ash39
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London day trip – Saturday 20th January 2018
Almost exactly a year to the day since my last full day in London, I was heading back again. My mate had booked the advances in the Virgin East Coast seat sale at the back end of last year. Unfortunately not the £10 return I managed to bag last January, but cheap enough. We were booked on the 0543 from Wakefield Westgate, which meant a painful 0415 alarm call! I picked up my mate on the way and we arrived at the multi storey just before 0530. Great value parking with the £5 weekend rate.
The station was quiet, as you’d expect for the time of day. Our service was actually the second Leeds-London train of the day, so it’s possible to get to London even earlier than we were doing. Two ECS moves passed whilst we waited - 91121 pushed a Neville Hill-Doncaster move, whilst a HST simultaneously passed in the other direction. That move was a bit more unusual, Neville Hill to Skipton, via Wakefield Kirkgate. Presumably it runs this way for route knowledge purposes.
A lady tried to board the ECS when it stopped briefly, despite the Edinburgh Waverley labels in the windows (it was to form 1S02 from Doncaster). Just a few minutes later our train rolled in, lead by DVT 82226. I recalled seeing it the previous weekend with 91106, but I went to double check to be sure. Station staff had just gritted the platform, which allowed me to briskly jog to the rear and check. It was 91106 as expected.
We had now boarded in coach B, but our reserved seats were in F. Coach B was fairly heavily reserved, but a wall through the train revealed the rear of it to be almost empty. We took up a table in F and settled in for the journey. I checked my sheet to find, as I suspected from memory, 91106 was sub-100 miles, so a positive start to the day.
Something unidentifiable passed us in the darkness as we approached Peterborough. My mate checked and it turned out it was a Eurostar scrap move from St Pancras to Kingsbury!
We arrived in a wet Kings Cross slightly early at 0749. The first move for the day was a walk to winner station Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. We had a bit of a farce with the TVM. It was a smart modern looking thing, but despite being able to offer us a 14-day ALR, it seemed it couldn’t offer a zones 1-9 travelcard. The man in the office suggested to buy it at our next station, which we were slightly unsure about doing. After a bit of a faff, we realised we didn’t actually need zones 7-9 anyway, so bought our 1-6 tickets from the TVM after all. Winner 378214 was working our Stratford-bound train. My mate bailed at Canonbury as he was going to do the local parkrun at Highbury Fields. I’m currently injured so I passed on the run, not that it appealed in the dreary weather. I stayed on board to Hackney Central.
A walk along the covered walkway brought me to next winner station Hackney Downs. My train was due in on platform 4 which was the furthest away from where I was, thankfully I hadn’t planned a tight connection. My plan was to do a loop through Enfield, coming back on Great Northern and meeting my mate back at Drayton Park just before 1000. 315814 took me along new territory for me, spotting White Hart Lane stadium for the first time (currently undergoing a rebuild). I stayed on to the terminus at Enfield Town.
315814 Enfield Town 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
I’d looked up the walk to Enfield Chase before the trip, so I knew which way to head out of the station. I reckoned I had just enough time to get a bacon roll and coffee from Starbucks on the way. It was 0915 by now, and I had 6 minutes to get to the station if I wanted to catch the next northbound (Stevenage) service. It was looking fine until I took a wrong turn (someone had rotated a sign), and I decided to give up on it. As I walked under the rail bridge towards the station entrance, I still hadn’t heard the train. It was pulling in as I walked through the barriers, which were open, so I managed to get up the stairs to catch it. Enfield Chase was a winner station, but I’d need to return for a photo on another day, as I only spent 10 seconds in the station! 313052 and 313044 were my units for this short hop, in fact it was less than a mile. I could have made a +4 a Crews Hill, but as I’d just had to dash for this train, and I didn’t know how late it was, I took the safer option of bailing at Gordon Hill.
313044 Gordon Hill 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
I made a start on my bacon roll on the platform, which was busier than I expected, before boarding dud 313033 and winner 313053. This would go back the way I came (and would have been my backup plan at Enfield Chase had I missed the Stevenage train). My mate was planning to meet me on it at Drayton Park, but he’d got back to the station early and similarly to me, boarded a northbound service to get an extra move in first. I text him to inform him that it would be easy to spot the train I was on, as it was white! All 6 coaches were faded to some degree, the tell tale sign of graffiti removal on very old vinyls. A lot of the GN 313's bear these scars, but these two were particularly bad. He joined at Harringay, but by then I’d been wedged out in my bay of 5 behind the cab of the rear unit. He eventually got down to join me after it emptied out a bit, and we stayed on to winner timewarp station Old Street.
313025 Old Street 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
After a few minutes enjoying the 90’s BR/NSE branding at this station, 312025 and 313042 took us back up the line to Essex Road. Essex Road looked almost identical to Old Street, and without the signage it'd be hard to tell them apart.
313063 Essex Road 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We changed direction once again, and took 313063 & 313040 to the end of the line at Moorgate. We had 20 minutes to walk to Liverpool Street, which should have been plenty but we came out of the wrong entrance and got briefly lost. We still had enough time for my mate to grab some breakfast (or is it lunch?) from Liverpool Street, and he opted for the 'premium' sausage roll (£4!) from The Pasty Shop. I was still OK for food after my bacon roll, but the almond croissants next door at AMT coffee looked tempting. The service was ponderous to say the least, I went for a wander and spotted a very shiny 90009, but nothing else of interest.
