24th – 26th September – A weekend trip to Blackpool
My mum had always wanted to see the Blackpool Illuminations, after a tragic event earlier in the summer; I decided to treat her with a weekend trip to Blackpool so she can see the lights and have a weekend out of the house.
Friday
Due to engineering works on the Saturday, I decided it would be better to head up to London on the Friday night, staying in a hotel to reduce the replacement bus from Andover towards Guildford. It also gave my mum a chance to visit the Paddington Bear statue at Paddington. After some research I had booked the Premier Inn at Wembley Stadium as it was the cheapest option with good transport links for Euston on the Saturday morning.
The trip began with driving to Andover on the Friday evening (solely to assist on the Sunday, as we could just drive straight home rather than waiting for the train after we got dropped off by the replacement bus). I noticed the work around the freight area is nearly complete, as the first train of the trip arrived with a single 159 taken to Basingstoke where we went to the nearby KFC for some dinner (eating it on a bench on platform 4).
A GBRf 66 passing Basingstoke to pass the time
The next train was a 165 which was taken to Reading, as we sat in the declassified first class area as darkness slowly fell, a short wait at Reading before a busy pair of 800s rolled in from Swansea which took us towards Paddington, rolling into platform 2. A short walk took us towards platform 1 to look at the statue of the bear, before heading to the underground, jumping on the first train heading north, this being a Queens Park terminator, solely to get out of the warmth of the underground station.
This also turned out to be a good move, as it gave us a connection with an Overground service at Queens Park, with a 4 coach 710 taken to Wembley Central, and a short walk to the Premier Inn where we got checked in, dropping off the bags and headed out for a gentle walk around the stadium area itself, doing a loop of the stadium.
An Arch at some random football stadium
In my eyes it’s an area of contrast; one side is all residential apartment/leisure buildings mixed up with the designer outlet mall plus the old Wembley Arena, but walk around and you get industrial buildings (a cement works & warehouses). We returned back at the hotel to relax for the remainder of the evening, the shower not being that powerful (but I find those showers above baths which uses the same mixer as the taps never seen to be as powerful as standalone shower units).
The hotel was decent enough, a bit of noise from a nearby room as they returned from a night out, but hardly any outside noise, the AC took a while to get working but eventually cooled the room nicely. I will say in the morning I’ve had worse views to wake up to!
Saturday
An early start as we walked back towards Wembley Central station (I have no idea why we didn’t just use Wembley Stadium station itself, in hindsight), swinging via a Sainsburys Local along the way to pick up some breakfast. At Wembley Central we had a 10 minute wait before the next London Euston service would arrive, and this was a required 5 coach 710/3 (another one bites the dust). We took this unit all the way to Euston, which was quite busy so we headed outside for some fresh(ish) air before the Crewe train.
Heading back into the station and towards platform 12 where RTT was suggesting the Crewe train would be departing from. I noticed a Manchester train looking very busy with kickball fans so I was glad we weren’t on that service. The 350s rolled in and it was a 350/1 on the rear (happy days) and a horrible 3+2 seated 350/2 on the front (something which is completely unsuitable for such a lengthy journey, especially as it lacks tables). Needless to say we sat in the front coach of the 350/1 which was reasonably busy throughout the journey northbound towards Crewe. A ticket check after Rugby sounded like the guard caught at least 3 passengers out without tickets in the coach we were in, but other than that check that was the only time we saw the guard.
The journey continued towards Crewe, nothing unusual happening along the way (although I will say there was a couple females wearing clothing which appeared to be a bit on the tight side, especially as one seemed to have forgotten to wear a bra under that tight top). At Crewe it was a short walk over to platform 5 where we boarded a busy 9 coach Pendo, heading to coach A where it was quieter (Crewe was the first stop and we all know that some passengers will simply board the first available coach rather than walking too far). A speedy run towards Manchester Piccadilly where the train arrived a couple minutes ahead of schedule and we had a short walk over to platform 14 which had some delays caused by an EMR service from Norwich emptying out.
