Day 2 - Tuesday 12 May 2015
After awaking at a slightly more reasonable time than the previous day (although I love early mornings!), it was a quick breakfast at the hotel, which I didn't enjoy, before setting off for another day of random travelling round London!
A short walk to
Stratford High Street DLR station saw me board car
103 and ride it to its terminus,
Woolwich Arsenal. It is worth pointing out that my ticket was checked on this journey, never had that happen on a DLR train before! I had not been at WWA long when it was announced that
my next train had been cancelled. I was supposed to take this the long way round to London Cannon Street. I was feeling a bit unwell with a headache at this point so rather than trying to work out where else I might be able to go, I decided to stay to WWA to have a prober breakfast, before joining
376019/376031 on the
1119 to London Cannon Street. Although this service arrived into
Cannon Street 5 minutes later than booked, it was still one minute earlier than the train I should have been on!
Next up, a couple of short Tube journeys. First a trip on District line car
17522 all the way to
Bank/Momument, followed by Northern line car
51547 to
Kings Cross/St Pancras. It was here that things began to go wrong. Again.
Arriving at KGX/STP at 1219, it was time for my PNB before catching my next train at 1240. After a queue in the toilets, and staff serving customers in front exceptionally slowly while waiting to pay for lunch (why do both of these things
only occur when you are in a hurry?), I literally rushed for the Thameslink platforms for my
next train, and reached the escalator to the lower level just in time to hear the brakes release and the train move off! To make matters worse, the
next train to Hendon, my next port of call, was running over 10 minutes late and would not be stopping there! So I had to wait a full half hour before joining the
1310 to Luton, worked on this not-so-fine day by
319460.
Alighting at
Hendon, I took a short walk to West Hendon Broadway to board my only bus of the day, service
142 to
Watford Junction station. I quite like WFJ, although still feeling unwell meant that I did not use my time here as effectively as I might otherwise have done. Nonetheless, I was here for around 40 minutes there before boarding
378232 on the
1521 to London Euston. This was the train I should have been on, and thankfully everything worked after this and I was able to follow my booked diagram until the end of my shift!
I ditched 378232 at
Harrow & Wealdstone, and had just over 20 minutes to wait before
377201/377202 appeared with the
1559 to East Croydon. Disembarking at
East Croydon, it was now time for a ride on the Croydon tramlink! Riding tram
2665 to
Birkbeck was one of the most uncomfortable journeys of my life, standing and cramped the whole time, and I couldn't wait to get off and make my way to the NR platform to board the
1801 to Beckenham Junction, worked by
455838/455807.
I had just over half an hour at
Beckenham Junction before
465006/465195 turned up, forming my next diagrammed service, the
1841 to London Victoria.
This visit to
London Victoria allowed me to buy to buy dinner and some much needed Nurofen, before pressing on with
377309/377325 on the rather pleasant
1922 to London Bridge.
From
London Bridge, it was a trip on the Jubilee line (car
96467) to
Canning Town, followed by the DLR (car
80) to
Stratford High Street to get back to the hotel.
Upon my arrival, I decided to try the hotel restaurant and ordered myself some fish & chips. I love fish & chips, but this was horrible. The fish looked (and tasted) like it had been bought in from a supermarket and frozen, not restaurant quality and certainly not worth the £8.95 I paid for it You can get better fish at local takeaways for half that price!!