We were a couple of minutes ahead of our 10:45 train, and we noted a 10:42 departure which also stopped at Hackney Downs. This was a 379, so we decided to stick with our original plan and went with 315810. My mate ate his premium sausage roll on board, and was somewhat unimpressed. The pastry was about twice the width of the sausage! I did a reverse of my move a few hours earlier, and walked from Hackney Downs to Hackney Central.
378208 was next up, to Dalston Kingsland. We had another walk, noting an interesting shop called Afro World. If I ever decide to grow a 'fro and need some specialist products to maintain it, I'll be sure to head back to Dalston!
Around the corner from Afro World is Dalston Junction station, and after a short wait 378223 arrived. We rounded the curve to the north of the station, where it becomes a four track section. It's an unusual bit of line, as the two tracks from Dalton Junction are DC, but the line from Dalton Kingsland is AC. It also presented us with a problem, as our plan was to make a +1 at Canonbury onto a train on the other line. Our next train was side by side with us as we approached and although we left the train at Canonbury, we had only just started to ascend the stairs on the footbridge when the doors closed on the other unit and off it went. I got a photo of another passing 378 whilst we figured out our next move...
378201 Canonbury 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We were intending to head for Willesden Junction to get some stations along the bottom end of the WCML, but the plan we had knocked up was now difficult to pick back up due to the missed connection. We carried on in the same direction anyway, courtesy of 378231. We were deliberating where to go instead, when we arrived at Gospel Oak and spotted a 172 in the bay. We both had number of 172's already from a West Midlands Day Ranger last April, so the opportunity to make more progress towards clearing them was too good to miss. Especially as the GOBLIN electrification was now more or less complete, this would probably be our only chance to have a DMU on this line.
172002 was our first move along this line. I'm a big fan of the retro moquette on the Class 378 seats, so I was glad to see it feature on these units as well. The odd transmission noise still takes some getting used to though. We took this unit 3 stops along the line to South Tottenham, where we had a short wait for a unit back.
We had passed another unit at Harringay Green Lanes on the way. My mate had one of his mad ideas, and noted that we could make a +1 onto that unit on its way back from Gospel Oak. 172003 took us to Harringay Green Lanes, where the odds were stacked as the unit we required was already approaching the station from the other direction. A bricked-up former underpass and a slow moving lady hogging the path didn't help our cause, but after eventually fully leaving the station and crossing under the bridge, we made it back up the other side in time to meet 172007.
At this point, we realised we could cover all six diagrams in quick succession by doing this, so again we bailed at South Tottenham. 172001 took us back to Harringay, where this time we had a more comfortable connection onto 172005.
172005 Harringay Green Lanes 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We now knew South Tottenham station rather well, from the garden with the exercise bike next to platform 2, to the Carillion sign in the tunnel under the track, more noticeable as they had recently gone into liquidation. The last 172 was 172008, and we were now ready to get off this section of line. It had been worth it though, especially for my mate who was down to just 8 172's required outright. The quickest way we could think of to switch lines was to walk from Harringay Green Lanes to Harringay, so we did just that. As always we were pushing it for time but after a brisk walk, we met winner 313058 with dud 313060 on the rear.
313058 Harringay 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We decided we wanted a Five Guys for lunch, so changed at Finsbury Park in order to get back to Kings Cross. Finsbury Park is one of my least favourite stations, such a pain to navigate around. We got a good demonstration of this when, after consulting realtimetrains, we made our way over to Platform 4. There was nothing showing on the boards, and we realised RTT was wrong and it was actually going into the platform we'd just come from. We made our way back and saw the train approaching, except it didn't appear to be coming into the platform we were stood at. Cue an announcement over the PA that the platform had changed to 4, and around 40 people dashing for the stairs.
The train was boiling hot and busy. Double winners though, 365531 & 365530. 90019 was spotted at Kings Cross on a mk4 set. There was a group of enthusiasts at the end of the platform but we couldn't work out what they might have been waiting for, nothing unusual was due in.
I finished the morning with 22 winners and 14 stations. I'd also managed to stay fairly dry, which had taken some effort as it literally did not stop coming down all morning. Thoughts of topping 50 winners for the second January in a row were fading as I was slightly off the required pace, but it would be doable with some double or triple sets. The food was superb as always at Five Guys, and after being on the go for more than 8 hours it was more than welcome.
We refilled our drinks before leaving, as you do (despite not being thirsty...), and left for St Pancras. We missed a southbound train by seconds, which we were unmoved by until we realised the next one was cancelled, and we had almost a 20 minute wait. The reason given for the delay was 'due to a higher than usual amount of trains requiring repair', which we were sceptical of based on the dozens of 700's stabled outside Hornsey earlier in the day.
700010 eventually turned up, and took us to Blackfriars. We had no plan now, but had identified a couple of areas where neither of us had many stations or units, and would make our way towards there. We saw a unit in the bay platform, and decided to take it wherever it was heading. It was a Southeastern service to Gravesend, first stop Lewisham. We never intended to go to Lewisham but it would work for us, so we boarded 376022 & 376020. My first experience of these units, which have a somewhat uglier face than the rest of the Electrostars. A bit like the Class 350/360, they seem to look better with a gangway than without. The interior had very high seats which I'd never seen before either, but it was a pleasant enough environment. Lewisham was a winner station, and it was still raining south of the river...
