underneath), I couldn't help but imagine what a GC mainline would be like if it was never closed. I could imagine it being a weird mainline, that went to no particular place, but just carried an assortment of random, infrequent long-distance trains to random destinations; Bradford, Huddersfield, Blackpool, Cleethorpes all came to mind. The "extras" to places the other main lines were just too busy to serve.
My imagination died down as light dawned once again as we climbed out of the tunnel to meet the Jubilee and Metropolitan Lines for the dash across North West London. Although, I wouldn't call it a dash, as our train was still purring at a leisurely pace despite having now reached West Hampstead. Something must still be ahead of us, but no problem, on a six track railway as it is from Finchley Road to Neasden, there's always plenty to see. There's some particaruly interesting new signal gantries along that section of track, that seem to be slightly to big to be perched onto the cramped embankment. Signals ME 17 and ME 19 flashed by as we pushed northwards. After Kilburn, we passed a packed Jubilee Line train which looked absolutely hellish inside. People were strewn over each other and pressed right up against the door windows. I had to avert my gaze as a number of the Jubilee Line train's miserable passenger looked on at my larger, roomier Turbo with resentful looks! Nevertheless, it was good to see a Jubilee Line train so packed on a Friday evening when commuter traffic is usually low these days. Especially this far out of London.
We passed Willesden Green, and now our Turbo kicked into life. Whatever was in front of us had cleared its path, and probably had taken the Aylesbury Line at Neasden. The train gained a good speed quite quickly and was pretty smooth despite being at around 60mph. I thought we'd have to slow for the turnout at Neasden, but no, we rolled across the junction at full speed and onto the GCR proper. Leaving the Underground behind, the view out of my window became a lot less interesting, but on the other side of the train, we ran alongside the carriage sidings that just happened to have finished washing the loco hauled set I saw in Marylebone earlier!
Just as I had begun to get comfortable and ready to do the whole hog to Birmingham, the engine began to wind down as we approached Wembley Stadium. I braced myself to see the sad, yawning gap between the running lines were the through roads used to be (put them back!) and soon enough the tracks separated and Wembley Stadium's long and empty platforms came into view. Reluctantly, I left my seat and made my way for the doors, where a few other people were alighting too, but I was taken aback to just see how many people were getting on at the station! The Chiltern Route clearly is a useful local link across North West London, and I couldn't help but imagine if the service could become a neat little route if it was bumped up to quarter hourly and given over to Overground.
The train roared off towards Ruislip, and I stood on the footbridge for a moment to see if I could spot an Up fast service zoom through, but the signal was red. Getting cold, I walked over to the rather soulless redevelopment area around Wembley Stadium. Imagining how different Wembley Complex station would have been with it's red lampposts.
Now before you leave, hold on a minute. As I said, I hadn't used Marylebone station in almost 20 years, and whilst getting the Underground to Wembley Park clearly would have been the best option for my journey, I couldn't resist going a more "interesting" way, as I did the Metropolitan Line only recently, my little Chiltern journey was actually pretty exciting. I only took one picture of my trip - one of the front of a Clubman (Turbostar) unit, and a video of a cat walking across the rooftops of the houses on the street that runs alongside the station, so I'll have to do my best to paint my journey with my words.
I started my trip getting off the Bakerloo Line at Marylebone and to my surprise, quite a lot of people alighted at the station on what was a Friday evening - a work from home day, and Marylebone isn't exactly Waterloo in terms of passenger numbers. Nonetheless, me and the trainload of Chiltern commuters climbed up the escalators out of the Bakerloo Line and straight onto the late Victorian concourse. It was pleasing to see the brown brickwork of the station immediately greet you as you get halfway up the escalators, complete with the departure boards which, being from South London, were interesting to study Chiltern's haphazard stopping patterns. I looked around to find the Network SouthEast branding above the ticket machines, and for one terrible second I thought it had been removed, but then I found them next to Marks & Spencers - the first M&S to be put in a railway station by British Rail, I believe.
I saw a DVT in the platform at the end of a loco-hauled rake, I was meaning to go up and take a picture of it, but I had only turned around and walked to the M&S and back to find the train had vanished! Oh well, there was the Clubman in the platform which I went up to to have a closer look at, thinking it's pretty strange that I have a Bachmann model of one of these units.
Marylebone is a bittersweet station. It's got a nice variety of rolling stock to look at, and it's got quite a pleasant atmosphere, but as a train enthusiast, I can't help feeling the place is tinged with a bit of sadness. Not sure if it's the lingering air of missed opportunities for the Great Central, the lack of buzz that the other London termini have, but it does feel slightly melancholy. The overall roof was quite short, and appeared to had been shortened at some point - probably in the 80s. Perhaps a bad move considering that the smell of diesel fuel was quite strong, and does upset the station's neighbours.
Speaking of neighbours, as I wondered over to my 2-car class 165 on platform 6, I was pretty shocked to see that, at the end of the track, on the other side of the retaining walls, is literally a block of flats! The station is at ground level, so surrounding the station's western edge, new-ish build flats sit right next to station boundary. Meaning someone on their balcony can get a clear view at the activity across platforms 5 and 6.
Anyway, I boarded my lightly loaded Thames Turbo for the short run to Wembley. My train was only going as far as West Ruislip, so unsurprisingly was quite sparsely used. The interior of the Chiltern Turbo units have been refurbished to a nice standard, and I thought it was a shame that South Eastern did not do the same to their Networkers which are such similar trains. Inevitably though, the seats were quite light on the padding and had a bit of the dreaded "ironing board" feel. Nonetheless, I was waiting for departure was when I noticed the black cat scampering high over the rooftops of the houses lining the eastern side of the station, which kept me occupied as a useful amount of passengers continued to board the train for what is a short run over what must be London's most meagre suburban service. It seemed that the few passengers on the train were regulars to that particular service, as I couldn't help feel that they looked at me with glimpses of surprise and suspicion to see me on their service!
Anyway, the train left the station around 40 seconds late, and I settled into the journey. Over the simple station throat of Marylebone, clearly not built to handle high volumes of frequent commuter traffic. I noticed an interesting milepost - milepost 203 beside the tracks, and I wondrered where that could be measured from. Sheffield, perhaps? Across the Grand Union Canal, where I noticed some sad unused bridge spans that led towards the housing development alongside the tracks, and remembered that's where Marylebone carriage sidings were once upon a time. No Metropolitan trains joined us over the Grand Union, and soon we dived into St John's Wood Tunnel, where I caught a glimpse of a sign displaying the tunnel's name just beyond the tunnel's portal, written in that characteristic 1950's/1960's typeface. I wondered what it would be like to walk through the tunnels, to see all the possible nooks and crannies left over by the Great Central Railway for future expansion into a busy trunk route that obviously never came.
The train began to jog through the tunnel, and pools of light periodically fell onto the tracks below from the brief gaps in tunnel to let the old smoke out of the handsome GCR engines. I tried to remind myself I was on the Great Central mainline. Sharing the same rails that once upon a time expresses to Sheffield and Manchester ran on. Again, as a train enthusiast, it seems pretty sad to have lost this epic piece of railway history. And as we sailed over the bridge over the West Coast Mainline (no Avanti trains to see speeding underneath), I couldn't help but imagine what a GC mainline would be like if it was never closed. I could imagine it being a weird mainline, that went to no particular place, but just carried an assortment of random, infrequent long-distance trains to random destinations; Bradford, Huddersfield, Blackpool, Cleethorpes all came to mind. The "extras" to places the other main lines were just too busy to serve.
My imagination died down as light dawned once again as we climbed out of the tunnel to meet the Jubilee and Metropolitan Lines for the dash across North West London. Although, I wouldn't call it a dash, as our train was still purring at a leisurely pace despite having now reached West Hampstead. Something must still be ahead of us, but no problem, on a six track railway as it is from Finchley Road to Neasden, there's always plenty to see. There's some particaruly interesting new signal gantries along that section of track, that seem to be slightly to big to be perched onto the cramped embankment. Signals ME 17 and ME 19 flashed by as we pushed northwards. After Kilburn, we passed a packed Jubilee Line train which looked absolutely hellish inside. People were strewn over each other and pressed right up against the door windows. I had to avert my gaze as a number of the Jubilee Line train's miserable passenger looked on at my larger, roomier Turbo with resentful looks! Nevertheless, it was good to see a Jubilee Line train so packed on a Friday evening when commuter traffic is usually low these days. Especially this far out of London.
We passed Willesden Green, and now our Turbo kicked into life. Whatever was in front of us had cleared its path, and probably had taken the Aylesbury Line at Neasden. The train gained a good speed quite quickly and was pretty smooth despite being at around 60mph. I thought we'd have to slow for the turnout at Neasden, but no, we rolled across the junction at full speed and onto the GCR proper. Leaving the Underground behind, the view out of my window became a lot less interesting, but on the other side of the train, we ran alongside the carriage sidings that just happened to have finished washing the loco hauled set I saw in Marylebone earlier!
Just as I had begun to get comfortable and ready to do the whole hog to Birmingham, the engine began to wind down as we approached Wembley Stadium. I braced myself to see the sad, yawning gap between the running lines were the through roads used to be (put them back!) and soon enough the tracks separated and Wembley Stadium's long and empty platforms came into view. Reluctantly, I left my seat and made my way for the doors, where a few other people were alighting too, but I was taken aback to just see how many people were getting on at the station! The Chiltern Route clearly is a useful local link across North West London, and I couldn't help but imagine if the service could become a neat little route if it was bumped up to quarter hourly and given over to Overground.
The train roared off towards Ruislip, and I stood on the footbridge for a moment to see if I could spot an Up fast service zoom through, but the signal was red. Getting cold, I walked over to the rather soulless redevelopment area around Wembley Stadium. Imagining how different Wembley Complex station would have been with it's red lampposts.
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Thanks for sharing the experience!