Juliano's World Frenzy/Tech's Trip Reports

[Techniquest]

Other than bus related issues with slow running, sounded like a nice enough day.

Aye it could have gone a lot worse to be fair!

I'm sure when I was looking at that Phoenix Trail near Thame there were some footpaths between the station & the town.

I think there's good access from Princes Risborough station to the Phoenix Trail, but I've not yet looked at it enough to judge it. I did note that from Headington to Wheatley there is a shared-use path alongside the A40, which may or may not feature in plans later this year

Those Arriva Merc buses are a bit bargain basement in terms of seats, longest I've had is High Wycombe to Reading on the 850. And in my view those self scan exit barriers are pointless, causes more waste as who would normally get a receipt if buying a meal deal and won't stop someone scanning fruit as carrots to fool the scales.

Oof, that journey on one of those seats would not be pleasant!

As for the self-scan gates, I was very much pro-gates when I first saw them in Amsterdam in January 2023. A full receipt was not necessary, a shorter and more brief one was also an option. I suspect that one just did things like the amount, date and time, that sort of detail along with the barcode. I think it's long overdue in the UK, and once modern culture gets used to the gates it'll just be normal. I already get my receipt by default, due to using a receipt scanning app called Shoppix, so personally it's nothing unusual.

The forecast looks acceptable in the east for Friday, and I suspect that's where I'll head. I have multiple options lined up, all ready to go and I suspect TfW will feature significantly!

 

[Techniquest]

Just dropping this off to highlight the progress in my training mission. Tomorrow is expected to be a train day, to rest the body after that effort, I'm fully expecting aching muscles in the morning!

Attached is a screenshot from Strava, boasting my 8.07 mile run in a little over an hour, my new personal best for distance

 

[Bald Rick]

That’s good pace sir, even in my prime I rarely went over 8mph.

 

[87electric]

My first London Marathon in 1994 worked out at 8 minutes per mile, just under three and a half hours. I never beat it. I used to run for fun but I was affiliated to a local running club. Good times.

 

[Techniquest]

That’s good pace sir, even in my prime I rarely went over 8mph.

Thank you, high praise there When I looked again at Strava later, I saw I had around 2.5 minutes of stoppage time (mostly road crossings) out of the 65 minutes session. Not too bad for an 81kg 38 year old with slightly dodgy knees!

Apparently I run faster than the athletic person I work with, and they've absolutely got a better body mass figure than I do!

My first London Marathon in 1994 worked out at 8 minutes per mile, just under three and a half hours. I never beat it. I used to run for fun but I was affiliated to a local running club. Good times.

Very impressive! 3.5 hours (just under rather) to do 26 miles is really good!

 

[Techniquest]

29/09/2023 - Tech's 20 Year Enthusiast Anniversary, Part 1

It was finally here, the first instalment of celebrating 20 years of being a rail enthusiast. It's been tough going at times, and I've near enough abandoned it a few times over the years, but it's now officially 20 years in and it's still going strong! I don't have the exact date for when it started, that's probably in a notebook stored at my Mum's house, but I had a memory of 27th September 2003 for some HST spotting in a notebook so I'm going with that.

I'd finally dived under the duvet, ready to sleep well after running my longest ever run the night before this trip. 8.07 miles, and I won't bore anyone with the details, but suffice it be to say that was exhausting. However, sleep was not meant to be, as a thought popped into mind about having a mini day out in Leeds. The opportunity to go red-penning, and make my first visit to Yorkshire for quite some time, really appealed. Trying to sleep, while also working out the best moves and fares, was just not happening! Eventually a bit of sleep on and off happened but I was out of bed by 0340 or so. The plan was to do the 0547 to Manchester, then go either towards Huddersfield or Hebden Bridge, I couldn't choose between the two options.

'What about North Wales and the red pen opportunities there' came another train of thought. I had so many ideas it was absolutely mind boggling! Breakfast, coffee, vitamins and minerals all had, music was on a bit later and still no word on RTT about what was working the 0435 from Cardiff, even at 0500. An absolute highlight of the morning was putting on a brand new pair of socks, that feeling is always amazing! 0507 or so, I was finally on the way and Strava was recording the power-walk.

It felt much slower than 5.3mph for my average speed, but it was a good performance with legs not on top form after the epic run. 20 years ago, I was not even remotely as fit as I am now, but then I'm more than 20kg lighter than I was back then! Anyway, it was onto 802111 and I found a seat in coach A. Oh yes, some things never change, coach A was a favourite in HST days! As it was at the back, it was likely to be much quieter for the duration of the journey, so I figured it made sense to go there.

Yes I know I said I was going for the Manchester train, but I decided I was better off going for something else on my to-do list. I'll be in the North next week anyway, and there's an item that's been on my wish-list for many years that I was going after. To get to that, I would need to position myself in Oxford. I already knew this would be a long day, given less than 3 hours sleep if it was even that much, but it would reap rewards and clear a few things off my to-do list. The other stuff, well it will just have to wait!

A bit of closing the eyes and attempting sleep occured on the way to Worcester, after which I had got back into planning mode. Eventually I talked myself out of bailing at Charlbury, in order to make my way to Finstock to get that one in, as there was a more important mission. For many years now, I've had the X5 from Oxford to Bedford on my list of bus routes I want to do. In times gone by, I believe this was in the hands of coaches, but I suspect that has changed! I had a +21 to get from Oxford railway station to Oxford's Gloucester Green Bus Station, to pick up the 0750 departure on the X5. It's an approximately 2.5 hour journey, which I must confess I was a bit dubious about doing in one go but I've done 1.75 hour journeys between Hereford and Gloucester before now.

So in theory it's doable, although if I had to split the journey in Milton Keynes for a break I was prepared to do that. I also had a small dilemma though, in that the 0802 Oxford to London Marylebone was showing as operated by a winning 165. There's not many of those left that I want, and indeed all but 165025 were showing on RTT's Know Your Train feature as being out in the morning peak. Mostly on services I couldn't get to, granted, but now I had to decide. Score the train to Bicester, taking the X5 from there and leave the section between Oxford and Bicester for another time, or do the whole route and ignore the 165 for the duration. That was not an easy decision, I can assure everyone of that!

Arrival was 2 minutes early at 0727, and I was soon outside and running to the bus station. I had plenty of time to stroll over, but the more running practice I get the better. I was far too tired for it though, and the pace was not great on the 0.3 mile run. Eventually, it was time to board 10878, YX67 DVP, on Stagecoach's X5 to Bedford. Would I make it in one sitting, on my bargain £2 fare? There was only one way to find out, and departure was 6 minutes late at 0756. The seats were a weird blue and orange plastic-like covering, not very comfortable!

Traffic heading out of Oxford wasn't too bad, and the bus was soon enough on a max power thrashfest along the dual carriageway. I hadn't seen much of Bicester before today, and it looked like there were good cardio opportunities available. There was a lot of fast running, and Buckingham looked like a nice town that would be worth exploring some time. The weather was beautiful too, and before too long I'd arrived at Milton Keynes Central at 0922.

I did not know there were Santander Cycles in Milton Keynes, that really intrigued me and had me immediately planning a visit to Milton Keynes. Campbell Park looked like a good place to explore too, I could easily have a good session of exploring. It would need some research but it was on the cards! If I hadn't been tired, and I had a helmet, I'd have changed plans and done it on this trip instead! After skirting around Newport Pagnell, it was onto the A422 to Bedford and the end of the journey was getting closer. As the bus passed into Bedford Borough Council's area, the slow car in front appeared to throw something up into the air. It turned out that it was a pigeon that had been smashed into by the car, that was a sight I never expected to see and one could only feel sorry for the deceased bird!

1004 and it was onto what signs promised me was just a few more miles to Bedford. The bladder was, by now, getting agitated! Arrival was 6 minutes early at 1014, and I ran over to the railway station. It's only around 0.4 miles, so it wasn't too bad. I had time to get a large coffee and deal with the PNB before the 360s arrived on the 1026 to Corby. Dud 360101 was up front, with winner 360109 on the back, and I took a seat in the declassified First Class. Those are nice seats, I was pleasantly surprised!

All the way to winner station Corby I went with the 360s, which were the first ones I'd had with East Midlands Railway. It's been many a year since my last journey on the class! I've passed through Corby a couple of times, on diverted Meridians on that weird Derby to London service which goes via Syston Curve and Corby, but I'd never visited the station. That had finally been changed, and I went for an exploratory run before lunch. I wasn't going to do much cardio on this trip, but that clearly changed! It was exhausting, I'm not going to lie, but I did enjoy the part of the run which went around the boating lake and through a park.

I had been going to stop off at Tesco, to pick up a meal deal for lunch, but I didn't and found myself arriving at the station just in time for the delayed 1139 to London St Pancras. That was formed of double duds 360106+360107, but I got on anyway for the journey to winner station Wellingborough. 4.22 miles of running had been done, more stops than I'd have liked but it was less than 24 hours after an epic run, so I didn't mind as much. It's all good practice, and my recovery times are getting a little better too.

Unexpectedly, the train arrived at platform 3, the Down Slow platform, at Wellingborough and not platform 4 as would be reasonably expected. I had time to grab another sugary coffee, and two plain sesame bagels got devoured. Taking me south were dud 360115 and winner 360121, and once I bought the extra ticket required I stayed with them to Luton Airport Parkway. Some of you will know where I'm going with this already! For those who don't, and that will include Future Tech, I'd been saying on the discussion thread for the Luton Airport DART, that I would happily power-walk it from Luton Airport Parkway's railway station to Luton Airport, if I didn't have any luggage with me. Now, I have zero plans to use Luton Airport to fly into or out of any time soon, as I just don't tend to use low-cost airlines these days. Was I going to let that stop me covering the DART?

Of course not! The walking route is nice and easy to begin with, until you reach Airport Way, which is where the elevation gains kick in. Still, I have power-walked much worse before, just I usually do it when fully energised! Nevertheless, I took it on and arrived in glorious weather outside the terminal building in just over 15 and a half minutes. I'm sure I'll include a screenshot from Strava!

The queue for the ticket machines on the DART were slow moving, and I realised I could pay contactless. So I did just that, and I was soon on one of the shuttles. To be perfectly honest, I didn't rate it all that highly. Perhaps it's more fun in the uphill direction, but I've now done the route and I did my challenge. Those were both big items on the to-do lists! I have a railway to-do list and an exploring to-do list. Those items had been awkward to try and fit into basically any plan, but they are now done!

I'd not long missed a 700 going north, and the Corby train was to be a pair of dud 360s, so I went with the next best thing and got the next 700 north to cover that part of the line on the class. Yes, really, I'd not done that part of the Thameslink empire on a 700 until this trip! The wait felt like ages, but eventually in rolled dud 700134. I'd hoped for a winner but it was not to be, and I settled in on the declassified First Class seats at the back of the train. A power socket was very useful, and what else can I say about the experience, it was hardly exciting. Once back at Bedford, all I wanted to do was get some food and water for the long journey back to Oxford.

I ran into the town centre via a different route to the one I'd done in the morning, but to be honest I wasn't blown away by Bedford. It's still better than Leominster, a town I really hate, but is it better than Aylesbury? Well the bus station was a tiny bit better, but that's not difficult. Bedford's bus station is still a dump, just not quite as bad! I ended up caving to temptations when I saw Greggs, it's really unhealthy stuff but I just couldn't resist! I gave up trying to get a big bottle of water in Iceland, the queue for the only open checkout was ridiculously slow moving. The queue in Morrisons Daily was not much better, but I was out of options. Apparently all the shops in Bedford are about the same, which is reason enough to not move to the area!

Eventually I found bus stop N, one of those bus stations where you have to know it's part of a little section that feels like an after-thought. My mobile data was just not working, nor was my contactless card, thankfully I had my Apple Pay available or I'd have been stuck! 10804, Stagecoach's SN66 WAJ, was in charge of the 1455 service on Route X5 to Oxford, and I was away 1 minute late. I had one of the high-back seats up the front on the upper deck this time, and after devouring my Greggs food (I can sense the judging vibes from here!) the stomach was much happier. In still glorious weather, I was all settled in and silently saying farewell to Bedford. Oxford was waiting for me!

The journey to Buckingham's High Street, where we arrived around 1610, went rather smooth and I had spent plenty of time updating the trip report. I was already reflecting on the day, and I felt it had gone well. 2 station scores, new coverage on two different classes, a good explore of a town I'd never seen before, a good bit of running practice, 2 scores with the 360s, a bus route done that I'd been after for years, some power-walking and a bit of new route with the DART. I'd seen some of the UK I'd never been through before too, which was a big bonus. Yes the feeding wasn't terribly healthy but I think I did well considering how little sleep I'd had. It's fair to say I was hoping for a much better sleep after getting back to base!

After leaving the western side of Bicester around 1656, the clouds had started forming quite a bit, which rather regulated the temperature on the bus quite well. The journey was going rather well, so much nicer than the recent experience with Arriva on the 280 to Aylesbury! 1711 and it was off the A34 for the journey into scenic Oxford. I was pretty confident I'd not have the same stresses and anxieties about making it onto the 1824 to Hereford this time!

Arrival at Oxford's Gloucester Green Bus Station was at 1724, which was either 4 minutes late or 14 minutes late, depending which timetable one read on BusTimes. I had it down as 1720 when I looked it up, but on the live map search it was reported as due at 1710. I had, therefore, an hour to fill in Oxford, and the weather was good. I decided to put the legs to work, and had a bit of a run to put life back into them. I had got a bit numb in a specific area after so long sat on the bus from Bedford, so some cardio would do me good. I didn't quite clear 1.8 miles in the end, but I felt that was quite reasonable. With a couple of bits sourced in Sainsburys, the PNB was dealt with then found my train was a little late. Nothing much, but by now there was not much else I could do really to fill the time.

With a couple more bits sourced in WHSmith, and some stretching exercises done outside the station, it was 1820 and so a good time to head over to platform 4. I had been due a 9-car 800, but instead I had a 5-car train. 800034 rolled in pretty full, even in coach A, but I got a table seat. 5 minutes late in the end, not too bad, and I set to work on devouring the 5 bananas from Sainsburys. It's a good thing I had plenty of supplies, as there was no catering on board this week! Soon, some music went on, and I have to say I wasn't a big fan of Pepsi Max Mango. I'd now tried it cold, but it's just not that good. Which is a shame as I love mango!

I had a numb set of muscles again well before Evesham, and that's unusual as I don't normally get discomfort on an IET seat. The day was drawing to a close, and to mind popped an alternative trip report title, 'it's bashing Jim, but not as we know it'. It was crazy what I used to get up to, where I ever found the energy for it all I just don't know. Back in the day, and yes I know that makes me sound older than I am, you'd have never found me going running, or indeed walking/cycling! It was all about the trains and pretty much nothing else, I'd have never been seen in athletic clothing!

You'd have also never found me eating bananas, or drinking water primarily, it was all about the meat and other animal products. I cared not what I ate, or about things like body fat percentages, BMI, the goodness or otherwise in my food, none of that sort of thing mattered. I could do all-nighter trips back then, and certainly without needing lots of coffee! I think this was a good trip to showcase just how things have developed in the last 20 years. The railway has changed enormously, and so have I!

As the train rolled into Worcester, and back onto familiar territory, I got the 3 remaining bagels out and set to work on devouring those, as well as the vegan KitKat from Sainsburys. The journey was nearly over, I could almost feel the comfort of the mattress. The 7am alarm for the morning to get ready for work, that was not being looked forward to!

Arrival in Hereford was approximately 5 minutes late at 2031, 18 minutes later I was indoors with the kettle boiled to make a cuppa. A very successful day, albeit tiring what with being out of the house for 15 hours and 40 minutes on very little sleep! Fingers crossed Part 2 is cheaper and not quite as exhausting!

-------

Photos:

1) Santander Cycles in Milton Keynes, next to the bus stops outside Central station
2) 360109 at Bedford
3) Luton Airport Express branding on 360109
4) Very satisfied selfie in declassified First Class
5) Said declassified First Class in 360109
6) 360109 at Corby
7) From the nearby road overbridge, this view encompasses the station totem and a view of the station. Favourite railway photo of the day for sure!
8) Boating lake, viewed from the top of the lake next to the cabin
9) The same boating lake, viewed from the bottom of it. Even just walking it, I'd recommend having a look

 

[Kite159]

A nice day trip towards Corby & Luton.

 

[Techniquest]

A nice day trip towards Corby & Luton.

Great weather for that, no question of that

Attached are more photos from yesterday:

1) Strava screenshot from the power walk to the airport
2) Coming down the escalator at Luton Airport's DART terminal
3) A slightly closer view of the DART
4) Wow those shuttles look weird!
5) Inside a DART shuttle
6) Platforms at Luton Airport
7) Stagecoach double decker on Route X5 at Bedford Bus Station

 

[Purple Train]

Looks like a brilliant day all round, glad you managed to fit all that in! As a former Milton Keynes resident, I have to say it's a place that I think has got your name on it. Full of segregated footpaths and cycle routes (even though the city centre is a bit grim) and some lovely, quaint old villages as well. Milton Keynes isn't synonymous with thatched cottages, but I can assure you there are some! There's a lovely riverside walk/cycle that follows the WCML and goes past the Concrete Cows: there's so much interesting stuff on that footpath that I can't possibly describe it in one post at 11pm, but I can PM you about it if you're interested.

I'm surprised you judge Bedford as worse than Aylesbury: in my opinion, Bedford is the superior dump, but only because of Aylesbury's road network, which is confusing enough as a pedestrian!

If you are exploring in the Home Counties, I would recommend Beaconsfield as a great place for a wander if you haven't done so already. High Wycombe is also a good shout if you want a lot of exercise, it's hillier than a model railway backscene!

 

[Techniquest]

Thanks for the feedback! High Wycombe and that general area looks challenging on my Sustrans map, with the contours in places looking mighty grim, so it's good to have it confirmed as somewhere challenging.

MKC is absolutely somewhere I want to explore properly, I didn't see much of the Redway routes but then I guess one wouldn't from the bus. The Concrete Cows, I always forget they exist to be honest so I never look out for them.

If I'd explored Bedford as much as Aylesbury, I'd have probably had a different view on the place, but I wasn't blown away. I'm told Luton's no better, and I've yet to visit there properly.

 

[Techniquest]

01/10/2023 - Tech's 20 Year Enthusiast Anniversary, Part 2

Well this was absolutely a trip done on impulse! I'd been reading RailUK Forums after breakfast, and allegedly there were no 175s diagrammed to work on the Manchester to Cardiff route all day. Imagine my surprise when, on making a plan for the day, I found 175114 was allocated to the 0947 from Hereford to Manchester Piccadilly! I absolutely got moving and fast, it was also a new month so the new challenges on Strava were now active for another month. A power walk got me to the station in time to watch the 175 arrive, and after a moment when the GWR app decided not to behave itself the ticket purchase did actually go through. Phew!

So it was I got on, and the journey was a bit slow in places with multiple stops for unexplained reasons. It was probably due to temporary issues following a defect the previous day on a freight train, which then caused issues with a 150's fuel tank. Anyway, the train was rather late into Shrewsbury and Crewe, thankfully just after Church Stretton I made an actual plan for the day, it was supposed to be a take-it-easy day but that didn't happen! Thankfully I didn't have a tight connection in Crewe, and I had plenty of time to source a large sugary coffee and vegan KitKat (the latter was £1.19, a most sensible price considering they're £1.10 in Sainsburys Local) from Pumpkin.

I now had a dilemma, as platform 10 was due to host the 1227 to Holyhead, and I'd never done platform 10. Certainly that appealed, but I had a known winner for sight and haulage in front of me on the 1155 shuttle to Chester. I ended up choosing winner for everything 197014, and that was a very slow journey. It was flying fine until the Beeston Castle area, but then we stopped and kept going slow all the way to Chester. The ultra-safe connection onto a train towards Wrexham, that a number of people were making, ended up being fairly tight. No explanation given, no apology for the delay, no announcements of any kind until arrival in the platform. The 175 had been like that too, which was most concerning in the modern day. It stunk of ineffective staffing to be honest!

My next train option was not until 1302, and I had a choice. Do that train to Shotton, and have a lengthy wait for the main objectives of the day, or crack on with the cardio option right there and then. Given the rain had stopped, the coat came off and I got my run started. Like I said, the new challenges had started on Strava and this would clear at least one of them. I'd considered just a simple 5k around Chester, then the 1302 train, then onto a power-walk along the path by the River Dee back to Chester. That was the main goal originally of the trip, to do that power-walk. Running had not really featured in the plan, but it sure did now!

I won't bore anyone with the details, but in short I really wasn't as fit as I thought I was. The amount of stops, and the lack of serious distance between them, was just crazy. It is worth mentioning though that I only started running 3 weeks prior to this trip, and only got serious with it the previous week! As of the time of typing this up, a little after 4pm on the day in question, I'd logged 35.65 miles of running in one week. I'd done a few 5k runs, a 10k and my longest ever run all in the same week as the epic run on this trip. So I was not too concerned at the issues had, especially as I did most of my running in the evenings when it was cooler, daytime running in my Adidas Own The Run tights is quite a bit harder!

The path along the river is good quality tarmac the whole way, so it's a really good one for cycling, walking and running. By the time I finished my run, I'd hit 8.35 miles which beat my previous best distance by 0.28 miles! It may not have quite been the training session I'd expected, in terms of result, but I'm definitely working my way towards a half-marathon distance. The plan is still only to get good enough to finish a 10km run without stopping, that will be hard enough but the efforts are reasonably consistent and my recovery times are improving!

Back to the trains then, and I made it onto late running 150250 for the tiny leap to winner station Hawarden Bridge. That station has long been wanted, and it was finally done. I'd been on the station, as part of a cycle ride months ago, but that wasn't the way I wanted to count it! I was more than ready for a monster feed, but first I needed to get into Shotton. I took to running to the town, and I was so tired I was slower than I was on my first attempt on a Strava segment!

My lunch break was at Central Hotel, Shotton which is a Wetherspoons. I'm teetotal, and proud of it too, so visiting a pub is a bit strange for me. Nevertheless, I knew they'd do food I like and, just as importantly, some nice and cold soft drinks. I was out of water, and sweating like an absolute beast, but then I'd not long done nearly 9 miles in total of running! I got a vegan-friendly curry with chips, 12 onion rings, some mango chutney and a pint of Pepsi. £10.70, so really not cheap, but oh my days that was absolutely amazing. Those onion rings were fantastic, the best I've had in a long time! The feed was incredible, it may well have weighed in at something crazy like 1,200kcal but it was just what the doctor ordered!

Following the PNB, I needed to get supplies so took a steady-paced walk (by my standard, as this was still 4.3mph average speed) to Tesco Express and ticked off a few roads for walking coverage while I had the time. I still had 10 minutes before the train by the time I got to the station, and I hadn't found a good coffee stop so I'd got some orange Lucozade Energy. I only normally drink that when I'm ill, but the glucose was going to be incredibly welcome. I could have headed back south on the 150 if I'd really wanted to, but RTT assured me I had a winner 230 coming. Given I'd only ever had 230010, 3 times at that, I was keen to change that. I only went to Hawarden Bridge on winner for everything 230009, so it'll only have a tiny distance in my logs, but it's done now. I could have bought a ticket to Bidston, but to be honest I was tired and wanted to rest the poor body in the fresh air. The 71 minutes or so I had at Hawarden Bridge would be plenty for that, and I had a trip report to start typing!

