A finale to 2017- 16/12 to 17/12/17
The University term had come to an end, and all that was left was to head home, right?
Not quite.
A friend was having a gathering in London last Sunday, so thanks to £19 of Travelodge credit and GC allowing you to mash Railcard and NUS discounts together, I threw myself together a weekend in London for £39, and pondered what to do with the Saturday evening, still being unsure as I stepped out of my flat and had the usual walk to the station, sliding over and cracking my phone screen en route (thankfully just a cosmetic one) before I awaited the 11:11 to Cleethorpes, formed of
185120 for the run to Doncaster where I had a half hour wait because connections onto GC are absolutely terrible. I noted that the VTEC service in its vile hateful way was running late, so my train was held at Shaftholme Junction to let it groan past.
Side rant- I really don’t have any time for VTEC anymore, too many failed delay repay claims and run ins with some absolutely disgraceful staff, usually customer service and senior figures. The nail in the coffin for me was in August when I was delayed 75 minutes on a TPE service, ironically due to VTEC’s 1Y03 0445 NCL-KGX disgracing itself at Ferryhill, wildly missing my GC connection. VTEC station staff refused to help and said i’d have to wait three hours for the next service, so I got on the next VTEC anyway (sod delaying myself by about 4 hours!) and managed to seek out the guard before we’d even left York station, though he asked me to hang on until he’d done the doors. This caught the attention of two plain clothes/office looking type revenue people who told me i’d have to buy a new ticket at the full price. The guard turned around and said “oh back off, he’s literally been two services in front of us the entire time. Just sit down mate, you’ve been through enough already”. Along comes the two happy campers afterwards and they demand my ticket again (it’s been shoved in my wallet as I thought I was done with checks) but nooo, “I want to mark it!” snaps one of them at me. She then goes down the train and is asked by a passenger if he can travel via London King’s Cross to Cambridge as at the time, a freight train had derailed between Peterborough and Ely. Official advice was indeed to do exactly that. Her magical special advice was that he was to get off at Peterborough else she’d charge him a new ticket.
As soon as she wandered off, I showed him the official National Rail advice and told him he’d been fed absolute rubbish and to not pay anything else for his journey. And indeed, I now refuse to buy VTEC only or VTEC & Connections tickets if I can help it 
Rant over, dud
180105 sped into Platform 1 a few minutes late, and I plonked myself in Coach B for a very quiet run to King’s Cross non-stop. We were hindered a little outside Newark waiting for the VTEC to speed up again, though I laughed a little as we did full pelt through Peterborough, overtaking the Virgin service that was meant to be in front of us, as we subsequently made up all of our time lost and arrived into King’s Cross at 13:43. I threw some money onto my Oyster before deciding what I wanted to do- play with some GWR services before everything changes drastically in the New Year! I hopped onto winners
21103/21104 to Baker Street before swapping onto winner
3265 trailing dud
3536 to Paddington. A quick trip into the ticket office to be served by a complete misery guts saw me with a Thames Branches Ranger in hand, promptly rejected by the gates (requiring more interaction with another pain in the rear, what is it with Paddington?!)
I joined duds
43078/43098 on the 1427 to Bristol, figuring that I wasn’t entirely bothered about winners and just wanted to rack up some good runs on Western Region HSTs out of Paddington before the chance disappears. These were taken to Reading, of course, where I joined the 1512 service back, another two duds this time being
43142/43193. I wondered where all of the winners had actually gone as I hadn’t noted a single one in either direction, apart from the 800s off to Swansea which i’d intercept later on! It was a very tight cross platform connection on the 1545 to Swansea once I got back to Paddington, bemusing the dispatcher as I opened the nearest door and slammed it shut behind me, only noting that it was dud
43196 on the front. This was a pretty lightly loaded train, and I was getting fairly hungry so I made a note to do a supply raid at Reading Boots once we arrived in there. I was happy to note on arrival that i’d finally struck lucky too, with winner
43017 being on the back.
Sandwiches and a wrap for £1 each were sourced at the small Boots on the bridge, where I decided to just wait until something I required rocked up. Bizarrely this time, the first set that rocked up was formed of winners
43031/43139, so I sat myself down in Coach B and devoured a very cheap sandwich for the umpteenth run back to Paddington (I used to say this was a bit of a boring use of a ranger, but when it’s cold and dark to be honest it’s probably also the best use of it) where I was monitoring the 1700 to Oxford, ready to dive onto it as we were late enough to make the +3 or +8 onto the two HSTs impossible. I noted an HST on the adjacent platform as we arrived however, and with winner
43164 on the front I wasn’t going to pass it up, so I dived on and slammed the door shut behind me as the dispatcher was blowing his whistles. What was I actually on board though? An announcement of “welcome to the 16:48 to Bristol Temple Meads” soon answered my question as we turned out to be the Bristol, running 5 late on departure for some reason.