376020 Lewisham 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We took 465925 & 465906 to Grove Park, which was a much bigger station than we expected. We planned to go down the branch to Bromley North and then walk through Bromley to Bromley South. The novelty of a 2-car EMU was new to us. We initially had winner 466020 to ourselves, other than the bored looking driver who was probably sick of trundling up and down the 1.6 mile line! I was surprised to see a handful of people board at the intermediate station at Sundridge Park. Just five minutes after we left, we arrived at Bromley North.
466020 Bromley North 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
Bromley was one of the nicer areas we'd walked through throughout the day. It was a longer walk than expected from one station to the other, but we arrived at Bromley South with time to spare for our intended train, which was winner 700013.
700013 Bromley South 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We took this to Shortlands, which was a nice little station. The rain was very much still present though, making a photo difficult. It was another Southeastern service next, formed of 465019 & 465151, which we took to Penge East.
I always find it intriguing attempting to judge how affluent an area is when travelling in unfamiliar territory, especially in London where it’s slightly distorted due to the price of housing. Penge looked nice on the face of it, but not for the first time today we saw nice, well-kept houses adjacent to neglected ones. By far the strangest thing we saw all day was witnessed here though (including Afro World…), a man sat in the boot of his Honda Civic, legs crossed, using a hair dryer on the rubber seal around the tailgate. I don’t expect to ever find out what he was doing, but I’d love to know.
We arrived at Penge West, which has great sight lines along the four track section. We could actually see our next train stopped at Annerley, which is just over 600 metres away.
378142 Penge West 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
378142 was our train. We weren’t working to a plan at this stage, but the frequencies on this section of line were so high that it was easy to jump from station to station with minimal waiting. We perched on the ledges by the doors as we knew we wouldn’t be on board for long. I noticed there was something blue on the window and couldn’t work out what it was, until we realised the offside of the train had been subject to a graffiti attack. We bailed at Forest Hill.
378142 Forest Hill 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
A very lucky grab shot here, as not only did I manage to take it with a wire fence in front of me and still obtain focus, but I managed to catch an arc from the third rail. You can also just make out the vandalism on the centre coach.
Making good inroads into the 378 fleet, another winner 378139 took us back the other way to Sydenham, before a switch in operator and traction saw us pick up 455839 back to Brockley. 455843 then took us to Honor Oak Park.
We now only needed one more to complete the small bunch of five stations between New Cross Gate & Penge West. Unfortunately we’d not clicked on that our earlier train would terminate at Crystal Palace and come straight back, so it was dud 378139 to take us to New Cross Gate.
I was now on 35 winners overall, and we had just over three hours until our 2005 departure out of Kings Cross. As we now had most of the stations on this stretch, and the units were starting to repeat, we took 455815 into London Bridge in order to switch lines.
We grabbed a drink from M&S and checked the departure boards. Rough plan decided upon, we took 455838 to South Bermondsey. There were great views of the London Skyline at this station, but it was too dark for telephoto shots now.
We had a fairly short wait here but it was chilly, and it felt like the longest of the day. A woman saw my mate looking at our map and offered help, suggesting we took the Jubilee Line to get to Clapham Junction. We had no intention of using the tube, or necessarily taking the most direct route! She wandered off, probably a bit confused.
The 455 theme continued for the next few moves. I’d done well to avoid any duds so far, and that continued as 455801 arrived to take us further along the line to North Dulwich, before 455831 took us back the other way to East Dulwich. 455836 then took us to Crystal Palace. On our way to Crystal Palace, we were sat in a bay of 6 with a mini table, which had an empty bag of crisps and bottle of diet coke on it. My mate moved them to the seat on the end so he could use the table. The train was quiet, but it filled up en route. Two people occupied the seats next to me, but rather than sit next to my mate, a woman opted to move the litter into the overhead luggage rack and sit on the end of the bench! He does look like a shady character though...
377130, first 377 of the day, was next up. We took it to Balham, where I had enough time to use the facilities, which I attempted to do but a sign on the door informed me that they were only open from 0700-1000 due to vandalism. Hard to see the point of having them at all if they’re only open for 3 hours a day! We were back on 455’s once again, and took 455806 to Wandsworth Common. There was a similar public conveniences lockdown at this station so I gave up for the time being. It was too dark for photos, but smart phone cameras are so good nowadays that it’s possible to get decent handheld 'record' photos in low light that my full-frame DSLR could only match if set up on a tripod, which would be impractical at the pace we were moving!
455829 Wandsworth Common 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
Our ninth and final 455 move of the day fell to 455823 to Clapham Junction. The 455 page of my moves book now much healthier looking!
We had an idea at Clapham Junction to meet the ex-Exeter/Bristol service, which we knew would be at least double DMU’s if not triple. Due to the lack of advertisement of this service on the departure boards, we weren’t sure if the service was set down only or not. We waited on platform 7 anyway, watching a pair of 450’s leave in the meantime. A few other people were milling about the platform, which was odd as there were many trains to London to choose from on other platforms. Eventually after a bit of a hold up, 159020 rolled in, with another two units which we couldn’t ID. Plenty of people poured out, and the female guard stood by the doors at the front of the third unit. She didn’t seem to question our intention to board, so we did. We made our way to the back of the set, in order to ID all the units at Waterloo. After walking past an occupied WC, I finally found an empty one and made use of it, otherwise I’d have had to wait until we got to Kings Cross.
