Juliano's World Frenzy/Tech's Trip Reports

[shredder1]

Lovely to see you back Mr Tech, you`ve been missed mate.

 

[D841 Roebuck]

All the best. Glad you're OK.

 

[Techniquest]

Lovely to see you back Mr Tech, you`ve been missed mate.

Oh I've been about but not posting! That's very kind of you to say, and I've been keeping an eye on where you've been on Facebook. Certainly you're still very active!

My 2018 Review is now live on my blog, as is the Spain trip report which I bundled up into Days 1-3 and 4-6. I nearly included the report from the day of pottering around the Birmingham area too, but the blog's all about my world exploration trips so it didn't seem appropriate.

Hopefully come December I'll be in a position to actually book one of my latest plans, those who've been following the blog/my hashtags on Twitter will have seen plenty of hints!

507021, sounds like you've been a busy lad! Glad you're enjoying the blog posts, even though they're generally written for norms who I'm trying to inspire to get out there and see the world.

Kris, I tried watching All The Stations many months ago but it bored me too much. That was even the case when I was still shack scratching!

D841, thanks!

 

[Kite159]

Welcome back Mr J

 

[507021]

507021, sounds like you've been a busy lad! Glad you're enjoying the blog posts, even though they're generally written for norms who I'm trying to inspire to get out there and see the world.

Yeah, I've been really busy this year. I've not had that many days out compared to previous years, but I've made the most of them, that's for sure.

The blog is great mate, it's definitely inspired me. I'm hoping to visit Malta and Australia in the next few years or so.

 

[LowLevel]

Obviously we still keep in touch via Facebook J however! Don't beat yourself up for enjoying a rail journey as if it's a weakness though. You can still enjoy it without taking it to the nth degree logging and recording every bit of it.

I've never done it and rarely go out on the trains for the sake of it (though I make a hell of a lot of leisure journeys!). I do however enjoy my train rides to and from different towns and cities to do pubs (I write this from the comfy end of an IC225 set on the East Coast near Retford).

You have a habit of flogging yourself far too much for perceived weakness when you've already achieved a hell of a lot - give yourself a break and keep enjoying the fruits of your success

 

[433N]

Obviously we still keep in touch via Facebook J however! Don't beat yourself up for enjoying a rail journey as if it's a weakness though. You can still enjoy it without taking it to the nth degree logging and recording every bit of it.

I've never done it and rarely go out on the trains for the sake of it (though I make a hell of a lot of leisure journeys!). I do however enjoy my train rides to and from different towns and cities to do pubs (I write this from the comfy end of an IC225 set on the East Coast near Retford).

You have a habit of flogging yourself far too much for perceived weakness when you've already achieved a hell of a lot - give yourself a break and keep enjoying the fruits of your success

+1

If you can enjoy the simple pleasures in life like a train ride, then it is a gift to be appreciated really.

I've travelled a lot of the world (even lived on 3 continents for substantial amounts of time) but I much prefer poking into the corners of the mundane than seeing all the must-do-bucket-list things.

 

[87electric]

I echo the above comments. The hobby can be all consuming if you let it. Best to focus on just one or two aspects of it. I left the hobby for over 20 years but it never left me.
Hope you don’t regret binning your books in years to come Tech. I just put mine in the attic and I’m glad I did. It’s your own personal diary/history document. A fun thing.

 

[The_Train]

Nice to see you back @Techniquest, our paths didn't really cross before as you seemed to disappear just as I arrived on to the forum.....don't worry I didn't take it personally I seem to remember your trip reports being amongst the first I read and they were very enjoyable and certainly played a part in my determination to get back out onto the network and do something I used to love as a kid and only stopped doing through that fear of how the hobby would be perceived by my peers once I hit my teens. I certainly regret binning my old books and as has been said before, I hope you don't.

Great to hear that you're enjoying your travelling, I imagine you've enjoyed some fantastic experiences in doing so. It's certainly a shame that you've been unable to reconnect to the railways but it's important to remember that this is a hobby and hobbies should always be enjoyable and once that enjoyment goes I guess they become more like a chore. Don't forget though, enjoying the railways comes in many forms and doesn't always have to be about logging information whether it be numbers or mileage and certainly doesn't have to be about hitting targets and completing classes/stations. Even when I went through my period of not logging numbers, I still used to get excited about travelling anywhere by train (even if it was a Voyager) and since getting back into the hobby I've met people who write numbers down but don't do anything with them after and even someone who just goes to the local to watch trains go by.

Hopefully you can still find time to pop onto here every so often as you're very knowledgeable and it's good for students of the hobby, like me, to learn off people like you.....it's what makes this forum so great (in my opinion of course)

 

[Skymonster]

Back in my teens I spent time at stations like Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham. I remember pairs of 20s on MGRs, then 56s, riding on Peak-hauled on expresses to London, 47s on Glasgows via Settle & Carlisle, 25s with short rakes of wagons, electrics at New Street - and first generation DMUs everywhere. I lost the railway bug in my 20s, even though I drove past Toton almost every day - the lines of locos meant nothing to me. Then a few years ago I started to travel by train quite regularly again, and what began with just noting the EMT units I travelled in spread first to any EMT units seen through the windows or while standing on the platforms, then pretty much anything I came across on a journey. I saw some information on another forum, got more interested, and ended up doing a few organised visits of places to Basford Hall, Barrow Hill (night photography), WCRC at Carnforth, etc. I made some good friends, we drank some beer, and now I travel just for trains every so often - although no where near as extensively as many.

So you're wondering what all that got to do with you Mr. Tech? Well the moral of the story is that like Mr. Train above, I ended up getting back into railways. I didn't think I ever would, and it really wasn't a deliberate act. And now I regret binning all my old notes. It'd be fascinating to look through them all again, and I might even be able to contribute to the "On this day in history" thread!

I can totally appreciate you going off railways but try to keep the flame alive, even if it's turned down real low. Extinguishing it might seem to be the best bet - or the only decision - right now but in five, ten, or even twenty years you might really wish you'd continued to cling on, even if only very gently. The flip side of course is there's much more to life than just railways, as you seem to have already found out, so you might end up never looking back. But dropping into a forum from time to time and keeping a few notes is hardly onerous - and you never know when you might feel that urge again.

 

[fowler9]

A very good evening (or morning, afternoon or any other time you're reading this) to you all!

Yes I know you're all probably fainting in shock because I'm posting on the forum for the first time in months. I think my last post on this thread in May 2018 was my last one overall on the forum. I have been reading trip reports quite a bit though, both those I have subscribed to as well as a few new arrivals on the scene. I was going to post on here early this morning, but put the phone on charge and by the time it was ready to be used again I was instead ready to hit the hay.

I've been in a rather reflective mood for the last 30 or so hours, which admittedly has not been helped by re-reading some of my old trip reports! It's been some time since my last update, so let's have a bit of a catch-up starting with a rather large piece of news from the summer:

I believe it was back in June 2018 that I decided a need to cut ties with my past and the obsession with the railway had to happen. So my moves book, atlases, Trackmaps books, my spotting books and no doubt other stuff all went into the recycling bin. I kept my A5 size notebook though, despite it having some bashing notes in it, as it also includes other stuff that I wanted to keep. I don't generally use that notebook now mind, but there's writings from February 2018 which I just can't get rid of. I really should, to try and fully get over an event that happened in Q1 2018, but I just can't bring myself to bin those yet.

The other big news from the summer was the eventual completion of my excess mass shredding. It took just under 7 months to shred 5 stone, and as I type this I really need to get to work on re-eliminating the excess fats that have accumulated since then.

My 7-phase 2018 Grand Plan has ground to a halt too, as while I left my supermarket job back in August 2018 in an effort to move onto bigger things that job didn't work out. I then, with some help, got another new job but that really didn't work out either. So recently I went back to my supermarket job, just doing so on night shifts instead now. I was hoping to never return to retail but, with the confidence to meet new people and start something new shot to pieces, it was that or nothing. So while it's not ideal, until I can get finances back under control it will just have to do!

The other phases of the Grand Plan have been put on hold too, as I just don't have the confidence to even try completing them now. There are other circumstances too, but as things stand I don't think I'll ever successfully complete the objectives. A shame as I had started learning to drive again and, for a while, I had made good progress with the other two missions too. Following my Cyprus adventure in July 2018 I had committed to under-going a 'full body MOT' as a friend put it. Which frustratingly I have not managed to do, I started it all but right now I can't be bothered to complete it.

I've still been going hard at it with my world exploration trips though, 2018 having seen me visit Spain, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia and Finland. I'm aiming to complete the year's collection on my Wordpress blog in a bit, now I've copy-pasted the Spanish trip report from this thread, but the rest of them are already on techsworldfrenzy.wordpress.com and I should add right now that while I have kept a similar style to my reports here, the content has had a bit of a re-style. Very different to the content of my reports on this forum!

I'm also making plans for 2019, although as you can imagine funds are really not there at this time to book anything. Some very major plans have already had a lot of research for them done, and it just frustrates me that I can't book any of it yet. I don't think I need to tell anyone (except for new arrivals to this area) to keep following my #TPPMode and #TechsWorldFrenzy hashtags on Twitter! Which leads nicely into mentioning I'm on Instagram too these days, and I can be found as juliano_travels on there. I will keep my Flickr account (43002) going though, and hopefully in the next week I'll actually caption my photos from Tallinn and Estonia so I can make them public. My Instagram page does have some highlights on there already, with the intention to share highlights as the trips happen on Instagram as well as Twitter. My goal though is to share at least a few photos exclusively on Twitter and a few others exclusively on Instagram, with full collections on Flickr.

So that's the bulk of the news over the last 5 months, however one last bit must be addressed:

There have been a fair few times where I've wanted to return to the railway, to my old self. Whenever I try to do so though, I just can't do it! I stopped logging any journeys except for flights for a good while, and I tried again to note my moves more recently to see if that made any difference. I did have a rather ride from Hereford to Shrewsbury about a month ago, and for that brief period I thought I could do it, that Lord Quest was back. I tested the theory again the next day too, with a trip to Runway Aviation Park near Manchester Airport. It couldn't be done, by the time I had a technical issue at Pumpkin Crewe that afternoon I found the bug hadn't returned and that Juliano was still alive and well. That evening I did find, after several beers, myself bored on a leap aboard a 390 back to Crewe scribbling down the recent moves. I even paid attention to 68024 at Crewe on my way home, but not even that got me returning to the scene. So that begs the question to be asked:

Given the current situation, would I consider returning to the scene? Well yesterday I tested this theory once again, and while my moves were noted and my official farewell to the HST was made, I would rather stay a fan of the aviation scene instead. Yes I've gone back to being somewhat nerdy, but not to the point it's taken over my entire life. I have it and a social life in a fairly reasonable balance these days, so I'm very pleased with that. The question no doubt still on the lips of some of you though, which I think I've answered already:

Do I regret binning my books? No!

It's been 15 years this month since the obsession with the railway was started with a very claggy HST leaving Swansea, way back in 2003. I did get slightly emotional saying farewell to the HST yesterday morning, after all without I wouldn't have done all the stuff I have achieved. Even so, real life moves on and I've moved onto other things too!

Will I ever return, even in many years' time? Who knows, but I don't see happening. Aviation and exploring the world is my main focus these days!

Good to here from you Tech. Just keep doing what you want to do. Hope you enjoyed Tallinn and also Finland. Did you visit Helsinki from Tallinn? That's what I did. Also did you visit a pub called Hell Hunt in Tallinn? One of my favourite pubs in the world, despite its name it means the gentle wolf or hound I believe. Brilliant name for a pub for someone like me to visit being a metal head.

 

[47403]

Well hello Jules.
Sorry to hear things didn't work out elsewhere but nice to hear from you on here albeit very briefly.
As someone who lost his notes from years back, you know the craic, I certainly wouldn't have binned them, Merely stored them at the back of a cupboard or wardrobe but hey ho, that's your choice.
I wish you well on your travels bud and life treats you well. Oh and if you do ever come back to the game, I hope you buy a ruler(shakes finger whilst saying) free hand marking in, NO!!
Take care Jules.
Lord Spoon Goon.

 

[Techniquest]

Lord Goon of the Spoons, I burst out laughing reading that and every so often when reviewing my planespotting book (I guess the number collecting thing never fully goes away!) I see some shaky underlining and always remember your horror when I did that on our trip on the Metro that once! Gosh that must be a fair while ago now, 2017's ALR possibly, since we last met?

Thank you all for taking the time to comment, it was nice to read such a vast amount of well-wishing etc. On the subject of binning books, I do still have a massive collection of notebooks, photos, Mini DV tapes, even a couple of 8mm camcorder tapes, and other railway stuff at my Mum's house. Without a doubt the notebooks will probably never be binned, they always will be a reminder of my past.

It might be a fair while ago now, but I still even now know which two 166s I never got. Weird how I remember those two, and that I still recall 150275 as being a requirement. Same for Blackpool Tram 006, never saw or travelled on it. Most stuff I don't immediately recall, but if I ever return to the scene most of the stuff I've been on will probably be retired and scrapped anyway!

Always a chance I'll regret binning my spotting books, atlases and such like, but as things stand I don't. Who knows what will happen in years to come, we don't know what will happen tomorrow after all!

fowler9, I did get a recommendation at the time when in Tallinn to go to Hell Hunt but I never went after all. I saw your recommendation when reviewing some older posts on this thread the other day, I walked past the place loads of time but hey ho! I did indeed do the ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki and back, it was a good ride that fair dos.

As for right now, I'm about to finish getting ready for work. One last thought for now though is that I still very occasionally use the railway to get to various places, mostly just for A-B journeys, but when possible I take advantage of the knowledge stored in my memory banks to use the best quality trains I can. So if I fancy a trip to, say, Worcester I ensure I make use of HSTs as well as anything non-170 when possible on WMR! It's kinda like when I returned to my supermarket job, before then all the vast knowledge I had was useless anywhere else but it's proved useful again now I'm back there if that makes sense.

More than likely I'll not be posting too often on here in the foreseeable, but I'll still pop in and read trip reports every so often. I've been enjoying those from The_Train and Skymonster especially, as well as the regular reporters of course!

 

[alexf380]

Glad to hear you're in good health Tech, I've been following your travels on Insta and Snapchat and Tallin looked like a lovely place, really! You're certainly not the only one on here to lose records of bashing from days gone by, through choice or not, so should you ever return to the scene I'm sure you'll fit right in
All the best for the future!

 

[Cowley]

I missed reading this in October Tech. Just caught up now and I don’t know when you’ll be on next, but it’s good to hear from you.
Sounds like you’ve had some life changing times recently.
Onwards and upwards.

 

[shredder1]

Lord Goon of the Spoons, I burst out laughing reading that and every so often when reviewing my planespotting book (I guess the number collecting thing never fully goes away!) I see some shaky underlining and always remember your horror when I did that on our trip on the Metro that once! Gosh that must be a fair while ago now, 2017's ALR possibly, since we last met?

Thank you all for taking the time to comment, it was nice to read such a vast amount of well-wishing etc. On the subject of binning books, I do still have a massive collection of notebooks, photos, Mini DV tapes, even a couple of 8mm camcorder tapes, and other railway stuff at my Mum's house. Without a doubt the notebooks will probably never be binned, they always will be a reminder of my past.

It might be a fair while ago now, but I still even now know which two 166s I never got. Weird how I remember those two, and that I still recall 150275 as being a requirement. Same for Blackpool Tram 006, never saw or travelled on it. Most stuff I don't immediately recall, but if I ever return to the scene most of the stuff I've been on will probably be retired and scrapped anyway!

Always a chance I'll regret binning my spotting books, atlases and such like, but as things stand I don't. Who knows what will happen in years to come, we don't know what will happen tomorrow after all!

fowler9, I did get a recommendation at the time when in Tallinn to go to Hell Hunt but I never went after all. I saw your recommendation when reviewing some older posts on this thread the other day, I walked past the place loads of time but hey ho! I did indeed do the ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki and back, it was a good ride that fair dos.

As for right now, I'm about to finish getting ready for work. One last thought for now though is that I still very occasionally use the railway to get to various places, mostly just for A-B journeys, but when possible I take advantage of the knowledge stored in my memory banks to use the best quality trains I can. So if I fancy a trip to, say, Worcester I ensure I make use of HSTs as well as anything non-170 when possible on WMR! It's kinda like when I returned to my supermarket job, before then all the vast knowledge I had was useless anywhere else but it's proved useful again now I'm back there if that makes sense.

More than likely I'll not be posting too often on here in the foreseeable, but I'll still pop in and read trip reports every so often. I've been enjoying those from The_Train and Skymonster especially, as well as the regular reporters of course!

Great to see you back Tech, miss your regular postings though mate, the ferry to Helsinki from Tallin is good isn't it?

I did it this year, the Estonian railways are very modernised now with FLIRTs all over the place. I did catch up with a few locos though on the Russian and Latvian borders.

More interesting railways in Latvia though, much older ex Soviet stock still running out of Riga.

 

[Techniquest]

I missed reading this in October Tech. Just caught up now and I don’t know when you’ll be on next, but it’s good to hear from you.
Sounds like you’ve had some life changing times recently.
Onwards and upwards.

Oh I've been through even more significant changes since my last update on this thread! Just as well really, given how grim the situation was getting, which was even causing my friends to be quite concerned about me. However, that is all far too long a story which I can't be bothered discussing at this time.

What matters with that story is that I found the source of my problems and have got an action plan going. I've sorted one of the issues out, come to peace with another and I'm currently working on my next challenge. Which I'm about to enter Day 9 on, and while it's not gone super smoothly and I'm a bit behind target on it, in the last couple of days I've dug out my usual bag of tricks to get me achieving my challenge. Day 8 of the challenge was the first of the revised target completion date setting, and I actually beat my plan for the day, so I'm very pleased.

Come the end of January 2019, I'm confident that now I have a bloody good reason to pack in the nicotine once and for all, I will do it. The health and financial concerns aren't what's driving me to it, even if they are obvious reasons to do it, and whenever I start struggling I keep reminding myself of my reason to do it. That usually helps a lot, and once the stress of retail in December is over I have no doubt that a month to finish the challenge will be enough.

I've recently also lost the obsessive beer/wine-ticking part of my brain too, it just disappeared during the completion of my first challenge. I tested it last week and initially I wasn't sure but I've now since had some beer as well and I just didn't enjoy it any more. When I see all the posts and ads on social media for beers or wines, they don't have that same appeal to me any more. It's just gone, much like the enthusiasm for the railway did. I suspect much like that, every so often I'll try to return to the scene but it will never last.

Clearly it is time to move on. I'm still compiling lists though, just in this case it's the movies I've seen. That now comes in at a surprising total of 176, as I've been taking advantage of 50p DVDs in CeX a lot lately. Not much else to do on days off with little funds and miserable weather!

I'm slowly working on my competitive streak too, as I'd like to get rid of that. Same for the weird stirring-coffee-3-times thing, which if I can do that will mean eliminating more of the Sheldon Cooper-like personality and that would be nice to do. I'm also trying to get back into reading more, and I even had a cracking middle section to a work of fiction I could have started work on to enable my creative writing side to flourish again. Annoyingly by the time I went for pen and paper I had forgotten the bulk of what I had conjured up!

This is getting a bit too much like a ramble now, so for a final update in 2018 let's make this the last paragraph. Overall, events being what they have been since 26th November 2018 (the day after that, I committed to fixing what was broken in my head), there's a new, revised and improved Juliano coming in 2019. I've made most of the changes already, with a couple of minor and a couple of major ones being worked on, with one change still in the consultation phase, but I am a LOT healthier than I was a few weeks ago. I'm on the way to the Juliano I've dreamed of being for a very long time, I've dealt with a lot in 2018 but 2019 is going to be my year! The next lot of changes are the scariest, but the first of the next set of challenges is what I have determined NEEDS to happen to make Juliano the man he wants to be. He wants to be back to being happy, and there's a great big gaping hole in the way of that being a dream that is realised. There's only one way to plug that hole, now it's all about finding her...

In conclusion, BRING ON 2019!

 

[D841 Roebuck]

Oh I've been through even more significant changes since my last update on this thread! Just as well really, given how grim the situation was getting, which was even causing my friends to be quite concerned about me. However, that is all far too long a story which I can't be bothered discussing at this time.

What matters with that story is that I found the source of my problems and have got an action plan going. I've sorted one of the issues out, come to peace with another and I'm currently working on my next challenge. Which I'm about to enter Day 9 on, and while it's not gone super smoothly and I'm a bit behind target on it, in the last couple of days I've dug out my usual bag of tricks to get me achieving my challenge. Day 8 of the challenge was the first of the revised target completion date setting, and I actually beat my plan for the day, so I'm very pleased.

Come the end of January 2019, I'm confident that now I have a bloody good reason to pack in the nicotine once and for all, I will do it. The health and financial concerns aren't what's driving me to it, even if they are obvious reasons to do it, and whenever I start struggling I keep reminding myself of my reason to do it. That usually helps a lot, and once the stress of retail in December is over I have no doubt that a month to finish the challenge will be enough.

I've recently also lost the obsessive beer/wine-ticking part of my brain too, it just disappeared during the completion of my first challenge. I tested it last week and initially I wasn't sure but I've now since had some beer as well and I just didn't enjoy it any more. When I see all the posts and ads on social media for beers or wines, they don't have that same appeal to me any more. It's just gone, much like the enthusiasm for the railway did. I suspect much like that, every so often I'll try to return to the scene but it will never last.

Clearly it is time to move on. I'm still compiling lists though, just in this case it's the movies I've seen. That now comes in at a surprising total of 176, as I've been taking advantage of 50p DVDs in CeX a lot lately. Not much else to do on days off with little funds and miserable weather!

I'm slowly working on my competitive streak too, as I'd like to get rid of that. Same for the weird stirring-coffee-3-times thing, which if I can do that will mean eliminating more of the Sheldon Cooper-like personality and that would be nice to do. I'm also trying to get back into reading more, and I even had a cracking middle section to a work of fiction I could have started work on to enable my creative writing side to flourish again. Annoyingly by the time I went for pen and paper I had forgotten the bulk of what I had conjured up!

This is getting a bit too much like a ramble now, so for a final update in 2018 let's make this the last paragraph. Overall, events being what they have been since 26th November 2018 (the day after that, I committed to fixing what was broken in my head), there's a new, revised and improved Juliano coming in 2019. I've made most of the changes already, with a couple of minor and a couple of major ones being worked on, with one change still in the consultation phase, but I am a LOT healthier than I was a few weeks ago. I'm on the way to the Juliano I've dreamed of being for a very long time, I've dealt with a lot in 2018 but 2019 is going to be my year! The next lot of changes are the scariest, but the first of the next set of challenges is what I have determined NEEDS to happen to make Juliano the man he wants to be. He wants to be back to being happy, and there's a great big gaping hole in the way of that being a dream that is realised. There's only one way to plug that hole, now it's all about finding her...

In conclusion, BRING ON 2019!

Nice to hear from you again, and I'm glad you're feeling better about yourself. I hope that 2019 is a good year for you.

In one of your posts you mentioned enjoying keeping up with reports on here. One aim for me in 2019 is to write them up more promptly! I'm planning a jaunt for the end of next week, so keep an eye out for gibber/entertainment (depending on your reading tastes) on my thread...

 

[Techniquest]

Well this is an unusual event. I was supposed to be going out for drinks tonight, as I'm working tomorrow night, for my birthday. However, as I'm feeling far too tired and miserable, I've cancelled the plan last minute in favour of staying at home. I plan to continue reading a book, tucked up in bed, and hitting the hay in a bit. I'm not even going to bother touching anything alcoholic.

This is very different to the plan, I had until this afternoon been looking forward to some beers with a couple of mates but no, I've changed my mind, I'm not going out and I don't feel like celebrating. This birthday is all about lazing around at home, maybe with a couple of DVDs tomorrow before work, which is an odd idea but it sounds more enjoyable to me!

 

[507021]

Well this is an unusual event. I was supposed to be going out for drinks tonight, as I'm working tomorrow night, for my birthday. However, as I'm feeling far too tired and miserable, I've cancelled the plan last minute in favour of staying at home. I plan to continue reading a book, tucked up in bed, and hitting the hay in a bit. I'm not even going to bother touching anything alcoholic.

This is very different to the plan, I had until this afternoon been looking forward to some beers with a couple of mates but no, I've changed my mind, I'm not going out and I don't feel like celebrating. This birthday is all about lazing around at home, maybe with a couple of DVDs tomorrow before work, which is an odd idea but it sounds more enjoyable to me!

All the best for your birthday mate.

 

[PeterY]

Missed your reports. Good luck with the nicotine and Happy Birthday

 

[djpontrack]

Happy Birthday Techniquest and I hope your plans work for you mate. I always enjoyed reading your trip reports and indeed I got a few ideas from them.

 

[Cowley]

Happy Birthday mate. Have a good day.

 

[Iskra]

Good to see you are making progress, and belated Happy Birthday!

Have you been hitting the rails at all recently?

 

[shredder1]

Belated Birthday wishes mate.

 

[D841 Roebuck]

Belated Birthday wishes mate.

Likewise

 

[Techniquest]

Good to see you are making progress, and belated Happy Birthday!

Have you been hitting the rails at all recently?

In recent-ish times I did a spin to Birmingham after meeting the mighty Kite159 for a while on his recent adventure in the Midlands, a couple of weeks before that was a day trip to Oxford Parkway (with the primary focus being to do sightseeing in Oxford) but generally I don't really use the railway much these days. I have a journey from Hereford to Winsford and back for Christmas coming up next week, then a trip to/from London as part of my first Juliano's World Frenzy (renamed from Tech's World Frenzy in the latter part of 2018, but the original hashtag is still in use on Twitter) on GWR both ways in January.

More than likely it'll be an 800 both ways, but if it is an HST on either or both journeys I'll not complain. I made my official farewell to the HSTs (on my patch at least) a while back on a trip to Marston Green for a planespotting mission, and I won't lie it was a little emotional that morning when I saw it off at Worcester Shrub Hill. It had been more or less 15 years to the day at that point since my obsession with the railway had begun, all thanks to observing a noisy and claggy HST departure in Swansea way back when in 2003. To this day, I have no idea why I ended up at the station that day, but many years later it ended up with me meeting some truely awesome people and I've had so many experiences since then.

In the year and a bit since the bug went away, and much like how I'll never know how come I ended up getting hooked on it I'll also never know exactly why it went away (I have a couple of theories), there's been so many changes and I'm truely grateful for that. I recently reviewed some old notes, as part of a end-of-year clearout, and I've been reminded me of just how far things have come. Yes 2018 has had a lot of low points, but there's been lots of positives too. I'm still working on fixing the few remaining bits I'm not happy with, some of which are easy enough to fix, and I'm expecting a lot more good stuff to come in 2019. I don't know what, or when, in 2019 it will happen, but it's looking promising.

Which doesn't really answer the question put forward! 'Do I go on the railways much?' I believe it was asked, and my answer is no. I use it mostly for A-B journeys, but I get bored very quickly on trains these days so I tend to have my earphones in, catchup on any paperwork, do some planning, read a book or anything else I might have to do.

I will still be doing my trip reports for my world exploration trips, which I've gone back to the drawing board with a fair bit. The only trip booked so far is Copenhagen in 3 and a bit weeks time, purely to get it out of the way and put the colour on the map. Poland for beers has been postponed as I'm not all that into the beer scene so much now, so I need to actually plan Poland a bit more. Sydney is still on the agenda, I am kind of obsessed with getting that done. Once I do get Sydney visited, my Bucket List will be cleared. New Zealand appeals, but it's a nice-to-have kind of country, and I would need a lot of time to explore and research that one. A short trip to Tokyo, given how busy the city is and looks just awesome to explore, for a couple of days is another one of those nice-to-have trips. Lots of those I suppose! My point being that after Australia anything on top of that is a bonus, so there may not be too many trip reports in 2019. After all, I have more important things to sort out...

One of which is all to do with work. I have a couple of ideas to try and get off the ground on that area in 2019, hopefully soon enough I'll have actually researched it all properly. Get that sorted, get my trips done, then I'm almost done with sorting out what I want to achieve. More to be revealed in 2019!

 

[fowler9]

Great to here from you Tech. Hope you are enjoying you travels. If you want any tips on Poland, New Zealand and Australia then shout up. There is more to Poland than beer, I am walking in the mountains there in January. New Zealand blew me away more than Australia but both are amazing countries.

 

[shredder1]

Its funny where life takes us Tech, I can`t remember when I first got interested in railways, probably the mid 50`s and its never left me, my first experiences were family holidays to the seaside, Blackpool, Morecambe, and Southport behind Crabs, Jubs and Black 5`s, with more exotic holidays to Scarborough with a chance of seeing B1`s and A4`s at York when we changed trains. Copenhagen still has main line diesels operating and the central station is quite good, Poland is amazing although the Czech beers are better, enjoy your travels and lifes experiences, its a big world out there and full of lovely people, most people are very nice.

 

[rg177]

Belated happy birthday mate. Sounds like you have some great plans afoot for 2019.

Copenhagen is a lovely city, and if you feel like dabbling into the railways then there's plenty noisy loco hauled action on Regional Express trains out to Rosklide (and Næstved)

I must say 2018 has mainly been about European exploration for me, and the far more interesting rail networks that come with it!

All the best for Christmas and New Year.