With that all done, it was 1626 and I was assured earlier in the day, by RTT, that 230009 would be off to bed at Birkenhead North depot. The 1630 Bidston-Wrexham Central would be due to have a winner 230 on it, so I declined the offer of a pair of 158s into Chester and set up camp in the southbound waiting shelter. I sure heard the 158s leaving, they made a monster amount of noise! Before too long, after some stretching, winner 230007 came in to take me to Wrexham General. This would leave just 230006 and 230008 to clear the TfW batch of 230s, although as of the time of typing this (which was now the next night) 230006 was not in active service.

The arrival at Hawarden cleared the Borderlands line for 230 coverage at long last, the gap between Shotton High Level and Hawarden having annoyed me for some time now. Arrival was on time in Wrexham, and I had plenty of time to fill so went on a short run to up my practice. Vicarage Hill was not welcome, I can promise you, but it was good practice for future events. By now, I had itchy legs where they had been rubbing in the heat, so I was most ready to sit down and head south. Well, that was until things started going wrong!

The 1731 Chester to Birmingham International was still sat in Chester and had not moved. For what felt like the longest time, it was reported simply as delayed, with no explanation offered and the following train to Cardiff was cancelled. Thankfully, it eventually left and I joined 158832+158825 for the journey to Shrewsbury, the connection onto a 150 to Hereford would be long gone. I'd got chatting to a wheelchair rugby player from Cardiff while at Wrexham, having also met by chance on the 197 from Crewe, so we chatted about absolutely all sorts to do with sports, scenery and travel. The journey to Shrewsbury passed quite quickly, and he was a nice guy to talk to. It made a nice change to chat about athletic activity with someone who does the same sort of thing, I'm not used to chatting away and being sociable while on an adventure!

We both went to Tesco Express in Shrewsbury, where it was raining but thankfully not too bad. I saw the former Burger King was now a Mother Hubbard's fish and chips shop, it looked like a nice place and I'll be popping in next time I'm in the area I think. With supplies sourced, it was back to the station where the 1946 to Cardiff was running on time, until suddenly it was 19 minutes late. It kept getting later, and finding something to keep ourselves occupied was getting difficult in the cold and wet, after all we couldn't go exploring!

I won't go too into detail, but we did come across a situation which neither of us were comfortable with, and it sure made me realise just how horrible some people are. In short, there was a 17 year old girl on the station who was under the influence of controlled substances and clearly in a very, very bad relationship. Just thinking about it makes me really angry with society, so let's not discuss it any further apart from to say that I didn't realise such people existed out there. The girl you had to feel sorry for, and thankfully she was getting looked after by station staff. Hopefully she got to somewhere safe, secure and warm! The situation was absolutely one which made me take stock of everything going on, and how fortunate I was not to be in that situation myself.

As for me and my new friend, we found somewhere else to wait and 66603 made a nice bit of noise heading north on its train of what looked like coal wagons but these were grey. Maybe they carry rocks? Eventually 153353+150269 arrived and the warmth was most welcome. I left my companion to finish his journey to Cardiff, with my arrival into Hereford being at 2105. I was well over an hour behind plan, which was not appreciated but it could have been much worse. I eventually got back after unsuccessfully trying to help someone on my way back, it seemed to be a night where things just weren't going well. That said, 24 hours later there was a lot of heavy rain, so at least I didn't have that!

So, was it a good day? Overall, yes indeed. I got some stuff done on my exploring list, I got 3 trains off my wants list, an awkward station done, good progress with the 230s and clearing the line they operate on for coverage with the 230s. I got a lot of running practice in, while also avoiding the forecast rain in a number of places, and I finally revisited the Crewe to Chester line. There's still plenty of North Wales to do on a 197, but that will come along soon enough. I had a nice journey on a 175, possibly my last lengthy journey on the class with TfW, so all in I'd say it was money well spent. When I update my spending log, I may not agree so much of course! It does however mean I don't need to return to Flintshire for a good long while, which is good news!

Where's next? Well this part of the anniversary trip was not meant to happen, but what will now be part 3 is a round trip to Manchester in a few days' time. 0547 leaving Hereford, 1930 leaving Manchester, so something like 11.25 hours in the North. I hadn't made too accurate a plan yet, if the weather was on my side for example I'd get some exploring done. If the weather wasn't too good, I'd be getting the red pen out and getting stuff off my wants list. I had originally planned to do the anniversary trip with a red pen fest, but it evolved into what I've done so far. In my mind, I chose the better option and I was hopeful part 3 would be a grand finale of the anniversary. It would be all left to fate!

-----

Photos:

1) 175114 at Crewe
2) Another angle of 175114
3) A bridge over the River Dee, I want to say Saltney Ferry Bridge
4) A view from the same point, looking west. Those bridges felt so far away, always feeling like they were moving with me!
5) Jubilee Lift Bridge, between Queensferry and Garden City (I looked that one up to be sure!)
6) Another view of Jubilee Lift Bridge
7) From the west side of Jubilee Lift Bridge, a view looking west to the final stage of my run
8) Almost at the end, this was a view of Hawarden Swing Bridge
9) Finally, a building under renovation that I didn't check the usage was for. It sure looked impressive!

 

[Kite159]

Other than the random delays (and lack of communication from staff) sounded like a good day

2 more of the Welsh 230s into your book at least is always a bonus

 

[Techniquest]

Other than the random delays (and lack of communication from staff) sounded like a good day

2 more of the Welsh 230s into your book at least is always a bonus

Oh yes, it wasn't too bad at all. It ticked off a few things from my lists, so that's pretty good Every trip ticks something off, and as you'll see in the latest trip report that applied yesterday too. I've added more things to do to my list, of course, but they're adventures for next year

-------

06/10/2023 - Tech's 20 Year Enthusiast Anniversary, Part 3

Welcome one and all to the finale of my 20 years of railway enthusiasm anniversary celebration! The trip was in jeopardy 28 hours before it began, thanks to the start of a cold. Thankfully, during the day that cleared up with medication and lots of rest after work, and I finally fell asleep later than desired. The alarm at 0415 was not terribly welcome, but the majority of preparation had been done the night before, so it was a relaxed start to the day. This week I was in receipt of much more sleep than the trip to Corby, so that much I was grateful for!

Eventually I finished getting ready, and with coffee in hand I was slower than expected on the walk to the station. Strava still reported it as an average speed of 4.7mph though, maybe I was imagining it and I just felt it was slow? I had been doing a lot of running recently after all, and even with 11 months to go I was not prepared to ease up too much on the preparation for the Swansea Bay 10K in September 2024. I'd got two 5k runs, admittedly with a handful of short stops but not as often for catching my breath as I have done, this week and I was on something like 28km out of 100km for that running challenge on Strava. I'd never achieved that in the past, and I was determined to do it. Even if I never manage it again, I wanted that badge of honour!

Anyway, after collecting my bargain Advances, I was on the 0547 to Manchester Piccadilly. On this occasion, it was in the hands of 158830 and I was soon settled in for the 114 and something mile journey to the North West's best city. A very subjective opinion, granted! I wasn't very energised yet, so for the first part of the journey I had one of my favourite albums on, 2003's Hardcore Til I Die. I won't bore anyone with my favourite songs on it, but there are some of my all-time favourites on there and they certainly get me all awake and ready to go! Usually these days, I reserve it for high-intensity exercise sessions, back in the day I'd play the album on the way to/from work on a portable CD player!

I could fill this trip report with nothing but nostalgia, very easily, but for now let's focus on the here and now. Having a 158 to Manchester is nostalgia in its own right, having done many journeys on 158s in years gone by before the 175s arrived on Arriva Trains Wales services to/from Cardiff. I want to say that happened in 2006, but I may be wrong, and now in 2023 the 175s are almost extinct on Transport for Wales (TfW) services, following the arrival of the new Class 197s. In 2025 the 158s will also be gone, but that's nostalgia for another day.

I often wonder what it would be like to go back to 2003, and enjoy the railway I fell in love with, but to be honest with modern values and ethics I don't think I could do it. Yes it would be nice to enjoy a simpler time, the days when a Nokia 3310's battery would last for days on end, but there's so many things I wouldn't want to go without. Things like smartphones have made information so much easier to get, wayfinding is so much easier, the ability to have e-tickets and not have to rush to a TVM or ticket office when you see a move you want to do, all sorts of things like that. However I'd hate to go back to a time when recycling wasn't a big part of daily life, when emissions were absolutely awful, noise pollution was a bigger issue and, crucically for me, going back to that era would mean being the me with lots of excess mass again. I'd also not have a (relatively) healthy lifestyle in general, nor would I want to be that immature again. So there's plenty to be grateful for, eh?

0703 and I was a little way north of Wem, the daylight was slowly arriving and I was by now more than ready for some more food and a coffee. I also needed to decide on the actual plan for the day, there were options aplenty as I was booked on the 1930 from Manchester Piccadilly. I had a little over 11 hours in Manchester, and I'd already seen not that many 195s floating around that I wanted. With only 3 active Metrolink trams on my wants list, that meant a lot of hanging around but it was a potential option before a Greater Manchester Rail Ranger day. I also had my eyes on a quick visit to West Yorkshire, as well as a Lancashire Day Ranger. Then I looked at the forecast, and that had changed quite a lot since the previous check. Suddenly all the cardio options were out of the window and I wasn't terribly keen on being outside for long!

So even at 0743, I had no real plan for the day. With no catering on board, my most immediate plan for Manchester was to source food and coffee. After that, I felt confident in my making an informed choice on the day, and of course I'd then see what the weather was actually doing! Arrival at Manchester Piccadilly was 10 minutes late at 0823, due to overhead line damage in the Longsight area. My first move was to Pret, and as it was not raining at that point I strolled over to Piccadilly Gardens. 3.9mph so I really wasn't rushing, clearly!

I had quite a bit of time to spare before Vegan Shack opened at 0900, and just before then a winner tram was observed heading to Ashton-under-Lyne. I was not sacrificing my food for a tram, and got a breakfast muffin and 3 beautiful hash browns. £7.50 but money exceptionally well spent on a 'sausage' patty, grilled tofu and 'cheese' all in a toasted muffin. That on its own is £5 but oh so good! That was my first try of tofu and it was amazing! The hash browns were amazing too, I highly recommend Vegan Shack for breakfast as well as lunch/dinner items now!

I went on a slightly faster stroll to St Peters Square next, to see what if any trams of interest were out. Sadly, none were present in my time there, not helped by some issue between St Peters Square and Deansgate-Castlefield, the queue of trams was ridiculous! I had given up and joined double duds 3050+3051 to Piccadilly, the queue stretched back to the former Moseley Street tram stop! I arrived on the other platform at Piccadilly with 3 minutes to spare, taking winner 3131 to Piccadilly Gardens. By some measure, that is probably my most regular leap in my Metrolink mileage log!

Next up was a re-positioning move to Manchester Victoria, and I decided to run over to there following the tram line. It's not very far, but it all mounts up, on drier streets I'd have gone faster but I was satisfied with my pace. A plan was now in place, and I went to the ticket office for an off-peak day return to Hebden Bridge at £12 and a West Yorkshire Daysaver (Train Only) for £9.10. The latter was previously known as a West Yorkshire Day Rover, and for the price it was regarded as good value. Ideally, I'd have been on a train heading east earlier on, but I'd have not had my excellent food or scored that tram, so I couldn't complain really.

