Trip report (part 1) - warning: long, sometimes OT and frequently self-indulgent

Its a source of ongoing annoyance that, even though I hold free travel
facilities and live in Wiltshire, I have never been west of Cardiff or
Shrewsbury, or travelled on a "great little train". It's the old thing
of taking what you have for granted I suppose. I've driven round
Manhattan but never been to Machynlleth. Time to fix it! So I did a
deal with my beloved and got 2 days to myself to do a circular tour
and use some of those priv boxes that seem to go unused most years.
The aims are to:

- try out the Wrexham and Shropshire service for the first time (1st
class - I'm paying for this one)
- get two loco-hauled services in one day by picking up the ATW "WAMs
to the seaside" service
- take a trip on the Festiniog Railway
- travel along the Cambrian coast
- take a look at the railway from a traveller's point of view, rather
than in my usual commuter/industry person view
- soften up my wife for a longer jaunt later in the year (she doesn't
read this NG!)
- switch off from the stresses of work
- flex my ego with my first uk.r trip report (my trusty Samsung NC10
netbook will be acting as my journal for this one)

Weds 10th June

06.18 Bradford on Avon to Westbury (First Great Western) - left on
time, arrived early.

One blunt alarm call, courtesy of radio 2, and I'm up, feeling
surprisingly perky given I've only been in bed since 11.30. Off to B-
on-A, and it's not a good start as the parking meter at the station
car park refuses to give me a 2 day ticket. No matter how much money I
pump in, my ticket runs out at 8am tomorrow. I take the moral high
ground and pay for 2 days - the money shows on my 1-day ticket - but I
forsee futile phone calls to Wilts Council later, and it pleases me
not.

There are three of us waiting for the 6.18, and a handful more on the
train. I'll be sharing my morning with the commuters, and I feel for
them - it's rare that I'm at the station before 8am.

A 158/150 combo (I won't be doing numbers, sorry) rolls up on time,
and I take a seat in the 158. I've always liked these trains, they
somehow feel classier than the rest of the sprinter build - and this
one is clean and takes us to Westbury without fuss.

My London train is showing on time, and I have half an hour to kill.
Dismayed at a glimpse of the shuttered kiosk on platform 2 through the
train window, I make my way to platform 3 with the intention of
finding a waiting room. Instead I find a smart new shop / info
centre / waiting room has sprung up. Kudos to FGW - I get a fresh tea
and a netbook-friendly table. Double bonus - the 7.05 to London is
showing a travelling chef. I see a future involving bacon and ketchup.
The station is surprisingly busy for this time of day, with a
succession of 150s, 153s and 158s plying the FGW secondary routes.

07.05 Westbury to London Paddington (First Great Western) - left on
time, arrived a little late.
The London train (HST, quelle surprise) arrives bang on time, and is
pretty quiet. I grab a forward facing seat and make straight for the
buffet. Talking to the steward, the reason for the lack of people
finally reaches my sleep-deprived brain - there's a tube strike on,
and people are clearly avoiding travel to London. Everyone else's pain
is my gain.

The breakfast menu looks good, the evil voice in my head wins, and I
take a club breakfast sandwich back to my seat. At £6.15 it's not
cheap, but I'm on holiday goddamit, and by god it's an outrageously
good sandwich. Basically a full english breakfast inside a double
decker toasted sandwich, it tastes as good as it sounds and sets me up
nicely for the day. If I made this journey as a commuter, I could get
fat really fast.

The journey up through the vale of Pewsey gives me a chance to assess
FGW's fast commuter operation. I normally commute from Chippenham to
Swindon, so this environment is dulled by familiarity. Nevertheless
I'm struck by the quality of the service - the train is quiet, there
are plenty of seats, and the ride quality is good. OK, the tombstone
refurbishment is notorious, yet here we are, being propelled without
fuss or incident at up to 2 miles a minutes along a ribbon of steel.
Yet if you ask commuters - me included - what was their journey to
work like, most would say "I can't remember". Thats the genius, and
the tragedy, of rail travel at its best.

The nature of the journey changes once we reach Newbury. Up to now
it's been genteel commuters - I'm guessing Pewsey is well-heeled - but
now the familiar mix of people I normally see at Chippenham join the
train. Laptops and blackberrys begin to appear, and the scene is
heavily pin-striped.

Our guard (so much more dignified than 'train manager', don't you
think?) announces that our train will additionally call at Ealing
Broadway. The reason is not revealed. Is it the tube strike? A crew
change? Picking up a pint of milk? We may never know.

Once on the GWML a spirited run takes us into London. I always enjoy
this run, especially as there's such a varied scene on the Relief
lines to keep things interesting. My involvement with Crossrail adds
to the mix - when will be see wires beyond Maidenhead, and are we
really at Iver already? - and before long we're under the HEx wires.
We shift onto the Reliefs at Hanwell, and that's the end of the
spirited run. The familiar "accelerate! no, brake! no, accelerate!"
driving style is in evidence from this point on.

