The school holidays are in full swing we have not managed to arrange a trip out. This was a combination of couldn’t be bothered on the 30^th July and Wolverton Open Day being cancelled. Number one son was feeling a bit number fatigued after an hour or so at Bethnal Green and half an hour at London Bridge and my last trip was far from a success.

The chances of getting out and about during the week are limited to school holidays and we needed to get our finger out if we were intending to do a trip during these school holidays. The 24^th August was eventually settled on as the date, but where to go?

Number one son is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard for ideas. What do you want to go and see? Don’t know, you think of somewhere and I will tell you if it is any good. Helpful or what? This is before he becomes a teenager next year! Obviously getting in training early. I wonder what this will bring? He will probably just grunt instead.

I put my best thinking head on and try to arrange a tour of train companies he has yet to sample. A plan is drawn up to visit Chiltern including the Class 121 and c2c. This meets with approval.

The Plan:

Tuesday 24 August 2010

The evening before the trip number one son had not been feeling too well but had decided that he still wanted to go on the trip. So we went to bed still planning to get up at 06:00 to head out for the train.

We awake and get ourselves ready to go out. I dose up number one son with Calpol and head out for the train. We had elected to choose sleep over breakfast. The train to Reading is supposed to have a First Great Western Travelling Chef so I we want breakfast we can try this out. We join the train and I make the offer to number one son. He selects porridge and I go for the full English. This is good as they have an offer of £9.50 if you have two course breakfast. This is not too bad a price of on train catering.

We collect our breakfasts and it is not half bad, the portions were bigger than I expect and number one son cannot finish the large bowl of porridge.

Arrival in Reading is on time and after crossing over the platform only a couple of minutes wait for the train to Banbury. We join and find our seats and another prompt departure back the way we have arrived. On arrival at Banbury we have a 20 minute wait for out train to Princes Risborough. I notice there is a 10:04 departure to Marylebone with First Class and Buffet. This must be a Wrexham and Shropshire train. Change of a photo of a loco hauled train as a bonus. I was correct and as an added bonus it is preceded by a freight train.

82301 leads 67014 at Banbury

Our train arrives a few minutes later. This area of the network is seeing investment with a new platform under construction at Bicester North. It is funny to think that at one stage this station was virtually closed with peak hour trains only and only one platform in use, it now has a 30 minute service in both directions. This particular piece of line used to be difficult to travel over because of the very restrictive service and the trains that ran only went as far at Banbury.

At Princes Risborough this station is also busy with Ticket Office, station Buffet and car park attendant. 20 years ago on my last visit it was deserted. The inward working of our train from Aylesbury arrives and we are disappointed to find that it is not the Class 121 but a Class 165. Never mind an excuse to return.

On arrival at Aylesbury a collection of first generation DMUs litter the station. There are 5 single car units (in 5 different liveries, Network Rail yellow, Railtrack brown, Network South East, Blue and Grey and Maroon) and also 3 car in Green on the depot.

The next leg of our journey is to the new station north of Aylesbury at Aylesbury Vale Parkway. This is new track for me as I have never managed to travel on the line between Aylesbury and Claydon LNE Jn. Some Christmas shopping specials had run on some Saturdays in the early 90s from Marylebone to Milton Keynes but I had never managed to find out when they were running and I had also never seen a railtour advertised over this route. I was also quite interested to see why this new station had opened.

165005 at Aylesbury Vale Parkway

The train is very quite leaving Aylesbury. We realise the full extent of this on arrival as there is the total of 3 passengers, including the two of us. This one better than the return train.

The train has half an hour turn round so we go for a walk to see what is here. The answer: nothing! The station is surrounded by fields you cannot see a single house. Confirmed by Google Maps on our return home. It has a huge car park with about 20 cars in it. I do wonder what the point of building it is, this is a weekday and probably the best it gets for usage. This station boasts a ticket office: closed, coffee shop: closed, toilets: open self service ticket machine and vending machine.

