Trips 20 - 22 September

 Trips 20 - 22 September

20th September – An unexpected afternoon/evening in London

Unexpected because I wasn’t expecting to be finished work before 1pm on the Friday, and whilst I was in London it felt a waste to head home so I decided to break out my little red pen with a focus on the C2C 720s as I still needed 11 out of the 12 and I knew some only come out to work a single service in the evening peak.  But first as I was at Clapham, I noticed the next Weybridge service was a pair of 458/4s I needed for renumbering so I jumped onto 458412 & 458413 to Kew Bridge for a short wait for 458408 & 458421 back towards Barnes (to inspect the new footbridge being installed making life a lot easier for the “this is a platform change” announcements which can happen (as it’s a bit of a hike between platforms 1 & 2 at the moment.

450095 & 450003 arrived on the next Weybridge service which took me back to Kew Bridge for another short wait before dud 458426 arrived with winner 458428 on the rear for the run to Vauxhall, using the reversal line around Queenstown Road due to signalling issues (and platform 1 at Vauxhall).  I headed to the underground to jump on the first available Victoria line service (11048/11047) to Euston where I had a slow walk to the main concourse to board 350242 & 350120 on a Tring service to take me to Harrow & Wealdstone, where after a couple of passing freight trains winner 730039 rolled in along with dud 730042 on the “all-day” 730 WCML diagram, a recovery from the previous Friday when this unit went nonstop from Tring due to late running.

458428 departing Vauxhall

These 730s took me to Euston where I headed to the underground (swinging via the ticket office to buy my ranger for the Saturday as there was no queue) before jumping on the first available Northern line service to Bank.  Always a nice bonus when a sub mile LU set pops up on a required move with a busy 51606/51605, and I exited the station at Bank and walked to Fenchurch Street (via a Tesco Express), as I had the time to kill before the next 720 departure.

I arrived at Fenchurch Street to see the Pride 357; sadly, no good picture due to the angle of the sun but good to see it in the metal.  A short while later winner 720610 rolled in from the depot to take me to Upminster where I headed across the footbridge to intercept winners 720611 & 720604 on a service from Shoeburyness to take me to the island platform at West Ham for a short (10 minute) wait before winners 720603 & 720601 rolled in on another Shoeburyness service, first stop Upminster.

720610 departing Upminster

These 720s arrived ahead of schedule to allow me a fast walk over the footbridge making a 0-minute connection onto 357312 & 357014 back towards West Ham where thanks to a slightly late running service in front I made the +1 onto winners 720607 & 720609 which annoyingly was first stop Laindon (thankfully e-tickets were available).  I can’t remember the last time I did Upminster nonstop but it wasn’t a fast service due to following that late running pair of 357s for Pitsea (via Ockendon).  I left the train at Laindon for a short 15-minute wait before winners 720605 & 720602 rolled in to take me towards Chalkwell, pushing both units over 10 miles.

A beautiful sunset awaited me at Chalkwell as I had around 15 minutes to wait before 720611 rolled in on the next Fenchurch Street service to take me to West Ham in darkness.  Annoyingly none of the sockets were working on the units today (both 3 pin & USB) so I’ve got no idea if C2C has disabled them for some reason.  Anyhow I was happy as my list of wanted C2C 720s had been slashed to just 606 & 608, neither of which were out that evening but 2 is better than 11.

Chalkwell Sunset

 

At West Ham I transferred with the extra long walk to the jubilee line platforms for 96028 & 96065 on the first available service to take me to Waterloo for a short wait before 159008 & 159010 took me to Grateley on the 20:20 service, departing a couple of minutes late due to only arriving at 20:18 (so a fast turnaround, and thankfully unlike the 19:20 service no stops were ripped out).  At Grateley I headed home to sort my rucksack out ready for an early start on the Saturday.

21th September – Exploring the Wombourne Branch Line

The Wombourne Branch Line previously ran from Wolverhampton towards Stourbridge Junction where passenger services only survived a mere 7 years in the early 20th century.  It has since been turned into a mixed used path called the Wolverhampton Railway Walk & South Staffordshire Railway Walk.  Anyhow the day began with a drive to Andover as due to engineering works Salisbury was closed and I don’t trust replacement buses (and also my car needed a nice little drive).

It was onto 159107 working the 06: XX service from Andover to Basingstoke for a short wait before 220023 & 220013 rolled in on a Manchester bound service.  The front unit was locked out of use until Reading due to not having a member of staff in that section (sadly not the first time it has happened with XC), I managed to grab an unreserved seat for the run towards Wolverhampton the train only filling up at Coventry (with the majority of those passengers boarding at Coventry alighting at Birmingham New Street).  At Wolverhampton I grabbed some supplies for lunch before meeting up with my good friend Jan who was going to be my guide to his local disused railway route.

As the railway line walk began in the Aldersley area of the city, the first section was a walk along the Birmingham Canal Navigation passing the remains of an old railway turntable of this urban canal (which did have some nice railway bridges along the way).  Soon we reached Aldersley junction where the Birmingham canal meets up with the Staffordshire & Worcestershire canal, meaning I could add another canal I can add to my list of completed canal walks.

Railway bridge over the Birmingham Canal

We followed the Staffordshire & Worcestershire canal a short distance before picking up a footpath which made use of the old railway embankment near the former junction (near Oxley Traincare depot), the footpath turning into the cycle path near the leisure centre.  Passing the remains of Tettenhall station, the station building now a café before crossing over the closed towpath of the canal (signs said towpath improvement works) with the old railway line path moving away from the canal as it headed towards Castlecroft and exiting the Wolverhampton area (where the name also changed to being the South Staffordshire Railway Walk).