With a £4 medium black americano from Starbucks in my hand, I made it with not long to spare onto winner 195121 on the 1021 to Leeds. I realised I could have bought to Todmorden, and saved a bit of money, but it is what it is! This was my first venture into Yorkshire for almost a year, which is way too long to be outside of a pretty part of the world! I chose to alight at winner station Sowerby Bridge, as there was a nice connection onto a train to a station that got denied on my last attempt some years back, due to flooding. However, as I pondered when I'd come back for the Rochdale Canal, upon boarding 158871+158786, I decided to alight at winner station Mytholmroyd instead.

Yes, that meant I had decided last minute to alight and walk along the Rochdale Canal back to Sowerby Bridge. It wasn't all that far, so since the weather was being unpredictable I'd at least try for it. Having recently done some of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, and a while back some of the canal between Pontypool and Newport, I was happy to report that this was my favourite walk of recent times. A beautifully scenic part of the world, and the rain was on and off, as was my coat, but it was absolutely worth it. The towpath is mostly wide, with a decent surface but not too much of it was tarmac. It's not really one I'd recommend doing in wet conditions, some of it did get muddy, but in good quality footwear it's actually quite nice.

I had to have a look around Sowerby Bridge itself when I got there, which felt like a rather nice little town, and the cycling shop with Team GB clothing in the window did distract me somewhat from my mission. If it would have fitted me, I'd have no doubt been in to find out how much it would cost! I stopped just outside the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms, next to Sowerby Bridge station, and I see the man in there has not only a weird sense of humour but also sneakily made it a large coffee, not a small one. 30p is 30p, and I just didn't like his attitude. I don't think his friend, a much more sensible person, thought his comments were very appropriate either! The coffee wasn't even that good, and at £2.90 I felt ripped off to be honest.

Thankfully, I never need to return to his place and I was soon on a pair of throaty 158s, in the form of 158791+158795. I looked at many options, but I chose to take them all the way to Leeds in the end. I was going to dash into the city, but then an announcement reminded me of those 'new' stations between Leeds and Shipley. They've been there for years, but I still hadn't done them, which was finally being changed! 333006 took me to winner station Apperley Bridge, and the weather was a bit rancid there, so I dived into the shelter on the Leeds-bound platform on my +19. There were trip report notes to catch up, so it was a good time to do that. My next move, back to winner station Kirkstall Forge, was aboard 333002 which was my penultimate 333 to get for haulage. So it was nice to get it again! It would be a very tight +2, which I really wanted to make as it would get me a winner! As the train left Apperley Bridge, it was 2 minutes late, so the Danger Music was 100% playing in my head!

Sadly, the connection didn't make and I had 29 minutes of free time. So I went for a small run, which would have been a bit longer except for one problem. No, this wasn't something to do with injury or whatever! No, this was even more frustrating. I stopped to take my coat back off, and something told me to check my inner pocket. Try as I might, even a thorough empty of everything ended in the same result. My Co-Op card was missing, no biggie as such as I barely use it, but my TfW Sale Advance had also gone missing! I can only imagine it fell out somewhere during the in-and-outs of my coat earlier in the trip, which was seriously mood-killing! The expense of a new ticket back from Manchester wasn't a pleasant thought, and this trip had suddenly cost me a lot more money than planned.

To be fair, it could have been worse, but I wasn't really in the mood for much now. I ran back to the station, and even tried reprinting my tickets on the machine. To no surprise, it didn't let me do that, and all because TfW won't even email you a PDF copy unless you register with them! I seem to recall I was in too much of a rush to book tickets to remember if I was registered with them or not, and now it had cost me £36.40 on a last minute Advance. Which was definitely better than £48-something for a walk-up ticket, and as I had the option to get home ASAP, I booked the 1730 from Manchester Piccadilly. I just had to hurry up and get back across the Pennines, which would have been easy but I chose to first jump on 333014 to Shipley.

I had good reason, and that was to chase after the 331/1 I missed earlier on. When I'd first made plans to head to Yorkshire, 3 of the 5 331/1s I wanted were out, but the other two went back to bed for most of the day as it turned out! I soon found a way to pass the time, and winner 331110 took me to Leeds. After being held outside of the station, it was 4 minutes late into Leeds at 1500. I just about managed to find time to get a meal deal from Boots, and sourced a couple more bits from Sainsburys, before squeezing onto winner 195014 on the 1512 to Manchester Victoria via Bradford Interchange. The journey was scheduled to take until 1629 to reach Manchester, which would give me a solid hour to get to Piccadilly. That would be plenty of time I predicted, and this service was scheduled to be quite fast in places. Non-stop Bradford to Halifax, then non-stop to Hebden Bridge, with only calls at Todmorden and Rochdale after that.

Is it just me, or is that male announcer voice really unfriendly-sounding, perhaps even a bit angry, on the CAF trains? I end up doing my best to block him out with music whenever possible, I just can't stand that voice! I finally got a fold-down seat at Bradford Interchange, and I always forget just how pretty this part of Yorkshire is. Once I'd devoured the chickpea curry naan that I usually get in Boots, and got some Dr Pepper in me, I found YouTube recommending Bangarang by Skillrex. Some big beats in that high-energy song! I hadn't heard that for a few years, and it brought back memories from my excessive alcohol consumption days. More importantly though, it helped boost the mood significantly. The trip into West Yorkshire had not exactly gone to plan, I'd got some good results from it but it was meant to just be better than that. This was the finale, the end of the celebration of 20 years and the development of my hobby. It was meant to end better than this, to end with a bang!

Arrival was 1 minute late at 1630, and I had to decide how to best use my time in Manchester. As it turned out, I elected to go running and once I got to St Peters Square I took a short break. This turned out to be a good decision, as winner for everything 3140 rolled in from the west on a Victoria via Market Street service. It may not have much distance on the clock, but I have it in the book. I just want 3027 (currently long-term out of use) and 3136 to finish the 147-strong Metrolink M5000 tram fleet for haulage. Once off at Market Street, I could have done multiple things, but I decided upping my running distance for the month made the most sense. I also wanted new coverage, and that's what I got!

I set out via Oldham Road, eventually looking at the map and realising I was going a little bit out of my way, and found my way to the Rochdale Canal. I hadn't yet decided if I was going to counting running and walking coverage as their own separate things, or if I'd count them as one unified goal on my OS maps. That was a decision for another day! I had to miss out part of the canal towpath at one point due to construction work, but it wasn't a long diversion. At Ducie Basin, I made my way up to the streets and ended up with 2.23 miles on the clock. I'd considered making it a 5k, but I wanted to rest a bit and rehydrate properly before the 1730 to Cardiff Central.

The inward working eventually arrived and doing the honours was 158823. I even managed to get a table seat somehow, and eventually it was away at 1749. More time was lost on the way south, being 22 late by Nantwich. After initial concerns that the 158 was not in good health, it had proved me wrong with some rather noisy performances. All 5 bananas were gone by Stockport, and by now I was looking forward to getting to bed to be honest! 158 racket is all fine and good, but it had been a long day and by 1848 the darkness was nearly total across the sky. The weather was not amazing, but it could have been a lot worse eh?

So, how was the day overall? Despite the obvious frustrations with ticketing, and delays meaning I would get back later than desired even with the revised schedule, it was a modestly productive day. 2 winning trams, 2 195s and a 331 as well, plus plenty of 158 action and 4 station scores. A rather enjoyable power walk was certainly the highlight of the day, and yes I absolutely wanted to go back and finish the job as soon as possible! It would definitely need to be a multiple effort task, Mytholmroyd to Manchester is quite the distance after all!

Was it the finale I wanted? Not especially, but it could have gone much worse. I had been tempted to make it a 4-part mission, but I didn't think that was a good idea. The finale would be what it would be, and the next trip was already being lined up. Equally, the next day off was being considered as a candidate for an easy day, as in one that doesn't involve lots of travelling. There was no doubt in my mind that it was likely to change by the time Sunday came along!

The trip from Shrewsbury onwards was spent chatting to an off-duty TfW catering crew member all the way to Hereford, the time flew by and I arrived 24 minutes late at 2014. Somehow, I found the energy to run back to base, it wasn't a terribly fast one but it was fairly consistent with my average running pace so I guess that's what matters the most right now. As long as I'm strong enough to do the Swansea Bay 10K in 2024, without stopping and being too tired for much else afterwards, that's the goal. Ideally, I'd like to get to half-marathon distance capabilities too, but that's a whole other level of training and I was not ready to commit to that!

Post-trip update: As I finish typing this the night after, I'm happy to report that I made the most of the weather and got my first ride in weeks done. Just under 10 miles, nothing much but it all counts. I also got just under 3.7 miles of running done, so I was on 43km of running in 7 days. I was well on the way to smashing the 100km running challenge, and I was promised fantastic unseasonably hot weather for the next day off. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that meant a full day of outdoor activity was being planned!

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Photos do not include even half of the ones I wanted to include, but for now here's a good few:

1) Trams in the St Peters Square, Manchester, area
2) 158786 at Sowerby Bridge
3) 397011 at Manchester Piccadilly
4) A view from the footbridge at Manchester Piccadilly, the 185s were 185113+185115
5) A view facing south at Manchester Piccadilly, this one featuring a 390 which I didn't get the number of
6) Big delays and cancellations, due to overhead wire damage at Longsight, were causing epic crowds for Avanti services, as observed in this photo from the footbridge
7) 158823 at Hereford
8) With the forum doing its usual amazing job of putting photos in order (a lot of sarcasm there), this photo is of 3131 at Piccadilly's Metrolink city-bound platform

 

[Kite159]

Other than the ticket issues sounded like you had a good day in between the rain

 

[Techniquest]

Other than the ticket issues sounded like you had a good day in between the rain

I sure did Hopefully my next visit to Yorkshire will not be a year away! I'll detail some of my other plans for the area by PM tomorrow, there's just so much to go after!

I've now attached some photos from the canal walk There are other photos as well, they will hopefully get included another time

 

[Iskra]

Congratulations on your 20 years anniversary! At least you got out to celebrate it and ticked some stuff off the list!

 

[D6130]

This was my first venture into Yorkshire for almost a year, which is way too long to be outside of a pretty part of the world!

Congratulations on your twentieth anniversary. Glad to hear that you enjoyed beautiful Calderdale, but sorry I wasn't around to meet you and buy you a coffee....having just departed for Italy a couple of days earlier. Next time you're planning to visit the area drop me a DM and - if I'm around - I'll happily show you some of the excellent coffee shops and vegan restaurants in Hebden Bridge. No national chains there though....all of them proudly independently-owned!

 

[Techniquest]

Congratulations on your 20 years anniversary! At least you got out to celebrate it and ticked some stuff off the list!

Absolutely, and considering I'd spent Thursday under the influence of cold and flu tablets (illness is going around my workplace like crazy currently) I'm very pleased the trips all went ahead A nice bit of variety, a good bit of stuff off the to-do lists, which all helps bring the list down for 2024! It's getting to the point of the weather not being on side for too many more adventures this year, today was an exception of course!

Congratulations on your twentieth anniversary. Glad to hear that you enjoyed beautiful Calderdale, but sorry I wasn't around to meet you and buy you a coffee....having just departed for Italy a couple of days earlier. Next time you're planning to visit the area drop me a DM and - if I'm around - I'll happily show you some of the excellent coffee shops and vegan restaurants in Hebden Bridge. No national chains there though....all of them proudly independently-owned!

The problem is that I rarely know all that far in advance where I'm going myself until it's happening! As I mentioned in the trip report for Friday, I had multiple options available and I only really ended up in Yorkshire because the weather was being silly.

Hebden Bridge is absolutely on my list of places to have an epic explore of, I've seen some of it years ago, but that was under different circumstances. I'd been in the area to visit my godmother in Heptonstall, the last time I saw her too. So Hebden Bridge will always have a connection for me, and I must go back and explore it fully. A tribute to my late godmother, if you will

Vegan restaurants and local-only coffee places, how was I not already familiar with this? Hebden Bridge has been pushed way up the list of places to visit, just a case of when really. Maybe not so much on two wheels, but some power walking and/or running could be involved!

I will of course give you the heads-up when this happens, it would likely be a Friday or Sunday as those are my days off

As for today, I looked at trains but to be honest I wasn't inspired. The weather in Herefordshire was forecast to be glorious and hot all day, which it actually turned out to be, so I kept it local. Last night, I had got out for just under 10 miles of local cycling, the first ride in some weeks, and I think that had unleashed a desire to get some more done. To keep a long story short, I did my first Gran Fondo ride in several months today All in, I got through around 73 miles which was no mean feat!

I also got to do the new outdoor cycle track at Halo Leisure Centre, Hereford, which was really good to do. It opened a couple of weeks ago, and I'm really glad I did it as it was something on my exploring to-do list. With it being just over a mile from base, that was just ridiculous!

I've attached my screenshot from Strava, and the breaks mounted up to 57 minutes in the end. Which I was surprised at, I thought it had been longer! Mind you, it was actually longer as I'd lost around 44 minutes of performance data due to not hitting resume after a PNB. If I'd done that, I'd have cleared the challenge much sooner and got some good performance data for the missing segments. Mind you, I also got another 8.4 miles of cycling done for the 200km cycling challenge, and a lot more sunshine, so that's good!

There should be some more photos from Friday here as well

 

[Techniquest]

13/10/2023 - "Maybe I should have gone shopping"

Provisionally, as I approached Great Malvern, I set the trip report title as Mr Incredible On Tour. I was all set to do some serious cardio where possible, and when that involves running I use the title as a hashtag on Strava. Somehow it felt appropriate to use it here, given I was in my running gear! However, on the way back to Hereford, I changed it to reflect the mood!

The morning had seen some heavy rain, and the wind was not pleasant when it was gusting, so it was 100% not a cycling day. Quite, most people would spend such a day at home, but that's not me. I had looked at some bus route options, but none of those appealed enough to go for it. RTT's Know Your Train feature was not working, so I had no idea what was running on TfW. I was going to bus it to Gloucester, but the bus that turned up has a history of breaking down more than any other in the local fleet. So I declined that and went on an extended walk to the station, eventually finding out that there were issues in both North and South Wales.

In the end, I settled on a West Midlands Day Ranger, as the connection onto GWR at Worcester was something like a +49. No thanks, Bicester could wait. £32 later, my ticket was sourced from the ticket office and I went to Pumpkin for a large black coffee, accompanied by a vegan KitKat for later on. It's fair to say that it was an expensive visit, at the best part of £4.80 spent, but the paper lids in Morrisons and the cups they use leave an unpleasant taste. So I'd declined that during the planning stage!

172001 eventually rolled in on its own, which I hadn't expected, but I was committed to a West Midlands day out. All the way to Malvern, I was making a decision on where to take the 172, after all the weather was behaving surprisingly well and I was considering bailing in Worcester anyway, to do some canal walking up to Droitwich. Would I do so? In the end, I chose to stay on the 172 all the way to Birmingham, which was in receipt of some rain but some silly wet stuff wasn't going to stop me! Perhaps it should have though, as my Thriller Filler run did get me a bit damp when the wet stuff intensified!

Even so, I managed around 1.7 miles so not amazing, but not too bad in the conditions either. In drier weather, I would have happily carried on, but I called an end to play at Yorks Cafe to try out their coffee. It was a very small cup for £3 and I didn't think all that much of it. Maybe with sugar it's better, but I declined sugar in a vague attempt to decrease my calorie intake. The effort to match up my intake to my energy output had not been going great recently, and I really needed to change that. My running efforts were still going, and I'd even managed something like 73 miles of cycling for the first time in months recently. So the output was going relatively well, but not the intake of energy.

I'd managed to time my stop for coffee well enough to score Midland Metro's tram number 54 for a quick leap up the hill to Corporation Street, 6 more were left to find!

I had also been going to Tamworth to visit the Decathlon there, but the heavy rain was certainly enough to stop that. Having declined dud 196102 on the 1156 to Shrewsbury, I saw an option to head to Wolverhampton to intercept the next 196 on its way to Birmingham. Refurbished 390124 received my request for transport from Birmingham, and my Tesco meal deal got devoured on board. There are so many cardio options around the Midlands, but I was being left with no option but to make this a train day!

Dud 196107 was on the next service to Birmingham, so it was back onto 390124. There was nothing I wanted to do in Wolverhampton, especially so in the wet weather, so I decided I was better off enjoying the 390 for a bit longer. I wanted to get to Nuneaton at some point, to do the line to Coventry on a 196 at long last, so I strongly considered bailing at Stafford to head down the Trent Valley. A decision was imminent, but I rejected Stafford in favour of tilting to Crewe. It was mighty chilly in Cheshire, so I decided not to go for a run there. The option to jump on 350243 down the Trent Valley was taken, and unusually this 350 was on its own. Normally these services are pairs of 350s, and the drinkers in the former First Class area were getting on my nerves.

I'd considered bailing at Tamworth, but there was rain coming down. Crewe didn't appear to be in receipt of rain, much to my surprise, and in the end I stayed on to Nuneaton. I hadn't done a 196 on the Nuneaton to Coventry line yet, which had been on my list to do for quite some time. As I had a little over 20 minutes to fill, I set off on a quick run. It was still raining frustratingly, heavily at that, but I kept with it. 1.4 miles with some brand new coverage, as in coverage I'd never done by other means of transport or activity, was better than nothing. A coffee from the cafe on platform 1 was £2.80, and not a very big cup, but bigger than that one from Yorks Cafe!

196010 was on the 1437 to Coventry, normally to Leamington Spa but not today, which was good news as I wanted to go to at least Coventry on a 196. I'd still want Kenilworth to Leamington Spa on the class, but that was destined to be done another time. For me, it was time to enjoy my coffee, warm up a bit and be thankful that my Own The Run tights dry quickly! I now only wanted 36km of running for the 100km challenge on Strava, so I was quite pleased with that. I still needed to work on my cardio-vascular strength, as my breathing was not great yet and that meant not enough oxygen getting around the body. However, compared to where I'd been with the training just under a month ago, I had to be satisfied really with how things were going!

I had a choice of either the slower 1515 pair of 350s from Coventry to Birmingham, or the 1527 390 on its way to Edinburgh, for my journey back to England's second city. With it being around 1500, there was time for a quick stretch of legs. I see a Sainsburys Local has opened outside the main station entrance now, that's very ideal! Black Sheep Coffee and Greggs are on their way to the station too, still under construction and the coffee shop has been in that state for ages. That seems to be taking a long time to be done! With a couple of bits sourced, to shut the raging stomach up, I was still in plenty of time for the 1515 which produced 350112+350408. The former First Class area of 350408 received my desire to sit down, and while it would arrive only 4 minutes before the Avanti would, the comfortable seat and warmth were more appealing than sitting on the station!

It was a case of heavy rain and strong wind in Birmingham, and I was shivering. A medium sugarless Dark Roast from Tim Hortons was well worth £2.69 just for the warmth! With the 1556 confirmed as dud 196107, I was waiting next for the 1626 to Shrewsbury which comes off Tyseley depot. The ECS was held up for quite some time by a heavily delayed Voyager to Glasgow, and I was disappointed that it was dud 196110. Initially, I was taking it to Smethwick Galton Bridge anyway to intercept the inward working of the 1656 to Shrewsbury, which was the return of the 1356 from Birmingham earlier. In the end, I got back off the dud 'un to await the 1656 at New Street.

That turned out to be a good decision, as I was overjoyed to find it was winner 196103, excellent! The 196/1s are taking a lot of effort to get done, as they are still not visiting Hereford as of this trip. I appreciated that Network Rail and West Midlands Railway still had some work to do at University first, but this seemed to be taking forever! Upstairs at Smethwick Galton Bridge, I joined 172213+172221 for a short journey to Birmingham Snow Hill, where I had 10 minutes before another working off Tyseley depot was due.

I ran over in just a few minutes, the good news was that by now the rain had stopped. The bad news? The 1726 was still waiting for the ECS to arrive, and at 1735 that was still the case. I was about ready to head back to Hereford to be honest, and the 1750 to Worcester Shrub Hill was cancelled. The 1820 to Hereford was being considered as the option of most interest, and with the platform still flashing "TBC" as of 1739 I was, by now, getting annoyed. The odds were that it wouldn't run, given the 1756 would not be far behind!

I finally got a usable 4G signal outside, and at 1745 I discovered I'd been wasting my time inside. The ECS had not even left the depot! So at 1749, in nicely dry and slightly sunny conditions, I finally got Strava to accept I had my GPS on and set off on a run around Birmingham city centre. On a couple of occasions, I observed some trams in case I found one I wanted. Unless the number began with a 5, and even then I'd had some in the higher number range, then I wasn't interested. I won't go too much into detail, but there was a load of new running coverage and I managed to put some elevation gains into the mix.

2.23 miles done, and I found time to pop into Boots for a meal deal, on this occasion mixing it up and getting the no-duck hoisin wrap instead of the chickpea curry naan I normally get. Down to the platform and I found 172334, not 196s like I was expecting. It would have to do, the feet were ready to give up and I was not willing to wait for the 1920. I knew that one produces a 172, so I was not too bothered, that and I knew it was scheduled to take approximately 100 minutes to do the journey to Hereford. No thanks, I'll take this and just get on with the homeward journey.

The wrap, I found after I got on the train, had cucumber in it and I really don't care for that nonsense. I also found myself very disappointed at the high level of fat and saturated fat in it, the naan I usually get is not that good for me but this was worse! Lesson learnt for next time, and to be fair it was OK but I wouldn't buy it again. The Trek protein flapjack I got as the snack part of the deal was good and got rid of the taste of the wrap well! I had been tempted earlier on by a visit to the local chippy upon arrival in Hereford, so this had basically been an attempt to stop myself doing that. The odds were not in my favour of succeeding with that, but I was going to try and be good!

At least I was succeeding much better in that mission than the guy opposite me who was on his third can of mixer drinks from M&S in 35 minutes, and better than the guy who got off in Bromsgrove who stunk so much of cigarettes that I'd put my sweaty t-shirt over my nose. That was a preferable smell, and that's a bit of a desperate move! Yes, unfortunately my mission to be less judgemental was going incredibly badly!

Did I get good value from my WMDR then? Not as much as I'd wanted really, perhaps I should have gone for some Chiltern moves instead of that 390 to Crewe? Who knows, what I do know is that I at least partially succeeded with my railway to-do list. A winner 196, a winner tram and some 196 coverage I'd been wanting to do for ages. I didn't get all of the coverage I'd wanted on a 196, but it is what it is, a shortage of train crew caused that early termination at Coventry. I'd been hoping for more 196 action on my local line, but that was clearly not meant to be. One day it will be like the 170s, those were mundane journeys and now they're all a part of history. The same will happen with the 172s eventually, and I'll miss them on my local line.