Next leg of the journey would be the final heavy rail service of the day with a pair of 331s (where RTT was only suggesting it was a single unit). This was another quite busy service but we managed to get a table in the front coach for the run all the way to Blackpool North, where all the passengers were sent via a side gate out of the station. We headed towards the large Sainsburys next to the station to grab lunch and made our slow way towards the sea front, going onto the North Pier with our tourist hats firmly on.
Blackpool Tower from the North Pier
After lunch was consumed on the North Pier, we returned to land and walked along the sea front towards Central Pier, before heading towards the guest house in the area near York Street (Foxhall Village was the name of the place I stayed). We checked into the guest house, before doing a bit of shopping, swinging via a Chinese restaurant to reserve a table for later before heading back towards the tramway. The initial idea was to head North but that tram was wedged out so we decided not to board, and instead headed south on another tram.
At Starr Gate we had a walk towards the sea front and along the path which was nice and quiet (compared to the main centre). We headed back to the tramway at Harrow Place to take another tram a couple stops north to South Pier to have an explore of that area (going onto the beach to walk underneath the pier before walking onto the pier itself). After the explore of the area around South Pier we headed back towards the Central Pier tram stop to head towards the restaurant (Red Pepper) for a lovely Chinese meal.
The sandy beach near Starr Gate
Darkness had fallen as we departed the restaurant, heading back towards the sea front dodging the many cars which had been parked everywhere (for the fireworks show), a little explore of Central Pier was cut short due to it being extremely busy so we headed along the sea front to reach Manchester Street tram stop to take a tram to Starr Gate, solely as a time wasting move before the booked Illuminations tram.
The northbound platform at Starr Gate was very busy, so we decided to take a walk towards Squires Gate station, solely for a couple photos to allow the crowds to go down on the tram platform. The road traffic was just chaotic with long queues heading towards the lights, with some traffic lights being turned off with manual traffic control. We returned back to Starr Gate station where it was quieter and waited for a tram to arrive, one arrived and disappeared towards the depot, before another arrival which transferred to the opposite platform but waited a good 10 minutes before departing.
Squires Gate Station from road bridge
This busy tram was taken a few stops to Pleasure Beach, departing rather busy, as we headed towards the loop where the Illuminations “Western Train” was waiting. We were booked on the 21:10 departure but due to the excessive crowds from the fireworks, the heritage trams were suspended for safety reasons, so the tram was the previous departure. We got let on and given a seat in the “train” section as it departed heading slowly northbound, having to keep stopping due to people stepping out in front of it due to the end of the fireworks.
Blackpool Tram 010 at Pleasure Beach
The good thing with the slow running is all the better to see the lights with and it did speed up after North Pier. Judging by the crowds waiting at all the stations, the next few regular trams would have been completely wedged out. The tram controlled north passing all the posher looking hotels and towards the loop at Little Bispham for a slow turn to head back south, stopping off at a couple of the stops for anybody to alight (which I think a few did, due to the late running of the service & crowding in the centre of town).
My mum and I, stayed on the tram to the end at Pleasure Beach, the service going a bit faster now the worse of the crowds had gone, where it would go out again (for the delayed 21:10). We headed towards the regular tram stop and waited 25 minutes for the next northbound service, which was busy when we boarded and extremely busy by the time it reached Central Pier (and looked like another tram was behind it, but as the Blackpool Tram stops don’t have any “next service” screens, the trams turn up when they want to [looking at the printed timetable, this time of night it was meant to be every 10 minutes].
Blackpool Western Train "Tram" at Pleasure Beach
After alighting from the tram at Central Pier, we made our way back towards the guest house, to relax for the remainder of the evening and after a busy day.
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Sunday
Morning arrived, and after sorting out the bags, we checked out of the guest house and headed to a nearby Café for a cooked breakfast. After this was consumed we headed towards the Central Pier to explore the pier when it was quiet, walking right to the end before coming back to land. I made a stupid mistake in assuming the pick-up point of a coastal heritage tour was at Pleasure Beach, so we headed towards Pleasure Beach and after a walk around the area, headed towards the loop.
