I see no-one has posted so I may as well!
On Friday I travelled to Cardiff the whole way by 158. Metcam missed the train at Manchester, so I got off mine at Hereford and waited for his. While I was there I went to a bridge and got a photo of the 1722 PAD-HFD HST in the evening sun to pass the 90 minutes (Metcam's train was late!).
On Saturday we met the rest of the gang at Cardiff Central. I decided to stand by the window the whole way as it was absolutely superb weather for it! It was the first time I've been west of Swansea, we took the Swansea & District line rather than the Swansea avoider. Loads of photters were out to capture the train.
I found this photo by Mark Thomas:
I think that might be a certain member of this forum flailing at the front!
I think that might be a certain member of this forum flailing at the front!
At Cardiff everyone went to grab a photo of the 50 running around, and the journey back was also excellent with not a cloud in sight.
Our train made an impressive sight at St.Ishmael...
paul1609 introduced himself to us midway through the return journey, nice to meet you Paul!
I don't think anyone had any lunch at Fishguard so we were all quite hungry when we got back to Cardiff, so a group of no less than 9 of us went to pizza hut (Jim was happy! ). The ex-Pembroke Dock HST (which we'll be coming back on soon) was late, but on arrival at Bristol Parkway we discovered that a southbound Voyager was so delayed that the driver of our HST to Manchester was not yet at Parkway let alone Temple Meads! So we took that Voyager to pass the time and get on the HST sooner.
The trip back on the HST was excellent, a reminder of how much fun and more comfortable CrossCountry journeys used to be. Unfortunately timekeeping was not so excellent as we continued to lose time as the signallers chose to put an incredible number of stoppers ahead of us. They'd probably have put the CrossCity train in front too if it wasn't for the 4-track section We then got diverted via Camp Hill and waited ages at Birmingham for a Pendo and 323 and whatever else to get in front! 55 late at Stafford, but a good run from there meant I had plenty of time to get the 2342, finally getting home at 0200. What a day...!