It was a modestly successful day, despite the rain, and while I didn't do everything I'd planned it could have gone so much worse. I'm now down to 5 196/1s to get, at least 2 of which have not yet entered service, so it's getting there. £32 on fares reasonably spent but I still felt I could have done more, I wasn't heading back to Hereford satisfied that's for sure! Perhaps I should have gone to Bicester after all, granted I'd have spent a fair bit as that would have meant a visit to the Nike outlet store, perhaps I was just wound up by waiting for a train that was clearly never destined to turn up!

--------

Not my most exciting trip report, I'll grant you all that, but at least a couple of things got done eh? Photos are:

1) RHTT at Hereford
2) 66846 at Hereford
3) Another view of the RHTT train as the 66s clagged a lot on their way south
4) 172001 at Hereford waiting to work the 0939 to Birmingham New Street
5) 196010 at Nuneaton
6) The coffee from Nuneaton, not a huge cup for £2.80 as you'll see!
7) 196010 at Coventry

 

[Kite159]

At least you did make some use of that ranger with a run towards Crewe as from memory Birmingham to Crewe isn't the cheapest.

Shame the weather was a bit rubbish, but thats just the way the cookie crumbles this time of year

 

[Techniquest]

At least you did make some use of that ranger with a run towards Crewe as from memory Birmingham to Crewe isn't the cheapest.

Shame the weather was a bit rubbish, but thats just the way the cookie crumbles this time of year

Agreed. As a quick update, when I got off the 172 I found out the line was obstructed in Cwmbran, so I was incredibly glad I didn't go that way after all!

I'm also on 70km for the running challenge now, so I'm very pleased about that. I have a feeling that I'll make even more progress with that on Sunday!

 

[Techniquest]

15/10/2023 - Rescue!

Inspired by one of my favourite pieces of music from Thunderbirds, the trip report title could not be chosen any better. Read on to find out why, but below should be a link to it on YouTube:

With the forecast being accurate, to my surprise, which in this case was sunny but cold, I was awake before sunrise. It was still more than 3 hours until I got going, but to be fair some of that time was used for housework that needed doing. It was still chilly at nearly 10am, so I dread to think what it would have been like if I'd left at 8am!

The dry weather meant cycling was high up my priority list, as I still had 62km left to get the 200km cycling challenge completed for the month on Strava. I made it in plenty of time for the 1005 to Birmingham Snow Hill as it turned out, and 172343 was in charge of taking me to Worcester Foregate Street. I had an hour or so to fill before the 1154 from Worcester Shrub Hill to Bristol Temple Meads, so I was going to have a ride for a few miles and get a coffee before that. The aim had been to do that 1154 train as far as Ashchurch for Tewkesbury, as it was on my list of stations locally I hadn't started or finished a ride at. With a fair bit of coverage desires in the area, it seemed the perfect day to do that.

The quick ride turned into a ride up the A449 for a good while, turning off for Claines then up the hill to Fernhill Heath. That climb always gets me into Fernhill Heath, it looks easy but it's not! Once up there, it was back down towards the city and I ended up at Worcester Shrub Hill with a decent bit of mileage under my belt, as well as some new coverage. I got a coffee from the cafe, which for £2.30 was way too small and I wasn't impressed by that. It was made into a sugary one, just as well with the output I had during the afternoon. As is often the case, I'm getting ahead of myself!

158959 turned up and it shunted out to the siding, that wasn't promising. Somehow I also managed to get some of the boiling hot coffee through my long-sleeve top and it left a very unfun burn on my lower arm! This day was not going well, maybe I should have not turned off for Shrub Hill and just kept going! In the end, after 220003 passed through on a diversion caused by engineering works, I saw no sign of anything happening any time soon, and the platform was getting very congested. I took this as a sign to get moving, abandon the railway for now and get back on the road. Fortunately I had not already bought the ticket to Ashchurch for Tewkesbury!

I'd also been tempted by going to Cheltenham on that service, to connect into what was showing as 175109 on a Cheltenham Spa to Cardiff Central service. I'd never done one on that route before, and it was why I'd not bought the ticket before the train from Worcester, I'd been in two minds as to whether or not to go for it. Later in the evening, I found it had been swapped with a 150, so I felt most grateful I'd not gone for it!

My cycling resumed, I made my way up Tolladine Road. There's a really nasty climb on that road, and it was no easier this time either! I found myself alongside the Orbital Pedway, which I shall have to try next time, before I ended up on the B4636 towards Tiddington. The ride was going beautifully, I was having a great time, and then by Worcester Six I had a driver being silly which led me towards the verge. Some very unpleasant stones were in that part of the world, which I unfortunately didn't see until it was too late. An instant bang and I had to try and control the Blue Beauty while I navigated my way around the roundabout. That was no easy feat, unsurprisingly she did not want to do that!

Fortunately, I had cycle recovery cover included in my insurance policy. A phone call was made, and around 35 minutes after the event I thankfully had a decent size taxi to get me back to the city. With no cycle shops open, I got dropped off at Worcester Foregate Street station and I locked the Blue Beauty up there. It was too nice a day to just go back to Hereford, so I had a think on what to do. I had a large amount of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal to do for walking coverage, and the weather was beautiful.

Well I did nothing of the sort! I started a run, as I had 30km left on the 100km running challenge and I wanted to make progress with that. Initially, it was to be just a run to the canal, then power-walk to Droitwich and pick up the train back to Hereford. Well, I got to the canal and kept going with the run. A Science in Sport energy gel was required by now, bearing in mind I hadn't had lunch yet and this was well after 1pm. The small sugary coffee had been consumed by 12 noon as it was! I had more stops than I'd have liked, and in the Perdiswell area I decided to leave the canal and do a big loop around to the city centre.

Once I stopped a bit further on and took the skull cap and the gloves, the Lucozade Sport also came out and that helped no end. Bear in mind too I was out running in my winter cycling clothes, so it didn't take long to over-heat. I'd only got serious about my running on 17th September, so I was still building the cardio-vascular strength. Over and across to the A449 again, and I soon enough found myself at Gheluvelt Park. This is next to the junction with the A38, and it is a really beautiful place. I was too focused on distance and performance to stop and take photos, but I will be back there on a walking expedition before too long. It's in the same league as Vondel Park in Amsterdam, and that park is one of my most favourite places on Earth!

Back on the street, I think the carbs and the joy were kicking in a bit by now so things felt a bit easier. Not too easy, granted, but better than they had done when I was along the canal. I'd only intended to do a 5k run at the most, but that got extended to a 10k run when I found I wasn't that far off the goal later on. Before too long, I was past that and getting relatively close to new Personal Best territory for distance in a single run. I was taking in a fair amount of all-time new coverage, some parts of this run were along roads I'd never walked or cycled before, which was pretty cool.

Alongside the river, I headed alongside the eastern flank of the Severn to Diglis Basin, where the Worcester & Birmingham Canal begins. That's where I'd got a little over 5 miles in, and I was impressed with how well it was going. Too many stops for my liking, but all things considered this was all about building up my endurance, so that wasn't a primary concern. I ended up following the canal and linking up with the coverage from earlier on. Some street running now felt appropriate, and I was of course hunting new running coverage whenever possible. To the riverside!

Up and over the River Severn, and along the western flank of it to Sabrina Bridge before hitting up the eastern side, and I was in new record terittory. By now, I wanted a bare minimum of 9 miles, but 10 was the ideal. The next time I looked, once I was back in the city centre itself, I was on 9.4 miles. No way was I calling it a day there, I had to keep going! With some more new coverage done, I ended at Starbucks on 10.07 miles, which was 1.72 miles longer than my previous best only 2 weeks before!

Let's just say that coffee was more than welcome, I'd been wanting it for hours and I got a twin pack of dark chocolate peanut butter cups to go with it. £5.65 but it was worth that just for the collapse into the really comfortable chair near the window. Oh my that was needed! Once it was all logged on Strava, I got to my nutrition and fluids which went down very well. I don't think the snack touched the sides of the throat to be honest, they were just gone! Really nice and highly recommended, but I was famished! To say my feet and legs didn't want to move afterwards is an understatement, but they had no choice. By now it was 1523 and the train to Hereford was at 1555. I could have gone to Worcester Shrub Hill to get on the train, but that just wasn't happening!

An OK-not-great vegan sausage roll was sourced from Cornish Bakehouse, not really worth £1.55 but I needed some major nutrition now. A short and slow walk to Foregate Street station was as far as the feet were willing to go, I'd time to fill but that had to do. Sadly, the banana I had from Tesco was a bit too unripe so it wasn't a fun experience. Eventually 158959, already back from Bristol, left on the 1547 to Bristol Temple Meads and in rolled my train back to Hereford, on this occasion 196007+196001. I even had a private carriage all the way to Hereford, which was a big surprise!

I noted what looked like a farce on TfW, with the Midland Pullman just north of the station but also the rather late running Manchester Piccadilly service as well. 197009+197042 appeared to not be going anywhere, I had no idea what was going on but I was feeling glad I didn't travel on the Welsh operator after all. Funnily enough, that was twice in one week I had that feeling!

Once off the station, it was a slow paced walk, at only just over 4mph, back to base as I pushed the Blue Beauty along. I picked up some cash, and put on the music from Thunderbirds that I linked near the top of this trip report. That sure boosted my morale, and my large portion of chips went down really well. The stomach was certainly very grateful for that, effectively two meals in one go!

Aside from the rather ruined experience on the second ride, it turned into a very productive day. I'd no plans to go and do that much running, but my practicing was clearly paying off. I was still trying to put elevation gains into my running, and I was still struggling with that. I was once the same with power walking and cycling though, so it was felt like some progress would be made eventually and I was being surprisingly patient with myself on this!

---------

Photos in order are:

1) 153329+150282 on the 1006 Hereford-Swansea
2) 67013 parked on the old HST siding at Hereford
3) 158959 at Worcester Shrub Hill
4) 220003 passing through non-stop on its way to the north
5) Another view of 220003 at Worcester Shrub Hill
6) The beginning of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, as marked by the signpost
7) A view from the western side of the River Severn in Worcester
8) The much needed coffee and snack in Starbucks Worcester. They kindly refilled my bottle for me too!
9) Finally, check out my new weight-lifting equipment! Wow that is heavy, and it's a bag of coffee grounds. That's going to my Mum for use in her garden soon

 

[Kite159]

Other than the issue with being forced into the verge with some evil stones causing a wheel flat, sounded like a good day (less the issues with the railway being the railway)

 

[Iskra]

13/10/2023 - "Maybe I should have gone shopping"

Provisionally, as I approached Great Malvern, I set the trip report title as Mr Incredible On Tour. I was all set to do some serious cardio where possible, and when that involves running I use the title as a hashtag on Strava. Somehow it felt appropriate to use it here, given I was in my running gear! However, on the way back to Hereford, I changed it to reflect the mood!

The morning had seen some heavy rain, and the wind was not pleasant when it was gusting, so it was 100% not a cycling day. Quite, most people would spend such a day at home, but that's not me. I had looked at some bus route options, but none of those appealed enough to go for it. RTT's Know Your Train feature was not working, so I had no idea what was running on TfW. I was going to bus it to Gloucester, but the bus that turned up has a history of breaking down more than any other in the local fleet. So I declined that and went on an extended walk to the station, eventually finding out that there were issues in both North and South Wales.

In the end, I settled on a West Midlands Day Ranger, as the connection onto GWR at Worcester was something like a +49. No thanks, Bicester could wait. £32 later, my ticket was sourced from the ticket office and I went to Pumpkin for a large black coffee, accompanied by a vegan KitKat for later on. It's fair to say that it was an expensive visit, at the best part of £4.80 spent, but the paper lids in Morrisons and the cups they use leave an unpleasant taste. So I'd declined that during the planning stage!

