28th – 30th September
Friday
This Saturday was another railtour, this time being Pathfinder’s “Deltic Deviator”. Due to the timings I decided to stay overnight both days in Sheffield, selecting the Ibis Budget near Sheffield Arena as being the cheapest with decent transport options. I managed to get quite cheap advances to/from Doncaster using Grand Central and my idea was to revisit the Sheffield tram stops I had previously walked between (plus a handful of Northern stations).
An early start and early finish at work and I was London bound on the 13:59 service formed of a single 159, once into Waterloo I decided to save 15p by walking across to Waterloo East for a 465 to London Bridge, with a 700 to Blackfriars to see what else was heading northbound before catching another Bedford bound 700 to St Pancras, walking across to Kings Cross to board refurbished 180104 working the 16:27 Kings Cross – Bradford service, as expected for a Friday evening peak time service it was a tad busy, although nobody was standing in the coach I was in.
180104 at London Kings Cross
Once at Doncaster, it was a short visit to the ticket office to buy my South Yorkshire Connect+ rover, before a 158 took me to Sheffield on a semi-fast service, calling only at Meadowhall along the way. Once at Sheffield I had a short wait before a Leeds stopper via Bolton was due to depart, formed of a double pacer I took in the darkness to reach Goldthorpe, having a short walk along the road to reach Thurnscoe to clear a couple stations in South Yorkshire. Another pair of pacers were on the Sheffield bound, featuring 144012 which I hadn’t had the pleasure of travelling on since it was done up and in all fairness it is a nice job inside.
Returning to Sheffield, and the tram system was in chaos due to earlier football related violence against trams, the yellow route was turning round at Cathedral and the blue route only going towards Shalesmoor, so my original plan to visit the stops at the Hillsborough end was put on hold as I grabbed something to eat before heading towards Woodbourne Road, walked to Attercliffe, caught the next Meadowhall bound tram to Valley Centerainment for a walk via the retail park to Carbrook, returning towards Cricket Inn Road, making a tight connection to another Meadowhall bound tram which took me to the Arena stop, where I had a short walk towards the hotel, getting checked in with a room on the 4th floor.
Saturday
An early start and I was back at the Arena tram stop with a tram taken towards the city centre, I was going to alight at the Cathedral to pop to a nearby Tesco (or Sainsburys) but when on the triangle a 399 on a purple route service was waiting for us to pass, and it was
399207 my final tram-train to get, so I alighted at Ponds Forge with 399207 following up the hill to Cathedral, as I remained on board for the run to Sheffield station, a nice little bonus to kick start the morning.
The tour towards York was hauled by super-dud 68004, nicknamed “Pathfinder” for it appearing on several Pathfinder tours in the past, and due to an issue heading north from Sheffield it has to go via the freight line via Tinsley (68s are not cleared heading north), a further pick up is made in Moorthorpe as I settle down to relax on the Mk2 coaches, as the final pick up was made in York, where Deltic
55009 was dropped onto the front of the 68 (with the 68 shut down, due to lack of time). The Deltic was quite smokey on departure heading north with a speedy run towards Northallerton, turning right to go via the Durham Coast (I had forgotten how pretty this line is north of Hartlepool), and using the King Edward bridge to approach Newcastle from the South (after a brief wait for a platform to become available).
55009 arrives at York
The Deltic continued heading northbound, turning right after Morpeth onto the Blyth & Tyne route to head back south towards Newcastle where a brief pause was had for photographs before heading towards Carlisle, where I will admit my lack of sleep from the night before caught up with me and I had a brief nap for the run along the Tyne Valley. Once at Carlisle we had around a 2 hour break so I headed into the city centre to have a look in a couple shops, grabbing food & making use of free WiFi from a pub to have a catch up with the internet. Back onto Carlisle station and I rejoined the train for the pleasant run south via the Settle & Carlisle line, continuing towards Leeds (needless to say the Skipton EMU sidings were pretty full of EMUs due to the Northern Strike timetable coming to an end of services). The train took the Whitehall curve to bypass Leeds station to head towards Castleford, I’ve done the line beyond Castleford 3 times now and all 3 times it has been in the dark!
