11th – 14th October, A trip to the North East/Scotland
The original plan for this weekend was to focus on the stations north of Newcastle on the Friday (with the Tyne & Wear Metro stations I needed to revisit), heading towards Middlesbrough with the Saturday being Redcar British Steel & the handful of stations on the Esk Valley line I needed to revisit, with the Sunday being North Road and a station in the top 5 of awkwardness. However with the Northern strike, I decided to cancel the room at Middlesbrough, and head towards Edinburgh on the Friday night for a day of 385 hunting & the visit of a recently rebuilt station.
Yes the Esk Valley had services on strike days, but that was no reflection if levels would decrease or get replaced by buses (or become like many other northern lines, is ditched altogether). My accommodation in Edinburgh would be with my good friend Dan in his flat.
11th October – Onwards to Newcastle
I finished a bit earlier than expected allowing me to make the 16:59 service which was running late, I took this 159+158 combo to Basingstoke, changing onto a 220 to Reading for a short session of IET hunting. Nothing of interest came up within 30 minutes so I boarded a pair of 800s heading towards London, which got caught up with some congestion as it was a tad slow. I headed towards platform 16 to jump onto a Circle line service to Kings Cross, swinging via Boots before making my way towards platform 0 (hold your drinks everybody, the barriers at Kings Cross were in operation!).
I was thankful I changed my seat reservation from the default coach to coach F, as the front couple coaches looked busy in terms of seat reservation labels (whereas I had a private table). 43274 “Spirit of Sunderland” was leading 43272 on the 20:00 Kings Cross – Sunderland service, a nice fast to York sprint, although it lost time along the way so was around 15 minutes late into Newcastle. There wasn’t many folk left on board heading towards Sunderland but a good crowd waiting at Newcastle to board a fast service.
43274 at Kings Cross
With options a tad limited for accommodation, I had booked a 4-bed dorm at the Euro Hostel a short walk from the station; somewhere I had previously stayed last December between tours so knew it had a 24 hour front desk. Somewhat expected I had a private room which was a nice little bonus as I didn’t have to keep the noise down when making the bed.
12th October – Newcastle area
An early start with a walk to Newcastle station for the 05:55 Chathill Express, I was making use of a Northern freebie ticket to save on the cost of the anytime fare, and boarded 156471 along with a small handful of others, all of which had gone by Morpeth allowing me the pleasure of a private 156 on the morning northbound fast service to reach Chathill where the unit soon carried on to reverse a few miles up the line. Chathill was as ever quite well kept with flowers on the northbound platform, and a decent shelter on the southbound platform, useful as it was raining (a theme which features a lot).
The 156 returned and I was joined by 3 students, a handful of folk boarded at Alnmouth as the service went into the loop at Wooden Gates to allow a fast LNER to overtake before carrying on, I alighted at Widdrington where a good half dozen boarded (untapped potential), and made use of the time to pop to the nearby Co-Op before heading towards the bus stop, handing over £10.50 for an “explorer” ticket, a very good value for money ticket as it covers bus travel in a very wide area (Carlisle, Berwick, Scarborough), plus the metro & rail services between Sunderland & Blaydon. Arriva bus 1579 was on the 08:05 Max X20 service to Newcastle, going via the coast (Ashington) before joining a dual carriageway for some speedy running. I bailed at the Regent Centre Interchange for a Metro service, jumping on board a service with a few seconds before the door buzzers went.
Arriva Bus 1579 at Regent Centre interchange
Anyhow it was a pair of Metro units which took me to Central Station where I had a short fester to see if 4002 was on one of the last few northbound peak time extras returning towards South Gosforth, before jumping on a pair to take me to Sunderland, mainly Park Lane, where I changed platforms for another service back around the corner to Sunderland station, where I stepped back to wait for a 156 to Newcastle, solely because I needed to use the toilet!
Once at Newcastle, it was downstairs to the metro platforms with another pair of units to Monument, going up the stairs to the coast platforms for a short wait for a coast bound service to take me to Walkergate, making a tight connection (for it was still raining, and I wasn’t going to walk back along the road if I could help it), with a leap to Chillingham Road, confusing some RPIs with going up the stairs from one platform to head towards the footbridge to the opposite platform (after a look at what is on Heaton, a few 156s & 142s, a random 158 plus a Mk4 set). A short wait before another pair of metro cars took me to Whitley Bay, changing over platforms (via the toilets) to board a train back one stop to Cullercoats to clear the Tyne & Wear Metro stops
Cullercoats Metro Station
I was now at a crossroads, as I had around 5 hours to kill before the evening Chathill train, and with 4002 unlikely to make an appearance (4001 & 4083 were floating around earlier, and the last I heard 4040 was being refurbished). I would decide after lunch at the Tesco Metro near West Jesmond, eventually deciding to go hunting for a pacer ride, so headed back towards Newcastle station. First up was a Carlisle bound 156 which I took to the Metro Centre going via the High Level Bridge, which intercepted a coast bound 156 which went back via the high level bridge to terminate into platform 1, with everybody being told to change to another 156 which would resume from platform 12, going via the King Edward Bridge. I remained on board to Sunderland where I decided to go out for a walk to see if there was anything of interest within the city centre area...