Blackpool High Tide Organ
I looked at my emails, discovered that the pick-up point was actually North Pier and headed back to the tram stop, but sadly due to a gap by the time the next tram arrived to take us to North Pier the booked open top boat-tram which was meant to go all the way to Fleetwood had already departed. However the kind staff allowed us onto a “prom” tour, operated by “Bolton 66”, a double decker tram which had a lot of character (first built in 1901).
The “Prom” tours follow the route taken by the Illuminations tour, towards the loop after Little Bispham to come back south, with a running race happening on the road alongside the tram tracks (a 10K). The old tram continued southwards to do the loop south of Pleasure Beach before returning towards the North Pier stop where we exited the tram and I managed to get a couple photos before it departed back towards Little Bispham.
Blackpool Tram "Bolton 66" at North Pier Stop
With a couple hours to make our way back towards Blackpool North station, we decided it would be a good time to head towards the North Pier to have some lunch from a cafe before making our slow way back towards the station, swinging via the large Sainsburys for a drink. We entered Blackpool North and took a seat watching as the queue for the York train grew and grew, but once boarding started (around 10 minutes before departure) we headed to the front coach which was empty. Looked like most of the crowd did the usual boarding at the first available set of doors!
We took this 3 coach 195 to Preston where we had around 30 minutes to wait before the next London bound Avanti service which called at Crewe. I was a bit shocked that nobody was sitting in our reserved seats on a table in coach B, but sadly the plug sockets were deader than a dodo. A reasonably busy 11 coach Pendo which did empty out at Crewe (as this one goes on a tour of the West Midlands it gets overtaken by 2 more Pendos from Crewe and even the Trent Valley semifast!). We made our way over to platform 7, but my luck had run out for the next London Euston train was a pair of 350/2s, 8 coaches of luxurious 3+2 seating.
195125 at Preston
The train did get quite busy (at least in the front coach), although where the guard did make an appearance he had no ticket machine to catch several people boarding at Stafford heading towards Rugeley, a couple who did a sudden U-turn when they saw him at the front of the train at Stafford. It was delayed by around 7 minutes due to being held at Milton Keynes for a late running Pendo from Manchester, but nothing out of the ordinary happened.
At Euston it was straight towards the underground and onto the Northern line to Waterloo, where we popped to Tesco for some dinner before making our way back to the station. We were aiming for the 19:30 Portsmouth train to take us to Guildford, but both the 19:00 Portsmouth stopper & 19:04 Weymouth service were delayed, so we jumped onto a busy pair of 450s on the Portsmouth train, finding an empty bay in the front coach where we had the food as the train headed towards Guildford via Cobham [due to everybody’s favourite, engineering works].
Once we exited Guildford station and found our way to the replacement bus stops (which had been marked up in zones to where the buses were meant to go), it was a scene of chaos with crowds waiting for buses which were either running late or not running at all. A few rolled in, but all were heading towards Woking, a little service bus rolled in for somewhere else (Weybridge I think). Eventually a coach rolled in with someone asking the driver where he was going “Basingstoke” before people started to board before the poor member of staff trying to deal with it came over to get them off the bus for it was for Overton, Whitchurch & Andover passengers first of all.
Not a replacement bus, but an old tram!
We managed to get onto the coach, and it was quite a decent coach for the interior (other than reading lights which couldn’t be turned off), decent legroom with the seats. Other than making use of the A331 to reach the M3 I have no idea on the route as I was too busy reading someone on my tablet! At Basingstoke the bus got lost trying to follow a couple road diverts due to a couple places being closed for road works, which lost time, so by the time it eventually reached Andover I think the train was pulling out (a few attempted to run across to the station from the bus stop, but I think looking at RTT it was in vain. As that was the last train which went beyond Salisbury I suspect there would be a few taxi claims!
So
in way we were lucky that I decided to
drive to the station on Friday, as it meant we could simply walk back towards
the car, dump the bags in the boot (change my walking boots to some old
trainers) and drive home, no needing to wait for the next train. Overall a nice little weekend trip to
Blackpool, as away from the centre of town where it’s drunk central it is a
nice little town, bit of history with the piers, old trams and some nice
beaches. We got lucky with the weather as it was still warm and dry when we were at Blackpool, Sunday morning was a bit windy but the sun soon came out to play.
Beach at the far end of the Central Pier looking north.