Pretty soon the train arrived at York where a good portion of folk bailed, as 55009 was detached and 68004 fired up to haul the train back in a southern direction back towards Sheffield, a special mention going out to a slightly drunken gentlemen who suddenly burst into a random rant about many things (“What people these days don’t realise...”), so I was thankful when the 68 past Meadowhall for a slow crawl into Sheffield, the end of the tour, but not the end of the day for me.
A brief walk to Fitzalan Square saw me onto a delayed busy Middlewood tram towards Shalesmoor for a couple minute fester before a blue route tram arrived for the single stop leap to Infirmary Road for a longer fester before taking the next tram to Leppings Lane where I was close to making it back to Hillsborough Park in time for the return, but got held up by traffic lights which meant a trip to Middlewood on the next tram before heading back for the long run back to the Arena, the end of my busy day.
55009/68004/67010 at Newcastle
Sunday
I checked out of the hotel, and walked to the Arena tram stop, only to find the first tram running late so it would miss a connection at Hyde Park for a Blue route service which used the rarer side of the triangle (for a novelty factor) so it was to Castle Square to pick up breakfast when waiting for a Purple route tram to return from Cathedral. This tram was quiet and didn’t stop until Manor Top after departing Fitzalan Square, even skipped the station! Anyhow I remained on board to jump out at Herdings Leighton Road for a brief wait for the tram to return to take me to Gleadless Townend.
10 minutes later the next blue route tram (had I known it was going to be such a long wait I would have carried on to the next stop), which took me to Hackenthorpe where I managed to intercept a city centre bound service for the single stop leap to Birley Moor Road, 15 minutes later the next Halfway tram arrived which allowed me to tick off the Supertram network as I headed to Halfway, returning back to the station, where I decided to turn down a busy looking Huddersfield Pacer for a quieter looking low mileage 144 on a Lincoln service which I took to Kiveton Park to await the next Huddersfield unit, which would be getting a lot of miles today.
That unit was 144011 as I remained on when it emptied out at Sheffield and headed towards Huddersfield, bailing out at Berry Brow for a short walk down and up the valley to reach Lockwood, mainly as a time wasting move. 144011 returned to take me back into South Yorkshire all the way to Sheffield.
144011 arrives into Lockwood
A quick hop to the city centre via a handy tram to grab some late lunch and other supplies before returning to the station to see if any mileage requirements were floating around, but alas nothing of interest as I turned down a late running TPE 185 on grounds it was the usual TPE wedged out service, in flavour of a Hull bound fast 158, one of the former Scottish units as well. Soon enough Doncaster was reached and I had a brief walk around the town centre before returning to board 180104 back to London, yes the same unit I had on Friday, and again it was very busy.
Once at Kings Cross, I headed across to St Pancras for a 700 to London Bridge, and a pair of 465s to Waterloo East, again mainly for the 15p saving (it all adds up!) and the ability to get a couple extra miles compared to going via LU. Once at Waterloo, it was time to grab dinner before boarding the retimed 19:14 service back home, the end of a good weekend, with 159013’s membership forms for the 3000 mile club being stamped for approval.
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September in Numbers
5305 miles covered
10 new units (2x385, 5x 700, 1x800, 2x 802)
13 new locos (1x20, 1x 47, 2x 50, 1x55, 1x 56, 3x66, 1x73, 2x86, 1x90)
2 new light rail (1x 92 stock, 1x Sheffield Supertram)
Looking ahead to October sees another busy month, a trip to Cornwall & Devon to hopefully clear GWR, a trip to the North East with an unexpected return to Edinburgh as a “Northern strike avoidance” day, a railtour to Scunthorpe and followed by a trip to Blackpool where plans are currently awaiting the expected announcement of further strike action by Northern to decide what I will do (but most likely a quiet day on Blackpool Trams)