The plan had been to buy lunch here but because of lack of facilities this is not possible. It is crisps and a twix from the vending machine for lunch.

Plenty of room on the way back. The train gets busier the nearer we get to London. This is quite an interesting journey as the lines are shared with London Transport’s Metropolitan Line. There is much building work also going on at Marylebone. It is now a long time since breakfast and with the failed lunch attempt we are getting hungry. A quick visit to M&S is required to procure lunch as we do not have much time and then down onto the Bakerloo line to Queen’s Park. The train arrives and it is a brand new London Overground Class 378. This is our first journey on one of these units. They are unusual as the interiors are very similar to modern European trains with very large gangways between the units. This gives the feeling of a virtually open plan train. The other difference is the seating is along the walls only the same as newer tube trains. This gives a lot of standing space.

We were supposed to have 18 minutes Willesden Jn but go for the 3 minute connection. This is challenging as the train we arriving on comes into low level and the departing train goes from high level. It is also quite a long walk, or run in this case, between platforms. We just make it. This means we are running 15 minutes early on the plan. A check of the timetable and we can do the same at Stratford we have 3 minutes between platforms again and again we make it.

We are now 20 minutes early. It has been a long time since I have visited Southend Victoria. I have walked between the stations before and it is 15 minutes at most. This would be fine apart from the shopping centre which is now in the way. Fortunately two pretend policemen (community support officers) are coming towards us. I ask directions. This causes great discussion between then and we are offered 3 different possible routes and elect to head through the new shopping centre. We come out the other side and I recognise where I am and we find the station quite quickly. One thing is obvious signage to railway stations is very poor in Southend. You have to know where they are. We have not seen a single sign to either of the stations.

As we arrive at Central station just as a train is running in to Shoeburyness. We board and are still running early so we can have longer at Barking. Number one son has slept virtually all the way from Stratford to Southend and is beginning to look not very well so I ask if he wants to go home. He does not want to admit defeat but eventually has to. He is not very well so we will do the route as planned but instead of having an hour at Barking we will stay on the train to Fenchurch St and head back to Paddington for the 18:45 an hour and a half earlier than we had planed originally. On arrival at Shoeburyness this is my third visit but the first time I have arrived on a multiple unit. The first occasion was 85023 on a mystery excursion from Carlisle and the second time 37888 on a railtour.

We make our way back to London by changing at Pitsea and Greys as we wanted to go back via Dagenham.

Fenchurch St has changed quite a bit. The station used to be open air but now has a building over the top in a similar way other London Termini have seen developments above them.. We head down the road to Tower Hill tube station and just miss a circle line train. It is 18:10 and we have 35 minutes to get to Paddington, this is going to be close.

We arrive at Paddington with 6 minutes before the departure of the train. I had chosen to take the circle line anti-clockwise rather than clockwise. This means that the train arrives in the Hammersmith and City line platforms. Less of a walk between tube and mainline platforms. A look at the train departure screens and the train is shown on platform 10. This is probably the worst possible platform from the underground as it does not have access from the footbridge you have to go the full length of the station and round the buffers rather than go down the stairs. Number one son is given the choice food or train home we do not have time for both. He elects for home and see what the on train catering has to offer.

We make the train with a couple on minutes to go. Shortly after departure number one son heads to the buffet to discover First Great Western have no food. Another choice is required: continue home or leave the train at Reading, eat and join the train 30 minutes later. He goes for the food so we leave the train and have Burger King and a pasty.

We join the following train after 30 minutes and head home. Number one son is really not very well virtually immediately falls asleep and stays so all the way home. He is somewhat surprised as I wake him leaving Port Talbot and does not realise he has been asleep for over two hours.

A very interesting day albeit curtailed a little. This was a very complex itinerary which could have gone badly wrong but has gone like clockwork. The only disappointment was the lack of food on our train home. We have not been on a single late train all day and actually managed to be 30 minutes early at one stage.

I will have to get another trip planned once number one son is well again.

The plan on the day:

Traction Log: