PHILIPE
Veteran Member
Re report why ATW don't keep 158 through on Holyhead run rather than detach at Shrewsbury, haven't you heard there is a national shortage of DMUs.
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The Various Random Mutterings of Kite
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Techniquest
Veteran Member
I do believe the 158 comes off at SHR to then attach to a Birmingham-bound working off the Cambrian, not certain on that though but I'm sure I know someone who, given the working this related to, could tell me.
Never done those semi-fasts at Wimbledon, must look into those!
Never done those semi-fasts at Wimbledon, must look into those!
Kite159
Veteran Member
I have heard there is a shortage of DMUs, but it still is silly they force passengers on an already crowded double 158 into a single 2-car 158 so that the rear unit can join up with another service to run back to Birmingham International (where it repeats itself).
Makes something like a fast Basingstoke service from Waterloo in the afternoon high peak seem quiet (at least those don't have passengers crowding in the toilets)
No more Sunday semi-fasts at Wimbledon for a few weeks now.
Makes something like a fast Basingstoke service from Waterloo in the afternoon high peak seem quiet (at least those don't have passengers crowding in the toilets)
No more Sunday semi-fasts at Wimbledon for a few weeks now.
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
No. Attaches to the next Holyhead to Birmingham just after about 10-15
minutes. All on the Cambrian section are 4 Cars between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth where a Pwllheli portion attaches/detaches.
Techniquest
Veteran Member
Ah fair enough, not knowledgeable enough to know exactly what happens up there these days. At least there is sense in doubling up trains on the busy SHR-BHI sector, common sense!
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
A lot of things seem silly on the Railway but what do you propose should be done ?
Keith Jarrett
Member
That's well and truly messed up my Sunday afternoon moves while Wimbledon is being dug up!
But there again, with my recent successes, the need to look at South West Trains stuff has severely diminished. Over the past few days with a Saturday service in operation on SWT, I've been going in & out of Waterloo on the daily commute. And that's been very productive in scooping 450s for 10 miles, having nailed nine out of 12 since Christmas Eve. The three still needed for 10 miles are 450014, 545 & 552. Other successes in the same time frame were my last 458/0s (all done for 10 miles now) and my last ex Gatwick 458/5. I'll of course need to do the 458/0 -> 458/5 conversions again to get them in new numbers but there's no need to do them all again for mileage as there's no adjustment to the power cars because it's just the insertion of an extra non-powered vehicle. I might even write up the Christmas commute as there was some bashing involved.
Kite159
Veteran Member
This is going to be interesting on the way back to kings cross from Bradford, all seats are reserved (bar middle car), however all the slips are completely blank. I wonder if a grand central im on will reach the destination on time.
Guard says if you don't have reservations go sit in the unreserved carriage, so what do you do if you don't have reservations? Sit in the unreserved carriage or sit in a random reserved seat, reserved from an unknown point (but most likely Doncaster) and get nasty when someone asks you to move?
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I should have waited to do my First Class travel-card trip, it's actually cheaper for me now as my (Lichfield) Gold Card allows for the third off. Clapham Junction was chaos this evening.
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22nd December – 180 Hunt on a Thames Branches Rover
Today’s aim was simple, to try and score the last 4 (out of 5) FGW 180s, which only run during the week, also to try and clear down some Turbos. The day started with the 8:59 service from Grateley, which annoyingly meant that an off-peak return isn’t valid to Reading (although valid to Waterloo), so a separate ticket to take me one stop up the line to Andover was required to push me over the 9:00 start for an Andover to Bedwyn ticket. I had previously purchased my Thames Branch rover online a couple weeks before and was surprised that the Network Railcard £13 min fare wasn’t applied to it. I will confess now that I thought it was valid to Wokingham, instead of Winnesh.
The first service was busy (always seems to be busy as it’s the first service from Exeter which doesn’t leave at 5am and the first ‘off-peak’ 159 into Waterloo), formed of double duds 159003/159021, taking a seat in the front car of 021 (which allows me to walk forward to exit the train opposite the stairs at Basingstoke), for a short hop to Basingstoke, arriving on time. Across to P5 to see if the 150/0s were running, and yep 150001 had just arrived, so deciding to leave it to wait for the Crosscountry service to try and get a winning voyager, only has a 4 minute time penalty in Reading and with 30 minutes to kill before the first 180 diagram of the day I could take it easy. There is a first time for everything, a XC service arriving into Basingstoke on time! Sadly it was dud 220006. Finding a seat I sat back and relaxed for the 15 minute ride.
Into Reading now with time to kill, so I took a seat and sat back watching the various movements, before 10:30 rolled around with the semi-fast service to Paddington, stopping only at Slough. The Turbo from Bedwyn came and went taking away a few of the passengers waiting on the platform before the sight of a 180 greeted me, slightly hard to grab the unit numbers as it’s in white typeface against a yellow background, but thankfully the 180s have matching car numbers, so I could grab 180103, first winner of the day, and it was rammed, deciding not to risk getting blocked in, I stood in the vestibule area, the ‘guard’ managed to get back on board, but couldn’t move. Am I right in thinking the 180s have a similar door opening process as the voyagers and the doors are released by the driver?
Into Slough where I alighted and more passengers boarded, I had a couple options either catch the next semi-fast back to Reading, catching a stopper, or doing the Windsor branch (which timed with the next semi-fast back to Reading), seeing winner 165121 on the branch line saw me boarding for a quick in/out of Windsor & Eton Central, busy car-parks. Bit of a dash at Slough to board dud 165112 back on a fast to Reading. But I made it, and had some time to kill before the next 180 diagram, heading over to see what was on the Paddington stoppers found me no winners, heading over to P4 found me no winners, and heading over to P2 found me a 150, so I headed out of the station to grab some early lunch.
Back at Reading station, back to P9-P10 island, and my 2nd 180 of the day arrived, and it was winner 180108, yippee, less busy than the previous service, so I managed to find a seat for the zoom down the main-lines to Slough, where I alighted and crossed over to the down-fast platform for a wait before 180106 showed up, another winner, only 102 left now, with another hour wait at Reading I decided to do some Twyford dashes, although the problem with Twyford dashes is the wait at Reading as the service arrives into Reading just after a stopper has departed, so 14 minute waits at the Reading end (and 5-10 minutes at Twyford). Rather dud filled runs though, 165112 first up, then 166210 back followed by 165129 before cheering up when “4 cars” came up on the PIS, so a double, leading was dud 165136 but behind was winner 166214, running around without the middle car following fire damage.
At least that hour was spent well, but back at Reading, waiting and hoping for 102 to tip up, “5 carriages” came up on the display with first class in coach D, so it was going to be a 180, but would it be winner 102 or dud 104? A smile came on my face when I saw 102 written on the side, my final FGW 180 (leaving just 4, 180s currently operated by Grand Central to get to clear the class), nice run to Slough where fresh dud 180108 took me back to Reading where I dived onto a late running HST, formed of winner 43183 with dud 43135 at the rear. Nice run into Paddington, finally running fast passed Slough, where I had an option or 2 as the time was ticking down to the 4pm deadline where HSTs usage wasn’t allowed, so I jumped onto the next HST, heading to Cheltenham Spa I believe, formed of winning 43124 with dud 43146 behind.
Into Reading with some decision to make, as I was around 20 minutes up on my plan, so I decided to head over to the Southern platforms for some 458 action, dud 458015 was leading but winner 458006 was at the rear, this took me to Wokingham, where a quick platform change saw me board a SWT service back to Reading, formed of dud 450124 leading winner 450029 back to Reading. I decided to carry on with my outward journey to Bedwyn and jumped onto winner 165105 for the short hop to Newbury, changing trains and platforms as that service has a lengthy (15 minutes) wait at Newbury for a HST stopper to clear, formed of winning power car 43022 with dud 43198 at the rear to take me the 8 mile trip to Hungerford, where another change of platform to wait for the returning service to Reading, formed of dud 166217.
Back at Reading, and over at P4 saw a winner, 165110 to take me the 6 miles (outside the validity of the rover by mistake) to Wokingham, where another fast platform change saw me on a fast SWT service, formed of winners 450017 & 450080 (finally a double winner!), to Reading and a fast turnaround saw me back out to Wokingham on dud 166202, but back in on winning 166213. With time to kill and a XC service being around 55 minutes late, saw me over on the relief platforms to see what was next up on a Paddington stopper, seeing dud 165112 but with winner 165127 behind saw me on another Twyford run, but sadly back on dud 166204. Having just missed a XC service to Basingstoke, I headed via the WH Smiths on the concourse to pick up a meal-deal for dinner, and back to P1-P2 to board dud 150001 back to Basingstoke, and then super-dud 159003 back home.
Overall a good day with those 180s cleared, 3 x 43 power cars, 1 x 458 with 3 x 450s, but with only 2x 166s and 4x165s added to my book, a bit of disappointment on the turbo front.
24th December – A Christmas Eve of 313 loving
I’m off to China in February (sadly not a rail trip), so I decided to apply for my Chinese Visa in person instead of posting it or allowing a 3rd party charge £40 on top to send it to the service centre, at least doing it in person would mean they will have a quick look to see if there is anything I had missed off. My appointment was for 13:00 which gave me a bit of time before and hopefully some hours after before the rail network starts to close down for Christmas.
First service of the day was the 8:59, with me doing a Basingstoke spilt, and it couldn’t have been any different to Monday, still a double 159 (159103/159105) but was dead, even walking to the station, whereas on Monday the car-park had a odd space here and there (so quieter than normal), today the car-park was like a Saturday. To Basingstoke and arrival to give me 40 minutes before the first London bound service which departs after 10:00, the opening time of the network railcard, so I headed down town to get a couple bits.
Arriving back at the station around 9:55 and I saw something annoying, 158885 leading a double 159 set towards Waterloo, annoying as that is one of my 2 required SWT 158s and I couldn’t catch it (9:57 departure), so I sat down to await dud 444027 which took me to Woking, with a good quote from the guard of “Where is everyone?” as Woking station was dead, the 444 was pretty dead as well. A few minutes later dud 444039 arrived (this was before I put my required 444s in my phone to reduce the risk of dud 444s) to take me to Clapham, where I crossed over to the Windsor lines to see what was happening and the first service to Waterloo was double dud 450124/450074.
Thankfully the next service back to Vauxhall was more successful with double winners 455865/455711 taking me the mile and 29 chains, where I alighted and waited a couple minutes before winners 455738/455725 took me to Clapham. Checking my phone to see a long-distance service would arrive on P7 in the next 4 minutes, sadly it wad dud 444034. Boo. However winner 455867 with dud 455866 took me back to Vauxhall with winner 455872 & dud 455914 back to Clapham Junction, where another long-distance service was due on P7, this time it was dud 444028 but with winner 444023 behind (finally!)
Down to Sainsburys Local (and when did that Tesco express open next door?) to grab some lunch before walking the great staircase of Waterloo East and down to catch the next available service to London Bridge, formed of winner 465004, my plan of a quick return to Waterloo East was put at rest when the service arrived into P4, so a jump across to P3 for a cannon street dash, formed of winner 376004, how much I dislike these units, cost-cutting to avoid putting AC, with stupid windows with seats which makes 377/6s seem like luxury, but they need to be done at some point, so the 56 chain journey to Cannon Street would do, with winner 376031 back out to London Bridge.
Next stop was the Northern Line to Bank, getting quite close to my appointment time now (shouldn’t have done those 376s), found my way to a busy platform for a single stop to Bank, where I got a bit lost exiting the station (somehow found my way onto the Central line platforms), but finally made it to the Visa service centre in time.
90 minutes later I had finished, my application was in, so back to Bank and after doing some thinking that Moorgate was close by (next stop) I could try and get some of my Great Northern 313s crossed off the list, so having a look to see that a good changeover would be Essex Road, giving 4 minutes connection with 4 minutes at Moorgate, saw me heading up to Moorgate on the Northern line. First service to Essex Road was duds 313062/313035, but winners 313050/313134 took me back to Old Street, sadly the next northbound service had been cancelled, so I had 13 minutes to wait, thinking I could have jumped downstairs to get on a northern line train back to Moorgate, but decided against it.
Essex Road, Moorgate & Old Street are island platforms in the middle of the tunnels with several access points between the two platforms, with the exits being down the stairs, so useful for bashing as no barriers, no stairs to go down/up, no gateline staff wondering what you are doing when you exit a train to jump on another. Although it’s in the dark with no mobile signal, but with some lovely NSE signage, with old First Capital Connect logos covered over on their old signage.
Next service north was another double duds, 313028/313033, crossing over at Essex Road to head back to Moorgate with winners 313029/313052. Over the next hour and a half, I spent going up and down the tunnels I rode on the following: winners 313029/313052, duds 313046/313032, and then winners 313123/313051, 313024/313018, 313061/313055, 313038/313059, 313042/313056. Winning 313122 with dud 313047 took me to Essex road for one final time as duds 313035/313062 had arrived back, so my final pair to Finsbury Park and into the light was winners 313045/313064.
Kings Cross was my next stop, with winner 365513 leading and dud 365508 behind, first point of call was the loo. Into Kings Cross on P9, the next Finsbury service was a tight 2 minute connection, but was departing from P8, next door to P9, so that was lucky, as it was formed of double winners 365521/365509. Bit of a dash at Finsbury to get a delayed southbound service, formed of winning 317347/317337, a nice pair of 317s. Another dash across to St Pancras and the Thameslink platforms, heading down the stairs I spotted some nice white shiny new units.
387107/387108 were my first 2 387s (and final unit of the year I believe), these took me down to Farringdon, where I alighted, to cross over to the northbound platform to board winning 319445 leading 319440 back to St Pancras. Another up and over the stairs was to be in vain, I caught the service heading southbound, but it was double duds 319373/319013. Alighting at Farringdon for the next service, formed of winners 377515/377521 which took me the short distance to City Thameslink, with winners 319432/319384 behind the even shorter distance to Blackfriars, to arrive with a lovely sight of the centre of London all lit up at night.
To Victoria now on a Circle line service, and up towards the Southern Suburban platforms for some linear bashing to Clapham via Battersea Park. First up was a pair of winning 455s, 455833/455846, then a couple minutes later when at Battersea Park winner 377422 arrived with dud 377206 behind to take me to Clapham Junction. Heading across to P10 to get the next Waterloo service, formed of dud 455736 with winner 455903 behind, and I decided to stay on all the way to Waterloo. The Portsmouth services were next on my list, one which goes via Guildford is first, followed by one which goes via Winchester, to take me back to Basingstoke. First service was a trio of 450s, leading was dud 450040 with 450098 in the middle and winner 450009 behind. At Woking the Portsmouth via Winchester was in the hands of dud 444028 to take me to Basingstoke.
5 coaches came on the display so would I get lucky with my final service of the day, would it be either 882 or 885 attached to a 159? Nope, it was dud 158881 leading dud 159014, so deciding to sit in the 158 for a change for the way home. Very festive guards.
Overall a good day with 22 new Great Northern units crossed off (3x365s, 2x 317s, 17x 313s), 3 more 319s, 3 more 377s, my first 387s, plus various other units.
Guard says if you don't have reservations go sit in the unreserved carriage, so what do you do if you don't have reservations? Sit in the unreserved carriage or sit in a random reserved seat, reserved from an unknown point (but most likely Doncaster) and get nasty when someone asks you to move?
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I should have waited to do my First Class travel-card trip, it's actually cheaper for me now as my (Lichfield) Gold Card allows for the third off. Clapham Junction was chaos this evening.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
22nd December – 180 Hunt on a Thames Branches Rover
Today’s aim was simple, to try and score the last 4 (out of 5) FGW 180s, which only run during the week, also to try and clear down some Turbos. The day started with the 8:59 service from Grateley, which annoyingly meant that an off-peak return isn’t valid to Reading (although valid to Waterloo), so a separate ticket to take me one stop up the line to Andover was required to push me over the 9:00 start for an Andover to Bedwyn ticket. I had previously purchased my Thames Branch rover online a couple weeks before and was surprised that the Network Railcard £13 min fare wasn’t applied to it. I will confess now that I thought it was valid to Wokingham, instead of Winnesh.
The first service was busy (always seems to be busy as it’s the first service from Exeter which doesn’t leave at 5am and the first ‘off-peak’ 159 into Waterloo), formed of double duds 159003/159021, taking a seat in the front car of 021 (which allows me to walk forward to exit the train opposite the stairs at Basingstoke), for a short hop to Basingstoke, arriving on time. Across to P5 to see if the 150/0s were running, and yep 150001 had just arrived, so deciding to leave it to wait for the Crosscountry service to try and get a winning voyager, only has a 4 minute time penalty in Reading and with 30 minutes to kill before the first 180 diagram of the day I could take it easy. There is a first time for everything, a XC service arriving into Basingstoke on time! Sadly it was dud 220006. Finding a seat I sat back and relaxed for the 15 minute ride.
Into Reading now with time to kill, so I took a seat and sat back watching the various movements, before 10:30 rolled around with the semi-fast service to Paddington, stopping only at Slough. The Turbo from Bedwyn came and went taking away a few of the passengers waiting on the platform before the sight of a 180 greeted me, slightly hard to grab the unit numbers as it’s in white typeface against a yellow background, but thankfully the 180s have matching car numbers, so I could grab 180103, first winner of the day, and it was rammed, deciding not to risk getting blocked in, I stood in the vestibule area, the ‘guard’ managed to get back on board, but couldn’t move. Am I right in thinking the 180s have a similar door opening process as the voyagers and the doors are released by the driver?
Into Slough where I alighted and more passengers boarded, I had a couple options either catch the next semi-fast back to Reading, catching a stopper, or doing the Windsor branch (which timed with the next semi-fast back to Reading), seeing winner 165121 on the branch line saw me boarding for a quick in/out of Windsor & Eton Central, busy car-parks. Bit of a dash at Slough to board dud 165112 back on a fast to Reading. But I made it, and had some time to kill before the next 180 diagram, heading over to see what was on the Paddington stoppers found me no winners, heading over to P4 found me no winners, and heading over to P2 found me a 150, so I headed out of the station to grab some early lunch.
Back at Reading station, back to P9-P10 island, and my 2nd 180 of the day arrived, and it was winner 180108, yippee, less busy than the previous service, so I managed to find a seat for the zoom down the main-lines to Slough, where I alighted and crossed over to the down-fast platform for a wait before 180106 showed up, another winner, only 102 left now, with another hour wait at Reading I decided to do some Twyford dashes, although the problem with Twyford dashes is the wait at Reading as the service arrives into Reading just after a stopper has departed, so 14 minute waits at the Reading end (and 5-10 minutes at Twyford). Rather dud filled runs though, 165112 first up, then 166210 back followed by 165129 before cheering up when “4 cars” came up on the PIS, so a double, leading was dud 165136 but behind was winner 166214, running around without the middle car following fire damage.
At least that hour was spent well, but back at Reading, waiting and hoping for 102 to tip up, “5 carriages” came up on the display with first class in coach D, so it was going to be a 180, but would it be winner 102 or dud 104? A smile came on my face when I saw 102 written on the side, my final FGW 180 (leaving just 4, 180s currently operated by Grand Central to get to clear the class), nice run to Slough where fresh dud 180108 took me back to Reading where I dived onto a late running HST, formed of winner 43183 with dud 43135 at the rear. Nice run into Paddington, finally running fast passed Slough, where I had an option or 2 as the time was ticking down to the 4pm deadline where HSTs usage wasn’t allowed, so I jumped onto the next HST, heading to Cheltenham Spa I believe, formed of winning 43124 with dud 43146 behind.
Into Reading with some decision to make, as I was around 20 minutes up on my plan, so I decided to head over to the Southern platforms for some 458 action, dud 458015 was leading but winner 458006 was at the rear, this took me to Wokingham, where a quick platform change saw me board a SWT service back to Reading, formed of dud 450124 leading winner 450029 back to Reading. I decided to carry on with my outward journey to Bedwyn and jumped onto winner 165105 for the short hop to Newbury, changing trains and platforms as that service has a lengthy (15 minutes) wait at Newbury for a HST stopper to clear, formed of winning power car 43022 with dud 43198 at the rear to take me the 8 mile trip to Hungerford, where another change of platform to wait for the returning service to Reading, formed of dud 166217.
Back at Reading, and over at P4 saw a winner, 165110 to take me the 6 miles (outside the validity of the rover by mistake) to Wokingham, where another fast platform change saw me on a fast SWT service, formed of winners 450017 & 450080 (finally a double winner!), to Reading and a fast turnaround saw me back out to Wokingham on dud 166202, but back in on winning 166213. With time to kill and a XC service being around 55 minutes late, saw me over on the relief platforms to see what was next up on a Paddington stopper, seeing dud 165112 but with winner 165127 behind saw me on another Twyford run, but sadly back on dud 166204. Having just missed a XC service to Basingstoke, I headed via the WH Smiths on the concourse to pick up a meal-deal for dinner, and back to P1-P2 to board dud 150001 back to Basingstoke, and then super-dud 159003 back home.
