That EMT guy at Luton sounds utterly ridiculous! He must live in Luton
. The Sheerness locals just sound weird anyway. Days 8 and 9 sound like an utter waste though.
Free travel to/from to London and an insistence that we used mainline rail wherever possible to avoid me paying anyhing at all extra as well as the aforementioned scores meant that they were actually a very enjoyable two days! You'll understand in a few years time, but I do get your literal screaming at me not burning through 14 days of non stop scoring on a £477 ticket
Days 10-12 should be more up your street, some nice long GWR tram moves and some crazy long days! (8:59 to 23:45, 5:53 to 1:06 and 5:09 to 21:37)
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ALR Day 10- 30/08/16
I woke up at 0700 on day 10, to my absolute horror. You see, I’d had a late finish the previous day (2250ish arrival at Newcastle) and had even fallen asleep on the Voyager home, waking up once we’d actually arrived at our final destination! Seems I was absolutely knackered as on day 8 I’d still ended up catching the 0855 to York, thence Leeds and Bradford Interchange onwards to London, and was awake until about midnight that day (we did the Shard at night, which I’d highly recommend!) before a trudge back up north the next night after a more relaxed day around Richmond Park. Back to the present, I had intended to catch the 0559 to Kings Cross, but was instead resigned to the 0859 and to run three hours later throughout, caping the Harwich Branch as an idea, and some intermediate shacks on the GEML. A bus ride later, it was time to catch duds
43272/43307 down to London, on a very busy service which was thankfully not affected by any delays, so it was an 1149 arrival and I needed to be at Liverpool Street pronto. However, I needed to top up my Oyster, and when I saw the queues for the machines in the tube station I opted for the machines in St Pancras Thameslink office, which all rejected cash!
‘F**** piece of f*** s***’, I mumble to myself, already rather ticked off from the accidental late start. Double duds
387101/387129 were taken to Farringdon out of sheer desperation where I thankfully located machines to top up my Oyster, and take the tube to Liverpool Street where the fun could begin. Or not, because Anglia was an absolute mess. Just my luck. Norwich services were caped, Southend ones were pulled, but there was a Clacton operating albeit with a delay. Now quite literally wanting to scream, double winners
315852/315854 were taken to Stratford just to let Liverpool Street stop collapsing in on itself with the mess of services. It was also far nicer waiting around in the sunshine there, where eventually, at around 1230, double winners
360101/360103 were taken all the way to shack 1, Clacton-on-Sea. It was a reasonable enough journey of 65 miles to the seaside resort, where I noted one of the really stupid arrangements of keeping pax in a holding pen before departure. Thankfully, it was a short wait there before I re-joined
360103 only for the journey back to shack 2, Thorpe-le-Soken.
This was a nice filler move until the Walton train, as I caught the Colchester stopper to the forlorn but amusingly named shack 3, Weeley, which was formed of winner
321440. It was then another short wait until winner
321334 rolled in for the run to Walton-on-the-Naze, shack number 4. To be honest, I was just shocked at how much fare evasion went on! A woman with two kids was pulled off at Thorpe, and another bloke was absolutely flattened by a group of RPIs after boarding at Frinton without a ticket. On arrival at Walton, there was a 10 minute turn around, so I went for a look at the place itself. The answer is that there’s not an awful lot, and I wouldn’t really recommend it. If you’re intent on an Essex seaside resort, go to Southend or something
Back on the bin, and it was time to perform a nice clever move. I jumped off at Thorpe-le-Soken, and opted for winners
360104/360112 with dud
360101 tacked on for the run to shack 5, Wivenhoe.
Why was this clever? The ex-Walton train runs behind the ex-Clacton, so I stepped onto dud
321334 once more, this time through to Colchester, scoring the track via Colchester Town this time. Next up for line of attack was a few stops on the GEML, and dud (really? I’ve had ONE of these!)
