29th January A SPT Weekender Day 1
A long weekend was planned in the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport land, mainly in Glasgow, and unlike previous Glasgow day-trips this time I had a plan, when I was buying tickets an advance fare for Euston to Glasgow was £4 cheaper than the saver half fare, so I decided to go for the slightly more expensive flexible off-peak single, which allowed me to go up via the East Coast due to the West Coast being cut-off. However things didnt go as planned due to the latest storm, my original idea was to catch the 11:30 Euston Glasgow service.
Due to the £15 offer SWT are doing at the moment, my first move was onto the 08:59 service, as usual a busy service, formed this morning of 159017 & 159001 for the nice trip to the city, usual hanging around outside Waterloo but a right time arrival, first job was to swing via Sainsburys outside the station to pick up something to munch on and a newspaper before heading to the Bakerloo line platforms, with required sets
3567 &
3239 took me forward to Oxford Circus, with dud Victoria line sets 11054/053 for the extra mile and a half to Kings Cross St Pancras. It was a quick walk up to Kings Cross which was in a state of mild chaos with cancellations & delays floating around, caused by the issues in the northern end of the line, so a few set swaps, but the first departure was the slightly delayed Grand Central service towards Bradford, which was formed of required
180112, and with the GC 180s being a slight pain to normally get I jumped on board for the nice run to Doncaster.
At Doncaster I had 40-odd minutes to kill before the next York bound service appeared, so I killed the time by having a quick walk to the town centre before heading back to the station, option 1 was a York terminator which would have connected with a XC service if it had been on time, but it was running around 10 minutes late and was a HST with dud power-cars, so I waited for the 11:30 Edinburgh service from Kings Cross, and in rolled dud 91117 with DVT 82205 bring up the rear. I was tempted to bail at York/Darlington to see what was on the 12:00 departure (which would have gone to Inverness), but as I got a table seat in coach H (the one with no power-sockets next to the food bar), I decided to stay on (needless to say when I saw the Chiefian later in the day it had a required 43 on the rear). Busy-ish service, but all was well until Newcastle, where we managed to regain some of the delay time to depart 2 minutes down. This is where things went a bit wrong as we came to a stop alongside the training pitch of Newcastle Football Club for a good 30 minutes to allow a pacer to pass as it was single line running for a short while, the train was rocking in the wind.
Crossing over to the up line for a good 10 minutes passing Cramlington and going back over to the down line to pause at Alnmouth, where I was tempted to bail to wait for the XC behind (good thing I didnt as it looked like that XC had got caught waiting for the single line section to clear), a short distance longer going at a reduced speed, we came to another stop for some more single line running, north of Chathill & south of Berwick, this time I spotted some damage to the wires (wouldnt it made more sense to send that HST which terminated at York up to Edinburgh instead of this 91 due to the wiring issues?), but eventually we crossed back over to the down line and crossed into Scotland and had an uneventful run into Edinburgh arriving around 54 minutes late at around 17:10, which got me thinking that either I could dash to try and grab the 17:15 departure to Glasgow Queen Street, or grab the 17:30 from Haymarket with some cat thrash through the tunnel on the 17:20 Fife circle loco hauled set.
Needless to say it was to platform 19 to await the empty coaching stock to arrive, and leading was required
68003, grabbing a seat in the MK2 coaches (seem a lot nicer now than the last time I did the Edinburgh Loco Hauled set) for the short run to Haymarket, with the loco making lots of lovely noise through the tunnels. That cheered me up as I crossed over to P4 to await the next Glasgow service, came up with formed of 3 coaches, and in rolled required
170414 (Borders Line), which was full and standing and running fast to
Falkirk High, where I decided to bail to score the shack and get some fresh air. 19 minutes later, duds 170403 & 170472 rolled in to take me on a nice non-stop run to Glasgow Queen Street, and as this pair called at the stations before Falkirk it was emptier than 414, so I managed to get a seat.
The first order of duty was to check into my hostel, dump some weight from the bag and purchase a roundabout for today and a daytripper ticket for tomorrow, so it was off for a quick walk to check in, and I was back at Queen Street within 25 minutes to purchase my tickets and head to see what was one of the units heading to Anniesland, and in rolled winner
156506, so grabbing a nice seat for the local stopper to
Kelvindale, a basic platform next to the canal, and it wasnt long before 156506 returned from Anniesland bay platform to take me to
Possilpark & Parkhouse, another basic station in the suburbs. I didnt have long before the other unit on Anniesland stopper duties rolled in, winner
156476 to take me to
Maryhill, before 10 minutes later returning to take me the 60 chains to
Gilshochill. Short by rail, but not by road, otherwise I would have walked the 28 chains to the intermediate station, instead I waited as 156506 popped back up to take me to
Summerston, which has an Asda next to the station.
A little while later, that 156 had returned to take me to
Ashfield, the passing point on this line, so it was either a 30 minute fester for 156506 to return to take me back to Anniesland or to wait for 156476 to take me to Queen Street, or have a short walk to Springburn, which started off well until I got around half-way and the heavens opened and it started to throw it down, and there wasnt a lot of shelter, as at the time I was crossing over a busy dual carriageway. I arrived soaked to Springburn, to spot a required 334 heading towards Cumbernauld so something to note for later, as dud 320320 rolled in to reverse so it was on board to remove layers and try and get a bit dried out. This 320 took me to
Duke Street, where the rain had ended, so it was a short walk up the road to
Alexandra Parade to await 334014 to roll in to take me the short distance up the loop to
Barnhill, as it started to rain again.
There isnt much in the way of shelter at Barnhill, so it was a short of hiding underneath the little shelter offered to wait for required
318258 to roll in attached to dud 318262 to take me to
High Street, after a 10 minute wait at Bellgrove, the original plan was to now shift to the four required shacks between Hyndland & Dalmuir, but as I was running around 90 minutes late, I decided to ditch that plan. Keeping an eye on that 334, I hung around for 20 minutes after a couple duds before
334027 rolled in to take me the 45 chains to Queen Street Low Level.
It was a short walk to
Buchanan Street subway station to await a Subway service formed of 103/129/106 (all would be winners as this was the first time I recorded numbers from the subway units) to take me to
Bridge Street, followed by 118/202/119 to
West Street & 117/128/130 to
Shields Road, all 3 were nice island platforms, and wasnt long before 102/203/131 rolled in to take me to St Enoch for a short walk to the hostel room to get warmed up.
4 more subway stations done, plus the clearance of the Maryhill loop & Springburn loop, which I would imagine would be reduced to an hourly service when the Queen Street tunnel closes due to diversions, plus as my journey to Glasgow was delayed by 72 minutes (the 17:30 to Queen Street arrived 8 minutes down), I should get all the money back from Virgin East Coast so a bright side to the delays.
Some pictures:
68003 purring away at Haymarket:
A colourful (and rammed) 170414 at Falkirk High:
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30th January A SPT weekender day 2
It was a rather early start to head to catch the second service heading west from Glasgow Queen Street (ignoring the early morning Oban service), my aim was to try and clear shacks to the north west of Queen Street, with my original plan taking me onto the West Highland line for a couple shacks, however due to the weather I ditched those shacks. Anyhow it was a nice early morning walk to Queen Street, my coat had dried out but sadly my hat was still a bit wet, my first move would be on the sleeper to Dumbarton Central (as the Fort William sleeper turns into a regular passenger service after Glasgow), and in rolled dud 67007, carrying a mix-bag of Mk2 coaches (A former Virgin lounge & an Arriva coloured seated carriage), nice enough start to the day with some good noise from the tunnel.
To Dumbarton Central, where it was slightly cold with the wind, and I jumped onto duds 334004/334026 for the short hop to Dumbarton East and across the island to await dud 334039 to take me to
Alexandria on the Balloch line, a basic station, and was a short wait in the snow before 334039 had returned to take me back to Dumbarton Central, and across to the other platform for dud 334033 to take me to Helensburgh Central. It was a nice short walk in the snow, up the hill to reach the other station in Helensburgh,
Helensburgh Upper and a short wait before dud 156465 rolled in from Oban to take me to
Cardross, the only time a 156 calls at Cardross (and strangely this service also calls at Maryhill & Possilpark & Parkhouse). Cardross is the crossing point on the Helensburgh Central bound services so normally a 30 minute wait (my original plan was to have a 10 minute fester here to wait for the 156 to take me back to Dumbarton with a very tight +3 onto a Balloch service to grab Renton before heading out west with some 30 minute festers).
Anyhow it wasnt long before dud 334031 rolled in to take me to
Craigendoran, which is a single line platform pretty much on the bank of the Firth of Clyde, and it was very stormy, hail-stones, wind, I was in the little bus shelter (thankfully the entrance is away from the river) and it was quite hairy with the hail building on the sides and coming through a gap in the roof. Thankfully it wasnt long before 334031 returned to take me back to Dumbarton Central to transfer onto dud 334027 back up towards Balloch to
Renton. A very basic station at Renton, the former station building being used to house a Robert the Bruce museum, so I stayed underneath the bike shelter out of the wind (as my hat wasnt proving to be much cop against the wind).
334027 had returned to take me back to Dalmuir, where a platform interchange to the platforms on the Yoker lines saw me climbing onto dud 320317 working a stopper to
Cyldebank, where I had 15 minutes to kill so I decided to head to a nearby shopping place in search of a new hat which would keep my head warm (plus some food as it was getting on a bit and I was getting hungry). Nice little indoor market and a large shopping centre, but I saw a charity shop and purchased a nice hat (which had parts to cover my ears), and via Greggs for a nice sausage roll (& lunch for later). Back to the station and dud 334039 took me forward to
Garscadden which is a nice island platform and it was to Yoker (passing the depot) on 334015 for a quick miles grab. Next up was dud 318252 to take me to
Scotstounhill which is a footbridge shack, and across the other platform to score my first new unit of the day, in the shape of
318255 attached with 318257 back to Yoker,
I was expecting the return of 334015, but instead got dud 318267 to take me to the island platform at Hyndland, before heading back to
Jordanhill on winner
320308. Over the footbridge and onto 318257 & 318255 back to Hyndland, where I mistakenly got onto dud 334028 back to Jordanhill, thinking it was required, but instead it was dud (had it a couple weeks ago from Haymarket), annoying because it meant I missed a Motherwell via Whiffet service and a required 334 heading towards Edinburgh. It was back to Hyndland on dud 320322 to keep an eye out for anything required, either heading towards Partick or to Anniesland. A couple duds later and winner
320302 rolled up to take me to Partick, where I had a bit of a rest before duds 320308 & 318269 took me to
Carmyle, a passing point on the services towards Whiffet line (gives a +2), however as we were 4 minutes late departing Argyle Street, and it is a good 3 minutes to change platforms (long access paths to a road bridge) meant I had a 25 minute fester, so I read the newspaper and listened to some music via my ancient iPod.
25 minutes later dud 318254 (which annoyed Mr Techni as 254 is his last 318) to
Kirkwood, which isnt a nice place to hang around for long. Thankfully it wasnt long before 318269 & 320308 returned from Whiffet to take me back to
Mount Vernon, mild panic as one of the doors on the 318 had decided to go on strike (resulting in a slight adjustment by the driver, locking it out of use with a out of order sticker put onto it), which meant my +5 at Mount Vernon had been changed to a +2. But thankfully it was a footbridge between platforms, so no issues with connection as dud 320318 & required
318259 rolled in to take me to
Bargeddie with a short wait before winner
318264 popped up to take me to the final shack along the Whiffet line at
Baillieston.
Happy days I through as I waited for dud 318252 to roll in to take me down towards Motherwell (the services at Motherwell terminate, before restarting back towards Glasgow doing a large circle, i.e. 318252 would have worked a Hamilton circle service and a unit from the Hamilton circle would then work a Whiffet line stopper service, quite a clever way to avoid reversals. A late running XC brought it with a massive hail-storm which lasted a couple minutes but meant everything was white and covered with hail. But I was onto P1 awaiting the Lanark bound 320309 to take me to
Wishaw, closely followed by Edinburgh bound dud 380112 to
Carluke. Mainly a tight connection at Carluke for an Ayr bound dud 380113 to take me back to Wishaw as I had spotted a large Tesco next to the station, which was used as a supply raid. Back at Wishaw and the next Glasgow bound service was running late, departed Lanark 8 down, and arrived into Wishaw 13 down, which meant my +14 at Shieldmuir wouldnt hold, and made worst as 320309 was held for extra time (and was due to terminate at Motherwell due to the delay) for a required 318 heading to Lanark to clear the single line connection between the main line & Wishaw, but eventually it got going and I scored
Shieldmuir which appears to have a very long footbridge (I would estimate a good 5 minutes to get between platforms), and 10 minutes later dud 318265 rolled in to take me to Motherwell.