Overall a good day with those 180s cleared, 3 x 43 power cars, 1 x 458 with 3 x 450s, but with only 2x 166s and 4x165s added to my book, a bit of disappointment on the turbo front.
24th December – A Christmas Eve of 313 loving
I’m off to China in February (sadly not a rail trip), so I decided to apply for my Chinese Visa in person instead of posting it or allowing a 3rd party charge £40 on top to send it to the service centre, at least doing it in person would mean they will have a quick look to see if there is anything I had missed off. My appointment was for 13:00 which gave me a bit of time before and hopefully some hours after before the rail network starts to close down for Christmas.
First service of the day was the 8:59, with me doing a Basingstoke spilt, and it couldn’t have been any different to Monday, still a double 159 (159103/159105) but was dead, even walking to the station, whereas on Monday the car-park had a odd space here and there (so quieter than normal), today the car-park was like a Saturday. To Basingstoke and arrival to give me 40 minutes before the first London bound service which departs after 10:00, the opening time of the network railcard, so I headed down town to get a couple bits.
Arriving back at the station around 9:55 and I saw something annoying, 158885 leading a double 159 set towards Waterloo, annoying as that is one of my 2 required SWT 158s and I couldn’t catch it (9:57 departure), so I sat down to await dud 444027 which took me to Woking, with a good quote from the guard of “Where is everyone?” as Woking station was dead, the 444 was pretty dead as well. A few minutes later dud 444039 arrived (this was before I put my required 444s in my phone to reduce the risk of dud 444s) to take me to Clapham, where I crossed over to the Windsor lines to see what was happening and the first service to Waterloo was double dud 450124/450074.
Thankfully the next service back to Vauxhall was more successful with double winners 455865/455711 taking me the mile and 29 chains, where I alighted and waited a couple minutes before winners 455738/455725 took me to Clapham. Checking my phone to see a long-distance service would arrive on P7 in the next 4 minutes, sadly it wad dud 444034. Boo. However winner 455867 with dud 455866 took me back to Vauxhall with winner 455872 & dud 455914 back to Clapham Junction, where another long-distance service was due on P7, this time it was dud 444028 but with winner 444023 behind (finally!)
Down to Sainsburys Local (and when did that Tesco express open next door?) to grab some lunch before walking the great staircase of Waterloo East and down to catch the next available service to London Bridge, formed of winner 465004, my plan of a quick return to Waterloo East was put at rest when the service arrived into P4, so a jump across to P3 for a cannon street dash, formed of winner 376004, how much I dislike these units, cost-cutting to avoid putting AC, with stupid windows with seats which makes 377/6s seem like luxury, but they need to be done at some point, so the 56 chain journey to Cannon Street would do, with winner 376031 back out to London Bridge.
Next stop was the Northern Line to Bank, getting quite close to my appointment time now (shouldn’t have done those 376s), found my way to a busy platform for a single stop to Bank, where I got a bit lost exiting the station (somehow found my way onto the Central line platforms), but finally made it to the Visa service centre in time.
90 minutes later I had finished, my application was in, so back to Bank and after doing some thinking that Moorgate was close by (next stop) I could try and get some of my Great Northern 313s crossed off the list, so having a look to see that a good changeover would be Essex Road, giving 4 minutes connection with 4 minutes at Moorgate, saw me heading up to Moorgate on the Northern line. First service to Essex Road was duds 313062/313035, but winners 313050/313134 took me back to Old Street, sadly the next northbound service had been cancelled, so I had 13 minutes to wait, thinking I could have jumped downstairs to get on a northern line train back to Moorgate, but decided against it.
Essex Road, Moorgate & Old Street are island platforms in the middle of the tunnels with several access points between the two platforms, with the exits being down the stairs, so useful for bashing as no barriers, no stairs to go down/up, no gateline staff wondering what you are doing when you exit a train to jump on another. Although it’s in the dark with no mobile signal, but with some lovely NSE signage, with old First Capital Connect logos covered over on their old signage.
Next service north was another double duds, 313028/313033, crossing over at Essex Road to head back to Moorgate with winners 313029/313052. Over the next hour and a half, I spent going up and down the tunnels I rode on the following: winners 313029/313052, duds 313046/313032, and then winners 313123/313051, 313024/313018, 313061/313055, 313038/313059, 313042/313056. Winning 313122 with dud 313047 took me to Essex road for one final time as duds 313035/313062 had arrived back, so my final pair to Finsbury Park and into the light was winners 313045/313064.
Kings Cross was my next stop, with winner 365513 leading and dud 365508 behind, first point of call was the loo. Into Kings Cross on P9, the next Finsbury service was a tight 2 minute connection, but was departing from P8, next door to P9, so that was lucky, as it was formed of double winners 365521/365509. Bit of a dash at Finsbury to get a delayed southbound service, formed of winning 317347/317337, a nice pair of 317s. Another dash across to St Pancras and the Thameslink platforms, heading down the stairs I spotted some nice white shiny new units.
387107/387108 were my first 2 387s (and final unit of the year I believe), these took me down to Farringdon, where I alighted, to cross over to the northbound platform to board winning 319445 leading 319440 back to St Pancras. Another up and over the stairs was to be in vain, I caught the service heading southbound, but it was double duds 319373/319013. Alighting at Farringdon for the next service, formed of winners 377515/377521 which took me the short distance to City Thameslink, with winners 319432/319384 behind the even shorter distance to Blackfriars, to arrive with a lovely sight of the centre of London all lit up at night.
To Victoria now on a Circle line service, and up towards the Southern Suburban platforms for some linear bashing to Clapham via Battersea Park. First up was a pair of winning 455s, 455833/455846, then a couple minutes later when at Battersea Park winner 377422 arrived with dud 377206 behind to take me to Clapham Junction. Heading across to P10 to get the next Waterloo service, formed of dud 455736 with winner 455903 behind, and I decided to stay on all the way to Waterloo. The Portsmouth services were next on my list, one which goes via Guildford is first, followed by one which goes via Winchester, to take me back to Basingstoke. First service was a trio of 450s, leading was dud 450040 with 450098 in the middle and winner 450009 behind. At Woking the Portsmouth via Winchester was in the hands of dud 444028 to take me to Basingstoke.
5 coaches came on the display so would I get lucky with my final service of the day, would it be either 882 or 885 attached to a 159? Nope, it was dud 158881 leading dud 159014, so deciding to sit in the 158 for a change for the way home. Very festive guards.
Overall a good day with 22 new Great Northern units crossed off (3x365s, 2x 317s, 17x 313s), 3 more 319s, 3 more 377s, my first 387s, plus various other units.
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Techniquest
Veteran Member
A very successful bit of bashing there, and you had a LOT more luck on the GN than I did last time I went there. Even on a weekday lunchtime it was all single 313s, which I found a trifle odd. Never mind, I'm doing the evening peak next time, when I'm more likely to get some of my last 11 GN 313s!
Should imagine you're looking forward to some excellent luck again in 2015!
Should imagine you're looking forward to some excellent luck again in 2015!
Kristofferson
Member
- Joined
- 23 Nov 2012
- Messages
- 1,132
Sounds like a productive day out!
Kite159
Veteran Member
27th December – Sneaking through the Chilterns
I somehow managed to bag some cheap advance tickets for the Virgin diversion services to and from Coventry, so thought it would be a good chance to clear some additional non-passenger track around London, and a 3rd attempt at getting the track used by the Chase Line services to Rugeley TV which bypass Aston (first attempt back in March and the trains was cancelled, 2nd attempt in September found myself on a diversion via Aston, so 3rd time lucky hopefully). The service out of Euston I was booked on was the mid-day service so I decided to get to London nice and early (although not at the usual 5:24 departure, only the 6:59 today) for some SWT EMU bashing.
First service of the day was on super-dud 159006 which took me up to Basingstoke, where I hit issues, due to signalling issues down St Denys the trains from Southampton were being delayed, a train from Weymouth was 45-odd minutes down at that point (add in a fallen tree in the New Forest for good measures). Eventually winner 444002 arrived for the short trip to Woking, allowing a pair of 450s goes, plus a triple 159 I was rewarded with double winners of 444033/444043 which took me all the way to Waterloo (non stopper at Clapham). Working out a rough plan saw me heading towards the Windsor lines to see what 458 was on the next Reading run, and it was a pair of 455s. Deciding to jump on the next train going saw me on a pair of dud 455s, 455873/455920 for the trip out to Vauxhall.
Next up was a pair of 450s for the trip to Clapham, winner 450543 with dud 450103 behind for the remaining trip to Clapham, where a brief walk over to P7 with a few minutes wait for a long-distance service to arrive, front was dud 444041, but I saw another 444 at the back so walking down the platform to catch winner 444031 so I decided to board on 041 (as the doors of the rear 444 don’t open at Clapham P7) and had an enjoyable ~ 8 minute run into Waterloo. Over to the Wimbledon side and with winner 455713 back out to Clapham Junction, where I timed it just right for a hop over to the fast up Southern platform with winner 377155 and dud 377121 to take me to Victoria. Staying within the block of platforms for long distance Southern services at Victoria saw me on the next service outta there.
377608/377623, a pair of winning 377s did the honour of taking me back to Clapham Junction, with another 5 minute gap behind another P7 stopper, as before the front 444 was a dud (444028), but the rear was winner 444026. My method of logging required 444s on my phone was working. Into Waterloo and out again on the Windsor lines side on winners 455750/455735 out towards Vauxhall, where winner 450121 & dud 450029 did the honours of another single stop bash to Queenstown Road, and dud 450038 took me back to Vauxhall followed by winners 458008/458021 to Waterloo (the door buttons are now activate). Next train outta there was on dud 455713 to Vauxhall with dud 455853 and winner 455721 taking me out to Clapham Junction for the final time. Southern winners 377154/377109 did the honour of taking me to Victoria.
My god, the entrance to the underground was rammed, took 10 minutes to get down to the platforms which were loaded quite badly from the rear due to the slightly poor design of the Victoria line platforms at Victoria, but finally I arrived at Euston, a quick trip to Sainsburys for some lunch and across to P2 where the first Birmingham International service was getting ready to board. Formed of winner 221116 with duds 221104 & 221109 behind, yep a triple voyager, I hope the people of the Chilterns won’t notice it as it zooms pass. Rear unit was solely for unreserved passengers with them penned up ready to find a seat, front 2 units were for reserved passengers only, and you had to show your seat reservation to get passed the guards to gain access to that part of the train. Rather chaotic as the seat reservations hadn’t downloaded so all seats were ‘available’, so cue some passengers trying to make the use of it and grabbing good seats when theirs were rubbish.
Eventually the units set off heading along the regular route out of Euston, crossing over the tracks before coming away from the WCML just before the North London Line flyover at Willesen Junction. Used some non-passenger track to come onto the North London Line at Acton Wells Junction, crossing over the Acton-Northolt line before coming down onto the GWML, joining before Acton Main Line, and the GWML was rather dead owing to Paddington being closed due to an engineering overrun, along the relief lines to West Ealing where the triple joined the Greenford branch line up towards Greenford and taking the non-passenger track of the junction underneath the central line to join up with the Acton-Northolt line where it carried on, joining up with the main Chiltern line at South Ruislip and having a nice non-stop run passing Bicester, Banbury and using the centre tracks at Leamington Spa before going up the single track towards Coventry, where the service came to a stop. We were around 15 minutes up at that point; we were sat outside Coventry for 20 minutes before being allowed onto the main-line.
I decided to stay on until Birmingham International to cross over to join the XC voyager behind, just to get a new station in my book. Crossing over the platforms and down to P2 with a rather packed 220022, standing room only as I was standing right by the door, no more room on that train. To New Street it departed, and I alighted to head over to P2, seeing the work on P1. Things were looking good as a double 170 was on 2 with a 66 on the other part, so unless I had somehow gotten myself spun around it appeared it could only go North, winner 170501 was at the front with dud 170512 behind, I took a seat as the train started to get a bit more busier. 3rd time lucky and Soho-junction to Perry Barr junction passenger track was covered, although I didn’t miss that much with scenery.
Into Tame Bridge Parkway, and having learnt back in September that it was a bit of a pain to cross the platforms in a hurry, long ramp to the road, across the bridge and down stairs, but time was on my side, I had 10 minutes before the Wolverhampton stopper was due, time for some Starship or Hyperturbo action, my last London Midland 323 being back in March coming back from Redditch on my first overnight stay. It was now cold, wet and getting dark, but winner 323205 arrived for the short run back to Aston where I alighted to get the 323 on the Cross-City line back to New Street, which couldn’t decide if it wanted to be on time or 2 minutes late. Winner 323206 did the honours back to New Street.
I had RTT up and running towards New Street to see what the next service down to International would be, an ATW service was running late and would be at New Street around the same time I was arriving, so a quick dash over and onto a pair of 158s heading to International with seconds to spare. At International I grabbed the numbers and it was a pair of winners, 158835 leading 158831. Next service to Coventry was due to be a XC Voyager, but over on P5 was another Virgin triple. OK technically it was pick-up only at Coventry, but the door screens said “Coventry” as the next stop. Leading this triple was dud 221115 with winners 221113 and 221118 at the rear, took a fair while at Coventry before the doors were released, so I missed a 350 heading towards International, the next service was a heavily (15 minutes) delayed 390117 (sadly a dud), back to International.
Grabbing the unit numbers of the next service back to Euston (only a double this time), I stayed around for the next XC service to arrive, formed of winner 221138 for the short trip to Coventry, with a little wait (failure to secure food) before winners 221117 & 221143 arrived (Voyager fest today!) for the trip back to Euston, the long wait round, taking 2 hours 10 minutes. Bit dark outside so I took a free table seat, plugged my iPod in (RIP the iPod Classic) for a quiet read of my fun book about marketing. Arrival into Euston was 15 minutes earlier than planned, and that was with a 10 minute wait in a siding between the Rulislips for a Chiltern 168 to pass. Quickly dashed to the WH Smiths to get a meal deal (felt like they were about the close) before heading down to Waterloo with several options to get home.
1st was the Portsmouth Harbour trains, non-stop passed Clapham but change over at Woking from a service which goes via Guildford to a service which goes via Winchester, 2nd option was a Poole (or Weymouth) bound service which skips Woking, but stops at Clapham [so option of a quick unit to Clapham], 3rd option was the most boring and sitting on the 159 the whole way. 10 minutes before the first Portsmouth train was due to depart all 3, 444s were in the station, all 3 were doubles, the Portsmouths have one winner and one dud, whereas the Weymouth was a double dud, so Portsmouth it was. The one which runs to Portsmouth via Guildford was winner 444018 with dud 444027 behind (with a guard who said it’s been very quiet all day, most he’s had is 100 passengers on a double 444). Crossing over from P5 to P4 at Woking to get dud 444021 leading winner 444015 on the Portsmouth via Winchester service, and I had a pretty much private 444, taking my usual seats (table seats in the car with the disabled toilet, the ones under the pan-well) for a quick blast to Basingstoke where a few minutes later the double dud Weymouth arrived, before double duds 159004/159108 back home. Another quiet train it was, maybe passengers were listening to the advise to only travel if needed.
Summary:
7 new 444s, 2x458s, 2x 450s, 3x 455s, 5x 377s, 1x170, 2x323, 2x158, 1x220, 6x221
An enjoyable day trip, next up was a Sunday First Class trip in London (hopefully will be able to type it up tomorrow)
I somehow managed to bag some cheap advance tickets for the Virgin diversion services to and from Coventry, so thought it would be a good chance to clear some additional non-passenger track around London, and a 3rd attempt at getting the track used by the Chase Line services to Rugeley TV which bypass Aston (first attempt back in March and the trains was cancelled, 2nd attempt in September found myself on a diversion via Aston, so 3rd time lucky hopefully). The service out of Euston I was booked on was the mid-day service so I decided to get to London nice and early (although not at the usual 5:24 departure, only the 6:59 today) for some SWT EMU bashing.
First service of the day was on super-dud 159006 which took me up to Basingstoke, where I hit issues, due to signalling issues down St Denys the trains from Southampton were being delayed, a train from Weymouth was 45-odd minutes down at that point (add in a fallen tree in the New Forest for good measures). Eventually winner 444002 arrived for the short trip to Woking, allowing a pair of 450s goes, plus a triple 159 I was rewarded with double winners of 444033/444043 which took me all the way to Waterloo (non stopper at Clapham). Working out a rough plan saw me heading towards the Windsor lines to see what 458 was on the next Reading run, and it was a pair of 455s. Deciding to jump on the next train going saw me on a pair of dud 455s, 455873/455920 for the trip out to Vauxhall.
Next up was a pair of 450s for the trip to Clapham, winner 450543 with dud 450103 behind for the remaining trip to Clapham, where a brief walk over to P7 with a few minutes wait for a long-distance service to arrive, front was dud 444041, but I saw another 444 at the back so walking down the platform to catch winner 444031 so I decided to board on 041 (as the doors of the rear 444 don’t open at Clapham P7) and had an enjoyable ~ 8 minute run into Waterloo. Over to the Wimbledon side and with winner 455713 back out to Clapham Junction, where I timed it just right for a hop over to the fast up Southern platform with winner 377155 and dud 377121 to take me to Victoria. Staying within the block of platforms for long distance Southern services at Victoria saw me on the next service outta there.
377608/377623, a pair of winning 377s did the honour of taking me back to Clapham Junction, with another 5 minute gap behind another P7 stopper, as before the front 444 was a dud (444028), but the rear was winner 444026. My method of logging required 444s on my phone was working. Into Waterloo and out again on the Windsor lines side on winners 455750/455735 out towards Vauxhall, where winner 450121 & dud 450029 did the honours of another single stop bash to Queenstown Road, and dud 450038 took me back to Vauxhall followed by winners 458008/458021 to Waterloo (the door buttons are now activate). Next train outta there was on dud 455713 to Vauxhall with dud 455853 and winner 455721 taking me out to Clapham Junction for the final time. Southern winners 377154/377109 did the honour of taking me to Victoria.
My god, the entrance to the underground was rammed, took 10 minutes to get down to the platforms which were loaded quite badly from the rear due to the slightly poor design of the Victoria line platforms at Victoria, but finally I arrived at Euston, a quick trip to Sainsburys for some lunch and across to P2 where the first Birmingham International service was getting ready to board. Formed of winner 221116 with duds 221104 & 221109 behind, yep a triple voyager, I hope the people of the Chilterns won’t notice it as it zooms pass. Rear unit was solely for unreserved passengers with them penned up ready to find a seat, front 2 units were for reserved passengers only, and you had to show your seat reservation to get passed the guards to gain access to that part of the train. Rather chaotic as the seat reservations hadn’t downloaded so all seats were ‘available’, so cue some passengers trying to make the use of it and grabbing good seats when theirs were rubbish.
Eventually the units set off heading along the regular route out of Euston, crossing over the tracks before coming away from the WCML just before the North London Line flyover at Willesen Junction. Used some non-passenger track to come onto the North London Line at Acton Wells Junction, crossing over the Acton-Northolt line before coming down onto the GWML, joining before Acton Main Line, and the GWML was rather dead owing to Paddington being closed due to an engineering overrun, along the relief lines to West Ealing where the triple joined the Greenford branch line up towards Greenford and taking the non-passenger track of the junction underneath the central line to join up with the Acton-Northolt line where it carried on, joining up with the main Chiltern line at South Ruislip and having a nice non-stop run passing Bicester, Banbury and using the centre tracks at Leamington Spa before going up the single track towards Coventry, where the service came to a stop. We were around 15 minutes up at that point; we were sat outside Coventry for 20 minutes before being allowed onto the main-line.
I decided to stay on until Birmingham International to cross over to join the XC voyager behind, just to get a new station in my book. Crossing over the platforms and down to P2 with a rather packed 220022, standing room only as I was standing right by the door, no more room on that train. To New Street it departed, and I alighted to head over to P2, seeing the work on P1. Things were looking good as a double 170 was on 2 with a 66 on the other part, so unless I had somehow gotten myself spun around it appeared it could only go North, winner 170501 was at the front with dud 170512 behind, I took a seat as the train started to get a bit more busier. 3rd time lucky and Soho-junction to Perry Barr junction passenger track was covered, although I didn’t miss that much with scenery.