I took a seat for all of 3 minutes. It felt strange hearing the transmission whine of a 158/159 in London territory. At Waterloo we walked to the back to ID the other two sets – 159004 was on the rear, with 159002 sandwiched in the middle.
We had a tube move next, and after making a complete hash of it and getting Victoria and Waterloo mixed up, we eventually found our way to Blackfriars, changing at Embankment. We made reasonable time, and made it onto the platform at Blackfriars around 20 minutes after arriving at Waterloo. We had an hour until our train left Kings Cross, and I believed I was on 47 winners for the day. I’d miscounted and was actually on 46, and the fact I had a number of 700’s in the book already left me fairly certain I wouldn’t reach 50. I wasn’t hugely bothered if I did or not, but chasing an arbitrary figure kept me motivated to maximise the time we had left. My mate was a bit behind on winners, having had a dud 455 earlier, and missing a couple of moves whilst at parkrun. 700009, a winner, took us to City Thameslink.
There was another train arriving on the other platform at the same time as us. As we were right at the front of the unit, we managed to make it over the bridge to catch it. 700028, winner number 48, took us back to Blackfriars. This was essentially a bonus move, and I was back in with a chance of reaching my target. It was a very tight connection at Blackfriars though, and as we’d just been there moments earlier, our tickets were rejected by the barriers. Fortunately the chap manning the gates was on his game and let us through immediately, telling us to hurry if we were catching the already platformed train on the other side. It was 700123, a winner. All was going fine, until we came to a stop in the tunnel just after City Thameslink. We assumed it was to change over to AC power, but we remained stationary for a number of minutes. With half an hour to our advance train out of Kings Cross, we were quite concerned. It felt like about 10 minutes, was probably closer to 5, but eventually we moved again.
Sat at Farringdon awaiting our penultimate train of the day, we watched the screens go from ‘2 late’ to ‘3 late’ to just ‘delayed’, which is never something you want to see. We were slightly more relaxed this time though, as the tube could get us back to Kings Cross if required. We decided to sit it out, and eventually 700031 rolled in for the penultimate journey of the day, and mission accomplished!
We had 20 minutes to make our way from St Pancras to Kings Cross, picking up some food for the train. The Five Guys burger had done a good job of keeping me full, and just a Boots meal deal would be enough for tea. A chicken & bacon with a chocolate flapjack was chosen, after deliberating as usual (and then going for chicken & bacon…). My mate purchased half the shop, but then he had covered an extra 5km!
Our train home was 43295 & 43272, both over 100 miles already, but a pleasantly lightly loaded train. We grabbed a table, and the journey flew by cross referencing our moves list (and I’d written down a 455 number incorrectly so it was worth doing!). We also totted up the mileages. We were on time in Wakefield, and after dropping my mate off I was home for a not-unreasonable 2300. Still, 18.5 hours on the move and over 25,000 steps taken was a monster day out, and my feet were more than ready for a rest!
Some big numbers…
Day summary:
91106 WKF-KGX
378214 CIR-HKC
315814 HAC-ENF
313052 & 313044 ENC-GDH
313033 & 313053 GDH-OLD
313025 & 313042 OLD-EXR
313063 & 313040 EXR-MOG
315810 LST-HAC
378208 HKC-DLK
378223 DKJ-CNN
378231 CNN-GPO
172002 GPO-STO
172003 STO-HRY
172007 HRY-STO
172001 STO-HRY
172005 HRY-STO
172008 STO-HRY
313058 & 313060 HGY-FPK
365531 & 365530 FPK-KGX
700010 STP-BFR
376022 & 376020 BFR-LEW
465925 & 465906 LEW-GRP
466020 GRP-BMN
700013 BMS-SRT
465019 & 465151 SRT-PNE
378142 PNW-FOH
378139 FOH-SYD
455839 SYD-BCY
455843 BCY-HPA
378139 HPA-NXG
455815 NXG-LBG
455838 LBG-SBM
455801 SBM-NDL
455831 NDL-EDW
455836 EDW-CYP
377130 CYP-BAL
455806 BAL-WSW
455823 WSW-CLJ
159020, 159002 & 159004 CLJ-WAT
700009 BFR-CTK
700028 CTK-BFR
700123 BFR-ZFD
700031 ZFD-STP
43295 & 43272 KGX-WKF
32 new stations: Balham, Brockley, Bromley North, Bromley South, Caledonian Road & Barnsbury, Canonbury, Crystal Palace, Dalston Junction, Dalston Kingsland, East Dulwich, Enfield Chase, Enfield Town, Essex Road, Forest Hill, Grove Park, Gordon Hill, Gospel Oak, Harringay Green Lanes, Hackney Central, Hackney Downs, Honor Oak Park, Lewisham, New Cross Gate, North Dulwich, Old Street, Penge East, Penge West, Shortlands, South Bermondsey, South Tottenham, Sydenham, Wandsworth Common
50 new units: 3x 159, 6x 172, 8x 313, 2x 315, 2x 365, 2x 376, 1x 377, 6x 378, 9x 455, 4x 465, 1x 466, 5x 700
6 dud units/locos/power cars: 2x HST, 1x 91, 2x 313, 1x 378
Day mileage: 447 miles
Almost exactly a year to the day since my last full day in London, I was heading back again. My mate had booked the advances in the Virgin East Coast seat sale at the back end of last year. Unfortunately not the £10 return I managed to bag last January, but cheap enough. We were booked on the 0543 from Wakefield Westgate, which meant a painful 0415 alarm call! I picked up my mate on the way and we arrived at the multi storey just before 0530. Great value parking with the £5 weekend rate.
The station was quiet, as you’d expect for the time of day. Our service was actually the second Leeds-London train of the day, so it’s possible to get to London even earlier than we were doing. Two ECS moves passed whilst we waited - 91121 pushed a Neville Hill-Doncaster move, whilst a HST simultaneously passed in the other direction. That move was a bit more unusual, Neville Hill to Skipton, via Wakefield Kirkgate. Presumably it runs this way for route knowledge purposes.
A lady tried to board the ECS when it stopped briefly, despite the Edinburgh Waverley labels in the windows (it was to form 1S02 from Doncaster). Just a few minutes later our train rolled in, lead by DVT 82226. I recalled seeing it the previous weekend with 91106, but I went to double check to be sure. Station staff had just gritted the platform, which allowed me to briskly jog to the rear and check. It was 91106 as expected.
We had now boarded in coach B, but our reserved seats were in F. Coach B was fairly heavily reserved, but a wall through the train revealed the rear of it to be almost empty. We took up a table in F and settled in for the journey. I checked my sheet to find, as I suspected from memory, 91106 was sub-100 miles, so a positive start to the day.
Something unidentifiable passed us in the darkness as we approached Peterborough. My mate checked and it turned out it was a Eurostar scrap move from St Pancras to Kingsbury!
We arrived in a wet Kings Cross slightly early at 0749. The first move for the day was a walk to winner station Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. We had a bit of a farce with the TVM. It was a smart modern looking thing, but despite being able to offer us a 14-day ALR, it seemed it couldn’t offer a zones 1-9 travelcard. The man in the office suggested to buy it at our next station, which we were slightly unsure about doing. After a bit of a faff, we realised we didn’t actually need zones 7-9 anyway, so bought our 1-6 tickets from the TVM after all. Winner 378214 was working our Stratford-bound train. My mate bailed at Canonbury as he was going to do the local parkrun at Highbury Fields. I’m currently injured so I passed on the run, not that it appealed in the dreary weather. I stayed on board to Hackney Central.
A walk along the covered walkway brought me to next winner station Hackney Downs. My train was due in on platform 4 which was the furthest away from where I was, thankfully I hadn’t planned a tight connection. My plan was to do a loop through Enfield, coming back on Great Northern and meeting my mate back at Drayton Park just before 1000. 315814 took me along new territory for me, spotting White Hart Lane stadium for the first time (currently undergoing a rebuild). I stayed on to the terminus at Enfield Town.
315814 Enfield Town 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
I’d looked up the walk to Enfield Chase before the trip, so I knew which way to head out of the station. I reckoned I had just enough time to get a bacon roll and coffee from Starbucks on the way. It was 0915 by now, and I had 6 minutes to get to the station if I wanted to catch the next northbound (Stevenage) service. It was looking fine until I took a wrong turn (someone had rotated a sign), and I decided to give up on it. As I walked under the rail bridge towards the station entrance, I still hadn’t heard the train. It was pulling in as I walked through the barriers, which were open, so I managed to get up the stairs to catch it. Enfield Chase was a winner station, but I’d need to return for a photo on another day, as I only spent 10 seconds in the station! 313052 and 313044 were my units for this short hop, in fact it was less than a mile. I could have made a +4 a Crews Hill, but as I’d just had to dash for this train, and I didn’t know how late it was, I took the safer option of bailing at Gordon Hill.
313044 Gordon Hill 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
I made a start on my bacon roll on the platform, which was busier than I expected, before boarding dud 313033 and winner 313053. This would go back the way I came (and would have been my backup plan at Enfield Chase had I missed the Stevenage train). My mate was planning to meet me on it at Drayton Park, but he’d got back to the station early and similarly to me, boarded a northbound service to get an extra move in first. I text him to inform him that it would be easy to spot the train I was on, as it was white! All 6 coaches were faded to some degree, the tell tale sign of graffiti removal on very old vinyls. A lot of the GN 313's bear these scars, but these two were particularly bad. He joined at Harringay, but by then I’d been wedged out in my bay of 5 behind the cab of the rear unit. He eventually got down to join me after it emptied out a bit, and we stayed on to winner timewarp station Old Street.
313025 Old Street 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
After a few minutes enjoying the 90’s BR/NSE branding at this station, 312025 and 313042 took us back up the line to Essex Road. Essex Road looked almost identical to Old Street, and without the signage it'd be hard to tell them apart.
313063 Essex Road 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We changed direction once again, and took 313063 & 313040 to the end of the line at Moorgate. We had 20 minutes to walk to Liverpool Street, which should have been plenty but we came out of the wrong entrance and got briefly lost. We still had enough time for my mate to grab some breakfast (or is it lunch?) from Liverpool Street, and he opted for the 'premium' sausage roll (£4!) from The Pasty Shop. I was still OK for food after my bacon roll, but the almond croissants next door at AMT coffee looked tempting. The service was ponderous to say the least, I went for a wander and spotted a very shiny 90009, but nothing else of interest.
