A couple random pictures from some mid-week linear trips:
Mayflower getting ready to steam away from Basingstoke:
221135 sitting in Oxford platform 3, terminated due to the major disruption on Friday
8th August A voyager of rediscovery part 1
Unusually today I wasnt chasing shacks, nor chasing units, but undertaking a voyage of rediscovery, mainly wanting to do the line between Lancaster & Carlisle via the Cumbrian coast (of which the 37 loco hauled service might have had something to play with it), and the Settle & Carlisle line again (having done it northbound on a 70 hauled charter last year).
Due to engineering works closing the line between Salisbury & Andover, meaning the last service would terminate at Andover with a bus back to Grateley and to Salisbury, I decided to start my trip from Andover, so a nice early morning drive to Andover, where 159006 rolled in to take me to Waterloo, becoming my 3rd 159 cleared for 1000 miles. Arrival was early so as per usual we were held outside the station to await a Haslemere or Portsmouth bound service to clear the platform. Down to the underground where Northern line sets number 11 & 12 (yes, Im going to start recording LU set numbers now, once I know what to look out for). Into Euston where I arrived just after 7am, giving me time to visit the shop for a newspaper. The 07:30 service to Glasgow was called as departing from platform 3 and was formed of dud 390040 (previously had coming back into Euston from Liverpool last September), where I had a seat in coach B reserved until Lancaster.
I decided to bail at Preston (Im on a Freedom of the North West rover which I managed to get from the ticket office at Basingstoke the day before, one good thing which came from that day), thankfully the service was on time (I do like a non-stop Cave to Warrington run), so I could change platform and onto dud 185147 which was working a Blackpool North to Barrow in Furness service, thankfully I boarded at Preston as the train got quite busy at Lancaster. As there was a 35 minute gap between this service arriving into Barrow and the Carlisle train departing, I decided to make the most of the time and bailed at
Roose, the stop before Barrow in Furness, and walked the 1.7 miles along the streets of Babylon, to Barrow in Furness station, via a Co-Op for some lunch. Saves a job for a later date as I arrived with 10 minutes to spare, to find my way onto the platform to use the subway to get to Platform 3, where winner (although the chances are it would be a winner as the only previous 37s Ive had was a pair last April (although annoyingly Ive only got 37612 down, with no reference to the other 37) when doing the Heart of Wales tour, and a 37 on the Wensleydale railway)
37423 was getting ready to depart with my first driving brake trailer (9707) on the rear.
Sadly the leading coach was busy, and the 2nd coach had no working AC (was like a sauna) so I found myself in the 3rd coach, a bit less noise from the 37, but still what a lovely noise, standing by the droplights was an amazing experience, along an utterly beautiful line, with stopping at every station on route (apart from Braystones & Nethertown), some was front 2 coaches only, some were rear 2 coaches only. Such a lovely trip, although after Maryport area it does get a bit boring when it heads in land. Arrival into Carlisle was a couple minutes early, just in time to see a Leeds bound service departing and also a Dumfries bound service departing (got to love the timetable connections, where the 37 would depart back to Barrow just as a service from Leeds and a service from Dumfries was arriving). Anyhow I had planned a little shack attack, so I jumped onto dud 350401 (although Ive only ever had this unit on a Haymarket Edinburgh leap, so a chance to put some miles onto it) for a short trip to
Penrith North Lakes.
I had planned to have a 45 minute break here at Penrith as a northbound service was due to depart 2 minutes before the 350 had arrived, however the northbound service to Edinburgh was running 10 minutes late, so happy days as it was also a required 390, in the shape of
390137 which I took back to Carlisle. This also meant I could catch the earlier semi-fast service to Leeds which departed at the same time as the planned 390 would arrive (which would have also been a required unit). However checking RTT for options did highlight a northbound service at Appleby departing 10 or so minutes afterwards, however that didnt connect into the southbound service in any way (the southbound service departed Langwathby a few minutes before the northbound arrived), so that was out, also a quick check down towards Settle found a service towards Leeds from Morecambe would depart Giggleswick 10 minutes after it would depart Settle (not to mention a Morecambe bound service departing Skipton 5 minutes before the semi-fast arrived, which is a bit rubbish as if the semi-fast called at either Long Preston/Hellifield or Gargrave passengers could make the connection to a Morecambe bound service without having a walk. Anyhow after grabbing some food from the little Tesco in Carlisle I headed to the bays where I noticed dud 158797 had arrived, which had the windows wide open (not a good sign).
Once everybody had alighted, the doors will locked and another 158 rolled in (from the sidings I would guess) and it was winner
158844 which I took a table seat on the right hand side and the service departed towards Leeds. Not the most scenic of routes at the start, a bit too much rubbish and urban, but it soon drops away to give some rather fantastic views, with some small stations sped pass as I decided to alight at
Settle, just for the sake of alighting at the station. Nice little market town and a busy station when I got back to the station, standing on the footbridge just looking into nothing in particular, awaiting the arrival of dud 158797 to take me to
Skipton, back underneath the wires, passing some 322s in the sidings, parked up for the weekend. Crossing over to the bay platform, I jumped onto winner
333002 on a Bradford bound service, alighting at
Cononley, as I might as well get it out of the way so I can try and clear the 333 served shacks the next time Im on a West Yorkshire rover. Level crossing shack, nothing else around to report, until winner
333010 rolled in to take me the 23 and a bit miles back to Leeds.
I had RTT open with a couple options for a quick spin to return in time for the final London train of the night, and required
142018 was sitting on a Huddersfield via Bradford service, so I jumped on board for the short run to Bramley, which isnt as easy to cross over the platforms as Bramley in Hampshire (down a long ramp, across a busy road, up some long stairs), as I had a mild couple minutes wait before dud 158790 rolled in (previously had this unit doing the same run of Bramley to Leeds). The service to London Kings Cross was already on the platform (7), so it was easy enough to cross over from 11D back to board the MK4s, with new DVT 82229 up front with dud 91116 providing the power at the rear. I had a table to myself as the other passengers either didnt turn up or decided to go to a quieter coach as there were a few football fans singing various songs (which thankfully got off at Doncaster). Nice enough run, apart from a 15 minute wait at Doncaster for the delayed service from Aberdeen (allowing passengers from that service to board for a couple of the stations between Doncaster & Peterborough as it was the final service). Down into Kings Cross, 20 minutes down but not really that bothered as I had 50-odd minutes before the final Andover service of the evening so to the underground.
Victoria line sets 59 & 60 (I believe, although I should know in future to take the last 3 numbers down) took me to Oxford Circus, where a Bakerloo set with 4352 included took me to Waterloo. A quick visit to the Tesco for a late night meal deal and I was back onto the concourse searching for any required SWT EMUs, keeping my eye on the suburban line platforms for the 455s (all duds), nothing of interest on the main-line side (mostly all 444s), and just as I was going to give up the search I went across to the Windsor line side to see what the units was on the next Windsor service, and my eyes lit up, dud 450115 was leading winner
450020, 10 to go, as I jumped on board for a spin to Clapham Junction, going via the subway to await the arrival of the final Andover service, which tonight was formed of 159020 in reverse formation (front class at country end). As per normal the train emptied out at Woking & Basingstoke, but was a nice run, with a nice drive home where unsurprisingly I beat the bus (which appeared to be a regular Stagecoach south single decker).
831 miles covered today which puts this day high up in the distance covered in a single day board, which excluding double backs (i.e. Penrith to Carlisle, Waterloo to Andover), puts it at a healthy 747 miles, which probably is my personal best.
350401 departing Penrith The North Lakes
I had a score to settle at Settle:
9th August A pacer of rediscovery part 2
It was back to the north west for me today, with the aim of going back over the line towards Leeds from Lancaster, going via Morecambe and the PSUL curve towards the WCML, bit of a later start for me as I drove back to Andover, and jumped onto 159006 (sensing a bit of déjà vu), this time only taking me to Clapham Junction (which knocked off 159002 from its position as long term most travelled 159). I was booked onto the 09:40 departure from Euston, so had around an hour to waste (was around 8:15), so I fired up RTT to see what London bound services (although that time of morning there wasnt a lot floating around), my eyes focused on the Southern platform (everything was being put via P14/P15 this morning), a pair of dud 377/4s and a dud 455 later, with my eye keeping looking out on anything heading towards London Waterloo from P10, before my final 377/7 rolled up.
I wasnt expecting to get
377706 this morning, working on a West Croydon Victoria service , which I took to Victoria, nice little surprise for me. To the underground where instead of taking the Victoria line, I headed towards the SSL platform, where I jumped onto S7 stock 57 & 58 to
St James Park, a few minutes later 41 & 42 took me to
Temple, a pair of D-stock units (03 & 32) took me to
Mansion House, with S7 70 & 69 taking me to Monument, where I transferred to the Northern line with set ending xxx21 & xxx22 to London Euston, 3 more LU shacks cleared along the circle line. Heading via Sainsburys to pick up some lunch (for later) and a reduced chicken fillet sandwich bun, I headed to P3, to board winner
390107. I was in seat C3, which is a table seat, with a limited view, and to give it a bonus the power sockets in that coach wasnt working, so I went for a walk after departure and found a table seat which was reserved.