Into Tame Bridge Parkway, and having learnt back in September that it was a bit of a pain to cross the platforms in a hurry, long ramp to the road, across the bridge and down stairs, but time was on my side, I had 10 minutes before the Wolverhampton stopper was due, time for some Starship or Hyperturbo action, my last London Midland 323 being back in March coming back from Redditch on my first overnight stay. It was now cold, wet and getting dark, but winner 323205 arrived for the short run back to Aston where I alighted to get the 323 on the Cross-City line back to New Street, which couldn’t decide if it wanted to be on time or 2 minutes late. Winner 323206 did the honours back to New Street.
I had RTT up and running towards New Street to see what the next service down to International would be, an ATW service was running late and would be at New Street around the same time I was arriving, so a quick dash over and onto a pair of 158s heading to International with seconds to spare. At International I grabbed the numbers and it was a pair of winners, 158835 leading 158831. Next service to Coventry was due to be a XC Voyager, but over on P5 was another Virgin triple. OK technically it was pick-up only at Coventry, but the door screens said “Coventry” as the next stop. Leading this triple was dud 221115 with winners 221113 and 221118 at the rear, took a fair while at Coventry before the doors were released, so I missed a 350 heading towards International, the next service was a heavily (15 minutes) delayed 390117 (sadly a dud), back to International.
Grabbing the unit numbers of the next service back to Euston (only a double this time), I stayed around for the next XC service to arrive, formed of winner 221138 for the short trip to Coventry, with a little wait (failure to secure food) before winners 221117 & 221143 arrived (Voyager fest today!) for the trip back to Euston, the long wait round, taking 2 hours 10 minutes. Bit dark outside so I took a free table seat, plugged my iPod in (RIP the iPod Classic) for a quiet read of my fun book about marketing. Arrival into Euston was 15 minutes earlier than planned, and that was with a 10 minute wait in a siding between the Rulislips for a Chiltern 168 to pass. Quickly dashed to the WH Smiths to get a meal deal (felt like they were about the close) before heading down to Waterloo with several options to get home.
1st was the Portsmouth Harbour trains, non-stop passed Clapham but change over at Woking from a service which goes via Guildford to a service which goes via Winchester, 2nd option was a Poole (or Weymouth) bound service which skips Woking, but stops at Clapham [so option of a quick unit to Clapham], 3rd option was the most boring and sitting on the 159 the whole way. 10 minutes before the first Portsmouth train was due to depart all 3, 444s were in the station, all 3 were doubles, the Portsmouths have one winner and one dud, whereas the Weymouth was a double dud, so Portsmouth it was. The one which runs to Portsmouth via Guildford was winner 444018 with dud 444027 behind (with a guard who said it’s been very quiet all day, most he’s had is 100 passengers on a double 444). Crossing over from P5 to P4 at Woking to get dud 444021 leading winner 444015 on the Portsmouth via Winchester service, and I had a pretty much private 444, taking my usual seats (table seats in the car with the disabled toilet, the ones under the pan-well) for a quick blast to Basingstoke where a few minutes later the double dud Weymouth arrived, before double duds 159004/159108 back home. Another quiet train it was, maybe passengers were listening to the advise to only travel if needed.
Summary:
7 new 444s, 2x458s, 2x 450s, 3x 455s, 5x 377s, 1x170, 2x323, 2x158, 1x220, 6x221
An enjoyable day trip, next up was a Sunday First Class trip in London (hopefully will be able to type it up tomorrow)
Techniquest
Veteran Member
Crikey you really did mop up a good few 221s! Have fun finding your last ones when you get that far, that took me years and years!
I used to have a memo file on my phone for 390s, as my 2012 NREA in use at the time didn't have the renumbered ones in there, and as I had the same problem as you with getting duds without intending to, a memo file was created! Also did the same with my 350/2s for a while, then I got down to the last 3 of them and the numbers are very much implanted in my memory and so have no need of a reminder what they are!
Glad to see you had a good time up in my neck of the woods
I used to have a memo file on my phone for 390s, as my 2012 NREA in use at the time didn't have the renumbered ones in there, and as I had the same problem as you with getting duds without intending to, a memo file was created! Also did the same with my 350/2s for a while, then I got down to the last 3 of them and the numbers are very much implanted in my memory and so have no need of a reminder what they are!
Glad to see you had a good time up in my neck of the woods
Kite159
Veteran Member
For the remaining Virgin 221s I was thinking of a Cheshire day-ranger and see what pops up between Crewe & Chester. Probably the easiest place I can think of scoring some Virgin Voyager action (apart from the Birmingham corridor)
28th December – A First Class travelcard adventure
To say farewell to the cheap First Class Travelcard before it increases in price, and because I fancied seeing what the various First Class accommodations was like on the various units operating out of London. Sadly London Midland’s 350s were out due to the Watford Junction work, but I would try my best. Early Sunday morning to Andover where it was cold and wet, parking in my usual place to walk to P1 via the subway with a few minutes to spare before Bond, 159 Bond arrived (159007) to take me to Woking.
I changed at Woking for a 15 minute wait before the service from Basingstoke crashes into the rear of the service from Alton, sadly not a triple today, but both winners with 450548 leading and 450105 at the rear on the semi-fast to Waterloo which only calls at Surbiton, Wimbledon & Clapham. Taking a seat in 105 in the bay seat opposite the little guard office (do they ever get used by the guards?) until Surbiton where as if by magic my Andover to Clapham Junction return turns into my First Class Travelcard and I move forward into the little FC section, 2+2 reclining seating with decent size tables and power sockets, a good first impression from a 450.
Next up at P7 at Clapham was a double 444 from Southampton, I was going to catch it regardless of winners due to it being a rare chance of getting into the FC section of a 444, formed of dud 444019 leading winner 444022 (yippee) for a nice trip to Waterloo, 2+1 seating, although mostly in airline style on the 2 seat side. We stopped outside Waterloo for a couple minutes before arrival, and I was on the next train out of Waterloo back to Clapham, sadly no 450s were due to go out on a regular stop at Clapham, so across to the Windsor lines side to jump onto dud 455736. No FC section on the little red devils so nothing to report.
I had timed my arrival into Clapham to give me a few minutes before a service from Reading, to try and get some 458 FC action before the FC sections are replaced when they are changed to 458/5s. Winners 458021/458008 arrived and I went into the little FC section in the ends to be surprised. Similar to the 450s with 2+2 seating but with nice seats which were quite comfy, power socket underneath the seat (similar to the 395s), nice peaceful ride back to Waterloo. Next stop after checking RTT to see if Paddington was running services towards Ealing (and it was the usual Sunday half-hourly runs) was a nice walk to the Bakerloo line platforms.
Diving onto a Bakerloo line train when it was on the station (bit of a dash down those stairs), saves a few minutes which came in handy at Paddington as it allowed me to have a look at a pretty dead station, only 1 HST was on the platform, 1x Heathrow Express and a pair of 165s, however the one I was interested in was a pair of turbos on P11, leading was winner 165125 with dud 166216 behind. Sitting in the FC section of 125, nothing that special, 2+2 seating with fixed armrests, can’t remember if it even had full size tables. Only extra was a little switch to turn on a light above, although I wasn’t going to be surprised owing to the weekday Reading-Basingstoke runs being standard class only, so if a Turbo is diagrammed on when one of the 150/0s is unavailable it’s standard class only (add in the one end of a 166 has been turned into SC). Out of Paddington and I knew something was odd when it went down in the main tracks (rather than the relief, can’t be calling them fast and slow on the GWML) towards Ealing Broadway.
Alighting at the lesser used main-line platform, and crossing over the bridge to head down to the island platform to board a returning winner 165106 back to Paddington, not a new station, but first time using those platforms. 165106 was quite busy, even in the FC section (this is when you wish for a RPO to do a surprise ticket check and give the chavs penalty fares for sitting in FC with a standard class ticket on the table, listening to ‘music’, feet on the seats etc. Into Paddington and I completely forgot about visiting the FC lounge to get some FGW freebies until I was on the Hammersmith & City line platforms, oops. A Circle line train took me the short distance to Farringdon where I decided to head north to St Pancras.
Winner 319375 arrived which was nice, apart from it being a 319/3 meant it didn’t have a FC section, so I waited at St Pancras for the next service to arrived, heading to Bedford and formed of winners 319367 & 319217, where I decided to do something unusual when Thameslink bashing and go into the light and head to West Hampstead Thameslink. Sitting in 217, the FC section was nice and peaceful, although the seats were the same as the SC area and it had nothing in the way of extras (which I noticed or can remember).
Crossing over the platforms for a southbound service towards Brighton, formed of a very busy winning 377517, managed to get a seat in the FC section after St Pancras, although as the 377/5s have one FC section turned into SC it was nothing new, same seats, just with power sockets under the table. 3 minute connection at Blackfriars was up next for another Bedford service; thankfully the barriers on the north side were wide open, which gave me an easier route to the northbound platform where dud 377208 was leading 377215. Similar layout to the 377/5s (although having a pair of airline seats instead of the single longitude seat), no power sockets though, so hardly anything different than the rest of the train, apart from the antimacassars.
I alighted at Farringdon and continuing along my trip along the sub-surface lines found me on a Metropolitan line service for the mile ride, checking up on the times of Romford bound services, wanting to try and avoid 315s found me with a spare 14 minutes, so heading out of the station to locate the Tesco suggested by Keith, I found it, however it was a Metro rather than an Express, and hence limited to 6 hours of opening (12:00 to 6pm) which was a bit of a downer as it was 11:40 (and I was feeling a bit hungry). Back to the station to locate the platform the Southend service was due to depart with winner 321430 leading dud 321357. FC section was very nice, 2+2 seating although no ‘extras’, nice door to close and I was the sole passenger in the leading FC section. Nice little run to Romford, where I noticed the slow tracks were closed for works, meaning a reduced service was operating with the Shenfield stoppers using the fast track platforms of the various stations.
2nd time at Romford so it was a bit of a wild guess at the location of the subway or bridge to the fast up platform, and a tight connection as winners 321321 & 321319 arrived just as I was going up the ramp, quite a busy service, even in FC (again I wonder how many of those passengers would be caught out if a RPO decided to call). I alighted at Stratford, keeping an eye out for a service 15 minutes behind from Clacton, thinking it might be a 360, but in the meanwhile it gave me time to do a quick double-bus stop dash to Forest Gate (skipping Maryland, which appeared to be closed), first pair of 315s were winners 315824/315825, leaving the station on the down fast platform to cross over the bridge to enter the main station building to the island platform with the up fast with 315827/315853 taking me back to Stratford.
The next train on the up fast was sadly a pair of 321s rather than a hopeful 360, so I decided to cross over to P11 where a Cambridge bound 317 was waiting, formed of winners 317514/317508 took me along a very nice bit of track towards Tottenham Hale, nice because it runs alongside the Eurostar depot, so chance of 373/374 spotting. Those new 374s look very nice. The FC section is very nice on the 317s, 2+2 seating. Into Tottenham Hale with a 5 minute wait before a sound bound 379 was due from the airport, and it was winner 379015, and with a free bottle of water from the refreshment trolley thrown in. Back to Liverpool Street where I left the station to the now open Tesco Metro to pick up a meal-deal for lunch and back to the station for the next Tottenham Hale bound 379 (first was to check for a potential 360, however it again was a 321, those 360s will have to wait for another day).
Formed of winners 379005/379016, however it was the same refreshment trolley host so I thought I best not try and push my luck for another bottle of water, he might notice from a sheet of paper used for complimentary drinks. To Tottenham Hale with a mad idea to get to Kings Cross to see if I could wing a 365 northbound to Finsbury, the day after the chaos, out at the Victoria line and checking the boards to note a Peterborough bound service was overdue to depart, I dashed and jumped on as the whistle was being blown. Winners 365524/365503 greeted me, similar FC section to the 165s/166s, but I couldn’t enjoy it as first stop was walking up the train to try and get close to the front to allow me to grab the number of the front unit once at Finsbury.
Arrival into Finsbury was at chaos, the points had failed south of the station, an East Coast HST was being held on the platform with the doors locked for protection, so deciding nothing was worth hanging around for as I went down to the Victoria line platform for a run towards Victoria for some Southern 377 FC action. I had the choice of two Brighton services, the first was the express and the 2nd was the stopper, both departing within a couple minutes of each other, so boarding the first formed of winners 377411/377459 to Clapham Junction. Pretty much the same as the 377/2s, nothing special in the FC section apart from the antimacassars, a couple minute wait at Clapham saw winners 377462/377102 on the trip down to East Croydon.
At East Croydon I was going to head towards the fast up platforms when I saw a pair of 377/3s arrive, knowing my book is lacking massively with the 3-car 377/3s (previously had 2 units) so I jumped on, it was a semi-fast service to Victoria calling at Selhurst (football?), winners 377301/377319 took me the short distance to Selhurst where I had my first ticket check of the day! Alighting on the Up Fast platform (normally closed by a large gate in the subway, with the stairs down the subway being half fenced off) for a few minute wait before dud 377405 arrived on another semi-fast to Victoria. The plan was to head over to the Southeastern side to get some 375 action; however I spotted a 377/6 with a couple minutes to go before it departed, so decided to do another Vic-clap run, although it was dud 377610.
The FC section was completely the same as the SC section, same seats, no antimacassars, the only thing telling passengers it was FC was small stickers on the windows, frankly rubbish if you ask me. The return was in the hands of another double dud of 377155/377121 where I finally crossed over to the South eastern side. On an Ashford bound service today was winner 375711, and like the 377s the only difference is with antimacassars on the seats which seemed to be ignored by the Bromley bunch as it was busy departing Victoria but soon emptied out (as well as myself) at Bromley South. Over the bridge to another platform for a Victoria bound service, this time formed of winner 375801, back to Victoria.
Crossing back to the Southern side, this time sticking with the suburban platforms found me a pair of 377/6s, leading was winner 377614 with dud 377606 behind. To Clapham, where a look at RTT saw a Reading service in a few minutes so to get some more 458 action I crossed over, although the first pair was the same as in the morning (458008/458021) I alighted at Putney (those antimacassar cushions are lush) for a new station call, crossing over to the up platform and dud 458014 arrived with winner 458016 behind, quite busy in standard, but empty in FC. Back to Waterloo now where a look at RTT saw that Charing Cross was running the Cannon Street shuttles, and there was no way I would make a 2 minute connection to Waterloo East.
So having an early dinner from Burger le King and a slow walk over to Waterloo East where dud 465029 was leading winner 465043 along the metropolitan curve to Cannon Street. Before the next fast service towards Orpington was due to depart was a Dartford bound service, so some linear bashing with winner 465009 leading dud 465016 to London Bridge. Closely followed by a pair of winners, 375713/375927 to take me down to Orpington with another pair of winners of 375816/375911 took me back to London Bridge (with another ticket check).
I decided to head back to Waterloo via the Jubilee line, final stop ‘Waterwooooo’, “This train will now terminate here, all change please, all change” up to the main station with another couple of options to get back to Woking/Basingstoke, knowing that I needed to be on a service which called at Clapham which crossed out a fast to Woking service, however the 444s identified were all duds, so after a quick search on RTT found me racing the Alton/Basingstoke train to Surbiton. First was a pair of winning 450s, with 450001 & 450108 towards Vauxhall, then a pair of winning 455s (455708/455860) to Clapham. Next was winner 455709 to Wimbledon, before winner 455862 to Surbiton, where I crossed over to the down fast platform to wait the Basingstoke/Alton service, formed of winners 450564/450005, back to Woking (and back in SC), crossing over the bridge and duds 159002/159005 was having an extended break due to arriving early back to Andover.
My god it was a nightmare getting home, the car was iced over, both inside and outside, and it was that temperature where the car would refreeze within a couple minutes, hence I decided it would probably be my last Sunday day-trip to London for a while.
Winners count: Out of the 71 unique units travelled on (bar 159s), 57 were winners, which for a day where I wasn’t aiming for winners is quite good.
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30th December – This smells fishy
Back in June when I attempted to do the 3 branches of the West Wales lines, my plan was thrown into chaos when the signalling around Newport decided to go on holiday, with a magical taxi ride from Temple Meads to Severn Tunnel Junction via the moon. I managed Milford & Pembroke, but couldn’t manage to fit a trip to Fishguard in a revised plan, so thought about doing a day trip to the West of Wales to clear the Fishguard branch, the Carmarthen avoider and also the ‘up’ direction of the Swansea district line (having previously travelled the down direction on a railtour to the Heart of Wales and on the August bank holiday Monday).
It was a rather early start, even for my record, as I wanted to do some linear bashing to try and clear down some of my required FGW 150s & 153s units, the first train from Salisbury to Westbury leaves around 6am, so I was up at 5am, get ready, deice the car, and for a morning drive in temperatures of minus 5 to Salisbury, it was rather chilly (and remained so for most of the day). Paying to park (£8 for weekday parking, ouch) and picking up the tickets from Newport to Fishguard (having purchased the only return ticket available from Salisbury to Newport, an anytime return, no day returns available nor any useful splits which I could spot. The first FGW service of the day also picks up the SWT 158 which is being borrowed for the day.
Having completed my FGW 158s I wasn’t expecting that much, and true to form 158958 was leading, but with an unexpected unit, 158882, one of my 2 required SWT 158s, happy days. Only passenger on board as it set off towards Westbury where it would terminate and end up on a Weymouth service (looking at RTT), the Gloucester bound service was on P2, so a nice easy cross-platform to winner 150131 for a gentle trip towards Bristol. I would imagine at any other day this train would be quite heavily loaded but due to it being the week between Christmas & New Year it was quiet. Into Bristol and I alighted to have a look at what was happening, the next train up the line towards the newish station at Filton Abbey Wood.
A service towards Bristol Parkway was due from Western-Super-Teddybear with a Cardiff bound service a few minutes behind that, so I decided to jump on board, an emptying winner 150221, up to Filton Abbey Wood, a new station for me to alight at. The Cardiff bound service behind was running late, it arrived into Bristol from the depot late, but never mind, at least it cut down the 30 minute wait at Patchway. I wasn’t expecting that much; I was expecting a 158/9, and when 158951 arrived it was no surprise. I must remember that Filton isn’t a good station to cross between platforms; it has quite a long ramp to the bridge. A couple minutes later saw me alighting at a rather chilly Patchway (for another new station call), having a look around to find not a lot, a car-park on the north side, and some old factories on the south side, seemed to be a good couple miles away from Patchway village. 10 minutes later and a pair of winning 153s arrived, 153318 leading (the First Great London Midland, how hard is it to change stickers on the inside to remove the LM logos?) 153325, some unexpected dog box action, through the tunnel under the river and into Wales.
The double 153 arrived into P1 so a quick platform change to P2 to get on a delayed ATW service from Holyhead, 175110 was the unit in charge, overtaking the double 153s on the 11 mile trip towards Cardiff. Into Cardiff and having just missed a service bound for the West (doors were closing as the 175 pulled in, nice to see ATW keeping a connection open), I had 40-odd minutes to kill before a FGW HST was due to take me down towards Swansea. Visiting the little Tesco Express opposite the bus station for some lunch for later in the day, and also popped into a couple of the charity shops nearby as one was promoting a “massive 50p book sale”, which had 5 children’s reference books in, wow. Back at Central I was waiting around as winner 43156 arrived with dud 43125 on the rear, locating a seat in coach C, which was pretty much empty, I sat back and relaxed for the enjoyable ride of a HST towards Swansea.
In Swansea it was a 10 minute wait and a last minute platform change (can’t be many other stations where you get a 153, a 150 & a 175 on the same platform) for 2-car winning 175004 for the short trip to Llanelli. I had 45 minutes to kill and from a previous visit knew there wasn’t a lot around the station, apart from some network rail engineers’ power washing the rails at the level crossing. I could have played it risky with another 175 service which is due to arrive a few minutes before the Fishguard service, but didn’t want that risk of a 175 running late and missing the boat-train. Winner 153312 arrived with winner 150217 behind it on the boat-train today, quite a busy service but I managed to find a table seat in the dog-box. The section of line to the south of the railway west of Llanelli is quite beautiful.
First stop was Whitland so it used the Carmarthen avoiding curve and stopped at Whitland, where the line to Pembroke splits, and a nice ride with some DGA, and some beautiful scenery, always worth a visit to West Wales, and eventually Fishguard & Goodwick was reached with calls from the guard not to alight if you want the ferry before carrying on down to the Harbour station, owned by Stella Line, and was quite busy with passengers wanting the service back to Cardiff.
I had hoped to shift to the 150, but passengers started boarding rather quicker than expected, so 153 it was (although not so bad as I enjoy Dog-Boxes). Back east away from Fishguard, away from the cliffs, away from the sea & the large ferry with a large queue of vehicles, reversing at Carmarthen (completing the Carmarthen triangle), and carrying on, with calls from the guard at Llanelli that this service does not call at Swansea, the next station is Bridgend. Leaving the main-line to start going up the Heart of Wales before turning away and onto the Swansea District Line, pretty in parts, boring in others (cuttings).
Joining the main line at Briton Ferry and carrying on, flying through Port Talbot with the industry (how I love the industry) and I alighted at Bridgend. The boat-train had somehow arrived 10 minutes early, so I waited around before it departed and the next service towards Cheltenham Spa arrived, formed of winner 150208 towards Cardiff Central. I had an hour or so to kill before the WAG Express (although it was not to be) departed, so purchasing a return ticket to Cardiff Bay, I headed over to the Valley line platforms to see what was happening in terms of movements. First up was a pair of Pacers, winner 143622 leading dud 142077 towards Queen Street, where I have bad news for unit bashers.
The new platform at Queen Street has come online, which meant instead of all Central bound services using P3 and all services away from Central using P4, on an island platform (with the Bay using P2), the Bay had shifted to P1, and services to Central changed between P2 and P3, with from Central using either P4 or P5, no more easy platform interchanges. The double pacer arrived into P4, where I crossed over to the Bay platform for the service to Cardiff Bay (which would be a prime tram), formed of dud 153303. To the Bay and back on the same unit, and across to P2 as winner 150241 arrived with winner 150281 behind, so 3 winners, bonus
At Central, the FGW Carport service was starting from Newport (does that make it the ‘Newport’ service?), I had a couple options, first was a 150 heading to Cheltenham Spa which looked busy, or the Holyhead train which was meant to be the WAG, sadly the Loco set was busy in North Wales which left the honours to a 2-car 158, winner 158838, I managed to board and get a seat (first seat inside), but it left Cardiff completely full and standing. The FGW customers wanting a connection probably didn’t help (although there was another service which connected with the FGW Newport service, a HST from Swansea. Into Newport as darkness had fallen and back across to P1 to see dud 158951 waiting, not as busy as I had expected it to be.
Nice little run after a delayed start due to the delayed HST, under the Severn and to Filton Abbey Wood, where I alighted for a 3 minute wait for the Parkway to Western Super Teddybear service, formed of dud 158763 (boo). I checked RTT and it gave me a 2 minute connection at Temple Meads for a HST towards London via Bath, so positioning myself at the rear most door and I made a dash making a semi-busy HST, finding a table seat which wasn’t due passengers until Bath to have a breather.
Guess what, it was the same HST set which took me to Swansea earlier! 43125 leading 43156. Never mind, as I had given myself a 20 minute or so break at Bath, which was used to pick up a bite to eat from the little Sainsburys nearby the bus station, back to the station with a passenger wanting to know if they could catch an earlier train than the one stated on their advance ticket, the next train to London being the train she was booked on (seems to go down to 1 HST an hour that time of evening). A HST sped through on the Bristol bound platform (would that be Up or Down?), before dud 150239 arrived, running a few minutes late which meant my connection with a Westbury to Southampton train was probably going to go up in flames.
And the connection went up in flames, arrival into Westbury 5 minutes down, next train towards Salisbury was going to be in half an hour, so I hung around the station, nothing better to do. Dud 158798 (wearing the Portsmouth Shopping advertisement) took me back down to Salisbury, where after 5 minutes with deicing my car for a slow drive home, the temperature had dropped once more. But I was happy, Wales is pretty much covered for network rail track, apart from a couple PSUL movements over some curves (Swansea Avoider & link between the City link & SWML west of Cardiff). Nice way for my final big trip of 2014
(2 more to do before I've caught up, happy days)
28th December – A First Class travelcard adventure
To say farewell to the cheap First Class Travelcard before it increases in price, and because I fancied seeing what the various First Class accommodations was like on the various units operating out of London. Sadly London Midland’s 350s were out due to the Watford Junction work, but I would try my best. Early Sunday morning to Andover where it was cold and wet, parking in my usual place to walk to P1 via the subway with a few minutes to spare before Bond, 159 Bond arrived (159007) to take me to Woking.
I changed at Woking for a 15 minute wait before the service from Basingstoke crashes into the rear of the service from Alton, sadly not a triple today, but both winners with 450548 leading and 450105 at the rear on the semi-fast to Waterloo which only calls at Surbiton, Wimbledon & Clapham. Taking a seat in 105 in the bay seat opposite the little guard office (do they ever get used by the guards?) until Surbiton where as if by magic my Andover to Clapham Junction return turns into my First Class Travelcard and I move forward into the little FC section, 2+2 reclining seating with decent size tables and power sockets, a good first impression from a 450.
Next up at P7 at Clapham was a double 444 from Southampton, I was going to catch it regardless of winners due to it being a rare chance of getting into the FC section of a 444, formed of dud 444019 leading winner 444022 (yippee) for a nice trip to Waterloo, 2+1 seating, although mostly in airline style on the 2 seat side. We stopped outside Waterloo for a couple minutes before arrival, and I was on the next train out of Waterloo back to Clapham, sadly no 450s were due to go out on a regular stop at Clapham, so across to the Windsor lines side to jump onto dud 455736. No FC section on the little red devils so nothing to report.
I had timed my arrival into Clapham to give me a few minutes before a service from Reading, to try and get some 458 FC action before the FC sections are replaced when they are changed to 458/5s. Winners 458021/458008 arrived and I went into the little FC section in the ends to be surprised. Similar to the 450s with 2+2 seating but with nice seats which were quite comfy, power socket underneath the seat (similar to the 395s), nice peaceful ride back to Waterloo. Next stop after checking RTT to see if Paddington was running services towards Ealing (and it was the usual Sunday half-hourly runs) was a nice walk to the Bakerloo line platforms.
Diving onto a Bakerloo line train when it was on the station (bit of a dash down those stairs), saves a few minutes which came in handy at Paddington as it allowed me to have a look at a pretty dead station, only 1 HST was on the platform, 1x Heathrow Express and a pair of 165s, however the one I was interested in was a pair of turbos on P11, leading was winner 165125 with dud 166216 behind. Sitting in the FC section of 125, nothing that special, 2+2 seating with fixed armrests, can’t remember if it even had full size tables. Only extra was a little switch to turn on a light above, although I wasn’t going to be surprised owing to the weekday Reading-Basingstoke runs being standard class only, so if a Turbo is diagrammed on when one of the 150/0s is unavailable it’s standard class only (add in the one end of a 166 has been turned into SC). Out of Paddington and I knew something was odd when it went down in the main tracks (rather than the relief, can’t be calling them fast and slow on the GWML) towards Ealing Broadway.
Alighting at the lesser used main-line platform, and crossing over the bridge to head down to the island platform to board a returning winner 165106 back to Paddington, not a new station, but first time using those platforms. 165106 was quite busy, even in the FC section (this is when you wish for a RPO to do a surprise ticket check and give the chavs penalty fares for sitting in FC with a standard class ticket on the table, listening to ‘music’, feet on the seats etc. Into Paddington and I completely forgot about visiting the FC lounge to get some FGW freebies until I was on the Hammersmith & City line platforms, oops. A Circle line train took me the short distance to Farringdon where I decided to head north to St Pancras.
Winner 319375 arrived which was nice, apart from it being a 319/3 meant it didn’t have a FC section, so I waited at St Pancras for the next service to arrived, heading to Bedford and formed of winners 319367 & 319217, where I decided to do something unusual when Thameslink bashing and go into the light and head to West Hampstead Thameslink. Sitting in 217, the FC section was nice and peaceful, although the seats were the same as the SC area and it had nothing in the way of extras (which I noticed or can remember).
Crossing over the platforms for a southbound service towards Brighton, formed of a very busy winning 377517, managed to get a seat in the FC section after St Pancras, although as the 377/5s have one FC section turned into SC it was nothing new, same seats, just with power sockets under the table. 3 minute connection at Blackfriars was up next for another Bedford service; thankfully the barriers on the north side were wide open, which gave me an easier route to the northbound platform where dud 377208 was leading 377215. Similar layout to the 377/5s (although having a pair of airline seats instead of the single longitude seat), no power sockets though, so hardly anything different than the rest of the train, apart from the antimacassars.
I alighted at Farringdon and continuing along my trip along the sub-surface lines found me on a Metropolitan line service for the mile ride, checking up on the times of Romford bound services, wanting to try and avoid 315s found me with a spare 14 minutes, so heading out of the station to locate the Tesco suggested by Keith, I found it, however it was a Metro rather than an Express, and hence limited to 6 hours of opening (12:00 to 6pm) which was a bit of a downer as it was 11:40 (and I was feeling a bit hungry). Back to the station to locate the platform the Southend service was due to depart with winner 321430 leading dud 321357. FC section was very nice, 2+2 seating although no ‘extras’, nice door to close and I was the sole passenger in the leading FC section. Nice little run to Romford, where I noticed the slow tracks were closed for works, meaning a reduced service was operating with the Shenfield stoppers using the fast track platforms of the various stations.
2nd time at Romford so it was a bit of a wild guess at the location of the subway or bridge to the fast up platform, and a tight connection as winners 321321 & 321319 arrived just as I was going up the ramp, quite a busy service, even in FC (again I wonder how many of those passengers would be caught out if a RPO decided to call). I alighted at Stratford, keeping an eye out for a service 15 minutes behind from Clacton, thinking it might be a 360, but in the meanwhile it gave me time to do a quick double-bus stop dash to Forest Gate (skipping Maryland, which appeared to be closed), first pair of 315s were winners 315824/315825, leaving the station on the down fast platform to cross over the bridge to enter the main station building to the island platform with the up fast with 315827/315853 taking me back to Stratford.
The next train on the up fast was sadly a pair of 321s rather than a hopeful 360, so I decided to cross over to P11 where a Cambridge bound 317 was waiting, formed of winners 317514/317508 took me along a very nice bit of track towards Tottenham Hale, nice because it runs alongside the Eurostar depot, so chance of 373/374 spotting. Those new 374s look very nice. The FC section is very nice on the 317s, 2+2 seating. Into Tottenham Hale with a 5 minute wait before a sound bound 379 was due from the airport, and it was winner 379015, and with a free bottle of water from the refreshment trolley thrown in. Back to Liverpool Street where I left the station to the now open Tesco Metro to pick up a meal-deal for lunch and back to the station for the next Tottenham Hale bound 379 (first was to check for a potential 360, however it again was a 321, those 360s will have to wait for another day).
Formed of winners 379005/379016, however it was the same refreshment trolley host so I thought I best not try and push my luck for another bottle of water, he might notice from a sheet of paper used for complimentary drinks. To Tottenham Hale with a mad idea to get to Kings Cross to see if I could wing a 365 northbound to Finsbury, the day after the chaos, out at the Victoria line and checking the boards to note a Peterborough bound service was overdue to depart, I dashed and jumped on as the whistle was being blown. Winners 365524/365503 greeted me, similar FC section to the 165s/166s, but I couldn’t enjoy it as first stop was walking up the train to try and get close to the front to allow me to grab the number of the front unit once at Finsbury.
Arrival into Finsbury was at chaos, the points had failed south of the station, an East Coast HST was being held on the platform with the doors locked for protection, so deciding nothing was worth hanging around for as I went down to the Victoria line platform for a run towards Victoria for some Southern 377 FC action. I had the choice of two Brighton services, the first was the express and the 2nd was the stopper, both departing within a couple minutes of each other, so boarding the first formed of winners 377411/377459 to Clapham Junction. Pretty much the same as the 377/2s, nothing special in the FC section apart from the antimacassars, a couple minute wait at Clapham saw winners 377462/377102 on the trip down to East Croydon.
At East Croydon I was going to head towards the fast up platforms when I saw a pair of 377/3s arrive, knowing my book is lacking massively with the 3-car 377/3s (previously had 2 units) so I jumped on, it was a semi-fast service to Victoria calling at Selhurst (football?), winners 377301/377319 took me the short distance to Selhurst where I had my first ticket check of the day! Alighting on the Up Fast platform (normally closed by a large gate in the subway, with the stairs down the subway being half fenced off) for a few minute wait before dud 377405 arrived on another semi-fast to Victoria. The plan was to head over to the Southeastern side to get some 375 action; however I spotted a 377/6 with a couple minutes to go before it departed, so decided to do another Vic-clap run, although it was dud 377610.
The FC section was completely the same as the SC section, same seats, no antimacassars, the only thing telling passengers it was FC was small stickers on the windows, frankly rubbish if you ask me. The return was in the hands of another double dud of 377155/377121 where I finally crossed over to the South eastern side. On an Ashford bound service today was winner 375711, and like the 377s the only difference is with antimacassars on the seats which seemed to be ignored by the Bromley bunch as it was busy departing Victoria but soon emptied out (as well as myself) at Bromley South. Over the bridge to another platform for a Victoria bound service, this time formed of winner 375801, back to Victoria.
Crossing back to the Southern side, this time sticking with the suburban platforms found me a pair of 377/6s, leading was winner 377614 with dud 377606 behind. To Clapham, where a look at RTT saw a Reading service in a few minutes so to get some more 458 action I crossed over, although the first pair was the same as in the morning (458008/458021) I alighted at Putney (those antimacassar cushions are lush) for a new station call, crossing over to the up platform and dud 458014 arrived with winner 458016 behind, quite busy in standard, but empty in FC. Back to Waterloo now where a look at RTT saw that Charing Cross was running the Cannon Street shuttles, and there was no way I would make a 2 minute connection to Waterloo East.
So having an early dinner from Burger le King and a slow walk over to Waterloo East where dud 465029 was leading winner 465043 along the metropolitan curve to Cannon Street. Before the next fast service towards Orpington was due to depart was a Dartford bound service, so some linear bashing with winner 465009 leading dud 465016 to London Bridge. Closely followed by a pair of winners, 375713/375927 to take me down to Orpington with another pair of winners of 375816/375911 took me back to London Bridge (with another ticket check).
I decided to head back to Waterloo via the Jubilee line, final stop ‘Waterwooooo’, “This train will now terminate here, all change please, all change” up to the main station with another couple of options to get back to Woking/Basingstoke, knowing that I needed to be on a service which called at Clapham which crossed out a fast to Woking service, however the 444s identified were all duds, so after a quick search on RTT found me racing the Alton/Basingstoke train to Surbiton. First was a pair of winning 450s, with 450001 & 450108 towards Vauxhall, then a pair of winning 455s (455708/455860) to Clapham. Next was winner 455709 to Wimbledon, before winner 455862 to Surbiton, where I crossed over to the down fast platform to wait the Basingstoke/Alton service, formed of winners 450564/450005, back to Woking (and back in SC), crossing over the bridge and duds 159002/159005 was having an extended break due to arriving early back to Andover.
My god it was a nightmare getting home, the car was iced over, both inside and outside, and it was that temperature where the car would refreeze within a couple minutes, hence I decided it would probably be my last Sunday day-trip to London for a while.
Winners count: Out of the 71 unique units travelled on (bar 159s), 57 were winners, which for a day where I wasn’t aiming for winners is quite good.
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30th December – This smells fishy
Back in June when I attempted to do the 3 branches of the West Wales lines, my plan was thrown into chaos when the signalling around Newport decided to go on holiday, with a magical taxi ride from Temple Meads to Severn Tunnel Junction via the moon. I managed Milford & Pembroke, but couldn’t manage to fit a trip to Fishguard in a revised plan, so thought about doing a day trip to the West of Wales to clear the Fishguard branch, the Carmarthen avoider and also the ‘up’ direction of the Swansea district line (having previously travelled the down direction on a railtour to the Heart of Wales and on the August bank holiday Monday).
It was a rather early start, even for my record, as I wanted to do some linear bashing to try and clear down some of my required FGW 150s & 153s units, the first train from Salisbury to Westbury leaves around 6am, so I was up at 5am, get ready, deice the car, and for a morning drive in temperatures of minus 5 to Salisbury, it was rather chilly (and remained so for most of the day). Paying to park (£8 for weekday parking, ouch) and picking up the tickets from Newport to Fishguard (having purchased the only return ticket available from Salisbury to Newport, an anytime return, no day returns available nor any useful splits which I could spot. The first FGW service of the day also picks up the SWT 158 which is being borrowed for the day.
Having completed my FGW 158s I wasn’t expecting that much, and true to form 158958 was leading, but with an unexpected unit, 158882, one of my 2 required SWT 158s, happy days. Only passenger on board as it set off towards Westbury where it would terminate and end up on a Weymouth service (looking at RTT), the Gloucester bound service was on P2, so a nice easy cross-platform to winner 150131 for a gentle trip towards Bristol. I would imagine at any other day this train would be quite heavily loaded but due to it being the week between Christmas & New Year it was quiet. Into Bristol and I alighted to have a look at what was happening, the next train up the line towards the newish station at Filton Abbey Wood.
A service towards Bristol Parkway was due from Western-Super-Teddybear with a Cardiff bound service a few minutes behind that, so I decided to jump on board, an emptying winner 150221, up to Filton Abbey Wood, a new station for me to alight at. The Cardiff bound service behind was running late, it arrived into Bristol from the depot late, but never mind, at least it cut down the 30 minute wait at Patchway. I wasn’t expecting that much; I was expecting a 158/9, and when 158951 arrived it was no surprise. I must remember that Filton isn’t a good station to cross between platforms; it has quite a long ramp to the bridge. A couple minutes later saw me alighting at a rather chilly Patchway (for another new station call), having a look around to find not a lot, a car-park on the north side, and some old factories on the south side, seemed to be a good couple miles away from Patchway village. 10 minutes later and a pair of winning 153s arrived, 153318 leading (the First Great London Midland, how hard is it to change stickers on the inside to remove the LM logos?) 153325, some unexpected dog box action, through the tunnel under the river and into Wales.
The double 153 arrived into P1 so a quick platform change to P2 to get on a delayed ATW service from Holyhead, 175110 was the unit in charge, overtaking the double 153s on the 11 mile trip towards Cardiff. Into Cardiff and having just missed a service bound for the West (doors were closing as the 175 pulled in, nice to see ATW keeping a connection open), I had 40-odd minutes to kill before a FGW HST was due to take me down towards Swansea. Visiting the little Tesco Express opposite the bus station for some lunch for later in the day, and also popped into a couple of the charity shops nearby as one was promoting a “massive 50p book sale”, which had 5 children’s reference books in, wow. Back at Central I was waiting around as winner 43156 arrived with dud 43125 on the rear, locating a seat in coach C, which was pretty much empty, I sat back and relaxed for the enjoyable ride of a HST towards Swansea.
In Swansea it was a 10 minute wait and a last minute platform change (can’t be many other stations where you get a 153, a 150 & a 175 on the same platform) for 2-car winning 175004 for the short trip to Llanelli. I had 45 minutes to kill and from a previous visit knew there wasn’t a lot around the station, apart from some network rail engineers’ power washing the rails at the level crossing. I could have played it risky with another 175 service which is due to arrive a few minutes before the Fishguard service, but didn’t want that risk of a 175 running late and missing the boat-train. Winner 153312 arrived with winner 150217 behind it on the boat-train today, quite a busy service but I managed to find a table seat in the dog-box. The section of line to the south of the railway west of Llanelli is quite beautiful.
First stop was Whitland so it used the Carmarthen avoiding curve and stopped at Whitland, where the line to Pembroke splits, and a nice ride with some DGA, and some beautiful scenery, always worth a visit to West Wales, and eventually Fishguard & Goodwick was reached with calls from the guard not to alight if you want the ferry before carrying on down to the Harbour station, owned by Stella Line, and was quite busy with passengers wanting the service back to Cardiff.
I had hoped to shift to the 150, but passengers started boarding rather quicker than expected, so 153 it was (although not so bad as I enjoy Dog-Boxes). Back east away from Fishguard, away from the cliffs, away from the sea & the large ferry with a large queue of vehicles, reversing at Carmarthen (completing the Carmarthen triangle), and carrying on, with calls from the guard at Llanelli that this service does not call at Swansea, the next station is Bridgend. Leaving the main-line to start going up the Heart of Wales before turning away and onto the Swansea District Line, pretty in parts, boring in others (cuttings).
Joining the main line at Briton Ferry and carrying on, flying through Port Talbot with the industry (how I love the industry) and I alighted at Bridgend. The boat-train had somehow arrived 10 minutes early, so I waited around before it departed and the next service towards Cheltenham Spa arrived, formed of winner 150208 towards Cardiff Central. I had an hour or so to kill before the WAG Express (although it was not to be) departed, so purchasing a return ticket to Cardiff Bay, I headed over to the Valley line platforms to see what was happening in terms of movements. First up was a pair of Pacers, winner 143622 leading dud 142077 towards Queen Street, where I have bad news for unit bashers.
The new platform at Queen Street has come online, which meant instead of all Central bound services using P3 and all services away from Central using P4, on an island platform (with the Bay using P2), the Bay had shifted to P1, and services to Central changed between P2 and P3, with from Central using either P4 or P5, no more easy platform interchanges. The double pacer arrived into P4, where I crossed over to the Bay platform for the service to Cardiff Bay (which would be a prime tram), formed of dud 153303. To the Bay and back on the same unit, and across to P2 as winner 150241 arrived with winner 150281 behind, so 3 winners, bonus
At Central, the FGW Carport service was starting from Newport (does that make it the ‘Newport’ service?), I had a couple options, first was a 150 heading to Cheltenham Spa which looked busy, or the Holyhead train which was meant to be the WAG, sadly the Loco set was busy in North Wales which left the honours to a 2-car 158, winner 158838, I managed to board and get a seat (first seat inside), but it left Cardiff completely full and standing. The FGW customers wanting a connection probably didn’t help (although there was another service which connected with the FGW Newport service, a HST from Swansea. Into Newport as darkness had fallen and back across to P1 to see dud 158951 waiting, not as busy as I had expected it to be.
Nice little run after a delayed start due to the delayed HST, under the Severn and to Filton Abbey Wood, where I alighted for a 3 minute wait for the Parkway to Western Super Teddybear service, formed of dud 158763 (boo). I checked RTT and it gave me a 2 minute connection at Temple Meads for a HST towards London via Bath, so positioning myself at the rear most door and I made a dash making a semi-busy HST, finding a table seat which wasn’t due passengers until Bath to have a breather.
Guess what, it was the same HST set which took me to Swansea earlier! 43125 leading 43156. Never mind, as I had given myself a 20 minute or so break at Bath, which was used to pick up a bite to eat from the little Sainsburys nearby the bus station, back to the station with a passenger wanting to know if they could catch an earlier train than the one stated on their advance ticket, the next train to London being the train she was booked on (seems to go down to 1 HST an hour that time of evening). A HST sped through on the Bristol bound platform (would that be Up or Down?), before dud 150239 arrived, running a few minutes late which meant my connection with a Westbury to Southampton train was probably going to go up in flames.
And the connection went up in flames, arrival into Westbury 5 minutes down, next train towards Salisbury was going to be in half an hour, so I hung around the station, nothing better to do. Dud 158798 (wearing the Portsmouth Shopping advertisement) took me back down to Salisbury, where after 5 minutes with deicing my car for a slow drive home, the temperature had dropped once more. But I was happy, Wales is pretty much covered for network rail track, apart from a couple PSUL movements over some curves (Swansea Avoider & link between the City link & SWML west of Cardiff). Nice way for my final big trip of 2014
(2 more to do before I've caught up, happy days)
Techniquest
Veteran Member
A very productive couple of trips there, you must be running out of stuff to score on SWT by now!
Glad you enjoyed your trip to Fishguard, I've not been since summer 2007. Need to go back for the new shack at some point, plus there would be the nostalgia factor if I did the night boat train as I used to do it quite a few times in my days of being based in Swansea!
How much was that First Class Travelcard?
Glad you enjoyed your trip to Fishguard, I've not been since summer 2007. Need to go back for the new shack at some point, plus there would be the nostalgia factor if I did the night boat train as I used to do it quite a few times in my days of being based in Swansea!
How much was that First Class Travelcard?
Kite159
Veteran Member
Sadly not, 444s are coming down slowly (just got the magic 7 which always appear to be heading in the opposite direction), same with the rest of the EMUs, but still plenty of required units
It was £13.30 for the First Off-peak travelcard, gone up now to ~£18 odd, if you want to know the stations which offer the card PM me
It was £13.30 for the First Off-peak travelcard, gone up now to ~£18 odd, if you want to know the stations which offer the card PM me
Techniquest
Veteran Member
Sadly not, 444s are coming down slowly (just got the magic 7 which always appear to be heading in the opposite direction), same with the rest of the EMUs, but still plenty of required units
It was £13.30 for the First Off-peak travelcard, gone up now to ~£18 odd, if you want to know the stations which offer the card PM me
Not bad, doing better than me then!
That wasn't too bad for a First Class Travelcard, £4.40 more than the Standard Class one was on 16th December 2014. Quite the hefty increases to the Travelcards sadly
Might still do a First Class one some time as I've always wanted to do one, only using trains with acceptable First provision and preferably power sockets of course!
Kite159
Veteran Member
That would rule out the 375s & 377s then
31st January – The final countdown
I had a phone-call coming back from Wales on the Tuesday saying that my visa was ready (from the 24th December), which is quite a fast turnaround when you include 2 bank holidays, but good as it gave me an excuse for another London trip where I had planned to try and attack some 357s. Having some business in Andover beforehand I headed to Andover station, £7 for parking, ouch (probably could have got it cheaper by parking in a council car-park, but time was tight) so I sucked it up and paid.
I misheard 6 cars as 8 cars so my hopes were raised with the chance of getting 158885 (I make it a 1 in 10 chance, 11 158s in the fleet however 158880 has gone to the East Midlands so 10 158s), but it was 159004 leading 159101 on the short leg to Basingstoke where it arrived a few minutes before the 10am start of the Network Card, so I alighted, exited the station (strangely the gates were open) and purchased a travel-card for the remaining part of the journey, nothing exciting apart from the usual warnings about the forecoming diversions and the need to have tickets for that night’s fireworks show in London.
Dud 444025 arrived to take me to Woking, no point handing around for the next service towards London as it would have been the 159 from Salisbury (excluding le-stopper), at Woking I had more luck with winner 450004 leading dud 450546 to take me to Clapham where I headed over to the Windsor lines side with dud 450569 leading winner 450085 on the short hop to Queenstown Road (Battersea). On heading the next Clapham bound service was formed of 10 cars I changed my mind at going to Vauxhall. 10 cars means 458/5s (or 455/455/456 combo), and I was rewarded with dud 458531 leading winner 458532 behind, 2 of the new former all-460 units with the nice seating.
To Clapham where I decided to hang around for the Reading train to try and clear some of my required 458/0s before conversion, first up was winner 458016 leading dud 458014, first call Richmond, first time changing at Richmond in a good few months and so I used the centre of the train theory with unknown stations which sorta worked, only a small distance to the stairs to cross over to the main part, served by the Overground trains & District line (plus I’m guessing a rarely used P3 bay for SWT). The 458/5 I left at Clapham arrived next (heading towards Twickenham) on the down platform, as winners 458026/458027 arrived to take me back to Clapham.
Checking RTT found another Reading bound service due to depart Clapham a couple minutes after the current one arrived, which was good timing as it was winners 458029/458017, and another quick call at Richmond and back towards Clapham with winners 458018/458025. I couldn’t repeat the winning back to Richmond as it would have been 026/027, so I headed over to P7 for a long-distance service arrival. Phone in hand as a 444 drew in, checking the number against my required list saw it winner 444010, happy days. And finally I arrived into Waterloo.
Going via the new Tesco Express for some lunch (just to make a change), I headed back to the underground for the Waterloo & City line for the short trip to Bank, finding my way out and headed to pick up my Visa (happy days) and back to Bank 20 or so minutes later, it took a lot less time than expected. Decision time, as I headed up to Moorgate to see what was happening. Unlike Christmas Eve where it was 10 minute frequency, today was 15 minute frequency, so I had a 10 minute wait, but it was winners 313040/313049. Pondering to change at Essex Road again or continue one stop further to Highbury & Islington almost cost me some winners. Essex Road is cross platform, H&I is cross-platform with the Victoria line, so involves a bit more walking to get to the southbound platforms, but was worth it as the southbound service was running a bit late, and was winners 313063/313037. I had a bit of mobile signal on the platform so checked the best place to change, Old Street would have been tight (1 minute) and as I required the number of the rear unit, I decided to change at Essex Road.
Sadly my luck ran out as dud 313028/313033 arrived to take me out to Finsbury Park, crossing under to the P1-P2 Island to be awarded with 321406 for the short run down to Kings Cross. I headed across to the Thameslink platforms at St Pancras for a quick southbound service formed of winner 319012, deciding to change at Farringdon and returning to St Pancras on winners 377501/377503. Having a play with RTT decided that I could do a Harrow run from Euston, so Euston was the next stop, and I was rewarded with a pair of winners on a Tring service, 350368/350376, a pair of the new 350/3s, seem very nice inside, pretty much the same as the TPE 350/4s. Nice little run to Harrow (and Wealdstone), crossing over the platform for a southbound Euston service formed of another pair of 350/3s, 350375/350369 for the run back to Euston.
Back to Kings Cross, there was no point hanging around Euston as the next Harrow service wasn’t due for 28 minutes, and dud 365524 with winner 365529 took me out to Finsbury Park. To P1/2 island to see which pair of 313s were running down to Moorgate, last minute platform change from P1 to P2 was good as it allowed easy access to the number of the rear set without having to go to the back of the train, dud 313029 was leading but as winner 313060 was on the rear I jumped on for the short trip down to my final station on the Northern City Line, Drayton Park. Under the shadows of the football stadium, quite narrow platforms, I can see why it gets closed on match-days. Duds 313028/313033 took me back out to Finsbury. Dud 365534 with winner 365511 took me back into Kings Cross, with dud 317337 back out to Finsbury.
A 4-car service with no toilet was next, interesting, but a winner in the shape of 321419. To the Cross where a pair of 317s where getting ready to leave so I jumped across with winner 317346 leading dud 317348 back out to Finsbury with winning 317344 back to the Cross. My plan to do C2C had completely gone out the window when I saw a pair of 321s on a service due to depart in 5 minutes; dud 321407 was leading with winner 321410 at the rear. Well it would be rude not to try and get the Great Northern 317s/321s cleared before they are sent elsewhere in a few years time. To Finsbury and having just missed a 365 back to Kings Cross, I waited around to see what the next pair of 313s was going to be down to Moorgate. Pair of duds (I think it was 313033/313028 again) so I decided to call it a day and went down to the Victoria line to go to Euston. Quite tight when jumping onto a 350 heading to Harrow, so I didn’t get the time to check the numbers.
Unexpected double-dipping with fresh duds 350369/350375, doh! Nice little trip to Harrow, giving my phone a quick boost with electricity and across to the Up slow platform for a 12 car 350, with winner 350124 leading and duds 350376/350368 being up the rear. Down to Euston where my next step was going to be Victoria for a service to Clapham, checking the boards on the way up to Victoria found me on the main-line Southern group with winners 377164/377406 taking me to Clapham Junction. Quick dash to P7 with duds 159003/159004 taking me the short trip into Waterloo to do some investigating for winning 444s.
No luck, the potential 444s were all duds, so change of plan and me jumping onto winner 450096 leading 450100 back to Clapham Junction, with winners 450012/450126 taking me to Woking. 159004/159003 back to Basingstoke where I had half an hour break to get a pizza before 159006 took me back to Andover, the end of a good year.
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3rd January – A trip on the Grand Central
For my first main trip of 2015 I decided to book some cheap advances to/from Bradford on the Grand Central service, to cover some uncovered track in that part of the country.
First weekend where Wimbledon is closed, so the Salisbury stoppers were terminating at Basingstoke, formed of 159013 for my first 159 of the year for the hop to Basingstoke. Next service towards London was double duds 444019/444045, heading to Clapham Junction via Staines & Isleworth. A few decisions at Clapham Junction, a Reading bound 458 was dud, however I saw a 378/1 pull into P2, one which an added touch, an extra car.
Winner 5-car 378137 took me a couple stops down the South London Line route to Clapham High Street, which gave me a good connection for a Clapham Junction bound service formed of winner 378204. Across to P3-P4 with winner 450082 with dud 450567 took me to Vauxhall where I purchased a nice hot sausage roll from the little Sainsburys, can’t complain for the price. Duds 458018/458025 took me to Waterloo.
First train out was a triple 450, leading was dud 450074 with winners 450119 & 450009 behind, getting off at Clapham where I decided to have a little wait to find a winning 444. 13 minutes later (and around 3 trains) winners 444024/444036 arrived, double bonus, only 7 to get now. Nice little run into Waterloo, down to the Bakerloo for a service to Paddington to do an Ealing run, although complete waste of time as both 5-car double Turbos used were duds. 165109/165132 outward and 165118/166210 inward, never mind, maybe next Ealing run will produce winners.
Next stop was Kings Cross St Pancras, so I headed towards the Hammersmith & City line platforms at Paddington to board a Circle line train, keeping a close eye on the clock, thankfully no delays at Baker Street today and Kings Cross was reached with 15 minutes to spare. Heading up to play a game of spot the Grand Central, the first Bradford bound service, and it was sitting on P8, and was a winner. 180114, although the seats were reserved the slips were completely blank. First stop Doncaster where the train emptied out a bit.
The Grand Central Bradford services can go one of two ways, via Pontefract Monkhill or not via Pontefract using a curve after Fitzwilliam to join the line which runs through Wakefield Kirkgate, onto new track now with the track between Kirkgate & Mirfield and it is quite good scenery, onwards towards Halifax (first time using that side of the junction to approach Halifax from the east), and down the hill to Bradford Interchange, arriving pretty much on time, and the time did flow.
I did think about what to do in the just under couple hours before the final train departed to Kings Cross, do a loop from Interchange down to Huddersfield, up to Leeds then back to Interchange, a loop from Interchange to Forster Square via Leeds, or some 333 bashing from Forster Square to Saltaire to complete the Shipley triangle. I had decided to do some 333 bashing. So the next step was a walk towards the other Bradford station at Forster Square, took me just over 13 minutes with a false start, which meant I arrived in time to catch an earlier service. 333006 was a winner (always a good start) to take me to Frizinghall, the first stop up the line.
Frizinghall is an interesting station, I’m guessing at some point there was an additional track, seems to be located next to a dual carriageway with some housing (and car sales place) on the West side? I had 15 minutes to kill before the next service, so after spotting an usual sign of a street called “Salisbury Road” I headed back, saw 321902 on a Leeds – Bradford FS run (first time seeing a dusty bin on these tracks) before winner 333004 took me up towards Shipley. Bit of a mad dash at Shipley to catch a delayed service heading up towards Skipton from Leeds, the boots I was wearing were not built for running. Caught the train but sadly it was dud 333005, but it was quite good I did catch it as Saltaire is another awkward station to get from one platform to another, my original plan gave me a 2 minute connection, which would have been missed as the train from BFS to Skipton was running a couple minutes late and arrived pretty much at the same time as dud 333001 heading back to BFS. Bit of a lucky escape there.
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Back to Shipley where I completed the triangle and back to Frizinghall for another 15 minute wait (lucky me), where new dud 333006 (that was a fast turnaround at Ilkley) took me back to Forster Square. I walked back, via Greggs for some late lunch, to the Interchange station, to wait for the doors of fresh dud 180114 to be released. As before the seats had reservation slips in, but again were blank, so confusion as to when the seats were reserved from and to which caused some mild chaos with passengers with unreserved seating ignoring the train manager (or whatever Grand Central call them) advise to sit in the unreserved coach. One couple got very upset and angry when they were asked to move when a young family wanted to use their reserved seating around a table, trying to claim that all reservations were cancelled.
Back along the same route as the outward journey, apart from at Kirkgate it stayed on the Ponterfract line to cover some new track (for me) passed Streethouse, Featherstone and Tanshelf before the minor station at Monkhill, the 2nd to last pick-up of the service. Next stop Doncaster which was reached along the Askern Branch Line, a line only used by Grand Central for passenger services so some additional track covered which is always a bonus. Back to Doncaster where the train was getting quite few, not only with passengers but with luggage, lots of luggage, and at Doncaster with the 15 minute wait (timetabled to wait 10 minutes, but arrived 5 minutes early) where more passengers boarded with the advice from the train manager that tickets marked “EC Only”, “EC + Connections” or “Hull Trains” were not valid on this service, Doncaster to London has good competition between TOCs.
Darkness has fallen so back to my text book for the ride down to Kings Cross, I’ve done the East Coast many times and the southern part is rather boring. Arrival into Kings Cross was pretty much bang on time (2 on-time services by Grand Central, blimey), which allowed me to have a quick walk across to P8 to see what Great Northern unit was next out which stopped at Finsbury, having put the numbers of required Great Northern units in my phone, and spotted a required 365. Dud 365531 was leading winner 365512 for the short hop to Finsbury Park. A southbound service was running a few minutes late which saved me 10 minutes of waiting and was a double winner, 365510/365512, which was a double bonus. I took a seat in the front car ready to make a quick exit at Kings Cross, made quicker by the service arriving into P8, down to the Victoria line platforms and to Victoria.
Prior to arriving into Kings Cross I had loaded up RTT to give me an idea on timings from Victoria to Clapham, I prefer using the suburban platforms as it’s a much shorter walk (probably 30-60 seconds pending on traffic) which can mean the difference between catching a service and cursing as the doors close as you get close (or cursing as you find out it’s the front 4/8 units with a 377 locked out of use at the rear). Winner 455828 took me towards Clapham (lucky catch as there was a 10 minute gap between the next Clapham bound service), noticing the sight of a double 444 waiting to enter P6 at Clapham, so a quick dash via the long subway found myself on the platform as the Weymouth bound service pulled in, formed of double duds.
Clapham was in chaos this evening, signalling issues at Queenstown Road where the 2 down tracks have to filter into 1 track (then back out to 2 tracks) meant average delays of around 30 minutes, so RTT was a bit of a mess, but I spotted a couple potential services which could get me to Woking then onwards to Basingstoke in front of the lovely 159s. A choice between trio of 450s on a Portsmouth Harbour via Guildford ‘fast’ or a trio of 450s on a Portsmouth Harbour via Guildford stopper, noticing that the stopper set was being led by 450074 put me on the assumption that it was probably the same trio used earlier in the day so I got onto the trio led by dud 450023 with dud 450085 and winner 450027 up the rear, 1 out of 3 isn’t bad. Onwards for the slow trip to Woking, normally taking ~ 20 minutes, the diversion via Staines takes between 40 & 50 minutes (depending which route it takes), so it was a slow trip, made slower by being caught behind another service.
Eventually we arrived at Woking, P4 which was useful as an Alton service was in P5. Next service towards Basingstoke was a few minutes behind, with a Waterloo bound service on P2, waiting for the driver/guard from the service behind? (I’m guessing the drivers and/or guards change at Woking with the diversion?), and what should be next, the same double dud 444s I turned down at Clapham [a failure to put 2 and 2 together with RTT] as they went via Isleworth. Deciding to turn them down again, as it looked busy (last Weymouth train of the evening?), and headed out of the station to see what I could grab for a quick bite to eat, and ended up in Subway. Back to the station with another dud 444 heading towards Basingstoke, however checking RTT saw that the 159 was expected to overtake that 444 as the 444 was due to call at Farnborough, so unsure I played on the side of caution and gave it a miss (if it was one of my required 7 units then it might have been more challenging), although needless to say RTT was wrong and 159013/159020 didn’t overtake it on route towards Basingstoke, then back to Grateley.
Not a great day unit wise, but that wasn’t the plan, some new track covered on my map, with another Grand Central 180 to cross off my list of required units (3 more to get), I’m thinking of trying to capture the remaining 3 on a West Yorkshire Day Ranger trip, probably between Halifax & Bradford.
31st January – The final countdown
I had a phone-call coming back from Wales on the Tuesday saying that my visa was ready (from the 24th December), which is quite a fast turnaround when you include 2 bank holidays, but good as it gave me an excuse for another London trip where I had planned to try and attack some 357s. Having some business in Andover beforehand I headed to Andover station, £7 for parking, ouch (probably could have got it cheaper by parking in a council car-park, but time was tight) so I sucked it up and paid.
I misheard 6 cars as 8 cars so my hopes were raised with the chance of getting 158885 (I make it a 1 in 10 chance, 11 158s in the fleet however 158880 has gone to the East Midlands so 10 158s), but it was 159004 leading 159101 on the short leg to Basingstoke where it arrived a few minutes before the 10am start of the Network Card, so I alighted, exited the station (strangely the gates were open) and purchased a travel-card for the remaining part of the journey, nothing exciting apart from the usual warnings about the forecoming diversions and the need to have tickets for that night’s fireworks show in London.
Dud 444025 arrived to take me to Woking, no point handing around for the next service towards London as it would have been the 159 from Salisbury (excluding le-stopper), at Woking I had more luck with winner 450004 leading dud 450546 to take me to Clapham where I headed over to the Windsor lines side with dud 450569 leading winner 450085 on the short hop to Queenstown Road (Battersea). On heading the next Clapham bound service was formed of 10 cars I changed my mind at going to Vauxhall. 10 cars means 458/5s (or 455/455/456 combo), and I was rewarded with dud 458531 leading winner 458532 behind, 2 of the new former all-460 units with the nice seating.
To Clapham where I decided to hang around for the Reading train to try and clear some of my required 458/0s before conversion, first up was winner 458016 leading dud 458014, first call Richmond, first time changing at Richmond in a good few months and so I used the centre of the train theory with unknown stations which sorta worked, only a small distance to the stairs to cross over to the main part, served by the Overground trains & District line (plus I’m guessing a rarely used P3 bay for SWT). The 458/5 I left at Clapham arrived next (heading towards Twickenham) on the down platform, as winners 458026/458027 arrived to take me back to Clapham.
Checking RTT found another Reading bound service due to depart Clapham a couple minutes after the current one arrived, which was good timing as it was winners 458029/458017, and another quick call at Richmond and back towards Clapham with winners 458018/458025. I couldn’t repeat the winning back to Richmond as it would have been 026/027, so I headed over to P7 for a long-distance service arrival. Phone in hand as a 444 drew in, checking the number against my required list saw it winner 444010, happy days. And finally I arrived into Waterloo.
Going via the new Tesco Express for some lunch (just to make a change), I headed back to the underground for the Waterloo & City line for the short trip to Bank, finding my way out and headed to pick up my Visa (happy days) and back to Bank 20 or so minutes later, it took a lot less time than expected. Decision time, as I headed up to Moorgate to see what was happening. Unlike Christmas Eve where it was 10 minute frequency, today was 15 minute frequency, so I had a 10 minute wait, but it was winners 313040/313049. Pondering to change at Essex Road again or continue one stop further to Highbury & Islington almost cost me some winners. Essex Road is cross platform, H&I is cross-platform with the Victoria line, so involves a bit more walking to get to the southbound platforms, but was worth it as the southbound service was running a bit late, and was winners 313063/313037. I had a bit of mobile signal on the platform so checked the best place to change, Old Street would have been tight (1 minute) and as I required the number of the rear unit, I decided to change at Essex Road.
Sadly my luck ran out as dud 313028/313033 arrived to take me out to Finsbury Park, crossing under to the P1-P2 Island to be awarded with 321406 for the short run down to Kings Cross. I headed across to the Thameslink platforms at St Pancras for a quick southbound service formed of winner 319012, deciding to change at Farringdon and returning to St Pancras on winners 377501/377503. Having a play with RTT decided that I could do a Harrow run from Euston, so Euston was the next stop, and I was rewarded with a pair of winners on a Tring service, 350368/350376, a pair of the new 350/3s, seem very nice inside, pretty much the same as the TPE 350/4s. Nice little run to Harrow (and Wealdstone), crossing over the platform for a southbound Euston service formed of another pair of 350/3s, 350375/350369 for the run back to Euston.
Back to Kings Cross, there was no point hanging around Euston as the next Harrow service wasn’t due for 28 minutes, and dud 365524 with winner 365529 took me out to Finsbury Park. To P1/2 island to see which pair of 313s were running down to Moorgate, last minute platform change from P1 to P2 was good as it allowed easy access to the number of the rear set without having to go to the back of the train, dud 313029 was leading but as winner 313060 was on the rear I jumped on for the short trip down to my final station on the Northern City Line, Drayton Park. Under the shadows of the football stadium, quite narrow platforms, I can see why it gets closed on match-days. Duds 313028/313033 took me back out to Finsbury. Dud 365534 with winner 365511 took me back into Kings Cross, with dud 317337 back out to Finsbury.
A 4-car service with no toilet was next, interesting, but a winner in the shape of 321419. To the Cross where a pair of 317s where getting ready to leave so I jumped across with winner 317346 leading dud 317348 back out to Finsbury with winning 317344 back to the Cross. My plan to do C2C had completely gone out the window when I saw a pair of 321s on a service due to depart in 5 minutes; dud 321407 was leading with winner 321410 at the rear. Well it would be rude not to try and get the Great Northern 317s/321s cleared before they are sent elsewhere in a few years time. To Finsbury and having just missed a 365 back to Kings Cross, I waited around to see what the next pair of 313s was going to be down to Moorgate. Pair of duds (I think it was 313033/313028 again) so I decided to call it a day and went down to the Victoria line to go to Euston. Quite tight when jumping onto a 350 heading to Harrow, so I didn’t get the time to check the numbers.
Unexpected double-dipping with fresh duds 350369/350375, doh! Nice little trip to Harrow, giving my phone a quick boost with electricity and across to the Up slow platform for a 12 car 350, with winner 350124 leading and duds 350376/350368 being up the rear. Down to Euston where my next step was going to be Victoria for a service to Clapham, checking the boards on the way up to Victoria found me on the main-line Southern group with winners 377164/377406 taking me to Clapham Junction. Quick dash to P7 with duds 159003/159004 taking me the short trip into Waterloo to do some investigating for winning 444s.
No luck, the potential 444s were all duds, so change of plan and me jumping onto winner 450096 leading 450100 back to Clapham Junction, with winners 450012/450126 taking me to Woking. 159004/159003 back to Basingstoke where I had half an hour break to get a pizza before 159006 took me back to Andover, the end of a good year.
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3rd January – A trip on the Grand Central
For my first main trip of 2015 I decided to book some cheap advances to/from Bradford on the Grand Central service, to cover some uncovered track in that part of the country.
First weekend where Wimbledon is closed, so the Salisbury stoppers were terminating at Basingstoke, formed of 159013 for my first 159 of the year for the hop to Basingstoke. Next service towards London was double duds 444019/444045, heading to Clapham Junction via Staines & Isleworth. A few decisions at Clapham Junction, a Reading bound 458 was dud, however I saw a 378/1 pull into P2, one which an added touch, an extra car.
Winner 5-car 378137 took me a couple stops down the South London Line route to Clapham High Street, which gave me a good connection for a Clapham Junction bound service formed of winner 378204. Across to P3-P4 with winner 450082 with dud 450567 took me to Vauxhall where I purchased a nice hot sausage roll from the little Sainsburys, can’t complain for the price. Duds 458018/458025 took me to Waterloo.
First train out was a triple 450, leading was dud 450074 with winners 450119 & 450009 behind, getting off at Clapham where I decided to have a little wait to find a winning 444. 13 minutes later (and around 3 trains) winners 444024/444036 arrived, double bonus, only 7 to get now. Nice little run into Waterloo, down to the Bakerloo for a service to Paddington to do an Ealing run, although complete waste of time as both 5-car double Turbos used were duds. 165109/165132 outward and 165118/166210 inward, never mind, maybe next Ealing run will produce winners.
Next stop was Kings Cross St Pancras, so I headed towards the Hammersmith & City line platforms at Paddington to board a Circle line train, keeping a close eye on the clock, thankfully no delays at Baker Street today and Kings Cross was reached with 15 minutes to spare. Heading up to play a game of spot the Grand Central, the first Bradford bound service, and it was sitting on P8, and was a winner. 180114, although the seats were reserved the slips were completely blank. First stop Doncaster where the train emptied out a bit.
The Grand Central Bradford services can go one of two ways, via Pontefract Monkhill or not via Pontefract using a curve after Fitzwilliam to join the line which runs through Wakefield Kirkgate, onto new track now with the track between Kirkgate & Mirfield and it is quite good scenery, onwards towards Halifax (first time using that side of the junction to approach Halifax from the east), and down the hill to Bradford Interchange, arriving pretty much on time, and the time did flow.
I did think about what to do in the just under couple hours before the final train departed to Kings Cross, do a loop from Interchange down to Huddersfield, up to Leeds then back to Interchange, a loop from Interchange to Forster Square via Leeds, or some 333 bashing from Forster Square to Saltaire to complete the Shipley triangle. I had decided to do some 333 bashing. So the next step was a walk towards the other Bradford station at Forster Square, took me just over 13 minutes with a false start, which meant I arrived in time to catch an earlier service. 333006 was a winner (always a good start) to take me to Frizinghall, the first stop up the line.
Frizinghall is an interesting station, I’m guessing at some point there was an additional track, seems to be located next to a dual carriageway with some housing (and car sales place) on the West side? I had 15 minutes to kill before the next service, so after spotting an usual sign of a street called “Salisbury Road” I headed back, saw 321902 on a Leeds – Bradford FS run (first time seeing a dusty bin on these tracks) before winner 333004 took me up towards Shipley. Bit of a mad dash at Shipley to catch a delayed service heading up towards Skipton from Leeds, the boots I was wearing were not built for running. Caught the train but sadly it was dud 333005, but it was quite good I did catch it as Saltaire is another awkward station to get from one platform to another, my original plan gave me a 2 minute connection, which would have been missed as the train from BFS to Skipton was running a couple minutes late and arrived pretty much at the same time as dud 333001 heading back to BFS. Bit of a lucky escape there.
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Back to Shipley where I completed the triangle and back to Frizinghall for another 15 minute wait (lucky me), where new dud 333006 (that was a fast turnaround at Ilkley) took me back to Forster Square. I walked back, via Greggs for some late lunch, to the Interchange station, to wait for the doors of fresh dud 180114 to be released. As before the seats had reservation slips in, but again were blank, so confusion as to when the seats were reserved from and to which caused some mild chaos with passengers with unreserved seating ignoring the train manager (or whatever Grand Central call them) advise to sit in the unreserved coach. One couple got very upset and angry when they were asked to move when a young family wanted to use their reserved seating around a table, trying to claim that all reservations were cancelled.
Back along the same route as the outward journey, apart from at Kirkgate it stayed on the Ponterfract line to cover some new track (for me) passed Streethouse, Featherstone and Tanshelf before the minor station at Monkhill, the 2nd to last pick-up of the service. Next stop Doncaster which was reached along the Askern Branch Line, a line only used by Grand Central for passenger services so some additional track covered which is always a bonus. Back to Doncaster where the train was getting quite few, not only with passengers but with luggage, lots of luggage, and at Doncaster with the 15 minute wait (timetabled to wait 10 minutes, but arrived 5 minutes early) where more passengers boarded with the advice from the train manager that tickets marked “EC Only”, “EC + Connections” or “Hull Trains” were not valid on this service, Doncaster to London has good competition between TOCs.
Darkness has fallen so back to my text book for the ride down to Kings Cross, I’ve done the East Coast many times and the southern part is rather boring. Arrival into Kings Cross was pretty much bang on time (2 on-time services by Grand Central, blimey), which allowed me to have a quick walk across to P8 to see what Great Northern unit was next out which stopped at Finsbury, having put the numbers of required Great Northern units in my phone, and spotted a required 365. Dud 365531 was leading winner 365512 for the short hop to Finsbury Park. A southbound service was running a few minutes late which saved me 10 minutes of waiting and was a double winner, 365510/365512, which was a double bonus. I took a seat in the front car ready to make a quick exit at Kings Cross, made quicker by the service arriving into P8, down to the Victoria line platforms and to Victoria.
Prior to arriving into Kings Cross I had loaded up RTT to give me an idea on timings from Victoria to Clapham, I prefer using the suburban platforms as it’s a much shorter walk (probably 30-60 seconds pending on traffic) which can mean the difference between catching a service and cursing as the doors close as you get close (or cursing as you find out it’s the front 4/8 units with a 377 locked out of use at the rear). Winner 455828 took me towards Clapham (lucky catch as there was a 10 minute gap between the next Clapham bound service), noticing the sight of a double 444 waiting to enter P6 at Clapham, so a quick dash via the long subway found myself on the platform as the Weymouth bound service pulled in, formed of double duds.
Clapham was in chaos this evening, signalling issues at Queenstown Road where the 2 down tracks have to filter into 1 track (then back out to 2 tracks) meant average delays of around 30 minutes, so RTT was a bit of a mess, but I spotted a couple potential services which could get me to Woking then onwards to Basingstoke in front of the lovely 159s. A choice between trio of 450s on a Portsmouth Harbour via Guildford ‘fast’ or a trio of 450s on a Portsmouth Harbour via Guildford stopper, noticing that the stopper set was being led by 450074 put me on the assumption that it was probably the same trio used earlier in the day so I got onto the trio led by dud 450023 with dud 450085 and winner 450027 up the rear, 1 out of 3 isn’t bad. Onwards for the slow trip to Woking, normally taking ~ 20 minutes, the diversion via Staines takes between 40 & 50 minutes (depending which route it takes), so it was a slow trip, made slower by being caught behind another service.
Eventually we arrived at Woking, P4 which was useful as an Alton service was in P5. Next service towards Basingstoke was a few minutes behind, with a Waterloo bound service on P2, waiting for the driver/guard from the service behind? (I’m guessing the drivers and/or guards change at Woking with the diversion?), and what should be next, the same double dud 444s I turned down at Clapham [a failure to put 2 and 2 together with RTT] as they went via Isleworth. Deciding to turn them down again, as it looked busy (last Weymouth train of the evening?), and headed out of the station to see what I could grab for a quick bite to eat, and ended up in Subway. Back to the station with another dud 444 heading towards Basingstoke, however checking RTT saw that the 159 was expected to overtake that 444 as the 444 was due to call at Farnborough, so unsure I played on the side of caution and gave it a miss (if it was one of my required 7 units then it might have been more challenging), although needless to say RTT was wrong and 159013/159020 didn’t overtake it on route towards Basingstoke, then back to Grateley.
Not a great day unit wise, but that wasn’t the plan, some new track covered on my map, with another Grand Central 180 to cross off my list of required units (3 more to get), I’m thinking of trying to capture the remaining 3 on a West Yorkshire Day Ranger trip, probably between Halifax & Bradford.
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Techniquest
Veteran Member
Not a bad start to the year! Winning track and some winners on long distance fleets is always a good thing
Kristofferson
Member
- Joined
- 23 Nov 2012
- Messages
- 1,132
Just caught up on these - the First Class travel card doesn't seem worth it IMO, as there's not that much difference in seating/environment between 1st and standard. The only "intercity" service I imagine it's valid on is Greater Anglia's 90-hauled Norwich services to Stratford?
Some decent days out there though
Some decent days out there though
Kite159
Veteran Member
The 90s between Liverpool Street and Stratford I would imagine it will be valid on, but the day I did the travels they weren't calling at Stratford so they were out. A shame as you could probably grab some freebies from the shop as well I think the only FC lounges you can use is Liverpool Street (although only hot drinks on offer) and Paddington (which I believe is quite nice and soft drinks & biscuits/crisps on offer)
444s/159s between Clapham & Waterloo are the only other 'intercity' trains you could use it on (although not the other way round). I agree the majority of the FC sections are nothing special, but you get the odd nice FC section.
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10th January Shropshire Union Railtour
I booked this back in August, thinking a 7:25 start from Euston would be easy to make a connection from the 5:25 from Grateley, after all Ive caught the 7:30 Glasgow service a couple times making it to Euston before the platform was announced, sometimes making it for just after 7am. This was before South West Trains announced the Wimbledon weekend blockage with the Staines diversion, suddenly the 6:50 arrival turned into a 7:30 arrival, the only train I could catch from Hampshire which would make it to Waterloo in time would be the 4:54 Basingstoke stopper from Basingstoke (meaning a potential 4am start). With a forum meal likely to be on the 9th I decided to book up a cheap hotel (£29 booked on the 1st for a basic hotel in Crystal Palace) to give me a good chance of making the train without an early morning drive. Originally I have planned to somehow get to Liverpool Street [probably night bus to East Croydon, then a Thameslink to Farringdon before walking to Liverpool Street] to try and get that Saturday morning only PSUL move over the South Tottenham curves, but it wasnt running this weekend due to engineering works.
The day began at 5:50, getting up; making sure my bag was packed, checking out (overhearing a conversation with someone complaining that 2 people cant sleep in a single bed as they werent married with the night duty person saying they should have booked a twin bed rather than a double), and walked the 15 minutes to Crystal Palace station, unusually I would be using my Oyster (freshly loaded with my Gold Card discount) and TFL suggested the Overground to Canada Water, then via the underground to Green Park/Euston. I would have gone up to Balham or Victoria to change onto the underground there to Euston.
I do like Crystal Palace station, very good Victorian design buildings, and unusually the London Overground would be starting from platform 3 instead of platform 5 (RTT seems to suggest P3 is used once a day to start trains from, which suggests it be kinda rare), sadly it was dud 378210 (Ive had 210, 4 times already, must be following me) to take me out of P3 and along the East London route towards Canada Water, London feels so quiet that time of the morning. Into Canada Water and tapping the pink route validator [cheaper fare avoiding Southern] to head to the Jubilee platform for a Stanmore bound service, staying on until Green Park [first time I think alighting at Green Park] and changing to a Victoria line bound service towards Euston. 20 minutes to spare so enough time to pick up lunch and a Sausage roll from Sainsburys, and also a newspaper from WH Smiths. Sainsburys was fine, but Smiths was a nightmare, no self-service open so 5-deep queue, almost gave up in the end.
Finally I was down to P17, one of the Scotrail branded 90s must have dragged the set in as it was detached in the platform of the service formed of 13 coaches and winner loco 67026 at the front. Once more UK Railtours has given me an aisle seat (I will get a window seat one of these days), 4th coach from the front, so I could hear the 67 but it wasnt as loud as it was on the last tour in December where I was in the coach right behind the loco. Pickups at Watford Junction, Milton Keynes, Northampton (how high is that bridge?) & at Rugby. Rugby was the busiest pick-up (which was to be expected). Departed towards New Street, I finally managed to get a non-stop run through Coventry, my last station Ive not been non-stop through at Birmingham International [all the other stations on the WCML to Scotland have been cleared for non-stoppage] as we had a pathing stop (and looked like more passengers boarding)
Away from the main line at Stechford towards Aston, and coming to a stop in Bescot Up & Down goods yard where 60079 was attached to the rear, my first 60 (shame I was at the other end so couldnt hear it when it was leading). Out of Bescot yard and onwards to Wolverhampton via the Wolverhampton & Walsall line, through Wolverhampton and onto the Shrewsbury line continuing along before pulling off after Shiftnall onto the first of 2 freight only branch lines, the line to Ironbridge Power Station, although only to the Network Rail Stop boards. Started off with a 10 or so minute wait for a freight train to clear the line in front, and quite a good line, good views of the Ironbridge gorge and River Severn over a couple nice bridges, stopping with a very good view of the cooling towers. I can see when the power station is closed why the steam railway at Telford wants the track.
Reversing with 60079 now in charge, and heading back to the main-line, pausing for a signal to clear and back out heading towards Wolverhampton, on route to Telford Freight Depot (but not going via Telford), leaving the main line at Stafford Road junction and onto the old freight only line underneath the Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line and curving around to join it at Bushbury Junction before carrying on to Stafford where we were due to stop for 20 minutes for a break, arriving 5 minutes earlier and stopping at a red signal passengers started to alight before they were meant to (idea was to put the 60 off the front of the platform so that it cleared the block behind so other services could use P5). I had a quick look around the station before deciding to reboard and relax.
Departing Stafford on time, and heading up the main line towards Crewe, passing the remains of Norton Bridge station and coming off the main line to use a freight only curve, leaving at Basford Hall Junction, going through the Sorting Sidings North (from the little booklet) before joining the Shrewsbury to Crewe line at Gresty Lane, passing many lovely shiny 68s, many 66s and some old locos (including 90050) and continuing down the Shrewsbury to Crewe line, which is a nice enough line, passing Whitchurch (Shropshire) and using the Shrewsbury station avoiding line (The Up Main) behind the wall at Shrewsbury station and down towards Wellington (using the central main line) and off the track towards Donnington.
The new-ish track (2009 reopened) towards the Telford International Railfreight Park, nothing that special as it has houses to one side for a short while before heading into a cutting with noise reflecting foam walls, into the depot itself and what can I say apart from it was a bit disappointing, as it was rather empty. Apart from some wheelie bins and a truck which lifts containers from trucks to train (or train to truck), unless there was some extra stuff nearer the front of the train. Finished the main journey 2 minutes down to the timetable which was rather good, but with a 40 minute layover, it got boring as nothing was really happening (apart from a random van going up and down on a side road.
Departing Telford Wheelie Bin Depot bang on time, back out towards the main line where we sat at the junction for pretty much 30 minutes before going back onto the main-line, stopping at Wellington to swap ends (so 60 was leading) and some passengers alighted (for a 40 minute wait for the next service) who were on board to cover the rare branch lines. Now with the 60 leading, we sped off back through Telford, Wolverhampton using the Walsall-Wolverhampton line towards Bescot for the final reversal, with the 67 leading, we set off heading towards Walsall before coming off the Chase Line for the Sutton Park line to Water Orton, along the Crosscountry route towards Nuneaton where with a brief pause at the station (is this the train to Leicester?) before joining the WCML [must be a rare use of those crossovers] and down, quite a few passengers got off at Rugby which allowed the remaining passengers space to spread out, down at Northampton, Milton Keynes, Watford Junction (377701 spotted in the bay platform) and finally into Euston. Although with timetable padding, we had recovered the delay to -10 at Watford Junction to arrive into Euston 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Im guessing with the lack of 390s zooming pass on the way into Euston, the fast tracks were out of use yesterday evening? Anyhow, I still had 50 minutes to get to Clapham Junction (my return ticket started from Clapham Junction route not via London so I needed to get to Clapham, leave the station using the Oyster before entering again using my return ticket, so decided to head to Victoria. As per before I load up the departures for Southern services which stop at Clapham (so none of those Gatwick Express branded services), and headed towards the suburban platforms (giving up the chance for a trio of 377s) to get on winner 455840. Out to Clapham, which was running mostly to time (3-5 minute delays) on P5/P6, out of the station, picking up a reduced sandwich from the little Boots and back into the station, through the subway to P5/P6 having just missed a trio of 450s heading to Portsmouth via Winchester.
15 minute wait (must be a Reading or Windsor train) before a trio of winning 450s tip up, first time a trio of winners for me for a while, 450565/450030/450560 on a Portsmouth via Guildford fast spotting a double required 444 heading towards Waterloo I go damn, if I was on a travel-card I would have changed plans to get 2 winning 444s, never mind. Into Woking to be displayed with Yeovil Junction Delayed, seems the incoming service was late by 11 minutes (caused by a delay leaving Woking), which meant the return service was 40 minutes late departing Waterloo (did the doors decide they wanted to be windows and not want to close again?). A shame SWT dont do delay repay instead a charter discount for over an hour delay. A 444 for Weymouth arrived in the meanwhile at Woking, but it was dud so I let it go in the hope of the Poole train might have had those 2 winners on I saw heading into Waterloo, but in the meanwhile I headed out to make a change, and walked into the Budgens outside Woking station, where Im, pleased to report they had a different sandwich this evening, Ham & Cheese, with no Tomato! They must have run out of tomatoes as the rest were Ham, Cheese & Tomato or Cheese & Tomato. Anyways back at the station and dud 444012 took me to Basingstoke, taking my 2nd favourite 444 seat (single seat in the corridor next to the disabled toilet under the pan well) [1st being the table seats in the same area] to Basingstoke with a 20 minute wait before delayed 159001/159019 tipped up, running 39 minutes late at that point and not really recovering the delay.
Back at Grateley, nice walk home and headed to bed, the end of a busy (yet quiet) day, only 4 more weekends of Staines diversions!
I think the only FC lounges you can use is Liverpool Street (although only hot drinks on offer) and Paddington (which I believe is quite nice and soft drinks & biscuits/crisps on offer)444s/159s between Clapham & Waterloo are the only other 'intercity' trains you could use it on (although not the other way round). I agree the majority of the FC sections are nothing special, but you get the odd nice FC section.
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10th January Shropshire Union Railtour
I booked this back in August, thinking a 7:25 start from Euston would be easy to make a connection from the 5:25 from Grateley, after all Ive caught the 7:30 Glasgow service a couple times making it to Euston before the platform was announced, sometimes making it for just after 7am. This was before South West Trains announced the Wimbledon weekend blockage with the Staines diversion, suddenly the 6:50 arrival turned into a 7:30 arrival, the only train I could catch from Hampshire which would make it to Waterloo in time would be the 4:54 Basingstoke stopper from Basingstoke (meaning a potential 4am start). With a forum meal likely to be on the 9th I decided to book up a cheap hotel (£29 booked on the 1st for a basic hotel in Crystal Palace) to give me a good chance of making the train without an early morning drive. Originally I have planned to somehow get to Liverpool Street [probably night bus to East Croydon, then a Thameslink to Farringdon before walking to Liverpool Street] to try and get that Saturday morning only PSUL move over the South Tottenham curves, but it wasnt running this weekend due to engineering works.
The day began at 5:50, getting up; making sure my bag was packed, checking out (overhearing a conversation with someone complaining that 2 people cant sleep in a single bed as they werent married with the night duty person saying they should have booked a twin bed rather than a double), and walked the 15 minutes to Crystal Palace station, unusually I would be using my Oyster (freshly loaded with my Gold Card discount) and TFL suggested the Overground to Canada Water, then via the underground to Green Park/Euston. I would have gone up to Balham or Victoria to change onto the underground there to Euston.
I do like Crystal Palace station, very good Victorian design buildings, and unusually the London Overground would be starting from platform 3 instead of platform 5 (RTT seems to suggest P3 is used once a day to start trains from, which suggests it be kinda rare), sadly it was dud 378210 (Ive had 210, 4 times already, must be following me) to take me out of P3 and along the East London route towards Canada Water, London feels so quiet that time of the morning. Into Canada Water and tapping the pink route validator [cheaper fare avoiding Southern] to head to the Jubilee platform for a Stanmore bound service, staying on until Green Park [first time I think alighting at Green Park] and changing to a Victoria line bound service towards Euston. 20 minutes to spare so enough time to pick up lunch and a Sausage roll from Sainsburys, and also a newspaper from WH Smiths. Sainsburys was fine, but Smiths was a nightmare, no self-service open so 5-deep queue, almost gave up in the end.
Finally I was down to P17, one of the Scotrail branded 90s must have dragged the set in as it was detached in the platform of the service formed of 13 coaches and winner loco 67026 at the front. Once more UK Railtours has given me an aisle seat (I will get a window seat one of these days), 4th coach from the front, so I could hear the 67 but it wasnt as loud as it was on the last tour in December where I was in the coach right behind the loco. Pickups at Watford Junction, Milton Keynes, Northampton (how high is that bridge?) & at Rugby. Rugby was the busiest pick-up (which was to be expected). Departed towards New Street, I finally managed to get a non-stop run through Coventry, my last station Ive not been non-stop through at Birmingham International [all the other stations on the WCML to Scotland have been cleared for non-stoppage] as we had a pathing stop (and looked like more passengers boarding)
Away from the main line at Stechford towards Aston, and coming to a stop in Bescot Up & Down goods yard where 60079 was attached to the rear, my first 60 (shame I was at the other end so couldnt hear it when it was leading). Out of Bescot yard and onwards to Wolverhampton via the Wolverhampton & Walsall line, through Wolverhampton and onto the Shrewsbury line continuing along before pulling off after Shiftnall onto the first of 2 freight only branch lines, the line to Ironbridge Power Station, although only to the Network Rail Stop boards. Started off with a 10 or so minute wait for a freight train to clear the line in front, and quite a good line, good views of the Ironbridge gorge and River Severn over a couple nice bridges, stopping with a very good view of the cooling towers. I can see when the power station is closed why the steam railway at Telford wants the track.
Reversing with 60079 now in charge, and heading back to the main-line, pausing for a signal to clear and back out heading towards Wolverhampton, on route to Telford Freight Depot (but not going via Telford), leaving the main line at Stafford Road junction and onto the old freight only line underneath the Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line and curving around to join it at Bushbury Junction before carrying on to Stafford where we were due to stop for 20 minutes for a break, arriving 5 minutes earlier and stopping at a red signal passengers started to alight before they were meant to (idea was to put the 60 off the front of the platform so that it cleared the block behind so other services could use P5). I had a quick look around the station before deciding to reboard and relax.
Departing Stafford on time, and heading up the main line towards Crewe, passing the remains of Norton Bridge station and coming off the main line to use a freight only curve, leaving at Basford Hall Junction, going through the Sorting Sidings North (from the little booklet) before joining the Shrewsbury to Crewe line at Gresty Lane, passing many lovely shiny 68s, many 66s and some old locos (including 90050) and continuing down the Shrewsbury to Crewe line, which is a nice enough line, passing Whitchurch (Shropshire) and using the Shrewsbury station avoiding line (The Up Main) behind the wall at Shrewsbury station and down towards Wellington (using the central main line) and off the track towards Donnington.
The new-ish track (2009 reopened) towards the Telford International Railfreight Park, nothing that special as it has houses to one side for a short while before heading into a cutting with noise reflecting foam walls, into the depot itself and what can I say apart from it was a bit disappointing, as it was rather empty. Apart from some wheelie bins and a truck which lifts containers from trucks to train (or train to truck), unless there was some extra stuff nearer the front of the train. Finished the main journey 2 minutes down to the timetable which was rather good, but with a 40 minute layover, it got boring as nothing was really happening (apart from a random van going up and down on a side road.
Departing Telford Wheelie Bin Depot bang on time, back out towards the main line where we sat at the junction for pretty much 30 minutes before going back onto the main-line, stopping at Wellington to swap ends (so 60 was leading) and some passengers alighted (for a 40 minute wait for the next service) who were on board to cover the rare branch lines. Now with the 60 leading, we sped off back through Telford, Wolverhampton using the Walsall-Wolverhampton line towards Bescot for the final reversal, with the 67 leading, we set off heading towards Walsall before coming off the Chase Line for the Sutton Park line to Water Orton, along the Crosscountry route towards Nuneaton where with a brief pause at the station (is this the train to Leicester?) before joining the WCML [must be a rare use of those crossovers] and down, quite a few passengers got off at Rugby which allowed the remaining passengers space to spread out, down at Northampton, Milton Keynes, Watford Junction (377701 spotted in the bay platform) and finally into Euston. Although with timetable padding, we had recovered the delay to -10 at Watford Junction to arrive into Euston 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Im guessing with the lack of 390s zooming pass on the way into Euston, the fast tracks were out of use yesterday evening? Anyhow, I still had 50 minutes to get to Clapham Junction (my return ticket started from Clapham Junction route not via London so I needed to get to Clapham, leave the station using the Oyster before entering again using my return ticket, so decided to head to Victoria. As per before I load up the departures for Southern services which stop at Clapham (so none of those Gatwick Express branded services), and headed towards the suburban platforms (giving up the chance for a trio of 377s) to get on winner 455840. Out to Clapham, which was running mostly to time (3-5 minute delays) on P5/P6, out of the station, picking up a reduced sandwich from the little Boots and back into the station, through the subway to P5/P6 having just missed a trio of 450s heading to Portsmouth via Winchester.
15 minute wait (must be a Reading or Windsor train) before a trio of winning 450s tip up, first time a trio of winners for me for a while, 450565/450030/450560 on a Portsmouth via Guildford fast spotting a double required 444 heading towards Waterloo I go damn, if I was on a travel-card I would have changed plans to get 2 winning 444s, never mind. Into Woking to be displayed with Yeovil Junction Delayed, seems the incoming service was late by 11 minutes (caused by a delay leaving Woking), which meant the return service was 40 minutes late departing Waterloo (did the doors decide they wanted to be windows and not want to close again?). A shame SWT dont do delay repay instead a charter discount for over an hour delay. A 444 for Weymouth arrived in the meanwhile at Woking, but it was dud so I let it go in the hope of the Poole train might have had those 2 winners on I saw heading into Waterloo, but in the meanwhile I headed out to make a change, and walked into the Budgens outside Woking station, where Im, pleased to report they had a different sandwich this evening, Ham & Cheese, with no Tomato! They must have run out of tomatoes as the rest were Ham, Cheese & Tomato or Cheese & Tomato. Anyways back at the station and dud 444012 took me to Basingstoke, taking my 2nd favourite 444 seat (single seat in the corridor next to the disabled toilet under the pan well) [1st being the table seats in the same area] to Basingstoke with a 20 minute wait before delayed 159001/159019 tipped up, running 39 minutes late at that point and not really recovering the delay.
Back at Grateley, nice walk home and headed to bed, the end of a busy (yet quiet) day, only 4 more weekends of Staines diversions!
Techniquest
Veteran Member
Well if you're sick of the diversions you could always go elsewhere for a few weekends 
A decent enough tour by the sounds of it, with some winning loco action as well as most unusual track coverage. The crossovers from the XC platforms at Nuneaton are very unusual indeed for a passenger train, nice little score there.
Surprised you had a good experience at that hotel, when I looked at the reviews on TripAdvisor they were, shall we say, most grim!
A decent enough tour by the sounds of it, with some winning loco action as well as most unusual track coverage. The crossovers from the XC platforms at Nuneaton are very unusual indeed for a passenger train, nice little score there.
Surprised you had a good experience at that hotel, when I looked at the reviews on TripAdvisor they were, shall we say, most grim!
Kite159
Veteran Member
Room was a tad warm, but opening the window soon cooled it down, it was a bit run-down like it saw it's glory days many years ago. Seemed to be a "Euro" hotel so I would imagine used by tourists.
As to if I would rebook, maybe at a push if I couldn't find anything cheaper.
As to if I would rebook, maybe at a push if I couldn't find anything cheaper.
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Kite159
Veteran Member
Two crap assigned seats on virgin in a row (backwards facing aisle airline seats with the view of plastic)
Needless to say coach E is where I end up. Hard to read a book otherwise.
Needless to say coach E is where I end up. Hard to read a book otherwise.
Kristofferson
Member
- Joined
- 23 Nov 2012
- Messages
- 1,132
Always check the seating diagram while booking so you can swap seats during the process!
Kite159
Veteran Member
Selecting your own seat when booking on Virgin Trains website direct? I think only East Coast & XC allow you to select your own seats when you book via them, sometimes you don't even get told what seat you have got until you have purchased the tickets [at least with Manchester trains you are pretty sure it will be a 390]
I check the seating diagram to know if it's worth heading straight to the unreserved coaches, normally as I book the advances quite early Virgin gives me a window table seat, just straight they didn't this time (booked back in late October).
----
3 shocking things happened today on my little trip to London:
1 - The barriers for Blackfriars were closed [normally wide open on Sundays]
2 - The barriers at Kings Cross were closed (abit only on the bridge, barriers majority of passengers will use were as usual wide open, I think I've seen those closed once, on the Friday I went up to Edinburgh around 16:40)
3 - Thameslink had a RPO on one of it's services (not the more popular Bedford to Gatwick services, but a Sutton loop train which had just departed Blackfriars with a small number of passengers, I saw him get off at Elephant & Castle.
[at least with Manchester trains you are pretty sure it will be a 390]I check the seating diagram to know if it's worth heading straight to the unreserved coaches, normally as I book the advances quite early Virgin gives me a window table seat, just straight they didn't this time (booked back in late October).
----
3 shocking things happened today on my little trip to London:
1 - The barriers for Blackfriars were closed [normally wide open on Sundays]
2 - The barriers at Kings Cross were closed (abit only on the bridge, barriers majority of passengers will use were as usual wide open, I think I've seen those closed once, on the Friday I went up to Edinburgh around 16:40)
3 - Thameslink had a RPO on one of it's services (not the more popular Bedford to Gatwick services, but a Sutton loop train which had just departed Blackfriars with a small number of passengers, I saw him get off at Elephant & Castle.
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Kristofferson
Member
- Joined
- 23 Nov 2012
- Messages
- 1,132
Last time I booked thru VT, I remember they gave me seat reservations during the booking process. You can press the back button, repeat the process, and it will generate different seats.
Kite159
Veteran Member
17th January – A snowy route coverage infill
My aim of today was to clear all my remaining passenger route coverage in Yorkshire, to leave just the Bicester to Oxford branch as red on my coverage map (there are a couple other odd curves here and there some PSUL some non-PSUL, but mostly minor). First time boarding the 5:27 for a good few weeks, so with the Friday evening looking rather cold and frosty I decided to walk to the station to avoid having to do an early morning/late night de-ice of the car.
Super dud 159005 was the unit first heading to Waterloo, and as to be expected of a cold dark January morning it was rather dead, until Basingstoke where it forms the 1st fast service to Waterloo (3rd overall service, but it overtakes the stopper from Southampton around Fleet). Today it went via Richmond, and I had forgotten how slow the unit has to go pass some of those stations, although I was busy reading my book (darkness outside, what else to do?). Arrived at Clapham a few minutes ahead of schedule where it sat before departing on time and into Waterloo.
Onto the Northern line to Euston, via Sainsburys and WH Smiths for a warm sausage roll & newspaper, to pass the time before the platform was announced for the 8:20, I knew I had a rubbish seat from the seating plan (backwards facing aisle airline seat with no view, what was virgin thinking?) so coach E was the one I was aiming for, to get a nice table seat, 9-car winning 390013 was the unit on duty today for a good run up the West Coast, stopping at Milton Keynes and Stoke-Le-Trent before I alighted at Stockport for a 15 minute wait for the FTPE service towards Cleethorpes.
Over to platform 0 and dud 185142 formed my first FTPE service of the year, quite busy with football fans going by the number of football shirts on display, but I got a nice seat for the enjoyable ride to Sheffield via the Hope Valley, such a beautiful line with a rather long tunnel, I’m looking forward to doing it on a railtour in a couple months time. Into Sheffield, on a platform change to P1 from P2, so it was a bit of a dash to get to the bay platforms 4 for a quick hop to Meadowhall, the first spin of the NRDMUG of the year, could be either a 142/144/150/153/158 or a combo, I believe it was a Leeds stopper via Moorthorpe, and was a winner, 144001. Can’t complain, could have been worst, could have been a 142.
A few minutes later I alighted at Meadowhall to cross to the Barnsley lines to await an express Leeds train, formed of winner 158907, which took me up the line to Barnsley, where I alighted to buy some lunch (from Greggs as the sandwiches in Boots looked a bit rubbish). Back to the station to await the service for my first new track of the day, the Barnsley to Stocksmoor section of the Penistone line. Dud 144018 arrived and I alighted finding a nice bay seat for an enjoyable ride, in the snow, towards Huddersfield.
What a lovely viaduct around the Penistone area, mostly single track apart from a section of double track around the border with the West Yorkshire travel area, and into Huddersfield. My plan changed and I jumped onto a Leeds via Bradford bound service, to get the curve on the Calder Valley line between Huddersfield & Brighouse (and time it to get a Grand Central 180 for a short section). Sadly signalling problems around Wakefield meant the Grand Central was diverted another way towards Bradford, so that went up the wall as I stayed onboard winning 158817 until Halifax.
10 minutes later (still snowing) winner 158759 took me the near-8 mile run down the hill to Bradford Interchange, where I was surprised as my rover ticket opened the barriers, both ways!, as I went down the stairs to waste a bit of time. Back up to the station, overhearing a conversation a passenger was having with the gate-line staff, where the passenger had ‘misplaced’ his ticket which he paid cash for and was refusing to buy another ticket. Moral of the story is either get a receipt or don’t lose your tickets. Winner (I’m on a roll!) 158784 arrived to take me to Leeds. The snow hit its peak with being taken sideways with the wind, looked rather pretty.
Into Leeds, changing over from my rover to a Selby return ticket to try and cover the part of the Leeds to Selby line where South Milford station sits (where I had previously planned to cover in November, but the FTPE was cut back to Selby rather than Brough/Hull), I was hoping for some 170s, and when a double set arrived heading towards Manchester I was looking hopeful, but it was dud 185143, can’t win it all, running a bit early into Leeds and towards Selby, nice little bit of line over the ECML and into Selby. Crossing over to the Leeds bound platform (nice bridge) for a brief wait before winner 185106 arrived to take me back to Leeds. Located in the front end of the set ready to try and make a 2-minute connection to a Sheffield bound service from P17, Sheffield via Castleford.
I would have made the connection with ease, but due to the signalling issues earlier on meaning the expresses were now routed via the Wakefield curve with a reversal at Westgate (I’m assuming as they missed out Barnsley) the train sets and staff were all mixed up. Eventually the Sheffield via Castleford service (to get that bit of track from Wakefield Kirkgate to Castleford in as previous used the express service which runs direct to Leeds), formed of fresh dud 144001. After reversal at Castleford (just need that freight track after Castleford towards York somehow), and down to Kirkgate where the plan to connect with the service which terminates at Westgate went up the wall as they were not running.
Kirkgate is frankly an awful station, part building site on the main station buildings, the P2/P3 Island seemed to be a nicer place to wait than P1 which had some exposed benches, wouldn’t like to be around after dark. With no idea what time the service back to Leeds was due, as it had disappeared from RTT [hence the reason why I think it was diverted via Westgate and reversed] and there was no passenger information displays. 10 minutes later winner 158842 arrived, with the conductor saying it was a Leeds express (rather than the stopper), so happy days. Arrival back into Leeds on P17 was an extra bonus as less to walk to P16. The Wakefield curve (as I’m calling it) remains uncovered, will have to try and get next time I’m back in West Yorkshire.
