After what seems like a day and an age since I last went out for a proper trip, I ended up going out on two consecutive days for full-day bashes! Thankfully, The Haulage Book has not been devoid of entries with the daily commute and the odd domestic trip throwing up a few winners (plus a lot of new carriages). Before the meltdown on May 20th, Thameslink had been providing me a good number of winning 700/0s on the commute such that by Meltdown Day, I was only missing four. And of these four, I was only aware of two of them having been in traffic.
Before those two full-day outings, I had a trip down to Eastleigh to view another second-hand book collection (which I eventually bought). I “bunny-hopped” my way down to Eastleigh in order to maximise the number of winning carriages so the route was Wimbledon-Surbiton- Woking-Basingstoke-Winchester-Eastleigh. As I was clear on South Western 455s and 456s – even for carriages, I did not expect anything on the Wimbledon-Surbiton leg. How wrong was I? I only managed to fall into one of the 707 workings to Hampton Court which yielded a winning 707030. Bit of a Brucie bonus there and that more than compensated for me getting soaked in Eastleigh later on.
Wednesday May 30th was to be the first of my two days out “playing trains”. First up in my sights were any 345s that might be found out working but I ended up getting a little distracted. I’d seen (and had) my last 378 in 5-car format only three days previously but barely had managed a mile with it let alone the preferred 10 miles so I hoped that it was still around on the East London Line. No signs of it but instead following one another around were my last DC-only 378s that had yet to breach the 10-mile barrier. An hour or two later and 378137 and 378150 had been added to the Ten Mile Club. That just leaves a good few 378/2s to get up to 10 miles or more.
Over to the Great Eastern and 345s seemed rather thin on the ground. I was trying to confine myself to Liverpool Street to Stratford leaps just in case anything else tempting materialised. My first winner was not even a 345 but 360102 (one GE “Dessie” down, one to go). Soon after I fell into 345011 and immediately afterwards 345010. A short while later and 345008 reared its ugly head which dropped me nicely onto 360108 and my last GE “Dessie” so I took the liberty of sounding the CCC (Class Clearance Cannons to the uninitiated). Not wanting to hang around for the evening peak and the off-chance that more 345s appear, I thought that I’d try my hand at Thameslink. In around four hours, I managed to bag a reasonable haul of FLU 700s – a sub-class that I had not travelled on in either 2017 or thus far in 2018. I was able to let 700124, 700136, 700152, 700102, 700149, 700147, 700135, 700117, 700148 and 700132 enjoy the pleasures of my red pen. Other dud 700/1s were also sampled as fill in moves.
Not all of my journeys were confined to the core as I managed to make several visits to East Croydon. I’d also seen 700058 out and about on Wimbledon loop services but I always seemed to be travelling to or from Croydon when it was traversing the core. Towards the end of the day, I was waiting at London Bridge when winning 700055 magically appeared on a southbound service so that was duly boarded to East Croydon for my fourth visit of the day where I fell into 387206+387218 on a Brighton-Victoria service (as in previous timetables, many evening Brighton line "stopping" services are formed of red 387s). 387206 was the only 387/2 that was already red-penned but under the ten mile barrier, a conundrum that a quick trip to Clapham Junction solved. I checked on the whereabouts of 700058 and saw that it was heading south from St Albans onto the Sutton loop. I had about 45 minutes to get to Mitcham Eastfields to intercept it so a couple of fill-in moves that involved bagging more Southern 455 cars saw me waiting at Balham for 377137+377306+377327 round to Mitcham Eastfields where after a short fester, ‘twas only four minutes, saw me red pen 700058 and head home via Sutton to St Helier.
Not a bad day out day out and letting the red pen rip on seventeen different occasions was pretty good in my books especially as my last two 360s fell by the wayside. OK, I still need two RLU 700s (059 and 060) but I am not aware that they are in traffic yet and at last I have started out on getting the shed load of required FLU 700s in what is supposedly difficult times with Thameslink’s inability to run even a meltdown timetable. When (sorry if) Thameslink come out of meltdown mode, I might find a few hours to go chasing a few more 700/1s.
My turn of phrase, didnt mean I was bored reading about it, in fact you couldnt be further from the truth, it adds a new dimension to the hobby. I merely meant your idea has seen more than a few people follow your lead. I'm not bored reading about it, similar to all who do shack scratching, it intrigues me how much book work or data files you all have. Log books must be akin to an accountants book work. My bookwork is notebooks with numbers of stuff seen and moves made, where and when and I have 4 notebooks worth alone in a shoebox in the bottom of my wardrobe.
