I woke up very early this morning at 05:20 to drive to Northfield in Birmingham to catch 2P07 to Birmingham New Street, as today was the day that my mum and dad and I were going to use our all line West Midlands Train day rover tickets.
Gary from West Midlands Trains very kindly gave me 5 complimentary West Midlands day passes to use all over the Network with my family in recognition of my website and love of trains.
This trip was being planned for a whole week with various combinations but we decided on one which allowed me to see most of the LNR network by going from Birmingham New Street – London Euston and then Euston – Liverpool and so on, I will attach my plan below which shows the route I took.
We arrived into Birmingham New Street and then caught 1W30 to Euston so we thought… We arrived in all the stations prior to Rugby and then an announcement came out over the tannoy and said “We are currently stuck at red signal at Rugby”. That was when I knew we were in trouble, so I loaded up Twitter on my phone and went to the LNR page and it said that there was a bus replacement service from Northampton to Milton Keynes Central. A few seconds later another announcement came out and “Due to a broken-down train in the Northampton area we will be sat at the station until further notice”. I went onto the app and there was a train departing Rugby in about four minutes time so we hopped off the train and apparently the train that we were planning to get was arriving into our original train platform and once again another message from the station saying “This is a platform alteration the 0934 London Northwestern Railway service will now depart from Platform 3”, so we ran under the underpass and then arrived on platform 3. I spotted a DRS class 57 on thunderbird duties at Rugby and went over to take a photo – the driver even gave me a tone!
Our train was running late, obviously due to the disruption down the line, even though this train did not call at Northampton and only called at Milton Keynes Central and then London Euston. This train was 1U20 to London Euston and had come from Crewe. We boarded the train and low and behold there were no seats. We waited in the front carriage for about 20 minutes and then another announcement saying that there was more seats towards the rear of the train. So, we walked down the first few carriages, weaving our way past many people. We got to the divider in the centre of the train and we clicked the button to go through to the next portion of the train but there was no way through. We had no other option but stay in the centre of the train, where one train was coupled to another, and then our guard came along and said you can’t stay here – I can understand why but with nowhere else to go what were we supposed to do? We had to move into the second portion of the train, apologise to the other people stood there and stand against the dividing doors, which was not very comfy. And then another announcement came as we where approaching Milton Keynes Central telling all passengers to walk-along the train so we walked further down through all of the remaining 4 coaches and no seats just even more crowds. We were still another good 40 minutes away so we had to stand for the remaining 40 minutes. There was another announcement saying that you can claim delay repay, my dad got very excited, but then realised that the tickets were free anyway so he couldn’t claim anything!!
We eventually arrived into London Euston. I then saw the Caledonian Sleeper with class 86 at the back and a class 90 at the front towards the entrance to the station. There were police with sniffer dogs patrolling along the train but a member of staff said I could go and take a photo. We then walked out of the station and decided to walk over to London Kings Cross so I could see some LNER trains. I saw 91’s, HST’s and Azuma’s – we carried on walking around the station and then walked to the end of one platform and the class 91 ‘Flying Scotsman’ was in the platform looking extremely smart.I also dropped by the Network Rail office to see if Laura, the station manager, was working. When I had visited Kings Cross, for my behind the scenes tour and simulator experience – http://www.everythingtrains.co.uk/30th_july_2018.html/, Laura was away and said to let her know if we were at the station again.
We then walked back to Euston and waited for our platform to be announced – the train in question was 1U33 to Stafford via the Trent Valley – it was on platform 8 and so we boarded the train and then were told that we must all vacate the train as soon as possible because there was another train coupling up to ours. We met a lovely train dispatcher, called Amanda, who very kindly gave me two lanyards! We chatted about the coupling process, then the second train came in and all the passengers disembarked the train and then it coupled. Boarding commenced shortly after and we found a nice window seat and sat down – next stop Stafford. We left the train at Stafford and crossed over the bridge and walked to platform 5. We waited on our platform and another train arrived which was an LNR service but not our train which confused a lot of people, including the staff. Our train then arrived – it was going to Crewe, via Alsager. I wanted to go on this route as it passed the EMD depot (near Stoke) and also the Arriva Train Care Depot which I visited a year or so ago – here is the blog post http://everythingtrains.co.uk/11th-april-2018/. The depot was holding TPE’s Nova Fleet and other bits and bobs. I was very excited about seeing the depot for a second time. We then pulled into Crewe and saw another class 57 DRS thunderbird locomotive.
We waited on the platform for our next train and to continue our adventure. Shortly after our train emerged, about 5 minutes late arriving into Crewe. We boarded the train and got another window seat and carried on towards Liverpool Lime Street. We called at some intermediate stations and passed a few freight trains which I was excited to see. Arriving into Liverpool South Parkway I could see on a map that there were a few depots ahead so stood by the door so I would have the best chance of seeing anything in the depots. I was lucky enough to see a GBRf shunter, owned by HN Rail – 08818. Then we passed the Intercity Depot where there were more TPE 802’s and some Northern Civity Units. Then we were arriving into Liverpool Lime Street. We got off the train and had a quick walk around Liverpool and by this time it was 16:30 and we needed some tea – we had chosen a fantastic a pizza restaurant we had visited before. Then it was time to head back to Lime Street but found enough time to stop off at an Italian Deli and bought a few delicious cakes for the train journey home. When we arrived at the station there was a class 195 Northern Civity DMU waiting to go to Manchester Airport – like the ones I saw earlier.
Our next train – 1L87 17:34 from Liverpool Lime Street – then arrived and all the passengers got off from previous service and then we boarded. We then went on the same route as our journey up, except this time instead of going around the Trent Valley we went via Wolverhampton and then straight to Birmingham New Street. Our train was very busy until Crewe and then it emptied and the train became very quiet. We passed Wolverhampton and saw a plain class 350 which LNR owned. We were now on the approach to Birmingham New Street and the train came to a stop. We got off the train and I went to fill my water bottle up at the water filling station Network Rail installed a few months ago. It was very cold water which was lovely after my long day. Next we walked over to platform 12 and waited for our last train of the day. While we were waiting, a Cross Country class 170 sat on platform 11 looked like it was broken down. It was supposed to go Cardiff Central, the train kept trying to take power but just died out every time, so didn’t sound too healthy! Our train was now approaching the platform, 2R83 19:43 to Northfield, and then we boarded. We called at all stops on the way back to Northfield and finally drove home.
Three had definitely had a great London Northwestern train adventure! We had been on 8 different trains, visited 9 different stations, had lunch in London and tea in Liverpool and travelled 413 miles in 7 hours 43 minutes on the trains which has to be the most I have ever done in one day! It was an amazing day – thank you to the friendly LNR staff who I met – and a special thanks to Gary at West Midland trains for making all this possible.
Here is the plan of the day:
Map of where I went:
