So, after having only visited the West Midlands twice in my life before this week, I found myself having to go there 3 times in a week (twice as part of travel to the FA cup fiasco at Burton, and then again today).
Having stayed up until 2 o'clock this morning trying to come up with an improvement over my original plan for this, I had a stupidly early start to the day (06:30), where I started the day with a lovely load of yesterdays washing up
. Having got that out the way, I made my way to Manchester Airport to start my trip. At the booking office, I asked for a return to The Lakes, to which the somewhat irritated-sounding ticket office person asked 'do you mean Oxenholme, Penrith, Kendal, Burneside, Staveley or Windermere'. Once we'd straightened that one out, I joined the 08:11 Northern service to Crewe, (323235), which arrived at 08:48, which gave me just enough time to make a connection onto the 08:49 for Birmingham New Street, an unidentified 350/2, which I took to Wolverhampton, arriving at 09:27. Thinking I had almost 90 minutes to get to New Street, I decided to take a leisurely trip to Moor Street, changing from the 09:49 LM service to Walsall (an unidentified 323) at Smethwick Galton Bridge at 10:06. From there it was the 10:16 LM service to Stratford upon Avon, from which I was planning on changing at Spring Road. However, a phonecall from Telstarbox telling me that I was late caused a very late change of plans for me, and I bailed at Moor Street at 10:29. Realising that I was late, had no ticket, and my plan was for the wrong start and finish time, I had to come up with something different to do and fastish. I bought a Birmingham Stations to Holmes Chapel return (15.50 YP or 23.20 undiscounted), and a daytripper (5.80), making my total cost for ther challenge 29.00
I joined the 10:49 CrossCountry service to Nottingham (170637), which I took to the limit of my ticket's validity at Tamworth, arriving 2 early at 11:07. I then joined the 11:31 London Midland service from the Low Level platforms to Crewe (350266), which I had the surprise of seeing Telstarbox on - he was doing Lichfield TV to Rugeley TV -, and I took that to Stoke-on-Trent, arriving 12:17, 4 minutes late, and I started to get a little bit worried about my plan from this point. I took the 12:20 CrossCountry service to Manchester Piccadilly, arriving 12:59. This gave me a leisurely 17 minute connection to the 12:16 TransPennine Express service for Glasgow Central (185117), which I took to Preston. This service was the one that was really getting me worried, because I thought that the conductor would take exception to my choice of tickets. Luckily for me, the train was absolutely heaving, to the point of having to leave passengers behind at each stop, so there was no chance of a ticket inspection there. The delays in getting everyone on board caused the train to get quite badly delayed at Euxton Junction, meaning that my generous 23 minute connection there dwindled to a mere 6 minutes. Thankfully, Preston isn't the sort of monstrosity that other large stations (like St Pancras for example), so I wasn't in any real danger of missing my train out, the 14:17 Virgin Trains service to Birmingham New Street (221106), which I took all the way, arriving at 15:56.
I then decided to make my way over to Moor Street for my aborted trip down the Snow Hill lines, taking the 16:10 LM service bound for Whitlock's End (172344) as far as Hall Green, arriving 16:22, where I had the bright idea of going down the last bit of track that I hadn't done that I knew has a decent line speed. So I made my way back to Moor Street on the 16:28 service for Worcester Foregate St (172221) arriving 16:40, and then to New Street for the 16:50 Virgin Trains service to Euston (390112), which I left at Coventry at 17:12, 2 minutes late. I then took the 17:22 VT service to Wolverhampton (390117) back as far as Birmingham New Street, arriving 17:45 (on time), which gave me a nice leisurely walk up the stairs to the concourse, where lewisrday and ollieb were already waiting. Temple Meads showed his face at 17:59, and we were stuck waiting for Telstarbox and Ascot. When they did turn up, we made our way to a branch of Spoons called the Square Peg, which apparently was recommended to us by a forum member, who then didn't show up. I'm not going to name names though. After being the only one of us to eat a proper meal (no guys, Fudge cake does NOT count at a proper meal, unfortuneatly), we made our way back to New Street station so that me and Telstarbox could take the 20:31 CrossCountry service to Manchester. That turned out to be fun. After a Football special 323x2 from Witton had disgorged a load of P*55ed up Manchester United fans onto our platform, the actual train showed up. It was a case of the football fans took all the seats, and a fair amount of the vestibules, and everyone else just had to lump it. We left Birmingham 9 minutes down, but gradually made that time up as we wandered up towards Manchester (A little bit slowly for my liking), so that we were just +3 there. On arrival, I was greeted with the news that there wasn't a lot in the way of trains towards my stop, MIA, for almost 40 minutes, but not really having the money to waste on a bus fare, I just had to sit it out. I finally made it back home at 23:40, just a little bit later than I was expecting.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Oh, and I found an error in what I was saying as my expected mileage for the day - I'd managed to count Stoke to Manchester twice. Still, I don't think 249 mi 20ch is bad for unique mileage for 30.00.
Having stayed up until 2 o'clock this morning trying to come up with an improvement over my original plan for this, I had a stupidly early start to the day (06:30), where I started the day with a lovely load of yesterdays washing up
. Having got that out the way, I made my way to Manchester Airport to start my trip. At the booking office, I asked for a return to The Lakes, to which the somewhat irritated-sounding ticket office person asked 'do you mean Oxenholme, Penrith, Kendal, Burneside, Staveley or Windermere'. Once we'd straightened that one out, I joined the 08:11 Northern service to Crewe, (323235), which arrived at 08:48, which gave me just enough time to make a connection onto the 08:49 for Birmingham New Street, an unidentified 350/2, which I took to Wolverhampton, arriving at 09:27. Thinking I had almost 90 minutes to get to New Street, I decided to take a leisurely trip to Moor Street, changing from the 09:49 LM service to Walsall (an unidentified 323) at Smethwick Galton Bridge at 10:06. From there it was the 10:16 LM service to Stratford upon Avon, from which I was planning on changing at Spring Road. However, a phonecall from Telstarbox telling me that I was late caused a very late change of plans for me, and I bailed at Moor Street at 10:29. Realising that I was late, had no ticket, and my plan was for the wrong start and finish time, I had to come up with something different to do and fastish. I bought a Birmingham Stations to Holmes Chapel return (15.50 YP or 23.20 undiscounted), and a daytripper (5.80), making my total cost for ther challenge 29.00I joined the 10:49 CrossCountry service to Nottingham (170637), which I took to the limit of my ticket's validity at Tamworth, arriving 2 early at 11:07. I then joined the 11:31 London Midland service from the Low Level platforms to Crewe (350266), which I had the surprise of seeing Telstarbox on - he was doing Lichfield TV to Rugeley TV -, and I took that to Stoke-on-Trent, arriving 12:17, 4 minutes late, and I started to get a little bit worried about my plan from this point. I took the 12:20 CrossCountry service to Manchester Piccadilly, arriving 12:59. This gave me a leisurely 17 minute connection to the 12:16 TransPennine Express service for Glasgow Central (185117), which I took to Preston. This service was the one that was really getting me worried, because I thought that the conductor would take exception to my choice of tickets. Luckily for me, the train was absolutely heaving, to the point of having to leave passengers behind at each stop, so there was no chance of a ticket inspection there. The delays in getting everyone on board caused the train to get quite badly delayed at Euxton Junction, meaning that my generous 23 minute connection there dwindled to a mere 6 minutes. Thankfully, Preston isn't the sort of monstrosity that other large stations (like St Pancras for example), so I wasn't in any real danger of missing my train out, the 14:17 Virgin Trains service to Birmingham New Street (221106), which I took all the way, arriving at 15:56.
I then decided to make my way over to Moor Street for my aborted trip down the Snow Hill lines, taking the 16:10 LM service bound for Whitlock's End (172344) as far as Hall Green, arriving 16:22, where I had the bright idea of going down the last bit of track that I hadn't done that I knew has a decent line speed. So I made my way back to Moor Street on the 16:28 service for Worcester Foregate St (172221) arriving 16:40, and then to New Street for the 16:50 Virgin Trains service to Euston (390112), which I left at Coventry at 17:12, 2 minutes late. I then took the 17:22 VT service to Wolverhampton (390117) back as far as Birmingham New Street, arriving 17:45 (on time), which gave me a nice leisurely walk up the stairs to the concourse, where lewisrday and ollieb were already waiting. Temple Meads showed his face at 17:59, and we were stuck waiting for Telstarbox and Ascot. When they did turn up, we made our way to a branch of Spoons called the Square Peg, which apparently was recommended to us by a forum member, who then didn't show up. I'm not going to name names though. After being the only one of us to eat a proper meal (no guys, Fudge cake does NOT count at a proper meal, unfortuneatly), we made our way back to New Street station so that me and Telstarbox could take the 20:31 CrossCountry service to Manchester. That turned out to be fun. After a Football special 323x2 from Witton had disgorged a load of P*55ed up Manchester United fans onto our platform, the actual train showed up. It was a case of the football fans took all the seats, and a fair amount of the vestibules, and everyone else just had to lump it. We left Birmingham 9 minutes down, but gradually made that time up as we wandered up towards Manchester (A little bit slowly for my liking), so that we were just +3 there. On arrival, I was greeted with the news that there wasn't a lot in the way of trains towards my stop, MIA, for almost 40 minutes, but not really having the money to waste on a bus fare, I just had to sit it out. I finally made it back home at 23:40, just a little bit later than I was expecting.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Oh, and I found an error in what I was saying as my expected mileage for the day - I'd managed to count Stoke to Manchester twice. Still, I don't think 249 mi 20ch is bad for unique mileage for 30.00.
hock:
