168lover
Member
After spending many months reading various other people's reports I have decided to start doing my own. A quick shoutout to Techniquest, Kite 159 and Fishquinn for giving me the inspiration to start doing my own!
168 Lover and the search for the golden 68 PART 1(10/3/15)
As many of you know, I have been planning a trip up to London for many weeks and yesterday was finally the day I did it.
My day started with my alarm clock awaking me at 08:15, a quick shower then followed,breakfast and I was out the door by 09:15. The nice walk down to High Wycombe station woke me fully up and by the time I got to the station I was raring to go. But here was the thing. I had arrived at the station half an hour before my train, oops I thought. Never the less I purchased my travelcard,£11.25 Bargain!!! and went to wait over on Platform 3 for my train to London. The half hour wait was spent listening to music and watching the various expresses going to and from london to Birmingham. Finally the 09:53 formed of 168218 arrived to whisk me away to London. As it was one of the first off peak trains and it was only 3 coaches it was packed to the rafters. The journey up to London was spent checking to see if everything was running smoothly in London, it was. Going past wembley yard I noted 68012 and 008 parked up not doing anything. Just outside maylebone we waited for a couple of minutes to let a 165 leave the platform we were going into. The first thing I noticed when we arrived into Marylebone was 68013 waiting to form the 10:45 to Birmingham, I thought may as well get a picture of it. After I took a picture I headed down to the Bakerloo line to go to paddington. The second I walked onto the platform a train pulled in, luck or what!. Anyway a quick ride over to Paddington insued and I was up on the concourse 15 minutes after arriving into Marylebone. I scouted the departure board for any services that were going to anywhere in the travelcard zones. I eventually settled on the 10:42 to Reading formed of 166205(Declassified first class!!!) calling at Ealing Broadway only as far as Southall because I wanted to see Southall WRC after hearing that they got banned from operating services the previous week. Passing old oak common I noted drs 57306 who presomably worked the nightriveria earlier that morning and a 332 stripped of vodafone vinyls which looked wierd. Southall WRC looked busy full of various carriages. A short time later I arrived at Southall. Now I decided on Southall as it had a ten minute connection onto a heathrow connect service back into Paddington. The service was formed of 360202 with the number on the front on a different place. Back into Paddington and I decided on a early lunch, a whsmith meal deal later I went to board the Chiltern Parlymentary to West Ruislip, when I went to put my ticket through the barrier it got rejected so I went to ask the FGW gateline assistant. He didn't see to know about the parylimentary so after he eventually let me through I had only 2 minutes to run over to P14 to board the 11:36 to West Ruislip formed of super dud 165012. It was wierd to be on a chiltern service on the GWML but it got even more wierd when we left the GWML and joined the line to Ruislip that ran alongside the central line. After 25 minutes or so 165012 arrived into South Ruislip, I had decided to try a 2 minute connection onto a service back into Marylebone, I made 165008 just as the doors were closing. Onboard I tried to relax a bit after a busy couple hours, but this was hard as 165s aren't exactly built for comfort. Back into Marylebone and the time had come to go over to St Pancras to have a go on the 395s. As the weather had suddenly become really warm I decided that walking to Baker Street and getting the circle line over to St Pancras was alot better than contending with the bakerloo line. The walk over to Baker street took around 5 minutes and at Baker Street I was straight onto a piece of plastic otherwise known as an S stock.
168 Lover and the search for the golden 68 PART 1(10/3/15)
As many of you know, I have been planning a trip up to London for many weeks and yesterday was finally the day I did it.
My day started with my alarm clock awaking me at 08:15, a quick shower then followed,breakfast and I was out the door by 09:15. The nice walk down to High Wycombe station woke me fully up and by the time I got to the station I was raring to go. But here was the thing. I had arrived at the station half an hour before my train, oops I thought. Never the less I purchased my travelcard,£11.25 Bargain!!! and went to wait over on Platform 3 for my train to London. The half hour wait was spent listening to music and watching the various expresses going to and from london to Birmingham. Finally the 09:53 formed of 168218 arrived to whisk me away to London. As it was one of the first off peak trains and it was only 3 coaches it was packed to the rafters. The journey up to London was spent checking to see if everything was running smoothly in London, it was. Going past wembley yard I noted 68012 and 008 parked up not doing anything. Just outside maylebone we waited for a couple of minutes to let a 165 leave the platform we were going into. The first thing I noticed when we arrived into Marylebone was 68013 waiting to form the 10:45 to Birmingham, I thought may as well get a picture of it. After I took a picture I headed down to the Bakerloo line to go to paddington. The second I walked onto the platform a train pulled in, luck or what!. Anyway a quick ride over to Paddington insued and I was up on the concourse 15 minutes after arriving into Marylebone. I scouted the departure board for any services that were going to anywhere in the travelcard zones. I eventually settled on the 10:42 to Reading formed of 166205(Declassified first class!!!) calling at Ealing Broadway only as far as Southall because I wanted to see Southall WRC after hearing that they got banned from operating services the previous week. Passing old oak common I noted drs 57306 who presomably worked the nightriveria earlier that morning and a 332 stripped of vodafone vinyls which looked wierd. Southall WRC looked busy full of various carriages. A short time later I arrived at Southall. Now I decided on Southall as it had a ten minute connection onto a heathrow connect service back into Paddington. The service was formed of 360202 with the number on the front on a different place. Back into Paddington and I decided on a early lunch, a whsmith meal deal later I went to board the Chiltern Parlymentary to West Ruislip, when I went to put my ticket through the barrier it got rejected so I went to ask the FGW gateline assistant. He didn't see to know about the parylimentary so after he eventually let me through I had only 2 minutes to run over to P14 to board the 11:36 to West Ruislip formed of super dud 165012. It was wierd to be on a chiltern service on the GWML but it got even more wierd when we left the GWML and joined the line to Ruislip that ran alongside the central line. After 25 minutes or so 165012 arrived into South Ruislip, I had decided to try a 2 minute connection onto a service back into Marylebone, I made 165008 just as the doors were closing. Onboard I tried to relax a bit after a busy couple hours, but this was hard as 165s aren't exactly built for comfort. Back into Marylebone and the time had come to go over to St Pancras to have a go on the 395s. As the weather had suddenly become really warm I decided that walking to Baker Street and getting the circle line over to St Pancras was alot better than contending with the bakerloo line. The walk over to Baker street took around 5 minutes and at Baker Street I was straight onto a piece of plastic otherwise known as an S stock.
