17th June To the Cambrian!
Today would be the day where I would make a start with the Cambrian line, as apart from the two termini & Machynlleth I need everything, including all those request stops on the coast line (which is a job for August time). My focus today would be on the shared section of the line where there are a few additional services thrown in to make it hourly at times, however due to timetable limitations it would be an early morning drive to Basingstoke for the first northbound XC of the day. I apologise in advance if I misspell any of the station names.
A pleasant enough drive to Basingstoke, purchasing my car park ticket before heading towards platform 4 to wait for the 05:40 Manchester service to roll in, today formed of 220022 to take me the 65 and a half miles via a lengthy reversal at Reading to Banbury, where I bailed for the following Chiltern service, which was formed of a quiet solo 168323 to take me onwards to Birmingham Moor Street where it terminated (to attach to another 168 in the platform to form the next London service). At Warwick Parkway I passed the Duchess of Sutherland steam engine, no idea why Im mentioning this other than to draw parallels to my Far North trip to Sutherland.
I set about having the short walk to New Street, swinging via Tesco for breakfast, a nice cold carton of apple juice and a newspaper before heading to the Batcave to wait for the 08:25 service to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli formed of 158838 & 158832, I took a seat in the dark 832 which had working AC (as the windows were all open on 838), the lights came on after Wolverhampton, but it was nice and cool. After a reversal at Shrewsbury, it was onto the ERTMS controlled Cambrian Line, passing many closed stations, crossing over the border to Wales as I alighted at the first station on the route, the island platform at
Welshpool.
With an hour to kill, and the platform not really giving much in the way of shelter from the sun (has a little bus shelter on it, but that was quite warm inside), I had a short walk to a nearby Tesco, passing the site of the Old station and what appears to be an old station overgrown. After some more random walking around I returned to the station to make a start at reading the newspaper when enjoying the sunshine as the Aberystwyth extra rolled in. As expected it was 158824 (as I had saw it earlier heading towards Shrewsbury at Welshpool), and was reasonable loaded, passing over the mountains, passing the depot (very scenic line this is in places), before bearing left into the newish loop at Dovey Junction, pausing for 158838 to return before carrying on back onto the long platform 2. A bit like Penryn on the Falmouth line in Cornwall, just beware it appears to be one long walk from 2B to platform 1.
Anyhow I remained on board running alongside the water to alight at
Borth, which is a nice little seafront village (a little shop nearby) and a well maintained station. I had a short walk to the beach to enjoy the sea views and have my lunch when sitting on a bench before heading back to the station to enjoy the view from the platform before 158824 returned from Aberystwyth to take me back one stop to the quite remote
Dovey Junction, watching the passing move take place with 158819 heading to Aberystwyth, waiting for a few minutes when using the WiFi of 824 which when checking RTT, it suggested the next southbound service was running around 7 minutes late which gave me an idea of getting a bonus shack score into my book as a warm 158837 rolled in to take me one stop along the line to
Penhelig.
A brief glance and the station is within a cutting, featuring what appeared to be a nice looking wooden waiting shelter, but my time here wasnt for long as I headed down some wooden steps. The only reason why I was doing this walk is due to Google suggesting it took 21 minutes, with the next train being in 22 minutes, so normally a bit too tight. However apart from the first few minutes where there was no pavement, a pavement soon appeared walking along the sea front (a few pubs doing a good trade in beer this afternoon), making use of a footpath which wasnt shown on Google Maps, which was a handy shortcut as I reached
Aberdovey in 14 minutes. Evidence of a former platform here, with the remaining platform being low; however there was no shelter from the sun due to the position of the shelter.
158820 eventually rolled in around 7 minutes late, as I headed back alongside the coast, rolling in alongside 158819 at Dovey Junction before continuing to Machynlleth where a few minutes later 158819 rolled into the rear as both units continued heading eastwards, back over the mountains to take me to
Newtown, a nice looking station with good shelter, so Im told a friendly ticket office (sadly it was closed), near a reasonable sized town. With 85 (odd) minutes to wait before the next westbound service, I headed to the town centre to do some looking around, eventually walking alongside the River Severn, reaching Tesco where some ice-cream was purchased [alongside another cold carton of juice], before heading back to the station.
Next up was 158826 & 158822 to take me the short distance back along the line to
Caersws, on the single track section, next to a little maintenance area, an old (I assume) signal box, but not a lot else around the station which I could spot, so after returning to a nice cool shelter I relaxed for 15 minutes before 158838 & 158823 rolled in (yep 158838 had returned to get even more miles), both units had failed AC, although at Shrewsbury I did spot the Deltic tour getting ready to depart, but it was warm in the coach after returning with a video of the departure. A right time departure as I headed back towards Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street, my mission of the day complete with a bonus shack score.
However that wasnt all, as earlier in the day I had spotted a blue 68 working the early morning Kidderminster Marylebone service, which after checking with Mr Quinn I was happy as it should be 008. With time to kill I popped to Sports Direct in the Bull Ring in the attempt to purchase some new 3 quarter length shorts as my previous pair was ripped, this failed due to not finding anything suitable, so it was to Moor Street watching a bit of chaos as a 172 eventually departed 15 minutes late, as the sound of a 68 was heard in the distance as winner
68008 rolled in, sadly only for the tiny leap to Snow Hill, but gets it into the book, plugging a gap in my 68s Ive had for haulage. I missed the DVT due to a tight connection onto 168001 as annoying when the DVT passed someone got in the way blocking the numbers, although IIRC I only need one more Chiltern DVT so it would probably been dud (although nice to have to fill a gap in my log).