Some linear bashing time back to Manchester with winner 185101 arrived to take me to Huddersfield, running fast between the two places. Due to delays the service from Hull was running 32 minutes late and was being cut short at Stalybridge, so was nice and quiet over my final new track of the day, with dud 185118. Crossing over platforms at Stalybridge to get onto the Liverpool bound winner 185140, taking me back to Piccadilly, where I had some time to kill before the Virgin service was due to depart. I had a couple ideas of services for Stockport runs, but when I saw a pair of 170s which were meant to form the Hull service (but now on a Cleethorpes service), and both were winners. 170307 leading 170305, brucie bonus.
At Stockport again I had a few options, but stood around for another FTPE service, worthwhile as it was a winner, 185117 (this is where I’m getting an idea for my March Manchester trip to focus on my remaining FTPE units) into Piccadilly. I knew I had another rubbish seat on the 390 back, so headed straight to dud 390020, to coach E to get a table seat. Quite a busy and noisy train after Stockport where some Stoke fans got on who were in a slightly drunken happy mood, worst than some of the rugby trains, after Stoke it got nice and quiet for the trip back to Euston, down the slow lines after Milton Keynes. Down to Waterloo where I was annoyed as a pair of 444s in the station which I could have caught if I wasn’t on an advance ticket were double winners. Ok technically I broke the terms of my advance and got onto an earlier connection than was stated (which involved a 30 minute wait at Basingstoke). 159017 arrived into the station behind another 159, was due to spilt, on the platform, however as it was running late the train & platform got announced as boarding before they could do the spilt causing everybody to be kicked off the service so they could spilt it. Bit of chaos, and a busy train, but as usual it emptied out at Woking & Basingstoke, but arrived into Grateley pretty much on time, where I had a nice walk home.
Overall a successful day, pretty much most of the lines I wanted to cover, was covered, with some new units.
18th January – The return to London
Back to London for another day’s London bashing, first Sunday bash for a few weeks, and with the bonus of during the engineering works my local station has a much improved service of 1 train an hour, rather than 1 train per 2 hours, so saves a drive to Andover. Dud 159007 was on Salisbury to Basingstoke where it was terminating due to the engineering works (only half the Salisbury trains make it to Waterloo due to the large single track sections towards Exeter).
The next train from Basingstoke was dud 450105 on stopping duties, so a slow trip to Woking where it arrived before the Alton part (which gives me an idea of next week to ditch at Brookwood to get the Alton part to Woking before going over to P2) formed of winners 450042/450011 arrived to form the additional coaches. The fresh triple departed calling at the Byfleets and Staines before I alighted at Clapham Junction to wait to see what would come next.
A few minutes later double winners 444029/444032 arrived to take me to Waterloo, where I hit the station at a ‘dead’ time, nothing going out for around 20 minutes, so gave me an excuse to visit the Sainsburys on Waterloo Road for something warm, a chicken and mushroom slice (as they ran out of Sausage Rolls). Back to the main station, the next 4 departures covering 15 minutes were due to be duds so I jumped back onto 444032/444029 to head back to Clapham. Next leap back was only to Vauxhall with winner 455730 leading dud 455914, then back to Clapham with winner 455733 & dud 455864.
Quick dash to P4 saw me on dud 455916 for another Vauxhall dash and back out with winner 458019 with dud 458026 behind (how I enjoy the 458s). Back to Vauxhall with another pair (following a couple double-duds) of 458s with dud 458006 leading with winner 458007 behind, before hopping back to Clapham on dud 458017 leading winning 458009. Spotting my first ‘459’ which was a former 458, in 458502 (and 03 & 04), can’t wait to get the chance to get on the 458/5s which were former 458s with a 460 car inserted, rather than the all former 460 sets.
Another brief wait at Clapham allowing a couple duds go pass (I now have required SWT units on my phone which helps a lot), before dud 450561 arrived with winners 450117 & 450104 behind, and staying on until Vauxhall alighting on P1 to cross over to P2 when winner 450036 with dud 450028 arrived from Windsor. Into Waterloo for a 2nd time and back out on dud 455711 leading winner 455854 until Clapham Junction, and back into Waterloo on winner 450076 & dud 450564.
And I had hit the dead spot again, so to Tesco on Waterloo Road to pick up some lunch (decided to make a change from Sainsburys), and back to the station to once more find duds making up services for the next 15 minutes, so back out again on 450564/450076, before coming back into Waterloo for a final time on winner 444005 with dud 444006 behind.
I decided it was time for a change and headed to Kings Cross via Oxford Circus to see what Great Northern units were out and about, and the next 3 services due to call at Finsbury park (so annoyingly not a double winning 365 on a Cambridge Express) were all duds, so either wait around 20 minutes to see what else came in or ditch to Thameslink. I went to Thameslink, noticing how busy St Pancras was (before reading about the tunnel failures), having just missed a double 387 heading north, I headed south on double winners 319441/319435, only to Farringdon which was hard at work with the LU side closed.
Back to St Pancras on dud 319449 before heading south to Blackfriars on winner 387114 and dud 387107 for some ‘new’ train action. The seats are hard, but are quite nice, I hope the 387s make it to the Thames Valley once the 700s are in full service, rather have 387s over the older 319s on Reading to Paddington stoppers. Slight delay in the doors opening due to the GPS not working in the tunnel, “doors to manual”. At Blackfriars I decided to head down to Elephant & Castle on winner 319381 before back north with a cross-platform change on winner 319450, crossing over to board duds 319423/319442 to Farringdon, where I began a series of Blackfriars – Farringdon runs, no delays nor cancellations, 2/3 minutes at Farringdon [exiting at the rear door] and 5 minutes at Blackfriars [exit at the front as the north barriers were closed]. I need to input my required Thameslink units onto my phone to try and avoid duds.
Dud 319013 to Blackfriars, dud 319429 with winner 319459 to Farringdon, double duds 319445/319457 south with dud 319010 leading winner 319421 heading north, pair of duds 319217/319453 back south before my 319 run entered with some 377s. Winner 377210 arrived with dud 377208 behind heading north, and dud 377207 & winner 377505 back south, another pair of dud 319s with 319378/319384 back to Farringdon.
Brief moment of rest before dud stalker 377520 arrived with winner 577514 behind, final pair to Farringdon was with dud 377515 leading winner 377512, back to Blackfriars on dud 319432, and to Elephant & Castle with winner 319377 after I started seeing returning units, back from Three Bridges/Gatwick or Bedford, so decided to call it a day to go back to Blackfriars then to Victoria. However winners 387113/387112 arrived so plan to go to Blackfriars went out the window as I settled down for a slow trip to East Croydon via the diversion route. Makes it seem a 159 via Staines goes fast.
East Croydon, a building site with a really useful screen telling passengers which platform the next direct service to several locations will depart from. Next direct, not next fastest, so if a stopper arrived, it would suggest that over an express a couple minutes later. A triple of 377s arrived led with dud 377206 (great use of the dual-voltage) leading winners 377128 and 377142. I decided to call it a day and dashed over the bridge onto a trio of 450s on Basingstoke/Alton duty, dud 450038 was leading with dud 450568 in the middle and winner 450115 behind. RTT told me I could change at West Byfleet for a Woking terminator before the Portsmouth/Poole service arrived, so changing at West Byfleet didn’t produce a winner as it was dud 455750, back to Woking Pier.
Duds 444032/444029 arrived to take be to Basingstoke where 159002/159107 were waiting in the sidings to go to Exeter, arriving onto P2 to take me back to Grateley, the end of a busy day with 32 new units now in the book.
“If you can hear me you are sitting in the rear 4 coaches and will need to move forward if you want to exit at Staines”
My aim of today was to clear all my remaining passenger route coverage in Yorkshire, to leave just the Bicester to Oxford branch as red on my coverage map (there are a couple other odd curves here and there some PSUL some non-PSUL, but mostly minor). First time boarding the 5:27 for a good few weeks, so with the Friday evening looking rather cold and frosty I decided to walk to the station to avoid having to do an early morning/late night de-ice of the car.
Super dud 159005 was the unit first heading to Waterloo, and as to be expected of a cold dark January morning it was rather dead, until Basingstoke where it forms the 1st fast service to Waterloo (3rd overall service, but it overtakes the stopper from Southampton around Fleet). Today it went via Richmond, and I had forgotten how slow the unit has to go pass some of those stations, although I was busy reading my book (darkness outside, what else to do?). Arrived at Clapham a few minutes ahead of schedule where it sat before departing on time and into Waterloo.
Onto the Northern line to Euston, via Sainsburys and WH Smiths for a warm sausage roll & newspaper, to pass the time before the platform was announced for the 8:20, I knew I had a rubbish seat from the seating plan (backwards facing aisle airline seat with no view, what was virgin thinking?) so coach E was the one I was aiming for, to get a nice table seat, 9-car winning 390013 was the unit on duty today for a good run up the West Coast, stopping at Milton Keynes and Stoke-Le-Trent before I alighted at Stockport for a 15 minute wait for the FTPE service towards Cleethorpes.
Over to platform 0 and dud 185142 formed my first FTPE service of the year, quite busy with football fans going by the number of football shirts on display, but I got a nice seat for the enjoyable ride to Sheffield via the Hope Valley, such a beautiful line with a rather long tunnel, I’m looking forward to doing it on a railtour in a couple months time. Into Sheffield, on a platform change to P1 from P2, so it was a bit of a dash to get to the bay platforms 4 for a quick hop to Meadowhall, the first spin of the NRDMUG of the year, could be either a 142/144/150/153/158 or a combo, I believe it was a Leeds stopper via Moorthorpe, and was a winner, 144001. Can’t complain, could have been worst, could have been a 142.
A few minutes later I alighted at Meadowhall to cross to the Barnsley lines to await an express Leeds train, formed of winner 158907, which took me up the line to Barnsley, where I alighted to buy some lunch (from Greggs as the sandwiches in Boots looked a bit rubbish). Back to the station to await the service for my first new track of the day, the Barnsley to Stocksmoor section of the Penistone line. Dud 144018 arrived and I alighted finding a nice bay seat for an enjoyable ride, in the snow, towards Huddersfield.
What a lovely viaduct around the Penistone area, mostly single track apart from a section of double track around the border with the West Yorkshire travel area, and into Huddersfield. My plan changed and I jumped onto a Leeds via Bradford bound service, to get the curve on the Calder Valley line between Huddersfield & Brighouse (and time it to get a Grand Central 180 for a short section). Sadly signalling problems around Wakefield meant the Grand Central was diverted another way towards Bradford, so that went up the wall as I stayed onboard winning 158817 until Halifax.
10 minutes later (still snowing) winner 158759 took me the near-8 mile run down the hill to Bradford Interchange, where I was surprised as my rover ticket opened the barriers, both ways!, as I went down the stairs to waste a bit of time. Back up to the station, overhearing a conversation a passenger was having with the gate-line staff, where the passenger had ‘misplaced’ his ticket which he paid cash for and was refusing to buy another ticket. Moral of the story is either get a receipt or don’t lose your tickets. Winner (I’m on a roll!) 158784 arrived to take me to Leeds. The snow hit its peak with being taken sideways with the wind, looked rather pretty.
Into Leeds, changing over from my rover to a Selby return ticket to try and cover the part of the Leeds to Selby line where South Milford station sits (where I had previously planned to cover in November, but the FTPE was cut back to Selby rather than Brough/Hull), I was hoping for some 170s, and when a double set arrived heading towards Manchester I was looking hopeful, but it was dud 185143, can’t win it all, running a bit early into Leeds and towards Selby, nice little bit of line over the ECML and into Selby. Crossing over to the Leeds bound platform (nice bridge) for a brief wait before winner 185106 arrived to take me back to Leeds. Located in the front end of the set ready to try and make a 2-minute connection to a Sheffield bound service from P17, Sheffield via Castleford.
I would have made the connection with ease, but due to the signalling issues earlier on meaning the expresses were now routed via the Wakefield curve with a reversal at Westgate (I’m assuming as they missed out Barnsley) the train sets and staff were all mixed up. Eventually the Sheffield via Castleford service (to get that bit of track from Wakefield Kirkgate to Castleford in as previous used the express service which runs direct to Leeds), formed of fresh dud 144001. After reversal at Castleford (just need that freight track after Castleford towards York somehow), and down to Kirkgate where the plan to connect with the service which terminates at Westgate went up the wall as they were not running.
Kirkgate is frankly an awful station, part building site on the main station buildings, the P2/P3 Island seemed to be a nicer place to wait than P1 which had some exposed benches, wouldn’t like to be around after dark. With no idea what time the service back to Leeds was due, as it had disappeared from RTT [hence the reason why I think it was diverted via Westgate and reversed] and there was no passenger information displays. 10 minutes later winner 158842 arrived, with the conductor saying it was a Leeds express (rather than the stopper), so happy days. Arrival back into Leeds on P17 was an extra bonus as less to walk to P16. The Wakefield curve (as I’m calling it) remains uncovered, will have to try and get next time I’m back in West Yorkshire.
Some linear bashing time back to Manchester with winner 185101 arrived to take me to Huddersfield, running fast between the two places. Due to delays the service from Hull was running 32 minutes late and was being cut short at Stalybridge, so was nice and quiet over my final new track of the day, with dud 185118. Crossing over platforms at Stalybridge to get onto the Liverpool bound winner 185140, taking me back to Piccadilly, where I had some time to kill before the Virgin service was due to depart. I had a couple ideas of services for Stockport runs, but when I saw a pair of 170s which were meant to form the Hull service (but now on a Cleethorpes service), and both were winners. 170307 leading 170305, brucie bonus.
At Stockport again I had a few options, but stood around for another FTPE service, worthwhile as it was a winner, 185117 (this is where I’m getting an idea for my March Manchester trip to focus on my remaining FTPE units) into Piccadilly. I knew I had another rubbish seat on the 390 back, so headed straight to dud 390020, to coach E to get a table seat. Quite a busy and noisy train after Stockport where some Stoke fans got on who were in a slightly drunken happy mood, worst than some of the rugby trains, after Stoke it got nice and quiet for the trip back to Euston, down the slow lines after Milton Keynes. Down to Waterloo where I was annoyed as a pair of 444s in the station which I could have caught if I wasn’t on an advance ticket were double winners. Ok technically I broke the terms of my advance and got onto an earlier connection than was stated (which involved a 30 minute wait at Basingstoke). 159017 arrived into the station behind another 159, was due to spilt, on the platform, however as it was running late the train & platform got announced as boarding before they could do the spilt causing everybody to be kicked off the service so they could spilt it. Bit of chaos, and a busy train, but as usual it emptied out at Woking & Basingstoke, but arrived into Grateley pretty much on time, where I had a nice walk home.
Overall a successful day, pretty much most of the lines I wanted to cover, was covered, with some new units.
18th January – The return to London
Back to London for another day’s London bashing, first Sunday bash for a few weeks, and with the bonus of during the engineering works my local station has a much improved service of 1 train an hour, rather than 1 train per 2 hours, so saves a drive to Andover. Dud 159007 was on Salisbury to Basingstoke where it was terminating due to the engineering works (only half the Salisbury trains make it to Waterloo due to the large single track sections towards Exeter).
The next train from Basingstoke was dud 450105 on stopping duties, so a slow trip to Woking where it arrived before the Alton part (which gives me an idea of next week to ditch at Brookwood to get the Alton part to Woking before going over to P2) formed of winners 450042/450011 arrived to form the additional coaches. The fresh triple departed calling at the Byfleets and Staines before I alighted at Clapham Junction to wait to see what would come next.
A few minutes later double winners 444029/444032 arrived to take me to Waterloo, where I hit the station at a ‘dead’ time, nothing going out for around 20 minutes, so gave me an excuse to visit the Sainsburys on Waterloo Road for something warm, a chicken and mushroom slice (as they ran out of Sausage Rolls). Back to the main station, the next 4 departures covering 15 minutes were due to be duds so I jumped back onto 444032/444029 to head back to Clapham. Next leap back was only to Vauxhall with winner 455730 leading dud 455914, then back to Clapham with winner 455733 & dud 455864.
Quick dash to P4 saw me on dud 455916 for another Vauxhall dash and back out with winner 458019 with dud 458026 behind (how I enjoy the 458s). Back to Vauxhall with another pair (following a couple double-duds) of 458s with dud 458006 leading with winner 458007 behind, before hopping back to Clapham on dud 458017 leading winning 458009. Spotting my first ‘459’ which was a former 458, in 458502 (and 03 & 04), can’t wait to get the chance to get on the 458/5s which were former 458s with a 460 car inserted, rather than the all former 460 sets.
Another brief wait at Clapham allowing a couple duds go pass (I now have required SWT units on my phone which helps a lot), before dud 450561 arrived with winners 450117 & 450104 behind, and staying on until Vauxhall alighting on P1 to cross over to P2 when winner 450036 with dud 450028 arrived from Windsor. Into Waterloo for a 2nd time and back out on dud 455711 leading winner 455854 until Clapham Junction, and back into Waterloo on winner 450076 & dud 450564.
And I had hit the dead spot again, so to Tesco on Waterloo Road to pick up some lunch (decided to make a change from Sainsburys), and back to the station to once more find duds making up services for the next 15 minutes, so back out again on 450564/450076, before coming back into Waterloo for a final time on winner 444005 with dud 444006 behind.
I decided it was time for a change and headed to Kings Cross via Oxford Circus to see what Great Northern units were out and about, and the next 3 services due to call at Finsbury park (so annoyingly not a double winning 365 on a Cambridge Express) were all duds, so either wait around 20 minutes to see what else came in or ditch to Thameslink. I went to Thameslink, noticing how busy St Pancras was (before reading about the tunnel failures), having just missed a double 387 heading north, I headed south on double winners 319441/319435, only to Farringdon which was hard at work with the LU side closed.
Back to St Pancras on dud 319449 before heading south to Blackfriars on winner 387114 and dud 387107 for some ‘new’ train action. The seats are hard, but are quite nice, I hope the 387s make it to the Thames Valley once the 700s are in full service, rather have 387s over the older 319s on Reading to Paddington stoppers. Slight delay in the doors opening due to the GPS not working in the tunnel, “doors to manual”. At Blackfriars I decided to head down to Elephant & Castle on winner 319381 before back north with a cross-platform change on winner 319450, crossing over to board duds 319423/319442 to Farringdon, where I began a series of Blackfriars – Farringdon runs, no delays nor cancellations, 2/3 minutes at Farringdon [exiting at the rear door] and 5 minutes at Blackfriars [exit at the front as the north barriers were closed]. I need to input my required Thameslink units onto my phone to try and avoid duds.
Dud 319013 to Blackfriars, dud 319429 with winner 319459 to Farringdon, double duds 319445/319457 south with dud 319010 leading winner 319421 heading north, pair of duds 319217/319453 back south before my 319 run entered with some 377s. Winner 377210 arrived with dud 377208 behind heading north, and dud 377207 & winner 377505 back south, another pair of dud 319s with 319378/319384 back to Farringdon.
Brief moment of rest before dud stalker 377520 arrived with winner 577514 behind, final pair to Farringdon was with dud 377515 leading winner 377512, back to Blackfriars on dud 319432, and to Elephant & Castle with winner 319377 after I started seeing returning units, back from Three Bridges/Gatwick or Bedford, so decided to call it a day to go back to Blackfriars then to Victoria. However winners 387113/387112 arrived so plan to go to Blackfriars went out the window as I settled down for a slow trip to East Croydon via the diversion route. Makes it seem a 159 via Staines goes fast.
East Croydon, a building site with a really useful screen telling passengers which platform the next direct service to several locations will depart from. Next direct, not next fastest, so if a stopper arrived, it would suggest that over an express a couple minutes later. A triple of 377s arrived led with dud 377206 (great use of the dual-voltage) leading winners 377128 and 377142. I decided to call it a day and dashed over the bridge onto a trio of 450s on Basingstoke/Alton duty, dud 450038 was leading with dud 450568 in the middle and winner 450115 behind. RTT told me I could change at West Byfleet for a Woking terminator before the Portsmouth/Poole service arrived, so changing at West Byfleet didn’t produce a winner as it was dud 455750, back to Woking Pier.
Duds 444032/444029 arrived to take be to Basingstoke where 159002/159107 were waiting in the sidings to go to Exeter, arriving onto P2 to take me back to Grateley, the end of a busy day with 32 new units now in the book.
“If you can hear me you are sitting in the rear 4 coaches and will need to move forward if you want to exit at Staines”
Techniquest
Veteran Member
As always, an enjoyable read and a very busy time had there! Really need to get back to London and do some major amounts of leaping here, there and everywhere to get the lines in the book!
Bet you can't wait for the weekend diversions to be over!
Bet you can't wait for the weekend diversions to be over!
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