172001 eventually rolled in on its own, which I hadn't expected, but I was committed to a West Midlands day out. All the way to Malvern, I was making a decision on where to take the 172, after all the weather was behaving surprisingly well and I was considering bailing in Worcester anyway, to do some canal walking up to Droitwich. Would I do so? In the end, I chose to stay on the 172 all the way to Birmingham, which was in receipt of some rain but some silly wet stuff wasn't going to stop me! Perhaps it should have though, as my Thriller Filler run did get me a bit damp when the wet stuff intensified!

Even so, I managed around 1.7 miles so not amazing, but not too bad in the conditions either. In drier weather, I would have happily carried on, but I called an end to play at Yorks Cafe to try out their coffee. It was a very small cup for £3 and I didn't think all that much of it. Maybe with sugar it's better, but I declined sugar in a vague attempt to decrease my calorie intake. The effort to match up my intake to my energy output had not been going great recently, and I really needed to change that. My running efforts were still going, and I'd even managed something like 73 miles of cycling for the first time in months recently. So the output was going relatively well, but not the intake of energy.

I'd managed to time my stop for coffee well enough to score Midland Metro's tram number 54 for a quick leap up the hill to Corporation Street, 6 more were left to find!

I had also been going to Tamworth to visit the Decathlon there, but the heavy rain was certainly enough to stop that. Having declined dud 196102 on the 1156 to Shrewsbury, I saw an option to head to Wolverhampton to intercept the next 196 on its way to Birmingham. Refurbished 390124 received my request for transport from Birmingham, and my Tesco meal deal got devoured on board. There are so many cardio options around the Midlands, but I was being left with no option but to make this a train day!

Dud 196107 was on the next service to Birmingham, so it was back onto 390124. There was nothing I wanted to do in Wolverhampton, especially so in the wet weather, so I decided I was better off enjoying the 390 for a bit longer. I wanted to get to Nuneaton at some point, to do the line to Coventry on a 196 at long last, so I strongly considered bailing at Stafford to head down the Trent Valley. A decision was imminent, but I rejected Stafford in favour of tilting to Crewe. It was mighty chilly in Cheshire, so I decided not to go for a run there. The option to jump on 350243 down the Trent Valley was taken, and unusually this 350 was on its own. Normally these services are pairs of 350s, and the drinkers in the former First Class area were getting on my nerves.

I'd considered bailing at Tamworth, but there was rain coming down. Crewe didn't appear to be in receipt of rain, much to my surprise, and in the end I stayed on to Nuneaton. I hadn't done a 196 on the Nuneaton to Coventry line yet, which had been on my list to do for quite some time. As I had a little over 20 minutes to fill, I set off on a quick run. It was still raining frustratingly, heavily at that, but I kept with it. 1.4 miles with some brand new coverage, as in coverage I'd never done by other means of transport or activity, was better than nothing. A coffee from the cafe on platform 1 was £2.80, and not a very big cup, but bigger than that one from Yorks Cafe!

196010 was on the 1437 to Coventry, normally to Leamington Spa but not today, which was good news as I wanted to go to at least Coventry on a 196. I'd still want Kenilworth to Leamington Spa on the class, but that was destined to be done another time. For me, it was time to enjoy my coffee, warm up a bit and be thankful that my Own The Run tights dry quickly! I now only wanted 36km of running for the 100km challenge on Strava, so I was quite pleased with that. I still needed to work on my cardio-vascular strength, as my breathing was not great yet and that meant not enough oxygen getting around the body. However, compared to where I'd been with the training just under a month ago, I had to be satisfied really with how things were going!

I had a choice of either the slower 1515 pair of 350s from Coventry to Birmingham, or the 1527 390 on its way to Edinburgh, for my journey back to England's second city. With it being around 1500, there was time for a quick stretch of legs. I see a Sainsburys Local has opened outside the main station entrance now, that's very ideal! Black Sheep Coffee and Greggs are on their way to the station too, still under construction and the coffee shop has been in that state for ages. That seems to be taking a long time to be done! With a couple of bits sourced, to shut the raging stomach up, I was still in plenty of time for the 1515 which produced 350112+350408. The former First Class area of 350408 received my desire to sit down, and while it would arrive only 4 minutes before the Avanti would, the comfortable seat and warmth were more appealing than sitting on the station!

It was a case of heavy rain and strong wind in Birmingham, and I was shivering. A medium sugarless Dark Roast from Tim Hortons was well worth £2.69 just for the warmth! With the 1556 confirmed as dud 196107, I was waiting next for the 1626 to Shrewsbury which comes off Tyseley depot. The ECS was held up for quite some time by a heavily delayed Voyager to Glasgow, and I was disappointed that it was dud 196110. Initially, I was taking it to Smethwick Galton Bridge anyway to intercept the inward working of the 1656 to Shrewsbury, which was the return of the 1356 from Birmingham earlier. In the end, I got back off the dud 'un to await the 1656 at New Street.

That turned out to be a good decision, as I was overjoyed to find it was winner 196103, excellent! The 196/1s are taking a lot of effort to get done, as they are still not visiting Hereford as of this trip. I appreciated that Network Rail and West Midlands Railway still had some work to do at University first, but this seemed to be taking forever! Upstairs at Smethwick Galton Bridge, I joined 172213+172221 for a short journey to Birmingham Snow Hill, where I had 10 minutes before another working off Tyseley depot was due.

I ran over in just a few minutes, the good news was that by now the rain had stopped. The bad news? The 1726 was still waiting for the ECS to arrive, and at 1735 that was still the case. I was about ready to head back to Hereford to be honest, and the 1750 to Worcester Shrub Hill was cancelled. The 1820 to Hereford was being considered as the option of most interest, and with the platform still flashing "TBC" as of 1739 I was, by now, getting annoyed. The odds were that it wouldn't run, given the 1756 would not be far behind!

I finally got a usable 4G signal outside, and at 1745 I discovered I'd been wasting my time inside. The ECS had not even left the depot! So at 1749, in nicely dry and slightly sunny conditions, I finally got Strava to accept I had my GPS on and set off on a run around Birmingham city centre. On a couple of occasions, I observed some trams in case I found one I wanted. Unless the number began with a 5, and even then I'd had some in the higher number range, then I wasn't interested. I won't go too much into detail, but there was a load of new running coverage and I managed to put some elevation gains into the mix.

2.23 miles done, and I found time to pop into Boots for a meal deal, on this occasion mixing it up and getting the no-duck hoisin wrap instead of the chickpea curry naan I normally get. Down to the platform and I found 172334, not 196s like I was expecting. It would have to do, the feet were ready to give up and I was not willing to wait for the 1920. I knew that one produces a 172, so I was not too bothered, that and I knew it was scheduled to take approximately 100 minutes to do the journey to Hereford. No thanks, I'll take this and just get on with the homeward journey.

The wrap, I found after I got on the train, had cucumber in it and I really don't care for that nonsense. I also found myself very disappointed at the high level of fat and saturated fat in it, the naan I usually get is not that good for me but this was worse! Lesson learnt for next time, and to be fair it was OK but I wouldn't buy it again. The Trek protein flapjack I got as the snack part of the deal was good and got rid of the taste of the wrap well! I had been tempted earlier on by a visit to the local chippy upon arrival in Hereford, so this had basically been an attempt to stop myself doing that. The odds were not in my favour of succeeding with that, but I was going to try and be good!

At least I was succeeding much better in that mission than the guy opposite me who was on his third can of mixer drinks from M&S in 35 minutes, and better than the guy who got off in Bromsgrove who stunk so much of cigarettes that I'd put my sweaty t-shirt over my nose. That was a preferable smell, and that's a bit of a desperate move! Yes, unfortunately my mission to be less judgemental was going incredibly badly!

Did I get good value from my WMDR then? Not as much as I'd wanted really, perhaps I should have gone for some Chiltern moves instead of that 390 to Crewe? Who knows, what I do know is that I at least partially succeeded with my railway to-do list. A winner 196, a winner tram and some 196 coverage I'd been wanting to do for ages. I didn't get all of the coverage I'd wanted on a 196, but it is what it is, a shortage of train crew caused that early termination at Coventry. I'd been hoping for more 196 action on my local line, but that was clearly not meant to be. One day it will be like the 170s, those were mundane journeys and now they're all a part of history. The same will happen with the 172s eventually, and I'll miss them on my local line.

It was a modestly successful day, despite the rain, and while I didn't do everything I'd planned it could have gone so much worse. I'm now down to 5 196/1s to get, at least 2 of which have not yet entered service, so it's getting there. £32 on fares reasonably spent but I still felt I could have done more, I wasn't heading back to Hereford satisfied that's for sure! Perhaps I should have gone to Bicester after all, granted I'd have spent a fair bit as that would have meant a visit to the Nike outlet store, perhaps I was just wound up by waiting for a train that was clearly never destined to turn up!

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Not my most exciting trip report, I'll grant you all that, but at least a couple of things got done eh? Photos are:

1) RHTT at Hereford
2) 66846 at Hereford
3) Another view of the RHTT train as the 66s clagged a lot on their way south
4) 172001 at Hereford waiting to work the 0939 to Birmingham New Street
5) 196010 at Nuneaton
6) The coffee from Nuneaton, not a huge cup for £2.80 as you'll see!
7) 196010 at Coventry

Sounded a good day. I’ve got a work train-trip to the West Midlands coming up, so I’m considering a WMDR in the evening and your report has given me some inspiration for some routes to do. Hopefully I can get some 196’s in myself then

 

[Iskra]

And is the bike okay re: your second report that I’ve just read? Well done on the spontaneous run though!

 

[Techniquest]

And is the bike okay re: your second report that I’ve just read? Well done on the spontaneous run though!

It's not too bad, it needs a good clean which I've been putting off for weeks, but from what I can tell it's OK. I've not investigate the rear rim yet, I'm going to take her to Boneshaker Cycle Repairs soon and get it looked at.

Thank you as well, that run was exhausting and apparently it was my second fastest ever 10k. Not super surprising, considering my first one was much earlier this year in Manchester and wasn't terribly fast, equally yesterday was faster than that. I have to be a subscriber on Strava to see all my best efforts, so I don't know how fast it was in the end in comparison to the fastest one I did more locally a few weeks ago.

14km to go until I smash that 100km challenge, and my last attempt some months back failed miserably at around 33km out of 100km, so this was promising. It will be finished at some point this week, although I have no idea when!

 

[barrowjack]

Finally caught up with all your reports whist on the train on Monday. Congrats on your 20 year anniversary, sounds like you had some good trips despite the various issues you had.

I could fill this trip report with nothing but nostalgia, very easily, but for now let's focus on the here and now. Having a 158 to Manchester is nostalgia in its own right, having done many journeys on 158s in years gone by before the 175s arrived on Arriva Trains Wales services to/from Cardiff. I want to say that happened in 2006, but I may be wrong, and now in 2023 the 175s are almost extinct on Transport for Wales (TfW) services, following the arrival of the new Class 197s. In 2025 the 158s will also be gone, but that's nostalgia for another day.

The 175's finally finished on the Barrow - Airport runs in 2006 when the 185's arrived so you are right. Whilst I must have had them all multiple times on these runs, I only have mileage recorded with 5 of them as I didn't record unit numbers back then so my notes just say "175"so I have over 30,000 unallocated miles on my sheet for them!

13/10/2023 - "Maybe I should have gone shopping"

I was due to go to the East Lancs steam gala on the Friday but after seeing the forecast decided not to bother. Just as well as Northern cancelled the train I was intending to go on, and the the 8F failed to be replaced by a diesel so a lucky escape for me there.