Connection times at Motherwell are rubbish, the half hourly service towards Hamilton departs at pretty much the same time as the half hourly service from Lanark rolls in, so faced with a 30 minute fester, I decided to go for a little sub mile walk to
Airbles, a service towards Motherwell was dud, so it was to the other platform, and winner
320307 rolled in to take me to
Blantyre. A short wait here at Blantyre and it was onto my 2nd last 320,
320316 down towards Larkhall, to alight at
Merryton. A short wait later and 320316 had returned to take me to
Chatelherault (and I hope I have spelt that right). Another short fester and dud 320302 (well if 320301 popped up I would have been amazed) rolled in for a miles grab down to Larkhall.
Staying on the same unit, it took me to
Hamilton West, where I decided to change my plan to do Shotts and a couple shacks down towards Kilmarnock and go unit hunting instead. Dud 320303 & 318256 took me to Hamilton Central, where after a while duds 318259 & 320317 took me to Motherwell, where a quick transfer was taken onto dud 380106 to Bellshill. I could either catch a dud 156 towards Glasgow or wait to see what was on the next Lanark service, and I was in luck as winner
318250 rolled in to take me back to Motherwell, and dud 380101 heading to Ayr took me back to Glasgow Central, to do some PEP hunting.
I needed 314201 & 314216 to clear the 314s, and sitting on one of the platforms was
314216 which was due to work a Cathcart circle service, a quick check of RTT suggested no real connection could be made, so sitting in the motor coach I did a nice round circle and 31 minutes later I was back at Glasgow Central, keeping an eye out for any sightings of 314201. I fired up RTT to identify possible 314 operated services, sadly excluding the odd 314 which might escape from the city for a nice run to Port Glasgow, and picked up ones, so it was time to relax and watch various duds (and required 380s) coming and going, before I was down to potentially my last option, the other 314 working out to Paisley Canal, so it was over to P13 area to see and with a smile on my face I took a seat on
314201 for the ride out to Paisley Canal, and staying on board back into Glasgow Central. 314s cleared, so happy days, as I headed to the low level platform and caught 320317/318259 to Exhibition Centre, with dud 318262 back to Anderston and required
318253 to Partick.
This is where things went a tad wrong as I misread the timetable for the subway, as required 108-201-116 took me to
Kelvinhall with duds 106-129-103 to
Ibrox, little did I know that was the last service of the day as 121-123-105 took me to
Govan to find out there was no more services (at 23:10, you would have through the subway would be open for longer during Friday/Saturday nights to cater for night-goers). Govan might only been a short distance from Partick, but there is a river in the way, and the bus station was being refurbished, so it was to Google Maps which firstly suggested a bus route which I couldnt find anywhere, then a route 9 with a 15 minute walk to Bellahouston Academy, and a double decker route 9 took me back to the city centre, number 32588. Oops, but at least Ive got 3 more subway stations out of the way.
Nice walk back to the hostel where I went straight to sleep, after a rather long day, with some pictures:
The Clydebank hat, nice and warm:
318254 at Kirkwood (it says Hi Techni
)
Just another PEP, 314201 at Glasgow Central.
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31st January A SPT Weekender Day 3[/b]
The idea of today was to clear some shacks on the Ayrshire coast line, and so it was to Glasgow Central after checking out of the hostel, with the first service towards Ardossan Harbour, and it was a good start of the day with required 380104 for the 31 mile and 50 chain peaceful (for I do enjoy the 380s for their comfort levels and fast acceleration) ride to Ardrossan Town, where due to the nature of the timetable for the Harbour branch which sees a handful of services to the harbour but only a couple away from the harbour (the units go back to Glasgow Central as ECS which does seem strange), I had a nice walk along the beach to Ardrossan South Beach.
20 minutes after waiting at South Beach, dud 380007 rolled in to take me to the level crossing shack at Stevenston with a quick cross over to the other platform, with dud 380022 rolling in on route to Largs to take me up the coast (which is a very nice trip) onto the single passenger line (and single freight line to the side for a short distance) to Fairlie, which was fairly basic. A short wait before 380022 returned from Largs to take me back along the line to Saltcoats, the station with brand new fancy digital information boards, and not a lot else. But it wasnt long before fresh dud 380104 rolled in to take me to my final shack along this line to West Kilbride which is a nice peaceful market town.
