26th July - An Evening in London

26^th – 28^th July – A weekend in Yorkshire

The idea for this trip was formed when the BLS announced a Supertram tour on the Sunday which looked interesting, but due to the timings meant an overnight stay in the Sheffield area (eventually deciding on a pub near to Meadowhall for the Saturday night).  This gave me a few options so I decided it was a good excuse to revisit the Knottingley – Goole line again also to revisit the two stations I needed in Pontefract.  A rough plan was made involving staying in London overnight on the Friday for the 07:06 stopping service to York from Kings Cross (which gave me a nice connection at York, also was quite cheap).  My plan changed from a couple weeks ago when I got Sherburn in Elmet which gave me a little bit extra flexibility (which could have been needed).

Before I get to Yorkshire it was an evening in London.

An evening in London (26/7)

I finished work on time and a fast turnaround at home got me onto the 13:59 service from Grateley, all the while I was considering what to do in London, either a day on SWR, an evening hunting 321s or an evening on South Eastern units.  The weather paid a part in my decision as it was quite warm (well it is summer!) so I decided the South Eastern stuff can wait until a later time.  Also I got given news on the services my last SWR 455 for mileage was working so I came up with a plan of intersection.

159021 & 159013 took me to Basingstoke, where I headed across to platform 5 for the next Reading stopper formed of 165133 (normally a 3-coach unit, bet this service got busy later on, especially since it looked like half the services had been cancelled due to lack of staff).  A good run until the outskirts of Reading where the 165 sat at the junction for around 8 minutes for a late running IET from the West Country (which at the time wasn’t even at Theale so plenty of time for the unit to call at Reading West and reach platform 2), well done signallers for making an on time train late for both its inward & outward journey, as clearly a 45 minute delayed service takes priority.

Eventually when the 165 reached Reading, it was a short walk towards platforms 10-11, knowing that the screens flash “departing” when the trains are ready to leave, the first option was an 800 from Bedwyn which I turned down for winner 802109 from Oxford, and I got pretty much a private coach near the centre of the train, it filled up well with all the tourists at Slough.  On the outskirts of Paddington during a “we are arrived early, waiting for platform to become available”  fester I noticed a new RLU 345 on the Hayes shuttles (028 I think), however I decided that could wait for another day, so it was to the Underground with 3237/3533 on the Bakeroven line to Baker Street crossing over to 96099/96086 on the Jubilee line for the trip to Waterloo, with time to spare to board a Basingstoke stopping service formed of 450101 & 450546 for the fast trip to Surbiton, where the train pretty much emptied out, as I headed across to the London bound platform, keeping my eyes peeled for any of my last 6 low mileage 450s floating around.  The train from Guildford arrived with low mileage 455735 leading 455851 for the run to Clapham Junction, and it was quite warm inside (and I was glad to alight from the train at Clapham Junction).

At Clapham Junction I headed towards the Windsor side (after a cheeky photo on 442403 on the sidings), and took up a location, noticing a required 458 was heading towards Waterloo, but before I could give chase a rare pair of low mileage units rocked up, 455835 & 455834 which I took to Richmond, eventually reaching there (looked liked the unit in front lost a bit of time after Barnes, this was swiftly followed by 458507 running solo for a leap to Twickenham (wedged out and slow).  A few minutes later 458520 & 458506 rolled in to take me to Feltham, where I had a short fester noting a 707 was bound for Windsor (and another 707 was heading towards Weybridge).

After grabbing some food, I returned to the station for 707011 & 707009 for the run to Isleworth, returning to Feltham on 458531 & 458502 to give me a short fester before 707013 & 707027 rolled up to take me to Twickenham.  Another short fester before 707008 rolled in (with 707005) on a Kingston loop service which I took to Clapham Junction (via Kingston), I was quite pleased as this took me down to a single 707 and 2 more 458s for mileage (although both those 458s are very low mileage).  But for the time being it was time to shift across to the Southern side where I had hoped to confirm that hired in 387105 was on the rear of a triple set from Gatwick, but 455836 & low mileage 455844 popped up to take me towards Victoria (not enough for the 455 but gave a little boost), but that triple never fully overtook, got to the 6^th coach before it dropped back and never regained enough to overtake.

So it was a gamble, buy a BZ ticket to Gatwick and hope for the best, ignore it for another day or attempt to get a position to try and ID the rear unit.  I went for the gamble option, and for probably the last time I got a BZ ticket to Gatwick Airport from the TVM and headed towards platform 13, where detached at the far end was indeed 387105, so I boarded and took a seat for the speedy run (and after a few hours of slowness, this speed felt good) to Gatwick Airport which was in a bit of chaos due to Thameslink services towards Bedford getting cancelled due to emergency engineering works due to the heat with the overhead wires north of St Pancras.

The first couple northbound Southern services weren’t of interest, so I hung back for a Cambridge bound Thameslink which was formed of low mileage 700101 which I took to East Croydon, checking into the Easy Hotel for a much needed power shower and relaxation.  Not a super early start like the last couple times I stayed here, but still a 05:40 alarm call.