 

[Techniquest]

Finally caught up with all your reports whist on the train on Monday. Congrats on your 20 year anniversary, sounds like you had some good trips despite the various issues you had.

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I'm glad that they kept you occupied during your journey Yes indeed there were some good trips overall, and definitely preferred to the multiple evenings indoors endured this week. The rain did at least hold back tonight until after I got back to the house, so I have to be grateful for that!

The way I had wanted to celebrate the 20 years was a day trip to Glasgow on a Roundabout ticket, but that just wasn't a realistic possibility. A proper revisit to Scotland may be on the cards soon enough though!

The 175's finally finished on the Barrow - Airport runs in 2006 when the 185's arrived so you are right. Whilst I must have had them all multiple times on these runs, I only have mileage recorded with 5 of them as I didn't record unit numbers back then so my notes just say "175"so I have over 30,000 unallocated miles on my sheet for them!

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Excellent, my memory fails me too often to count but at least I got it right this time 30,000+ unallocated miles, oof that is a lot!

From what I've seen the 175s are now retired completely from TfW, the era has ended after something like 17 years. I don't recall when in 2006 they started running out of Cardiff, but I do remember rushing for 175112 one evening and enjoying the journey. It seems so long ago now!

Ooh I've just remembered the old at-seat audio entertainment thing they had in coach B on the 175/1s, that was certainly quite funky. That of course led me to the nostalgia of those on Voyager and Pendolino trips too, good times!

I was due to go to the East Lancs steam gala on the Friday but after seeing the forecast decided not to bother. Just as well as Northern cancelled the train I was intending to go on, and the the 8F failed to be replaced by a diesel so a lucky escape for me there.

Good call on not going to that gala then! I'm a bit weird (I know, breaking news ) when it comes to steam, GWR steam is what I enjoy the most. Not that I tend to do steam trains much!

Unless the weather changes dramatically, there's no trip report due on Friday. No trip planned either, the forecast looks mighty grim and I don't honestly know what I'm going to do all day. Chucking away an entire day off seems ludicrous, but the weather looks set to ruin even any local cardio sessions! Sunday looks about the same to be honest, no plans for that either.

 

[Techniquest]

22/10/2023 - Runners Need, Meet Lord Quest!

0520 or so and I was up and about. I'd not planned to be up so early, all I knew was that I wanted to make the most of the forecasted good weather. I also knew I needed an adventure, away from Hereford, and I got that. Read on to find out what I got up to!

After much in the way of planning, preparing and fuelling up, I made my way first to the Hereford Cycle Track. The forecast had called for good weather, but while it was dry and chilly, the forecast had been updated to be less dry and sunny than it had been due to be. I'd had around 18km left to clear the 200km cycling challenge for October 2023, and I'd seen a pair of 158s were due on the 0947 to Manchester Piccadilly. Long story short, I didn't do that train nor did I take advantage of GWR running trains through Oxford. No engineering work on that route on a Sunday, blimey! I did however smash through just shy of 17 miles on the track in a shade under an hour, so I'm pleased with that. Having conquered the challenge, and it being rather chilly, I got myself back to base very satisfied with the £2.50 spent on that session.

I had options still, and some of them were a case of 'wait, is this crazy?' moments. To be fair, some of them had potential to be crazy or filled with issues later on. Yet again, plans changed and at short notice I got changed from my bib tights into my Own The Run tights. Amazingly, the forecast was looking good in the North West, better weather than I was due! It felt like a crazy moment, but such is the way when going with last minute impulses! I made it in time for 158823+150285 on the 1054 to Manchester Piccadilly, and I had my day return to Shrewsbury. A more final plan would be decided by the time I got there!

The noisy Welsh retirees got on my nerves by Ludlow so I moved seats to be further down the 158, and after Shrewsbury there was a trolley on. Excellent, just what I needed, a hot cup of coffee! The train got held at Crewe South Junction, and the sight of multiple 175s parked up and withdrawn from passenger service with TfW was a sad one. With their future still to be announced, one hoped they would be used somewhere wisely. In the end, my planned connections to Chester went out of the window and I got my day return to Headbolt Lane from the ticket office for £13.90. I'd have bought it in the GWR app if it existed, but it can't currently be done!

390016 was in charge of taking me to Liverpool Lime Street, and I got a seat in coach A. This was a former nemesis of mine with the Pendolino fleet, and it was nice to have it again. The tilting on the way to Liverpool was nice, the journey was a bit slow from West Allerton onwards but never mind. The pair of 331s that overtook on the approach to Liverpool, wow that was pretty busy! I was assuming there was some event on, and instantly I remembered why I hate weekend travel, the difficulty in planning trips to avoid overcrowded trains. Anyway, I had incredible weather and had done since Wrenbury, so I was going to take advantage of that!

My mission in Liverpool was basically two-fold. The first was to do the Runners Need Lace Up challenge in Liverpool. For those unaware, this was a challenge on Strava where participants could run a particular segment (basically a section of route, normally a commonly used one) and get both the digital badge on Strava as well as a reward from Runners Need, the partner for the challenge. This challenge was also available in Manchester, Clapham, Keswick, Betws-y-Coed (apparently, but let's not go there) and Liverpool. I'd wanted to do the Clapham one, as there was another partner challenge in London, and I don't need to tell anyone how much I wanted to do the Manchester one. After all, I love Manchester! The Keswick one would have been an amazing excuse to go exploring, but after the recent severe weather over much of the UK that was not wise. Well, that's an understatement if I ever did type one!

Anyway, the second part of the mission was to tick off something on my railway to-do list. That was how I got to choosing Liverpool, as while I could have fun in Manchester I was wanting to knock down my to-do list a bit. I had way too much on my to-lists, both exploring and railway, so I had to compromise on this occasion. The option for Pendolino action helped sway it a fair bit, to be fair. On this occasion, the recent opening of the Merseyrail extension to Headbolt Lane was chosen as the railway thing to do, and as I could do it for the same fare as Crewe-Liverpool that was quite the bonus. If I'd made the connection onto the winning 197, I'd have done a Saveaway trip, but I'm glad it worked out this way.

So I got to running. Lunch was delayed, massively as it turned out, and there was a photo stop early into the run and the GPS signal was playing up. 0.7 miles in and I logged that first, then the signal returned and all was well with the world. Finding the start point of the segment, and the exact route, alongside the waterfront took some doing but eventually it was worked out. I'd looked at the map afterwards and thought it hadn't counted, but apparently it did so happy days! I'd not done one of these challenges before, so it was nice to do. The weather was glorious, the slow-moving people everywhere not so! However I did end up on all-time new coverage, in that I did some routes I'd never walked, cycled or anything before, so that was nice. By the marina, I came across someone being very strange, doing something you'd probably go 'only in Liverpool!' like I did!

For reasons I'll never know, someone pushed a cardboard box full of glass out of their car window, leaving the predictable mess on the street, and drove off. What that was about I have no idea, but a 'only in Liverpool' moment that felt like! I decided that was far enough along the waterfront, and made my way for the city centre. By the time I got to Hannover Street, I was ready to stop but mentally, I wasn't satisfied by that, and kept going through all the busy city centre streets and near-enough linked up with coverage from earlier on. By the time I stopped in the sunshine near the waterfront again, I was on 4.8 miles and I just knew I had to go for a 10k. It just had to be done! Eventually, 6.5 miles in I reached the end just outside Runner's Need. I had a pain in my left side, and could not have carried on.

In the shop, my first visit to it, I found that I had indeed cleared the challenge and I could claim my reward. That was a free shoe treatment, which I was told would help protect my Fila trainers from the weather. I also got a free water bottle, so it was felt worth the effort to do the challenge. Indeed, I felt more confident in clearing the Manchester and Clapham ones, which I already had a plan for. I bought some new gloves ready for the colder weather, and afterwards I made my way to Decathlon where I couldn't find what I'd wanted but no matter, I had other stuff that I'd need. A struggle of a walk to Liverpool Central was next, and initially I was going to get hot food in Greggs but changed my mind, Sainsburys was a better move. Topping up supplies with a much needed sugary coffee from the M to Go shop too, I was soon on the 1535 to Headbolt Lane.

I already knew I was going to be in for some uncomfortable sittage, and I found the seats no better than on my previous try of the 777s. Winner for everything 777142 took me to Headbolt Lane, and beyond Kirkby it's effectively two single line sections. One goes to platform 1, the other to platform 2, with a wall between those and platform 3, used by Northern for services towards Wigan and Manchester. That bit I'd come back for another time, same for the bit through platform 1. I did like the battery power bit, that was pretty cool, but the announcements on the 777s were either missing or way too quiet to be heard properly! Did I mention I was getting uncomfortable by Rice Lane on the outward journey?

I was going to have a bit of a walkabout, but the literal pain in the derriere was making me struggle to walk far at all, so after my photos and an attempt at stretching it out, I joined 777142 again for the journey to Moorfields. I would comment on the power sockets, and the cycle spaces, but I had no charger with me and I had no cycle with me! Forgetting to pick up my charger happens more often than I care to count! Oh and don't ask me for an opinion on the amount of smokers on Merseyrail stations, especially for some reasons at the station next to the depot, Kirkdale I thibk? I have no pleasant words, put it that way!

The change from the Northern line to the Wirral line seemed to take ages, but I had plenty of time as it turned out to join 507001 for a quick leap to Lime Street. I'd have done it via the streets, but with the dull pain I was not going to even attempt that. The noise of the 507 reminded me that it will soon be time for a final farewell to both the Class 507 and Class 508, the takeover of 777s seemed to be accelerating and the opportunity to do such a thing may not be present for too much longer. Upstairs at Liverpool Lime Street's mainline station, I filled my two bottles at the free water refill point near the Wetherspoon, then made a hasty move to join 390153 on the 1643 to London Euston. The refurbishment of this train reminded me it would soon be time to have a farewell to the old Pendolino seats, which I do have a soft spot for. That's nostalgia for another day!

At Crewe, I had very little to do but sit in the warm waiting room and wait for the 1810 to Swansea. The ibuprofen seemed to be helping, as did continuing the nutritional intake and much to my surprise I hadn't got to the unhealthy food. Not at that point anyway and, following some very unpleasant dreaming a handful of days before this trip, I was making modest progress with improving my intake. I had a long way to go, but I felt like I was getting there. 66031 kept me occupied at one point, the sheer pulling power of that on a northbound container train following a crew change was most impressive.

I also found out that there was a Person Hit By Train incident in North Wales, so I was feeling mighty glad I hadn't gone that way. I did wonder what might have happened if I'd done Manchester, but visits to Liverpool are rare for me and I was in some ways glad to have gone. I had done what I'd intended to do, admittedly I spent more than I'd planned but it just couldn't be helped, and while I was only getting one winner for haulage as I was not willing to wait for the 1830 from Manchester, I was getting 153303+153910+153318 for the journey to Hereford. Such an opportunity will, I suspect, not happen again for a good long time if ever again, the 197/0 would be easier to leave for another time.

By the time I'd finished typing this up, I'd been at it nearly 75 minutes and the train was past Ludlow. I'd even managed to avoid eating junk food on the train, that sure isn't a common occurance! I would be almost guaranteed to do so when I got in, but I would give it a good go at not doing so, and every tiny victory in this battle is worth celebrating. Quite, I was almost on 3 months in my new job and I was gearing up a celebration of this. All will be revealed in good time, but it's fair to say it will involve cardio and trains!

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Photos are of a scenic urban nature around Liverpool, including some city centre buildings, the waterfront and the marina There will soon be some railway photos!

 

[Kite159]

Sounded like a good little trip to Liverpool for a run and visit to the new station.