At Ealing Broadway a number of people are sitting or standing on a
forlorn looking Central Line train. Is it going anywhere? Is Boris at
the controls? Let's hope not, if his hand-eye coordination at last
week's pond clearup is anything to go by. We leave, and it remains.

At Acton Yard the driver gets quite carried away and resumes Up Main-
style driving - does he know it's 90 along here? Oh - yes he does, on
go the brakes again. The Marcon sidings are quite littered with wagons
- someone really should tidy up before Crossrail arrives. As usual
everyone optimistically stands up at Royal Oak, and we slide into
Paddington under the shadow of the Sheldon Square development.

Confusion reigns at the ticket barriers - no-one has told the barrier
staff that HSTs are calling at Ealing, and a crowd waving oyster cards
are asked for "proper tickets". Eventually weight of numbers prevails,
and through we go.

The next part of my plan involves walking along the canal network to
Regent's Park, and then down through the park and on to Marylebone.
With 3 hours plus to kill I'm in relaxed mood. Good job too - the
queue for taxis stretches all the way along platform 1, and the bus
stops on the road alongside platform 1 are a sea of people. I planned
the trip before the strike was announced, so lucky me.

I pick up the canal on the north side of the station, and walk along
to Little Venice, and then a little way past. Unlike the canals in my
part of Wiltshire, it is clear that this is very much a space where
people live. Boats are tightly packed, and kitted out as homes, not
leisure craft. I lived in London for 4 years and I had no idea places
like these existed.

Doubling back, I pick up the Regents Canal at Little Venice and head
North East. After a short section of canal with private moorings and a
walk over the tunnel section, I reach a large basin. Here the boats
are moored end on, and each boat owner is cultivating a 5 foot section
of the towpath. I will never complain about the size of our garden
again - the imagination on display in these tiny spaces puts my more
mundane efforts into perspective. I should add that there is barely a
soul around on my walk - a few cyclists late for work, the odd dog-
walker - and its amazing to think that this must have been the Westway
of the early 18th century, packed with traders. Meanwhile, further
North, Trevithick and Stephenson had other ideas...

Oh dear, I appear to be briefly on-topic. Time to move on.

Beyond the basin the canal passes through an area which could easily
pass for semi-rural Wiltshire. Very expensive houses give way to a
quiet tree-lined route. I exit at Primrose Hill Bridge, but part of me
wants to keep going and see how far, and through what landscape, this
forgotten route goes.

Stopping to peruse the map at the edge of Regents Park, I spy a cafe
on the way. Coffee beckons. A good job too, as no sooner have I fired
up my laptop than the light drizzle which has characterised the
morning so far turns into a downpour. My luck holds. I watch for a gap
in the clouds and move on.

Then it's round the boating lake and out of the park. I cut across
some lovely side streets full of character - where was this London
when I was living here? Oh yes, completely out of financial reach...
and then round the corner to Marylebone, and dry land.

I've never set foot inside the station before, since it has never had
a destination I was interested in visiting. It certainly lives up to
its reputation as one of the best-preserved London stations - it gives
the impression of being a proper "big" terminus, having been built
with a 4 track GCR in mind. Then you peer past the barriers and
realise there's actually only half a station there. The glass roof on
the forecourt is lovely, reaching across to the hotel opposite in a
gesture of hopeless optimism on the part of the designer.

I can just make out my class 67 in platform 5, but I'm early. It
occurs to me for the first time: what will the barrier staff make of
my W&S mobile phone barcode ticket? The answer, as it turns out, is a
handheld barcode scanner. 21st century tech on the UK's railways -
shurely shome mishtake.

12.17 Marylebone to Shrewsbury (Wrexham and Shropshire) left on time,
arrived 8 down

OK, this is a strange train. Just the sight of blue/grey mark 3s on a
service train at Marylebone in 2009 is enough to make you pause. I'm
sat in the Restaurant First, which has a lovely layout and decor, but
these carriages are showing their age. The vestibules are really
scruffy, and some of the seat recline mechanisms are broken, leaving
the seats slopping about - the lady opposite me gives up and moves
seats. Having said that, it's great to be back in a proper carriage
with wide, well padded seats you can see over the top of, and
panoramic windows. I understand these are interim sets while W&S's
permanent sets are being refurbished. Hopefully they can retain the
Mark 3 feel while getting rid of the tired metalwork. 10 out of 10 for
trying to tap a new market with under-utilised stock though, and well
done for getting Virgin's tanks off the lawn.

If you've made it this far, you deserve a reward, so our engine for
today is 67015 David J Lloyd, shoving from the back. No, you can't
have the carriage number.

The staff are very friendly - the guard takes time explaining how the
barcode thing works (or in some cases, doesn't) - and our stewardess
brings fresh tea in real china as we canter through Metroland. Was
that a pair of class 20s I glimpsed in Ruislip LUL depot, or am I
dreaming? My only fellow passenger in first explains how she loves
this service - £36 including lunch, and no need to go into the bermuda
triangle that is Birmingham New Street.

The lunch service is a bit of a let-down - the starter is great
(mushroom soup), but our stewardess franky admits that what she has to
offer for the main course is "mostly salads". I take her up on her
offer of chicken with veg and potato wedges. This is OK but very basic
- think Thursday pensioner special rather than 1st class dining - no
awards are going to be won here. The other thing of note is that,
after lunch is served, we are basically left to our own devices -
dishes are not cleared away for over half an hour, and the buffet goes
unattended, while the 3 staff all have their lunch - at the same time.
I have noticed the same tendency on the Scotrail sleepers - the crew
all work the same rosters, custom is light, so they get into a
routine, which becomes a rut. I don't know if this is a one-off, but
if not, it would explain why first class isn't getting much custom.
However, the staff eventually make up for it by bringing me a pint of
Station Bitter, which I can heartily recommend.

We pass another W&S service south of Leamington and the drivers toot
each other - nice touch. We are soon under the wires at Coventry, and
I'm expecting some fireworks from the 67 here. I am not disappointed -
well, until we catch up with the preceding local service... ladies and
gentlemen, take your partners please for the New Street Shuffle.

My reading for this trip is 'The Subterranean Railway' by Christian
Wolmar. He is as readable as ever, and not to be confused with a
dastardly journo by the name of Christian Woolmar whose dubious oeuvre
is often loudly denounced on uk.r.

<diversionary rant class="skip if easily provoked/bored">
Can someone tell me what the enthusiasts' problem with Wolmar is? OK,
he upset some bashers a while back, but if you're like me, you've been
taking flak for your hobby for years - why so thin skinned? He's out
there, talking up the railway, which he clearly loves, simplifying
complicated stuff so that Joe Public - who, by the way, pays for the
railway and doesn't give a **** what colour the unit is as long as it
is on time - can understand what's going on. He mostly gets it right,
and when he doesn't he's usually candid about it. Sure, he's no Roger
Ford, but I'm sure Roger would agree that his brand of spread***
journalism is never going to catch a Daily Mail reader's eye. I've
always found Wolmar's books well written and entertaining - something
you can't say about most railway lit - and he has an eye for the broad
sweep of history and a good tale. I always recommend "Broken Rails" to
new grads entering the industry and wanting to know why people talk
about Railtrack as though it were the Black Death.

If there were a few more like Wolmar in the general journalism trade,
then maybe the industry wouldn't have the woeful PR it currently
enjoys.
</diversionary rant>

Shortly after Coventry we lose the lights in our carriage - a rapid
flick through the OPC Rail Atlas reveals only one significant tunnel
between here and Shrewsbury. Fulsome apologies are issued by the
staff, although I find it all quite relaxing - or is that the Station
Bitter?

Our brief attempt at West Coast speed ends at Stechford where we peel
off onto the Grand Junction line, so that we don't give the impression
of not stopping at New Street for revenue extraction reasons. Are
those tanks gone yet? We meander at varying speeds to Tame Bridge
Parkway, where the driver stops just long enough to check the
tumbleweed on the platform.

Bescot still looks like a busy yard, but a couple of scraplines are in
evidence - a row of sorry-looking 37s, and another of DVTs made
redundant by the glorious onward march of the Pendolini.

Departure from Wolverhampton is 8 minutes late. The view from Oxley
viaduct is rather nice, and then we're past Oxley depot - a site I
have some work-related interest in at the moment - and back out into
the country. At this point I resolve not to have another Station
Bitter, but then my willpower immediately collapses like Lehman
Brothers. Cosford is interesting - is there any other station in
Britain overlooking an airfield? The driver gives the 67 her head from
here on, but we are still 8 down at Wellington. I, on the other had,
am 2 up and feeling nicely worn in. Shrewsbury arrives, and I say
goodbye to this strange strange service.

To summarise my experience of W&S, they are clearly an enthusiastic
company who want to succeed, and deserve to. However the shoestring
nature of the enterprise is on open display, and this might hamper
their long term prospects. A rolling stock overhaul, together with an
improved focus on the customer could secure their future.

Shrewsbury station - another one I have only ever passed through - has
that classic "formerly important station gone to seed" feel - I'm
thinking Perth here - but the signal box is amazing (is it really that
thin or an optical illusion? The signaller certainly seems amazed it
is still standing) and its good to see semaphores again.

I decamp to Shrewsbury town centre to surf the wave of Macdonalds wifi
while drinking bad coffee.

+++++++++++++++++++

Will he make it to Llandudno before the pubs shut? Will there be any
space on the ATW assembly members holiday express? Is anyone still
reading? Find out in the next installment!
.

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