90009 was duly taken to shack 6, Chelmsford. Thankfully, it provided a relief and allowed me to charge my phone a little before a hasty dive under the platforms and onto dud
360103 which had brought along winner
360114 this time, for the run to Witham, shack 7. I was actually so out of it that I almost continued onwards to Kelvedon on these, but jumped off at the last second before crossing over and awaiting treble winners
360105/360108/360120 for the hop to shack 8, Hatfield Peverel. This was a fairly basic shack, nice long platform, transfer at the London end (just in case anyone ends up in Coach 12 on a London bound service!) It wasn’t long until busy double winners
321333/321433 rolled in, taking me up the branch to Braintree, which was shack number 9. This indeed just left Harwich to get, but I wanted to make the most of the peak, so once we arrived at Braintree, which is a nice short little branch, albeit slightly slow getting onto the GEML, I took the two bins back to Witham.
Double winners
321324/321425 were my haulage to Shenfield, where my focus for the evening was to start. And that was indeed on the Southend Victoria line! First up were treble winners
321306/321354/321364, and they were taken to shack 10, Billericay. My strategy for the line was simple. Linear moves. It was every 10 minutes with generally 12*321 and 8*321 workings, whereas the London bound services tended to be 4*321 every 20 minutes. The minor delays on each service meant that I was rarely hanging around and next up was another treble winner formation,
321348/321435/321446. These were taken to shack 11, Wickford, where I struck lucky with the vending machine
I basically spotted a bag of Maltesers hanging off the hook in the machine, so I stuck a quid in and was indeed rewarded with two bags! Not bad at all. Winners
321337/321341/321363 were next, and it was here that I noted I’d have to forego a shack in order to stay on with the 10 minute frequency and in order to be able to get the two TFL shacks I needed.
Rayleigh was sacrificed so next up was shack 12, Hockley. It was a short wait here for double winners
321358/321442 down to shack 13, Rochford, where I decided to run down to the Sainsbury’s and prepare myself suitably for the next couple of days. I bought a massive 2L bottle of water and a 1L bottle of flavoured water, and shoved them in my bag. There, that solves the need for drinks for the last few days
Indeed, they did actually last the entirety of days 10-12 up until the evening of 12, so good move there for something like £1.04! Winners
321349/321426 were then next up to shack 13, Southend Airport, where I pondered going over to Southend Central and getting a couple of c2c shacks in for the evening, but the sun was now setting over the runway and it was getting on for 20:30, so I thought it sensible to stick with the GEML instead. Sadly, it was duds
321333/321433 taken to shack 15, Prittlewell, where I noted the long wait on my hands, so I walked to Southend Victoria. It was a decent enough walk, fairly simple, but only necessary with a massive gap in service (I had a 20 minute wait and the service that formed that one missed the outbound one at Southend by a minute or so). It was a stroll around the now full EMU sidings and into a dark Southend Victoria, shack 16, for dud
321458 which was taken to Shenfield.
Winner
315843 trailing dud
315836 was first up for the hop to shack 17, Brentwood, which wasn’t the most inviting shack. I had a quick poke outside, but by the time I was back on the platform, winners
315834/315840 were taking me one stop to shack 18, Harold Wood, which then saw me clearing TFL Rail for shacks. Another short wait here, and I ended up going for winner
315837 leading dud
315818 towards Stratford, for one last go on the bins. This was something like the 21:53 service, so I was content with winner
321355 trailing dud
321330 into Liverpool Street, where I wasn’t content with the bog standard route to Paddington, so I took a Central Line to shack 19, Lancaster Gate, for the short walk to KFC by Paddington for a most welcome late dinner.
At about 22:50, I had a look around Paddington to see if there was much interest, before retiring to dud
57603 (I was firmly stuck with this one!) and my seat in Coach A. It had been a good day, and I was now ready for a good nights sleep, which is exactly what I got because I was knackered! I didn’t wake until we were practically at Plymouth, which was good because I was ready to get bashing, the time now approaching 0510.