The departure board at Saltcoats:
After a brief explore of the area (nothing much to report in terms of pubs), it was back to the station and onto 380104 for the 3rd time of the day to take me to Kilwinning, the junction station, and across the footbridges to reach platform 4 (with a random Mexican style hat down the embankment) to await the formed of 7 coaches services towards Ayr to roll in. Dud 380020 was leading dud 380111 for the nice run down the coast to Prestwick Town, a short connection here, but easiest made to winners 380016 & 380114 back up the line to Troon, another peaceful little picture postcard station, and dud 380112 arrived to take me to Prestwick International Airport, an airport which has seen better days (in terms of passenger numbers), the station is operated by the airport rather than Scotrail and to be honest is a bit of a dump, broken doors and moving staircases, but it wasnt long before 380111/380020 returned from Ayr to take me back towards Glasgow. The original plan was to bail at Irvine to try and make a +2 onto a southbound service to grab Barassie, however I decided to leave those two shacks for another day as I looked at RTT to see that the Virgin services towards Carlisle were being cancelled due to a derailed engineering train.
Back to Glasgow Central and it seemed that the engineering train had been removed as the 13:30 had departed and the 14:30 was at the platform advertised, however it looked rammed, full and standing, and I wasnt going to spend 2 and a bit hours standing on a Voyager, so decided to keep to my original plan to catch the 15:30, so with an hour or so to kill, it was to the Subway at St Enoch, with 115-101-111 taking me to Hillhead, where I would continue but it looks like the Sunday frequencies are not the best (every 12 minutes), so it was back to St Enoch on another trio of winners in the shape of 127-206-126. Walking to Argyle Street, it was dud 318256 which took me back to Central low level (supply raid at a shop to grab some pop), grabbing some food before boarding winner 221108 working the 15:30 service to Carlisle. Treating myself to weekend first, I settled back and enjoyed the trip, pausing a couple times on route, but arriving into platform 8 at Carlisle (new track for me), in time to cross over to P4 where dud 390115 was waiting with the 17:51 to London Euston.
A busy service, but I took a seat in 1st class (to catch up with my emails and with the forum using the free Wi-Fi) and all was going well, a few minutes late, but we slowed right down to pass Crewe and came to a stop just south of the station, opposite a refueling point, the train from Manchester which was ahead of us had broken down. 30 minutes later we got going again (after watching a Voyager pull into the fueling point to get given some diesel), however we were now 35 minutes and kept on losing time so eventually rolling into Euston 49 minutes late at 22:07. Bang went my connection with the 22:15, hello 23:35 stopper, so I made a mistake in deciding to try and grab a couple LU stops, logic would say the easiest way to get down to the northern line at Stockwell area would be to use the Victoria line, or even a service via Waterloo and change at Kennington. Nope in my hurry I went the long and slow way round, with required 51531 & 51556 taking me to Clapham South where I made my 2nd mistake, I should have bailed at Clapham Common as in the 5 minutes I was at Clapham South waiting for a northbound service, at least 2 more southbound services arrived, doh! Anyhow required 51662/51661 took me to Kennington and dudss 51658/51724 took me to Waterloo.
Grabbing a McDonalds from the station I headed up and spotted a required 458/5 working a Windsor service (Putney area was closed so all Reading/Windsor were going via Kingston loop), with dud 458523 leading winner 458518 (featuring 4/5s of collision damaged 458518 and 1/5 of fire damaged 458501) for a leap to Clapham Junction. A single 450 was working towards Portsmouth Harbour via Guildford (which looked busy), but the 23:35 stopper (only 159 service to call at Farnborough & Fleet) was nice and quiet as it was a trio of units, with 159004 leading 159001 and with 159016 on the rear, with 159016 becoming the latest member of the 159 thousand mile club. Nice enough trip back, although with arriving at Grateley around 01:10 it wasnt what I really wanted (instead of a 23:40 arrival from the 22:15). However it was a very good weekend, with a lot of the electrified shacks being cleared, with only 1 more 320 left to find and 3 more 318s (plus 4 more 334s).
I have no idea when I will next be back in Scotland, probably May time to try and grab the various curves being used by diverted trains due to the Queen Street closure
I wonder how long it'll be before I get 68010 again? It's on 306.25 miles at the moment so to get it up to my current average (375.22) would be pretty good. And easy 
