12th February – A day trip to London

 12^th February – A day trip to London

 

When I was putting together my rough plan for February I misread the dates of a rugby match in Cardiff as I was originally going to be heading to Cardiff for a spot of 769 hunting, a bit of walking and hopefully the novelty factor of the afternoon 387 operated service back towards Bristol.  As the rugby was on, I decided to push that idea back and for lack of a better idea decided to head to London to do another canal walk along with some other bits & pieces.

 

The day began with the 06:59 service from Grateley, all the way into Waterloo on a single 159 which got quite busy at Basingstoke and was rather cosy at Woking.  At Waterloo I headed towards the Bakerloo line with a Bakerloo service to take me to Paddington where I had a couple options on how to reach Hayes & Harlington, deciding to take the 387s on the GWR service, solely to make use of the plug sockets to give my phone a little boost of electricity.  At Hayes, after a quick toilet break (better to have it at the start then get caught short along the way), I exited the station and headed towards the Grand Union Canal.

 

I joined the canal towpath and headed along the canal towards Southall, going over the Brentford goods line as it passes underneath a road bridge at what is known as Brunel’s Three Bridges (road over canal over railway).  I continued along the canal towpath reaching the Hanwell locks where the canal gave way to the River Brent, which was followed towards Brentford, going underneath the M4, & the Piccadilly Line near Boston Manor station.

 

 

Grand Union Canal at Windmill Bridge (Three Bridges)

Piccadilly Line viaduct

The path continued as the river reached Brentford itself, where I continued along the path to reach the River Thames (the path around Brentford is a bit jumpy in places due to construction work and parts which have closed for private moorings).  Once I reached the River Thames I followed the Thames Path heading towards Kew Bridge, passing both the islands of Lot’s Ait & Brentford Ait as I reached Kew Bridge, where I said farewell to the river (at some stage I will be back in this area on the South Bank).  I headed towards Kew Bridge station which was busy due to the kickball at the nearby Brentford football ground, quite a lot of police around as well.

 

At Kew Bridge station, a pair of 450s rolled in, which I took a single stop to Chiswick (making use of the toilet), where I exited the station to join a footpath which followed roughly alongside the railway line towards Barnes Railway Bridge, passing Barnes Bridge station and I continued along another footpath, doubling back via a Sainsburys local for lunch before reaching open ground at Vine Road Recreation Ground, which exited onto a road which has level crossings on both sides.  After a quick photo of a Kingston loop service I headed towards Barnes Common to reach Barnes station itself.  This is another area on my list to revisit as Barnes Common nature reserve looked quite nice.

 

455908 heading towards Mortlake near Barnes station

 

Next up for me was a pair of 458s to Wandsworth Town where once more I exited the station to head towards the River Thames, solely to tick off another part of the Thames Path, passing underneath Wansdworth Bridge (which was all wrapped up), reaching  the limited served Plantation Wharf Pier Riverboat stop (weekday peak times only I believe).  This is the area where last September I started from when I walked from Clapham towards Kensington Olympia on the day of the GBRF tour.

 

I headed away from the river back towards the railway line near Clapham Junction, but took a footpath called “Tours Passage” which runs alongside the railway line back towards Wandsworth Town, going via the roundabout which has the large advert structure within it.  I reached Wandsworth Town station to board a pair of 455s to take me towards Queenstown Road Battersea to simply step back to a pair of 458s behind as where I had a photo at Queenstown Road, it was a bit poor.  The 458s behind took me to Vauxhall where I headed to the Victoria Line to start playing with some trains, although the Victoria Line was quite slow to reach Kings Cross, kept stopping along the way like it had caught up with a train in front which was heavily delayed.

 

Sprinter in the sunshine

 

Anyhow at Kings Cross I headed towards the suburban platforms as the Moorgate 717s were running from this station today, the first towards Stevenage wasn’t needed so I gave that a miss to await the next service which was a low mileage 717022, annoyingly it was on 4 and a bit miles so the run to Alexandra Palace wouldn’t be enough so I took it to the edge of Zone 6 at Hadley Wood (the Welwyn trains pass each other between Alexandra Palace & New Southgate on Saturdays).  A short wait at Hadley Wood and I got lucky with a low mileage 717009 coming the other way.  I took this to Hornsey, where I will admit to getting confused why only the front 5 coaches are opened as both platforms can take all 6 coaches.

 

Next up was a little time wasting leap to Alexandra Palace giving 717013 a little boost, not enough to clear it for 10 miles but every little helps.  My luck ran out with another 717 (001) on the next London train which I took to Kings Cross, aiming to board the first of the evening’s Great Northern branded Peterborough semi-fast services (fast to Biggleswade) for I wanted to tick off Huntingdon to Peterborough for both 387 coverage and also 700 coverage (as I’ve only ever had 365s between those 2 stations for the “Great Northern/Thameslink” services.  I was a bit shocked when this turned out to be a 8 coach 700, so I turned it down to head back towards 717001 to take to Finsbury Park.

 

802304 passes Hornsey

 

The next Thameslink for Three Bridges rolled in on platform 2, which was low mileage 700138 which I took to Blackfriars, not enough to push it over ten miles but like with that 717 earlier, every little helps.  Another 700 took me back north to St Pancras where I had a slow walk over to Kings Cross, where a pair of 387s was on platform 10 to form the next Peterborough semi-fast.  I walked along the platform noticing that the coaches got quieter as I went along, and after a photo boarded the front coach which I had all to myself.

 

387124 at Kings Cross

 

The 387s departed, first stop Biggleswade and it was a nice speedy run, although went onto the slows at Knebworth and caught up with a late running Peterborough stopper, but still an enjoyable run as I always forget how far apart Huntingdon & Peterbrough actually are.  Anyhow at Peterborough I had a short walk to board the 700 on the next stopper back towards London and after checking RTT for any potential options at Stevenage (both LNER services were 91s) I sat down in the rear First Class area, getting surprised with a RPI check, before I relaxed for the run to Finsbury Park.  Had this service gone via London Bridge I would have done my usual move to London Bridge for something South Eastern to Waterloo East, but there was engineering works meaning Thameslink services were going on a little tour of South London.

 

I had a short wait at Finsbury Park for a Victoria Line service to take a service to Oxford Circus, followed by a Bakerloo to Waterloo, where I swung via Tesco to grab some food before boarding a single 159 on a Salisbury service which was full & standing on departure from Waterloo and only got busier at Clapham Junction.  Can’t help thinking SWR should remove the Woking call on these trains to get rid of any Woking passengers as they have lots of alternative services, or at least make it Pick-up only.

 

159107 at London Waterloo

 

Anyhow I made it back home at Grateley, followed by another short walk to get home, to relax and get myself ready for another busy day on the Sunday.