The path was quite nice in places, some lovely trees in some cuttings and some open farm land in other places.  Quite well used with a reasonable surface, some areas were a bit muddy but that was to be expected after all the recent heavy rain.  The rural countryside ended with Wombourne itself, with the former station being used as another café and we paused for some lunch at a handy bench.

Compton Halt railway station

Resuming the walk after lunch the path returned to being a bit more rural as it passed the remains of the platform at Himley where the cycle path surface suddenly comes to an end with the next section being a bit wilder (in terms of being a bit overgrown in places).  We reached a footbridge where we decided to pause due to the rain getting heavy as a thunderstorm passed over trapping us under that bridge for a good 20 minutes watching the rain hammering down, turning the path we had just walked into a river.  Thankfully the thunderstorm ended allowing us to continue the walk towards Brierley Hill going via the Buckpool and Fens Pool Local Nature Reserve with the railway walk ending in an industrial estate the walk itself ending at a handy bus stop on Dudley Road near an old looking Travelodge.

We didn’t have long to wait for the next National Express West Midlands operated route 6 bus arrived (double decker 4752) to take us to Stourbridge Interchange where I parted ways with Jan using the Wolverhampton bus and I headed to Stourbridge Town to catch 139001 the short distance to Stourbridge Junction for 172213 & 172340 on the next service towards Birmingham Moor Street where I exited the station, making my way across to New Street via Poundland to pick up some more drink before boarding winners 730032 & 730033 on a Bromsgrove service to take me to Barnt Green, swinging via a handy Tesco Express when doing a little loop before dud 730016 arrived from Redditch with winner 730030 on the rear to take me back to Birmingham New Street where I had to cut my adventures short due to a cancellation of a XC service the hour later.

139001 at Stourbridge Town

I had a short wait at Birmingham New Street positioning myself near the front of the train so when 221119 rolled in from Manchester I was able to grab a decent table seat in coach B to relax as the train took me back towards Basingstoke arriving near enough on time, where I could change to board the Andover shuttle which was 159107 & 159018 which took me back to Andover where I walked back to the car and drove home.  A nice day with my good friend Jan, chatting about various bits & pieces plus a mostly enjoyable railway line walk, other than the last section where we had to dodge the rivers after the thunderstorm.

22nd September – Visiting the museum in Acton

The idea for today only came up when the weather forecast was predicting rain, rain & more rain around Dorset and when I saw the London Transport Museum was having an open day at their Acton depot, I decided it would be a nice treat for both myself & mum.  The day starting with a drive to Andover to pick up 159018 & 159107 working the shuttle to Basingstoke where we changed to board 444026 & 444045 working Basingstoke – London shuttles (in the path of the 1L trains, and unlike the Saturday these were a better connection with the shuttles to/from Andover).

We were in coach 6 of 10 and it was empty, although the train did get delayed departing Basingstoke due to a 450+444 combo from the Southampton direction being late (which looked quite busy), losing a bit more time around Woking before passing the 450+444 combo near Weybridge.  We took this service to Waterloo where after visiting Sainsburys for some brunch supplies headed towards the low numbered platforms to board 450020 & 450111 on a diverted Reading train which was going via Kingston (reversing at Twickenham) due to the lines in the Putney area being closed.  This train got quite busy as I decided to alight at Strawberry Hill for no reason other than wanting some better photos and that the next train, we wanted was starting from the bay platform at Kingston.

450111 departing Strawberry Hill

Next up was 450113 & 450085 on a Barnes terminator to take us to Richmond where we changed to the Overground with 378202 taken to South Acton, taking the short walk towards Acton Town & the museum depot arriving in good time, so before heading in taking a little spin on the miniature railway they have on the outside of the depot.  After that spin, we headed into the museum to have a look around at various artefacts which is a well worthy trip if you like old tube trains and various old buses (plus other railway related stuff).  We even got lucky to get a seat for a talk by Tim Dunn about the Secrets of the Underground.

Anyhow trip to the museum was over and we headed towards Acton Town, jumping on a Piccadilly line service with 876 & 203 to Baron’s Court, crossing platform to board the next District line service which was formed of 21518 & 21517 to Earl’s Court where the district line was in a bit of a pickle on the Wimbledon branch due to some faulty signals between East Putney & Wimbledon.  Eventually 21411 & 21412 rolled in on a Wimbledon service with some good announcements from the driver about the harsh braking as he was instructed to pass the signals at danger (I presume some sort of Emergency Special Working) with the train’s safety system kicking in automatically.

London General Omnibus Company Horse bus at Acton Museum Depot

At Wimbledon, we transferred to the trams with tram 2537 taken to Wellesley Road (featuring some revenue staff boarding near Reeves Corner to catch out those whom think payment is optional), where we headed to Wendy’s for dinner before heading to East Croydon station jumping onto 377147 & 377461 on a service from East Grinstead (my theory is those services are quieter than the ones from the Gatwick direction due to not carrying passengers from the airport).  At Clapham we transferred to platform 9 boarding a busy 444010 & 444009 on a Wareham service for the trip to Basingstoke (managed to get some decent seats in the leading coach).

The final train of this weekend’s adventure was 159020 & 159007 working the other pair of units on Andover – Basingstoke shuttle services today, taking us to Andover where the departure screen was awashed with cancellations for the replacement buses, with no coaches in sight when we headed to the car to drive home.  The end of a good day and a good weekend getting myself ready for an important week at work.  Thanks for reading :)