...The most interesting thing was a Stagecoach bus with “Here comes the SUNderland bus” written on the side, the city centre area was a bit run down, so I decided to return to the station with my fingers crossed for a northbound Pacer... it was another 156! I took this one to Metro Centre where I got my wish with a 142 back to Newcastle. A good little time wasting move before I was going to head towards South Gosforth for some Metro festering, jumping on the first northbound service to bail at Haymarket where I could ID the first timetabled Pelaw extra, had it been running. Nothing was showing on the destination board, so I headed back to the northbound platform to see everybody getting off the train, catching the end of an announcement that this train was going back south due to an incident around Jesmond. Unexpected microgricing move of the day with the crossover between Haymarket & Monument scored as I headed back to Monument to escape the chaos.
After a brief look around the area, I headed to Central Station where the Metro was back running but with some heavy delays. I took the first southbound service to Gateshead Stadium, grabbing a couple more low mileage units (my rule for “light” rail units is one mile), deciding to head towards Manors to catch an unknown southbound service to the Metro Centre where my plan was to board the Chathill service there for a better chance of getting a decent seat had it be a 142. A good decision as I made my way across the business park, up and over the footbridge to the island platform as 800201 rolled past on test, allowing me to photograph three generations of ECML traction.
91116 leads an Edinburgh bound LNER service at Manors
800201 passes Manors on Test
43306 leads a Scottish bound HST
A refurbished Scottish 156 rolled in from Morpeth as I jumped on board to make use of the charger for a quick boost to my phone, for the trip to the Metro Centre, intercepting a late running 156 from Carlisle to take me back to Newcastle (for it was a mileage requirement), before boarding 156469 which was on the evening Chathil service. I was worried with the large number of passengers at the platform, however they must have been waiting for the late running Middlesbrough bound service behind this one. As expected the train emptied out by Morpeth, with only a few left on board after Widdrington, but surprisingly myself & 3 others got off at Acklington (for I was expecting for it to be only me, as unlike the other two limited served stations, this one isn’t well located).
Nothing on the northbound platform, but thankfully there is a shelter on the southbound platform, which came in handy as it had started to rain once more, with the wind picking up. The only downside is that shelter lacks any sort of lights inside and due to the time of year it was dark, so my plan to waste the hour fester reading my book was soon ditched, instead I had the vocal delights of a 68 heading north on an engineering train. I decided to check on the progress of the southbound service to see how it was getting on...
Acklington Station
....It was a bit confusing, looking at Open Train Times Maps, it was stuck outside Chathill for 15 minutes before seemingly crossing over to terminate in platform 1, where it was around 18 minutes late in departing, losing a couple extra minutes before it arrived, but the 156 sounded poorly. 20 minutes late would be fine for me as I had a +35 at Pegswood for a bus move to Morpeth. The unit lost more time being looped at Chevington for a southbound LNER service, but once more it was like it was only on one engine, as it lost even more time, arriving into Pegswood at 20:22. My bus connection would have been at 20:20 from the Co-Op, with the bus running 5 minutes late (and Google suggesting a 5 minute walk) it was with regrets I decided to remain on the train to Morpeth.
I did have a 2nd backup option, but that bus would have dropped me off in Morpeth town centre instead of by the station (roughly a 10 minute walk), in theory the northbound XC was running late at this point so with the RTT expected timings I could have done it, but didn’t want to risk it (also it was throwing it down with rain, I got soaked walking to a nearby Sainsburys Local for dinner options). (I was a bit annoyed because Pegswood for me is very annoying to visit as it needs an overnight stay; however as a post script I was playing with RTT last night and came up with a good revised plan involving the weekend I revisit Whitby & Redcar). My bad luck continued as the northbound XC service kept on getting later & later due to the increasingly worsening weather conditions, with the voyager eventually rolling into a wet & windy Morpeth 48 minutes late.
It didn’t make any of that time back, and got caught behind a stopper from North Berwick arriving into Edinburgh an annoyingly 58 minutes late, 2 minutes short of getting all my £7 fare back. On the bright side I managed to call at Dunbar heading northbound for an odd microgrice move. Heading towards Dan’s flat was a roundabout move due to the last direct bus route having run, with a route 25 taken towards Leith and then a route 16 taken, where I wasn’t soon enough before collapsing in bed, and for the first Saturday for a long time (excluding the Snow Saturday in March) I didn’t have my alarm set.
To be continued, but I will leave you with a picture of a 365 at Falkirk High, a happy train in the rain.
365537 departs Falkirk High