2nd August – This is the Southern Service To...

2^nd August – This is the Southern Service To...

Back at the start of the year I made a rough list of things I wanted to cover for the sake of covering, over the course of the year that list has been reduced, and now it was time for the novelty of a Southern service to Guildford.  Plus it would allow me to tick off some random platform scratches in this part of Surrey.

I drove to Andover for the delayed 14:38 service towards Waterloo, due to other late trains on the West of England line it was around 10 minutes late by the time it reached Andover, dropping another couple minutes before Basingstoke due to following a freight service from Southampton.  159013, 159004 & 159021 took me to Woking, where I had a short connection to a busy 450093 working a Portsmouth stopping service (not sure if this service was short formed, but if it’s booked for a single unit, it really needs to be a pair).  I alighted at Guildford for a nice cross platform change to 455910 & 455920 for the short hop to Clandon.

Old Railway warehouses at Effingham Junction

15 minutes later 455847 & 455904 rolled up to take me to Effingham Junction, for a slightly longer wait for 455902 & 455736 to take me to Leatherhead (with announcements that due to the late running it was going to run fast from Epsom, I swear sometimes SWR are as bad as Merseyrail in ripping out stops for small delays, this service was back on right time before Raynes Park and probably ended up caught behind a stopper all the way to Waterloo).  Time for me to change direction and operator for 377451 & 377135 to take me to Dorking, where I had a cross platform change (and a change of tickets to my return leg) with 456003/455851 & 455918 to Box Hill & Westhumble (or Boxhill & Westhumble as some signs were saying), in previous timetables this station used to be mostly Southern with the odd SWR call, but now it seems it’s half hourly SWR and hourly Southern, the other Southern service to Dorking skipping the station.

Less than 5 minutes later 377608 & 377623 rolled in to take me to Leatherhead for a short fester before the main event with 377327, 377320 & 377102 on the Guildford service from London Bridge, a left over from ye olden days and a service which is meant to be axed come December, certainly it wasn’t that well used for the run towards Guildford, but nice to clear off the Southern route map for coverage by Southern services.  If that makes sense!  If I hung around for another 10 or so minutes the daily XC service was due to arrive (I passed it waiting for a platform on the next leg)

An unusual visitor

At Guildford it was onto 450039 & 450019 for the short run back to Woking, where I was going to wait for the next diesels, but 442420 & 442406 popped up so it was rude not to give the pigs another spin, although the sound of the motors were drown out by someone talking away on their phone, and at Basingstoke it was a short wait for 159106 & 159001 to take me back to Grateley.  For I was leaving my car at Andover as insurance for Sunday, overall a good little spin on the rails, the 455s were a tad warm so the AC on the 377s was nice, some more random platform scores along the way from when I visited the stations linearly due to there being no rovers for this area, a rare Friday night in my own bed!