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ALR Day 11- 31/08/16
I was tempted to catch the 0530 to Paddington even to Newton Abbot, but I was intent on napping a little so I hung around to catch the 0553 straight through, which had double winners
43056/43172 today. You see, I had no intention of spending another day in Devon, and was off back to the South East once more, this time to Reading. It was good run, with a beautiful sunrise over Dawlish and Exmouth, and not too many folk on board, calling only at Newton Abbot, Exeter, Taunton and Reading. Here, I was resigned to a wait for the next North Downs Line service, but as it happened, the fast Gatwick had been delayed inbound, so I managed to make winner
166218 by the skin of my teeth. I ended up getting off at Guildford, and was pondering over whether to do the shacks via Cobham and Stoke d’Abernon and Leatherhead both ways, but instead decided to take winners
455712/455902 all the way through to shack 1, Epsom, as I wanted track first.
It then wasn’t long until winners
377603/377605 were taken up to Sutton, completing my last non-branch track on Southern in the zones (Epsom Downs and Tattenham remain needed!) but I wasn’t keen to hang around, and took dud
455814 on the 69 chains to shack 2, Cheam, just to get it done. I went in search of a suitable shop for food, but to no real avail (there were corner shops but not lots in them) and instead headed back for winner
377702 to shack 3, Ashtead. A linear move was easily executed here, onto winner
455742 trailing dud
455750 to shack 4, Leatherhead. I was meant to do a linear move here again, but the 455s heading the other way caught my eye, and in the end it made a for a good filler move, which was back to Ashtead on winner
455873 leading dud
455864. Back on track, and it was winner
455872 leading dud
455904 through to shack 5, Dorking. That’s where the SWT action ended for the day, leaving me in the hands of Southern, which was a very risky move!
I did however have 20 minutes until the Horsham service, so I went for a walk to shack 6, Dorking Deepdene, returning with a few minutes to spare for winners
377601/377610 to shack 7, Horsham. I’ll say it now, the Mole Valley Line is underrated. It was actually a beautiful run, probably helped by me having the entire carriage to myself, and me being very thankful of the sockets on board! That, and I was in Coach 10, so had a nice peaceful journey considering that Ockley, Warnham, etc. were too short for the train. Soon we were arriving into Horsham, and a swift change was made onto winners
377113/377164 to Gatwick Airport. I’m not sure why I went all the way through to here as I don’t need the track, but there must have been some sort of logic in it! I think it was because it was a fast service, I needed to position myself for a slow service in the right way to score all the shacks I needed.
Whatever the event, it was a short wait at Gatwick for winners
377161/377433 to shack 8, Ifield. This was rather ramshackle, but I went for a quick sugar boost from the local petrol station before winners
377128/377163 turned up for the hop to shack 9, Crawley. The short wait here was occupied by a high old woman ranting about how awful her life was, with clearly wealthy tourists looking on in clear distaste at the locals
Double winners
377140/377442 were once more taken to Horsham, purely because the last shack on this line for me today (Faygate is a pain and peak only so that was getting left alone) was best approached from that side. No surprise when duds
377161/377433 were in charge for the run to shack 10, Littlehaven, but more of a surprise when it had a level crossing that took my +4 down to an ‘oh my god run for your life’ changeover, as they didn’t come up until winner
377120 trailing dud
377466 was at the platform! Thankfully I ran rather fast, ducking under the barrier as it started to lift all too slowly, running down the platform and onto the back door of the train.
Soon we were back at Horsham and it was winners
377101/377110 to shack 11, Three Bridges, where I had a new line of attack. Unamusingly, the 700 worked service pulled up dud
700107 which was taken down to shack 12, Haywards Heath. It was however rather well loaded, so clearly the length of the train was being put to good use! It was another linear move next, which was meant to be a Thameslink service to Brighton. Imagine my confusion when Southern winner
377405 turned up to take me to shack 13, Burgess Hill! I was also rather concerned by the 4 coach formation, but all seemed to be content on board, with plenty seats free. Clearly the 700 had swallowed up everyone! It was another single 377 next, but this time scoring new track round the curve to shack 14, Hove. Winner
377456 was my haulage there, and I intended to have a pootle around on the West Coastway, but something had caused the service to fall over, so I just settled on taking dud
313212 to shack 15, Portslade, where it was a very hasty change onto winner
313206 to Brighton.