This is where I personally think the reservation system used on 22Xs is better when it would say reserved from London Euston to Carlisle where if you were boarding at say Milton Keynes and seeing that message above the seat you can safety assume you wont be kicked out at say Crewe by someone saying that is my seat, whereas just saying reserved doesnt give a lot of detail, could it be reserved from Euston to Milton Keynes with another reservation after that? Anyhow, sorry for the mild rant, but as this service seemed to take forever (slow track running after Rugby) to get to
Warrington Bank Quay where I alighted to clear my last Virgin WC served WCML core route shack (Runcorn & Macclesfield remain on the branches).
Dud 390010 rolled in to take me to Preston, taking a seat in the new coach F as it was unreserved and was new (although the tables look like they have been in the wars), I alighted at Preston and went outside the station looking for the bus to Manchester Victoria via Bolton, where it was a coach, which had no leg-room whatsoever, which took me via road to
Leyland, an interesting station with platforms on all 4 lines, I had a 15 minute wait before winner
156489 arrived with dud 150112 in tow to take me to
Euxton Balshaw Land, not the easiest to get platform to platform as the ramps to leave the platform to the bridge are quite long, but I made it with time to spare to jump onto duds 142095 & 150133 back to Preston. I had a decision to make, as a Scotland bound TPE was running late, I could either wait to see if 350410 would produce, or jump onto the service towards Barrow. The service for Scotland must have arrived without me noticing as I was sat on dud 185114. Nice short run (if you can call 20 miles 71 chains short!) to Lancaster, and across to P2, where my heart stopped a bit when I saw what unit I would be on for the next ~ 2 hours, a 142. A unit which looked awfully familiar from Bramley on the Saturday, yep it was 142018, at least it was a 2+2 proper seated example, rather than a 3+2 bench seating unit.
Quite busy so I sat in the middle of the unit, keeping my eye out when it arrived into Morecambe for the usual turning out of passengers as some passengers from a bay got up to leave I got up and grabbed a bay seat on the right hand side in the direction of travel, if I was going to spend an hour and a half on a 142, I would want to be comfortable. Calling at Bare Lane, before it took the curve towards the WCML heading northbound, before accelerating, before coming away at Carnforth, and onwards towards Leeds via the Little North Western route, which is very remote in places and very beautiful. Eventually we reached the wires and I decided to ditch the pacer at
Bingley, to leave 2 shacks on the Airedale line to get (Crossflats & Steeton & Silsden).
I had a 10 minute or so fester at Bingley before dud 333013 arrived to take me to Leeds, where I had a 50-odd minute fester before my booked train home (HST from Harrogate), with no real options at a quick spin using the more limited services operating on a Sunday, so I went to McDonalds for a bit of an early dinner, before heading towards the platform where the service was due to depart (having decided to book on the service from Harrogate rather than the earlier service from Leeds, due to wanting a HST. Winning power-car
43290 rolled in with dud 43028 behind, where it due to reverse, my assigned seat wasnt the best, another aisle airline seat (does the VTEC seat selector not determine between a HST & Mk4s)? So I shifted towards the unreserved coaches, the train was busy due to a Hull Trains service being directed via Goole (so passengers from Selby were allowed to use VTEC). Nice enough run into Kings Cross, arriving a couple minutes early outside the station and having to wait to gain access to platform 0.
To the underground, where in the hour and 10 minutes I had to kill before the 21:15 service towards Andover, so I was going to do a couple shacks, firstly was set 53 & 54 to
Pimlico with 29 & 30 carrying on to
Stockwell, where I transferred to the northern line with XXX78 & XXX77 to the narrow island platform of
Clapham North. Back north on XXX11 & XXX51 to
Oval, with 13 & 12 to Kennington where I crossed over to the Charing Cross branch with 23 & 24 to Waterloo. To the main station to see what was floating around, few 455s duds on 1-4, but I wanted to see what 450s was on a departure to Basingstoke & Alton, the rear was 450003 with winner
450010 leading, which I took to Clapham Junction. 159104, 159015 & 158884 were the trio of diesels which took me back to Andover, the end of a busy weekend.
The wheels on the rail replacement coach go round and round:
A 185 rushing pass Leyland:
Leyland:
Euxton Balshaw Lane:
I wonder who lives in a place like this?
