4th October – A trip down the Uckfield line
My original idea of getting the shacks down the Uckfield line was to try and hit the line during an evening peak period where services are half-hourly for some of the shacks, however when playing with RTT I saw there was trains on the line on the 4th October, I through to myself, why not have a go at clearing the shacks, one last spin with the bike, before parts of the line closes so that the platforms can be extended so that East Croydon passengers have 10 car 171s in the peaks (haven’t Southern heard of making peak-time extras fast to say Oxted to avoid the East Croydon crowd, similar to how SWT skips Woking and even Basingstoke on some peak-time services)
Anyhow, Daysave in hand (most likely my last Daysave for a while) I drove to Andover to pick up the 07:4X formed today of low mileage 159018 and high mileage 159002 for the gentle roll into Clapham Junction, where things went a bit wrong, the lines around Victoria was meant to reopen around 08:45, but there was an engineering overrun so after the first service (one to Bognor I believe) came and went an announcement came over saying that “there would be no trains to/from Victoria for at least 30 minutes”, so I headed over to P10 to jump on the first thing heading to Waterloo (thankfully I had a travel-card today as I planned to do some SWT metro shacks later), first thing was a rather busy super dud 455711 (which emptied out a bit at Vauxhall), but to Waterloo.
Down to the underground, where the first Jubilee line service was formed of sets 77 & 98 for some lovely noise (for how I love the noise of the motors on the Jubilee line stock) to London Bridge, where a short walk later found myself at the Low level side of the station, with two options to getting to East Croydon in time for the next East Croydon – Uckfield train (before they are cut back to running between Oxted & Uckfield), a 455 stopper which was a dud, or a pair of 377s heading towards Horsham, first stop Norwood Junction (so in theory I could have changed at Norwood if the 455 was required). Required
377474 was leading dud 377449 (last seen in May with Lord Techni), which I took to East Croydon.
East Croydon was in a bit of chaos, trains from Victoria were starting to run with heavy delays (30+ minutes) so were skipping stops left right and centre, but I still arrived before the train I would have caught to East Grinstead finally rolled up, which was going to be running fast to Oxted and fast to East Grinstead to try and regain some of the time lost, dud 377151 (last seen with 449 back in May) was leading required
377426 so I jumped on board for the nice fast run to Oxted (which I would imagine is quite rare for a 377). With 25 minutes to kill before the 171 would show up, I decided to head to the little Sainsburys outside the station to pick up items for lunch (to save a job for later). In theory another East Grinstead train was due before the Uckfield service, but that must have been running late and the Uckfield departed East Croydon before hand, and in rolled my 2nd last 171/7,
171727.
How unexpected to get a winner for the 23 and a half mile trip to my first new shack of the day at
Buxted, down the mostly single track sleepy branch line, parts of the old double track were still in place, rusting away. The old platform at Buxted was rotting away (and yet someone asked me “is this the platform for the train to London?”) It was time for a fester to wait for 171727 to come back in to become my latest super-dud, as it rolled to
Eridge, where a heritage railway towards Tunbridge West was based (although it wasn’t running today from Eridge), nice enough station. Next up was the other 171 on the Uckfield line duties today, dud 171722 (which previously only had a Brighton – Lewes leap in the book) so it was down to
Crowborough, for a long fester.
40-odd minutes later, 171722 had returned to take me back to
Edenbridge Town, the last diesel only shack towards Oxted, where a quick unfold of the bike later saw me back on the open road, directions to Hever station on display, down a main B-road before turning off down a country-road before another turning down a little narrow lane which I think hasn’t seen much in the way of traffic due to the state of it (many pot-holes) and high levels of vegetation. Eventually I reached the little private road which led to
Hever station, a station which is worst than Doleham for being near anything, it has a little private business in the old station house, the rail replacement bus-stop is a mile and a half away on the main-road (30 minute walk according to the sign), I couldn’t see any houses nearby, but it has a TVM hidden away on the up platform. Anyhow 171722 had returned for the short trip down to
Ashurst, which is one of those awkward stations where the trains pass each other.
Anyhow it was time for another ride, with an hour or so to kill to reach my last shack on the branch line, and it was so hard-going, it was a main-road, however felt like it was up-hill most of the way, so was more of a push rather than a ride. Eventually reached
Cowden, another basic shack, one probably best to ride from Cowden to Ashurst. I sat down to try and get my breath back. 171727 rolled in on route to Uckfield before departing being replaced with 171722 for the 4th (and last time) of the day. To Oxted where it terminated, as I waited for the hourly service from East Grinstead, today formed of duds 377626 & 377610 for the nice trip back to Clapham Junction where I crossed over to P11 for some SWT action.
The first 455 was dud so I let it depart as I was waiting for the next service towards Dorking, formed of dud 455910 for the trip to the edge of the travelcard area at
Ewell West, and it was back onto the bike for a short ride back up the line to
Stoneleigh, nice little island platform. Unexpected winner
455741 rolled in to take me back up the line to
Motspur Park where I had a short wait before another unexpected winning 455 popped up in the shape of
455716 working a Chessington South service. I stayed on and alighted at
Chessington North before another short bike ride saw me back at
Tolworth with time to spare. Fresh dud 455716 returned to take me back the mile leap back to
Malden Manor and it was one final bike ride (and most likely last bike station hop of 2015) to my final shack of the day at
Worcester Park.
Dud 455874 rolled in to take me back to Clapham Junction before a quick cross-over to P9 saw me onto a rather busy (due to being a Honiton/Bristol service) 159002 & 159018, the same pair as this morning, however it does mean 159018 is now cleared for 500 miles, which leaves 4 (or 5) units left below that figure. 159002 returns to the top of the distance chart. So 14 new shacks cleared, everything of the SWT metro cleared south of the main-line, and only 4 Southern shacks remaining, so overall a good day (with some money back from Southern for the hour delay reaching Buxted).
Anyhow some pictures:
171727 at Buxted
Eridge:
171722 at Crowborough
Hever... Has a footbridge (and that is about it!)
Now onto attempting to sort through my many pictures taken in Japan
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Keith - Agreed, it needed doing to clear that line.
Techni - Yep, I'm itching for a quick spin on the rails, might try and do something tomorrow evening if not on Friday (Portsmouth Direct Line is calling)
And all this was so long ago that Alvechurch was still single track last time I was there!