Now, I had an issue, which was that nothing was due out for a while with the ex West Worthing basically missing every conceivable connection. So, I nipped into Tesco, grabbed a sandwich, before embarking on the walk to London Road, shack 16. It was rather hilly but I made the next Seaford service in good time (or wherever they’re going this week, might have been Lewes!) which was in the form of winner
313208 down to shack 17, Falmer. I’d hit university kicking out time or whatever the heck was going on, so the run on winner
377474 to shack 18, Moulsecoomb, was rather cosy. It was also a rather long wait, as I awaited the return of said 377 for the run to Lewes. Back to the BML now, with winner
377452 providing the haulage to shack 19, Wivelsfield. Highlight of the journey was the announcement ‘I’m your guard, and I’m here to answer any questions you may have. That is, about the railway, as opposed to general knowledge.’
I was awaiting the Pig working, so a linear move at Wivelsfield worked just fine. Annoyingly, the 700 that turned up was dud
700114! So basically I’ve had 114, then 107, then 107 again, then 114 again in terms of 700s so far! However, I was much more satisfied with the sight of winners
442406/442417 working the London Bridge service, and they were taken through for the fast run to East Croydon. Just in time for rush hour, and I wasn’t in any mood to hang around, ending up on treble duds
377161/377433/377457 to shack 20, Merstham. It was then a subsequent short wait until winners
377142/377151 trailing dud
377422 arrived for the journey to shack 21, Salfords. This was a very amusing wait, as the fasts were clagged up with services, and one could see a queue of services both ways at a stand, while the slows were flowing freely! Salfords was also rather ramshackle, being covered in grass and having a very rickety footbridge, but it wasn’t long until winner
377112 trailing duds
377120/377466 took me to shack 22, Horley.
It was time to head back now, as much as I’d have loved to have nabbed Earlswood and finished up totally between Victoria and Three Bridges via both routes, I had to be back in Reading and subsequently Plymouth for the sleeper. Dud
377128 was my delayed haulage to shack 23, Redhill, where dud
166218 was waiting for me. It was good timing leaving now, as the service was starting to fall over and indeed my 166 was meant to have started at Gatwick but was turned at Redhill just to avoid the 377s which were starting to stack. It was a pleasant run in the ex First Class section through to Reading, clearing Guildford-Redhill for track in the process, and giving me a chance to source food. ‘Ooh, I feel like a Burger King’ I think, walking over to it and getting ignored by staff behind the counter! I waited around for five minutes before giving up and saying ‘sure, whatever!’ to the staff member staring blankly at the wall in the background, grabbing a dodgy corner shop sandwich and a samosa instead. It’d have to do as I was running out of time for the 2112 to Plymouth, formed of double winners
43156/43168.
I was out cold after Westbury and ended up being woken up by an older bloke who wanted to know if I wanted Exeter. As it happens, I did, because my service got to Plymouth too late for the sleeper! (Something like 0015) so I had to bail and mulled over my options. Exmouth, and that was about it. However, on seeing that the service was formed of dud
150938, I bailed at shack 24, Exeter Central, and was more fruitful in scoring winner
143617 for the return, into Exeter for around 2340. What the hell was I going to do now though? At this point, I went full idiot and thought ‘there’s a train from Exeter St Thomas at 0032. I need that shack.’ And having saw on maps that it was a 20 minute walk, I shrugged, and sat down in the waiting room until about midnight so I’d not be festering in the dark too much. I was doubting my sanity when I strolled off into the night but what else was I going to do, score Lympstone Village and no new units? (That was the other option involving 150938) Fester on Exeter station?
Quite frankly, the walk through Exeter was rather scary in the dark, just because of how quiet it was! If anything, the police presence around St Thomas station was rather reassuring (even if it was for a traffic stop on the bridge) but in the end, I made it to shack 25, Exeter St Thomas, at around 0025, with a short fester for winner
150232 back to St Davids! It was a rather knackered unit despite being in GWR livery, with a section of seats being cordoned off. We arrived into St Davids late at 0041 and that was most helpful, as the 0106 to Paddington wasn’t far off at all, of course being dragged by dud
57603
Day 12 beckoned as I collapsed into my seat on the busy sleeper service, having scored Exeter St Thomas and Falmer in the same day. Somehow.
I still need Islip too, something which I need to sort out next year!