Anyways, 168001 was the unit taking me back to Banbury, swapping over to 220024 working the next Reading terminator, terminating into platform 3 and giving me roughly 30 minutes to grab dinner from McDonalds, at a station in chaos with many delays being reported. I was surprised as the next Basingstoke stopper being a nice cool 166215 as normally these are 2-car 165s at weekends, as another 166 claims membership of the 9-80 club (only pervious entry for this 166 was on a Tilehurst Reading leap). Arrival into Basingstoke was on time, to find another station in chaos with many delays & cancellations getting reported, as I walked to the car park and had a drive home in the warm weather.
7 new ATW shacks into my book, allowing me to focus mainly on the coast line, getting Penhelig was a bonus, as was the 68 (even if it meant I was home 45 minutes later than originally planned).
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18th June A circular route of rediscovery
I come across this ticket by chance when playing with the GWR website so I wont mention it just in case it is a routing guide error, but I treated myself to First Class on grounds that it was quite reasonably priced compared to standard class. Anyhow as I have mentioned in the Shack Attack thread there is a small number of shacks I have recorded as being visited before I started to log my moves, so doing this round trip would allow me to put them into my log as revisits.
A nice early morning drive to Romsey, saw me managing to locate a prime parking spot by the side of the road before heading up the stairs to wait for the doors on 158798 to get released before it formed the service to Brighton. The guard only had the local door open as he was checking/selling tickets before departure, as I took a seat in the leading coach, the AC wasnt working (no surprise there), however once the windows were opened with speed built up it was OK.
Arrival into Brighton was on time, the train getting busier as the journey went on, where I noticed the crowd control barriers for the potential crowds heading home later in the day as I headed over to platform 7 as 171729 was just rolling in from Ashford. I did my usual trick of heading straight into the First Class area on grounds that the Brighton Ashford services are standard class only which is something most normals dont know about (plus the 2+1 seating helps). A pleasant enough run heading eastwards via the Sussex countryside, reversing in Eastbourne to run alongside the sea as I alighted at my first shack revisit of the day, at
Bexhill.
I had forgotten how long the platforms are, as I exited the station, swinging via the Co-Op on route via the seafront to reach
Collington, a quite basic shack, as I saw 377449 departing on the Ore London Victoria service:
The next Ore service in typical Southern style was running late, and 377423 eventually rolled in around 19 minutes late, which meant I had missed my connection to the London Cannon Street service at St Leonards Warrior Square, which meant I had roughly 30 minutes to waste before the next Cannon Street service (Hasting London isnt an even balance due to one service calling all shacks and the next being semi-fast). So to kill the time I headed to the beach:
Back to the station, and it wasnt a long wait before 375620 & 375629 rolled in to take me northbound for the first time on the Hastings Line (Ive only ever done this line southbound, and it brought back memories of that cold wet December evening in 2015 where I linearly hopped down the line making use of the peak-time extras). Unsurprisingly I was the only person sat in the posh seat area for the nice run up to Tonbridge, arriving pretty much bang on time, allowing me to cross over to platform 1 where 377425 was sat ready to work the next Redhill stopper.
Once more memories of when I did the shacks on this line came back, with the plug socket coming in handy to give my phone a quick charge on the slow and steady line (much better doing it non-stop on a diverted South Eastern service). Once at Redhill, the heat hit me as I couldnt spot how well the new platform work is coming along due to a high fence blocking views. The platform was busy and this is one of the reasons why I paid that extra couple quid extra to go 1st class, as I know the hourly Reading services can get busy with holiday makers returning home. We were warned that the AC had failed before 166211 rolled in, which was busy in standard class, with all 4 tables taken in First Class, as I got dirty looks from a posh lady for daring to sit at her own personal table.
The North Downs line is scenic as ever, although it was let down for this service being the Surrey Shacks caller (again memories) losing time on route, with uncooled air being blown in via the vents, not being the nicest of trips (might have been better if the first class door was locked open but this 166 it was actually working). Eventually the 166 rolled into Reading around 10 minutes late, but the XC towards Bournemouth was also running a couple minutes late and had rolled in as I was going up the stairs to reach platform 8.
2200014 was the voyager in question and the AC was bliss, I had no issue finding an empty seat due to the fact that coach A only had 2 other passengers in it!, the rest of the train appeared to be standing room only from when I walked past
I even got some freebies from the trolley, a couple cans of diet coke & a packet of crisps, making use of the free Wi-Fi, no issue from the guard who accepted my ticket without query, for the nice run into Hampshire, pausing around Micheldever so that the driver could be talked through a couple red signals which had failed, but a nice enough run other than that, arriving into Southampton avoiding most of the issues from earlier in the day.
It was onto the Romsey bound 158882 going back via Eastleigh for some AC loveliness, departing 12 minutes late due to waiting for a member of train crew, but a nice enough trip via Chandlers Ford where I decided against doing a mini-visit this evening due to the heat so it was back to Romsey, and a walk down to the car opening the windows to allow some of the hot air to escape before firing up the Climate control set at a nice cool 18C, AC on with the windows closed to take me back home, the outside temperature sensor recording a temperature of 35C at Romsey, dropping down to 32C by the time I reached home.
Apart from issues with failed AC, a nice enough day pottering around in a circular journey, rediscovering a couple lines
Caught up with me on the Cambrian, indeed you're now 1 shack ahead of me as I need Aberdovey and everything else north of there. High time I made an effort to get up there again...
