With previously unthinkable promptitude, here's the first instalment of last week's trip...
Phew! What a Scorcher! 25/7/19
As usual, the last Saturday of the month involved a quiz. As is my wont, I took a roundabout route to get there. For once, advance tickets had been booked, as had two nights stay at Feltham Travelodge (5 minutes from the station, passing McDonald's, Greggs, a newsagents, Wetherspoons and an ATM enroute, and with Asda next door beyond for supplies - ideal for a hedonist of limited taste).
So I walked down to town, then joined tram 3107 for the short trip up the hill to Rochdale station. Here, I acquired my tickets from the machine, then awaited my first "proper" train of the day. Which turned out to be 156423, which had taken me to Bamford and back 3 days earlier. This one's been refurbished recently, and soon whisked me to Hebden Bridge, where I bailed out for a coffee and sausage butty raid on the excellent station cafe.
Carrying my supplies, I then joined 158754 for a run to Halifax. Still with time in hand, I dropped back one service here and was rewarded by random winner
158870, one of the recent refugees from the Highland Clearances and still sporting its spots. An uneventful trip to Leeds ensued.
I'd checked RTT, and knew about the weather - related cancellations and delays. However my train had survived the cull, which meant my seat reservation stood, and so I boarded the Mark I set for some sustained shovage by 91131 down to Kings Cross.
The train was warm and reasonably full, but the common sense and good humour of the guard made the journey pass quickly, even though the anticipated 30 minute delay due to heat issues was extended by 20 minutes thanks to idiots on the line near Retford. It was also quite interesting to pass more slowly through Huntingdon and St Neots, inter alia, so they weren't the usual blur.
Arriving at Kings Cross, my first move was outside for a smoke - and into the furnace-like 35+¤ temperature. Use of deep tubes in central London would be deeply unpleasant, but the nearest shade was the Underground, so I decided on a spot of cut and coverage. I wended my way, one stop at a time to Moorgate, via winners
21105/106 to Farringdon, duds 21459/460 to Barbican and winners
21097/098 to Moorgate. There is reconstruction work going on here, so it was a convoluted up, down, around and along route to the big railway.
Here was a winner,
717009, the first of these for me, taken to Finsbury Park on a Hertford loop service. I then dropped back in the hope of something older. With the ongoing scrapping of 313s, my needs list on Great Northern had been reduced from 8 to 5, and were further reduced when the partner of 313052 turned out to be winner
313044 . A winner deserves a winning destination and my last required shack within the Travelcard boundary on this route was
Oakleigh Park, so here I headed.
This was a peacefully suburban sort of place, so I crossed over for the next service back, which was dud pair 313042 + 313122 which whisked me back to Alexandra Palace. There is a newsagent/grocery shop here which sells reasonably priced sandwiches, so a cheese ploughman's and carton of juice were acquired. I then headed back to Highbury and Islington on winner
717021 and considered my next move. I fancied grabbing a 315 or two, so decided to head for Tottenham Hale on the Underground.
Winners
11093/094 duly appeared as far as Finsbury Park, then while dropping back here for duds 11075/076 I heard an announcement indicating a complete overground outage at both Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale. This was confirmed when I arrived at the latter, so a short walk seemed in order!
This took me down the road to required shack South Tottenham. Here, I had a shock, when something resembling one of those Australian HST derivatives appeared. I'd forgotten that the new stock on the Goblin line didn’t have yellow fronts! Anyway, what turned out to be
710263 turned up to take me to another required shack, Leyton Midland Road.
A look at the PIS screens here indicated a window of opportunity for a gratuitous red pen move, so
710262 took me back to Walthamstow Queens Road for another reversal on to third winner of the class
710266 through to Barking.
I still had hopes of a 315 or two, but first needed to get somewhere where one might appear. C2C also appeared to be suffering from the heat, but in a few minutes winner
357023 and dud partner 57006 arrived in a wedged state, so I was thankful to be only going to Upminster!
Here was joy - a 315. However it was dud 315808 on the shuttle to Romford. No sign here of any 315s, so winner 345015 was taken to Stratford for a PNB and a change of direction. I also needed to head Felthamwards…
The DLR seemed to be running well, so I joined winning pair
096 +
068 down to Canning Town, changing for winner-in-dud-sandwich trio 046 +
032 + 058 in to Shadwell. I'd just gone downstairs here and was having a ciggie before descending to the ELR when there was a roll of thunder and large drops of liquid Hydrogen Hydroxide started falling. So I descended into shelter.
By good timing, the first Clapham Junction train was the third due, giving an opportunity of some linear bashing and to score the two shacks I needed enroute. So winner
378143 took me to Wapping, with it's severely narrow platforms, winner
378138 onwards to Surrey Quays, which was quite interesting in being half in a tunnel, then winner
378150 (3/3 - thanks LO) all the way through to Clapham Junction.
Here, madness had descended. Someone's chihuahua had overheated and run off down the lines, and the owner had stupidly chased it, resulting in complete closure of Waterloo to Clapham Junction and hence no trains running for a while.
So time for plan B. Getting a bottle of coke and a pint glass full of ice from the buffet, I headed outside to find a bus stop. The one I found had several services stopping, but the three most frequent all intercepted the District Line at various points. So it was a red double - decker which took me to Sloane Square, via the Kings Road, passing Bywater Street where fictional spy chief George Smiley lived.
Back to the trains here, and duds 21365/366 took me to Earls Court on a Parsons Green service, then winners
21319/320 to Barons Court for a five second cross platform leap onto winners
894/150 to Hatton Cross.
The last bit hence was straightforward - first bus to Feltham, via Bedfont. Then check-in, dump rucksack and back out to Spoons for a Jalfrezi…