We were a couple of minutes ahead of our 10:45 train, and we noted a 10:42 departure which also stopped at Hackney Downs. This was a 379, so we decided to stick with our original plan and went with 315810. My mate ate his premium sausage roll on board, and was somewhat unimpressed. The pastry was about twice the width of the sausage! I did a reverse of my move a few hours earlier, and walked from Hackney Downs to Hackney Central.
378208 was next up, to Dalston Kingsland. We had another walk, noting an interesting shop called Afro World. If I ever decide to grow a 'fro and need some specialist products to maintain it, I'll be sure to head back to Dalston!
Around the corner from Afro World is Dalston Junction station, and after a short wait 378223 arrived. We rounded the curve to the north of the station, where it becomes a four track section. It's an unusual bit of line, as the two tracks from Dalton Junction are DC, but the line from Dalton Kingsland is AC. It also presented us with a problem, as our plan was to make a +1 at Canonbury onto a train on the other line. Our next train was side by side with us as we approached and although we left the train at Canonbury, we had only just started to ascend the stairs on the footbridge when the doors closed on the other unit and off it went. I got a photo of another passing 378 whilst we figured out our next move...
378201 Canonbury 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We were intending to head for Willesden Junction to get some stations along the bottom end of the WCML, but the plan we had knocked up was now difficult to pick back up due to the missed connection. We carried on in the same direction anyway, courtesy of 378231. We were deliberating where to go instead, when we arrived at Gospel Oak and spotted a 172 in the bay. We both had number of 172's already from a West Midlands Day Ranger last April, so the opportunity to make more progress towards clearing them was too good to miss. Especially as the GOBLIN electrification was now more or less complete, this would probably be our only chance to have a DMU on this line.
172002 was our first move along this line. I'm a big fan of the retro moquette on the Class 378 seats, so I was glad to see it feature on these units as well. The odd transmission noise still takes some getting used to though. We took this unit 3 stops along the line to South Tottenham, where we had a short wait for a unit back.
We had passed another unit at Harringay Green Lanes on the way. My mate had one of his mad ideas, and noted that we could make a +1 onto that unit on its way back from Gospel Oak. 172003 took us to Harringay Green Lanes, where the odds were stacked as the unit we required was already approaching the station from the other direction. A bricked-up former underpass and a slow moving lady hogging the path didn't help our cause, but after eventually fully leaving the station and crossing under the bridge, we made it back up the other side in time to meet 172007.
At this point, we realised we could cover all six diagrams in quick succession by doing this, so again we bailed at South Tottenham. 172001 took us back to Harringay, where this time we had a more comfortable connection onto 172005.
172005 Harringay Green Lanes 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We now knew South Tottenham station rather well, from the garden with the exercise bike next to platform 2, to the Carillion sign in the tunnel under the track, more noticeable as they had recently gone into liquidation. The last 172 was 172008, and we were now ready to get off this section of line. It had been worth it though, especially for my mate who was down to just 8 172's required outright. The quickest way we could think of to switch lines was to walk from Harringay Green Lanes to Harringay, so we did just that. As always we were pushing it for time but after a brisk walk, we met winner 313058 with dud 313060 on the rear.
313058 Harringay 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We decided we wanted a Five Guys for lunch, so changed at Finsbury Park in order to get back to Kings Cross. Finsbury Park is one of my least favourite stations, such a pain to navigate around. We got a good demonstration of this when, after consulting realtimetrains, we made our way over to Platform 4. There was nothing showing on the boards, and we realised RTT was wrong and it was actually going into the platform we'd just come from. We made our way back and saw the train approaching, except it didn't appear to be coming into the platform we were stood at. Cue an announcement over the PA that the platform had changed to 4, and around 40 people dashing for the stairs.
The train was boiling hot and busy. Double winners though, 365531 & 365530. 90019 was spotted at Kings Cross on a mk4 set. There was a group of enthusiasts at the end of the platform but we couldn't work out what they might have been waiting for, nothing unusual was due in.
I finished the morning with 22 winners and 14 stations. I'd also managed to stay fairly dry, which had taken some effort as it literally did not stop coming down all morning. Thoughts of topping 50 winners for the second January in a row were fading as I was slightly off the required pace, but it would be doable with some double or triple sets. The food was superb as always at Five Guys, and after being on the go for more than 8 hours it was more than welcome.
We refilled our drinks before leaving, as you do (despite not being thirsty...), and left for St Pancras. We missed a southbound train by seconds, which we were unmoved by until we realised the next one was cancelled, and we had almost a 20 minute wait. The reason given for the delay was 'due to a higher than usual amount of trains requiring repair', which we were sceptical of based on the dozens of 700's stabled outside Hornsey earlier in the day.
700010 eventually turned up, and took us to Blackfriars. We had no plan now, but had identified a couple of areas where neither of us had many stations or units, and would make our way towards there. We saw a unit in the bay platform, and decided to take it wherever it was heading. It was a Southeastern service to Gravesend, first stop Lewisham. We never intended to go to Lewisham but it would work for us, so we boarded 376022 & 376020. My first experience of these units, which have a somewhat uglier face than the rest of the Electrostars. A bit like the Class 350/360, they seem to look better with a gangway than without. The interior had very high seats which I'd never seen before either, but it was a pleasant enough environment. Lewisham was a winner station, and it was still raining south of the river...
376020 Lewisham 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We took 465925 & 465906 to Grove Park, which was a much bigger station than we expected. We planned to go down the branch to Bromley North and then walk through Bromley to Bromley South. The novelty of a 2-car EMU was new to us. We initially had winner 466020 to ourselves, other than the bored looking driver who was probably sick of trundling up and down the 1.6 mile line! I was surprised to see a handful of people board at the intermediate station at Sundridge Park. Just five minutes after we left, we arrived at Bromley North.
466020 Bromley North 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
Bromley was one of the nicer areas we'd walked through throughout the day. It was a longer walk than expected from one station to the other, but we arrived at Bromley South with time to spare for our intended train, which was winner 700013.
700013 Bromley South 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
We took this to Shortlands, which was a nice little station. The rain was very much still present though, making a photo difficult. It was another Southeastern service next, formed of 465019 & 465151, which we took to Penge East.
I always find it intriguing attempting to judge how affluent an area is when travelling in unfamiliar territory, especially in London where it’s slightly distorted due to the price of housing. Penge looked nice on the face of it, but not for the first time today we saw nice, well-kept houses adjacent to neglected ones. By far the strangest thing we saw all day was witnessed here though (including Afro World…), a man sat in the boot of his Honda Civic, legs crossed, using a hair dryer on the rubber seal around the tailgate. I don’t expect to ever find out what he was doing, but I’d love to know.
We arrived at Penge West, which has great sight lines along the four track section. We could actually see our next train stopped at Annerley, which is just over 600 metres away.
378142 Penge West 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
378142 was our train. We weren’t working to a plan at this stage, but the frequencies on this section of line were so high that it was easy to jump from station to station with minimal waiting. We perched on the ledges by the doors as we knew we wouldn’t be on board for long. I noticed there was something blue on the window and couldn’t work out what it was, until we realised the offside of the train had been subject to a graffiti attack. We bailed at Forest Hill.
378142 Forest Hill 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
A very lucky grab shot here, as not only did I manage to take it with a wire fence in front of me and still obtain focus, but I managed to catch an arc from the third rail. You can also just make out the vandalism on the centre coach.
Making good inroads into the 378 fleet, another winner 378139 took us back the other way to Sydenham, before a switch in operator and traction saw us pick up 455839 back to Brockley. 455843 then took us to Honor Oak Park.
We now only needed one more to complete the small bunch of five stations between New Cross Gate & Penge West. Unfortunately we’d not clicked on that our earlier train would terminate at Crystal Palace and come straight back, so it was dud 378139 to take us to New Cross Gate.
I was now on 35 winners overall, and we had just over three hours until our 2005 departure out of Kings Cross. As we now had most of the stations on this stretch, and the units were starting to repeat, we took 455815 into London Bridge in order to switch lines.
We grabbed a drink from M&S and checked the departure boards. Rough plan decided upon, we took 455838 to South Bermondsey. There were great views of the London Skyline at this station, but it was too dark for telephoto shots now.
We had a fairly short wait here but it was chilly, and it felt like the longest of the day. A woman saw my mate looking at our map and offered help, suggesting we took the Jubilee Line to get to Clapham Junction. We had no intention of using the tube, or necessarily taking the most direct route! She wandered off, probably a bit confused.
The 455 theme continued for the next few moves. I’d done well to avoid any duds so far, and that continued as 455801 arrived to take us further along the line to North Dulwich, before 455831 took us back the other way to East Dulwich. 455836 then took us to Crystal Palace. On our way to Crystal Palace, we were sat in a bay of 6 with a mini table, which had an empty bag of crisps and bottle of diet coke on it. My mate moved them to the seat on the end so he could use the table. The train was quiet, but it filled up en route. Two people occupied the seats next to me, but rather than sit next to my mate, a woman opted to move the litter into the overhead luggage rack and sit on the end of the bench! He does look like a shady character though...
377130, first 377 of the day, was next up. We took it to Balham, where I had enough time to use the facilities, which I attempted to do but a sign on the door informed me that they were only open from 0700-1000 due to vandalism. Hard to see the point of having them at all if they’re only open for 3 hours a day! We were back on 455’s once again, and took 455806 to Wandsworth Common. There was a similar public conveniences lockdown at this station so I gave up for the time being. It was too dark for photos, but smart phone cameras are so good nowadays that it’s possible to get decent handheld 'record' photos in low light that my full-frame DSLR could only match if set up on a tripod, which would be impractical at the pace we were moving!
455829 Wandsworth Common 20/01/2018 by Flash 3939, on Flickr
Our ninth and final 455 move of the day fell to 455823 to Clapham Junction. The 455 page of my moves book now much healthier looking!
We had an idea at Clapham Junction to meet the ex-Exeter/Bristol service, which we knew would be at least double DMU’s if not triple. Due to the lack of advertisement of this service on the departure boards, we weren’t sure if the service was set down only or not. We waited on platform 7 anyway, watching a pair of 450’s leave in the meantime. A few other people were milling about the platform, which was odd as there were many trains to London to choose from on other platforms. Eventually after a bit of a hold up, 159020 rolled in, with another two units which we couldn’t ID. Plenty of people poured out, and the female guard stood by the doors at the front of the third unit. She didn’t seem to question our intention to board, so we did. We made our way to the back of the set, in order to ID all the units at Waterloo. After walking past an occupied WC, I finally found an empty one and made use of it, otherwise I’d have had to wait until we got to Kings Cross.
I took a seat for all of 3 minutes. It felt strange hearing the transmission whine of a 158/159 in London territory. At Waterloo we walked to the back to ID the other two sets – 159004 was on the rear, with 159002 sandwiched in the middle.
We had a tube move next, and after making a complete hash of it and getting Victoria and Waterloo mixed up, we eventually found our way to Blackfriars, changing at Embankment. We made reasonable time, and made it onto the platform at Blackfriars around 20 minutes after arriving at Waterloo. We had an hour until our train left Kings Cross, and I believed I was on 47 winners for the day. I’d miscounted and was actually on 46, and the fact I had a number of 700’s in the book already left me fairly certain I wouldn’t reach 50. I wasn’t hugely bothered if I did or not, but chasing an arbitrary figure kept me motivated to maximise the time we had left. My mate was a bit behind on winners, having had a dud 455 earlier, and missing a couple of moves whilst at parkrun. 700009, a winner, took us to City Thameslink.
There was another train arriving on the other platform at the same time as us. As we were right at the front of the unit, we managed to make it over the bridge to catch it. 700028, winner number 48, took us back to Blackfriars. This was essentially a bonus move, and I was back in with a chance of reaching my target. It was a very tight connection at Blackfriars though, and as we’d just been there moments earlier, our tickets were rejected by the barriers. Fortunately the chap manning the gates was on his game and let us through immediately, telling us to hurry if we were catching the already platformed train on the other side. It was 700123, a winner. All was going fine, until we came to a stop in the tunnel just after City Thameslink. We assumed it was to change over to AC power, but we remained stationary for a number of minutes. With half an hour to our advance train out of Kings Cross, we were quite concerned. It felt like about 10 minutes, was probably closer to 5, but eventually we moved again.
Sat at Farringdon awaiting our penultimate train of the day, we watched the screens go from ‘2 late’ to ‘3 late’ to just ‘delayed’, which is never something you want to see. We were slightly more relaxed this time though, as the tube could get us back to Kings Cross if required. We decided to sit it out, and eventually 700031 rolled in for the penultimate journey of the day, and mission accomplished!
We had 20 minutes to make our way from St Pancras to Kings Cross, picking up some food for the train. The Five Guys burger had done a good job of keeping me full, and just a Boots meal deal would be enough for tea. A chicken & bacon with a chocolate flapjack was chosen, after deliberating as usual (and then going for chicken & bacon…). My mate purchased half the shop, but then he had covered an extra 5km!
Our train home was 43295 & 43272, both over 100 miles already, but a pleasantly lightly loaded train. We grabbed a table, and the journey flew by cross referencing our moves list (and I’d written down a 455 number incorrectly so it was worth doing!). We also totted up the mileages. We were on time in Wakefield, and after dropping my mate off I was home for a not-unreasonable 2300. Still, 18.5 hours on the move and over 25,000 steps taken was a monster day out, and my feet were more than ready for a rest!
Some big numbers…
Day summary:
91106 WKF-KGX
378214 CIR-HKC
315814 HAC-ENF
313052 & 313044 ENC-GDH
313033 & 313053 GDH-OLD
313025 & 313042 OLD-EXR
313063 & 313040 EXR-MOG
315810 LST-HAC
378208 HKC-DLK
378223 DKJ-CNN
378231 CNN-GPO
172002 GPO-STO
172003 STO-HRY
172007 HRY-STO
172001 STO-HRY
172005 HRY-STO
172008 STO-HRY
313058 & 313060 HGY-FPK
365531 & 365530 FPK-KGX
700010 STP-BFR
376022 & 376020 BFR-LEW
465925 & 465906 LEW-GRP
466020 GRP-BMN
700013 BMS-SRT
465019 & 465151 SRT-PNE
378142 PNW-FOH
378139 FOH-SYD
455839 SYD-BCY
455843 BCY-HPA
378139 HPA-NXG
455815 NXG-LBG
455838 LBG-SBM
455801 SBM-NDL
455831 NDL-EDW
455836 EDW-CYP
377130 CYP-BAL
455806 BAL-WSW
455823 WSW-CLJ
159020, 159002 & 159004 CLJ-WAT
700009 BFR-CTK
700028 CTK-BFR
700123 BFR-ZFD
700031 ZFD-STP
43295 & 43272 KGX-WKF
32 new stations: Balham, Brockley, Bromley North, Bromley South, Caledonian Road & Barnsbury, Canonbury, Crystal Palace, Dalston Junction, Dalston Kingsland, East Dulwich, Enfield Chase, Enfield Town, Essex Road, Forest Hill, Grove Park, Gordon Hill, Gospel Oak, Harringay Green Lanes, Hackney Central, Hackney Downs, Honor Oak Park, Lewisham, New Cross Gate, North Dulwich, Old Street, Penge East, Penge West, Shortlands, South Bermondsey, South Tottenham, Sydenham, Wandsworth Common
50 new units: 3x 159, 6x 172, 8x 313, 2x 315, 2x 365, 2x 376, 1x 377, 6x 378, 9x 455, 4x 465, 1x 466, 5x 700
6 dud units/locos/power cars: 2x HST, 1x 91, 2x 313, 1x 378
Day mileage: 447 miles
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