Arrival into Reading was a little unwelcome as the rain was starting to fall, though the rear power car was IDed as winner
43141, keeping the lucky streak going. I did however decide that I had to give a newfangled IET a try, and paid £4 for a return to Didcot before sitting myself down in the waiting room for a half hour or so wait before winners
800012/800020 squealed into the platform and I found myself a table at the very front. Very confusing state of affairs here. RTT had us down at the Weston-super-Mare service, the guard said we were going to Bristol, and the PIS was happily announcing us as going to Taunton via Weston! The reality was that we were for Bristol only, and I spent some time trying to accustom myself to the seats. They’re alright, but still rock hard and absolutely not suitable for a Paddington to Penzance run! The trains themselves however are undoubtedly solid and I was impressed by them. They’ll be worthy replacements once the seats soften up a bit! Off I hopped at Didcot Parkway, joining duds
43010/43018 back to Reading where I decided to try for something better. Across the platform I went for winners
43176/43185, with 185 looking fantastic in Intercity Swallow livery! Bizarrely Coach A was empty so I made myself comfortable before readying myself to join what was designated as a fresh-off-the-depot 800 pair.
As I headed back through the barriers (and somehow had another argument as the attendant put his hands on me and said “Where do you think YOU’RE going?” as I walked through a gate I thought he’d opened to let me through), the sight of duds
43025/43151 was a bit of a letdown and a blessing. A blessing as it made the most of HST workings, a letdown as they were damn dud! Through to Reading once again, before I jumped off and figured I had time for a filler move before the IET from Swansea. I had a choice of two services to Reading West, both duds 165108 or
165126, so I chose 126 in its original FGW guise for a shorter wait at West. All was going smoothly, but then departure time from Reading West came around and along came the late running ex-Penzance instead! I only had a +6 at Reading! I started muttering expletives to myself as the headlights appeared 4 late, though the silver lining was that it was winner
166204 and I was left with 90 seconds to absolutely pelt it across the station, making it onto winners
800015/800018 as they prepared to leave.
It was completely empty this time so I had a proper look around the train and was almost ready to go “oh it’s falling apart already!” as the vestibule door at the back was constantly banging open and shut, before I saw someone had stuck a coke bottle in its way
The toilet looked all spick and span too, and I started to warm to the firmness of the seats before we arrived into Paddington and I saw that I had the option of an absolutely rammed 165130 on the Worcester (2 carriages, really?!) or to just get the Cardiff for one last HST run. Obviously I took the latter option and joined duds
43009/43168 to Reading one last time. I now needed to head back to Hounslow-ish so I was left with the unusual option of catching an Oxford to Maidenhead 165 for a 387 onwards (really useful as a pile of these were cancelled earlier, leaving Reading to Twyford and Maidenhead with next to no service, the biggest gap being 2001 to this service at 2241!) Dud
165107 was in charge for my likely last ever run on a Turbo down the GWML to Maidenhead as 387s are set to take over these from January 2nd (unless I end up getting on a Bedwyn sometime soon), arriving in at 2255 and ready for me to join dud
387148 and winner
387154 to Hayes and Harlington.
It seemed busier than usual, and I soon found out why as the 2242 had been cancelled so this 2303 was the first service for a good while! My original plan saw me try to snag a few more 387s and finish on the 0030 to Twyford, though that was a bullet dodged at the 0030 was caped too! Arrival was at 2328, and I swiftly made my way upstairs for an early running H98 to Cranford, into Travelodge Heathrow Central for a shower and lie down before I headed to bed.
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I didn’t get up until around 09:05 the next day, simply because I didn’t want to fork out for a Travelcard for the sake of a couple hours bashing so I just stuck to my Oyster credit. I left the hotel at around 09:40 and walked the mile or so to Hounslow West station (this is a terrible hotel for tube and rail connections nearby!), joining winners
167/230 to Hammersmith where I intended to have a supply raid for the day, but the Sainsbury’s turned out to be a bigger one not open until 11, and the Tesco was a similar story. Oh well, onto winners
223/870 it was then to Russell Square.
Fast forward to 18:45 and I weaved my way out of Spoons next to Holborn station and onto winners
157/878 to Russell Square, dropping back onto winner
177 leading dud
206 to Kings Cross where I figured I had 10 minutes spare. As a result, it was onto winners
11025/11026 to Euston and a dash across the platform onto winners
51581/51713 back over. I waited up on the concourse for my delayed for some reason 19:22 to Bradford to be announced (don’t understand why to be honest, it arrived on time and there was no other disruption) but it was winner
180101 so I wasn’t too fussed as we left 7L and seemed to fly all the way to Doncaster, to the extent that we arrived on time at 20:59 and I had a feasible +2 onto the Northern stopper back to Sheffield due to it being slightly late (waiting until 21:42 otherwise) and I asked the guard if she could sell me a single with railcard discount before boarding
158910. She obliged and also accidentally sold me the cheaper TPE only ticket! Oh well, an extra 85p in my pocket then
Arrival was at 21:37, and I returned to my now empty flat, being the last one to head home for Christmas the next day after signing for a house for next year.
Decent end to the year’s bashing!
Total winners- 28
By that reaction you've probably guessed I'm well into going to Europe these days. Confirmed this on Friday, details to come in my own trip report thread later. Safe to say I was glad to have the group chat on Messenger and free WiFi, otherwise I'd have gone crazy on the way back to Hereford!
