Rail Rover
The second part of PAUL BIGLAND’s latest biennial Rail Rover takes him to the capital’s ‘cathedrals’ and from east to west across England
The second part of PAUL BIGLAND‘s latest Rail Rover takes him to the South West via East Anglia and London.
My one night at home is brief. To cover the ground as planned, I need to be on the first train of the day from Halifax - the 0539 from Bradford Interchange to Huddersfield.
My wife Dawn drives me to the station and waves me off, thereby nearly doubling the number of people waiting for the train! Admittedly, this service is never busy, but as our pair of Class 153s leave I am one of only three people in the lead car. Pre-COVID the shuttle would be a single, but now it’s been doubled to allow for social distancing.
The handful of us trundle our way to the well-kept station at Brighouse (the local Friends Group has done a brilliant job planting it out), before traversing the single-track chord to Bradley Junction, where we join the main line for the short trip through into Huddersfield.
The Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade (TPRU) will transform this section of line. Deighton station will be rebuilt, and four tracks will be reinstated all the way from Huddersfield to Ravensthorpe, where the lines to Healey Mills and Dewsbury diverge. Current plans are to replace the flat crossing with a gradeseparated flyover/dive-under to stop conflicts and increase capacity.
Hopefully, the penny-pinchers at the DfT/ Treasury will finally agree to this, otherwise many of the proposed benefits will be lost.
My train terminates at Huddersfield’s Platform 5, a short bay unable to take more than two cars.
As part of the TPRU, the station is due to get two new through platforms, which will make a huge difference to capacity. I try to picture the work involved as I traverse the subway to get to Platform 2, to catch the 0613 to Sheffield (worked by a Class 150/2).
Once the crew appear to open the doors, I settle into the front car behind the cab, so that I have some legroom (not a feature the ‘150s are renowned for’). My seat also allows me to admire the glorious sunrise behind Castle Hill, as we slowly cross the steel beams of the Paddock Viaduct on the Penistone line.
I always enjoy a trip along this route, as it offers some glorious views of the Yorkshire countryside from the high viaducts at Denby Dale and Penistone. Sadly, it’s not the quickest route as much of it has been singled, but it still boasts some attractive stations as well as an active Community Rail Partnership - one of the first in the country.
Passengers join in dribs and drabs along the way, but at Barnsley the numbers really began to swell and by Elsecar we have several standing. The pressure eases at Meadowhall, as many leave to work at the vast shopping centre. Even so, the numbers detraining at Sheffield are still respectable.
I have time to explore before my next train, so I check out the concourse and watch the much-reduced numbers of passengers negotiate the one-way system imposed because of COVID.
Heading back to the island platform, I check for my train, only to find the 0826 to St Pancras has been cancelled due to cable theft - not a problem I’d expected to encounter!
However, East Midlands Railway has advised everyone to get a Northern service to Chesterfield, where it has arranged to terminate the northbound London trains, so I jump on the next Nottingham service to get there. I arrive before 222006 pulls in from the south - when it does, only a handful of people get off with just a few waiting to join.
As we return to London, I share coach A
I enjoy the journey but realise what I have been missing - the interaction with staff and other passengers. Part of the delight of these Rovers has been people-watching and overheard conversations. Now that’s largely absent.
with one other passenger. Spreading out over a bay of four, I plug in all my electronic gizmos and log my laptop into the WiFi before settling in for the trip to Leicester.
The trip is unremarkable apart from Derby, where there’s always something of interest.
I’m getting used to the rebuilt station now, although the sight of ex-Hull Trains Class
180s in the depot fazes me! Opposite, the Loram site contains a real ragbag of yellow, blue or rust-streaked kit whose appearance belies their importance in keeping the railways running.
I change at Leicester to catch another EMR service to Kettering. Much of the station appears deserted, with waiting rooms and cafes closed. Just one kiosk remains open. I assume the local lockdown has exacerbated problems, so I am not sad when 222016 arrives to whisk me away.
This is another empty train - and looking around, I realise how shabby these sets have become. I am greeted by chipped tables, opaque windows (due to blown seals) and dirty, fraying seats - hardly a product to encourage people back onto trains. That said, at least it was clean… and fast.
We speed down the Midland Main Line to Market Harborough, which is unrecognisable. In the past couple of years, the station has been completely rebuilt as part of a £ 50 million scheme, with new platforms on a new alignment plus a vast ( but empty) car park. Only the original station building gives the location away.
Soon, the overhead wires will reach here. My only hope is that common sense prevails, and that the overhead line equipment continues its march north rather than petering out, leaving a monument to short-term thinking and a lack of vision.
Next stop is Kettering, where I leave to admire the restoration and rebuilding work that has turned the station into a building site. The old Midland canopies are stripped or shrouded in blue plastic as they’re restored, platforms have been resurfaced and re-edged, and the wires have arrived. This isn’t the
Midland Main Line I used to know!
My trip to Corby reinforces that impression. Now double-track and electrified, the branch has been dragged into the 21st century. All it needs now are the cascaded Class 360s to replace diesels under the wires.
Grabbing some pictures, I reboard the ‘222’ for a run down to London, which makes me appreciate how the effects of COVID vary from TOC to TOC (train operating company) - something you can’t see from the DfT’s national figures.
EMR seems to be in trouble. Business and First Class travellers have vanished and only the regional services have any number of passengers. I haven’t been on any inter-city service where there are more than five of us in the coach.
My arrival at St Pancras confirms my impression, although it’s not as abandoned as I feared it would be. Yes, the Eurostar desks are deserted, but many shops are open. And the air is one of calm, not despondency.
Crossing to King’s Cross, the impression is the same - although you could dump an elephant on the new concourse!
I catch the 1212 to Cambridge, worked by a pair of Great Northern Class 387s. The train is clean and deserted, with just four of us in the front coach.
Leaving the ’Cross, I watch dozens of workers preparing the ground for the remodelling of the approaches, before passing my old North London stomping ground. My old local stations of Harringay and Hornsey are quiet, as are many along the East Coast Main Line, which we leave at Hitchin (via the flyover opened in 2013) bound for Cambridge.
I enjoy the journey but realise what I have been missing - the interaction with staff and other passengers. Part of the delight of these Rovers has been people-watching and overheard conversations. Now that’s largely absent.
Similarly, at Cambridge, I observe what I had seen elsewhere - the dearth of tourists. The station would normally be awash with overseas visitors and students. Now it is quiet.
I abandon the train at Cambridge North (opened in 2017). I love the cladding that’s based on the computer model Game of Life, created by mathematician John Conway. It’s a great example of how modern stations don’t have to be bland.
Nor do modern trains, as my next ride proves when a new Stadler Class 755/4 arrives to ferry me to Ely. OK, they’ve had issues that have earned them the nickname ‘Basils’ (after a fictitious Torquay hotelier), but I think that from a passenger perspective-they’re one of the best new trains we’ve seen on the UK network. The internal layout is excellent.
My enjoyment lasts just 14 minutes - the time it takes to get to Ely, where I stop for lunch at the lovely little station cafe before catching an EMR service to Norwich.
As I enjoy a sandwich on a table outside the Ely Food station, the quiet is shattered as a pair of Direct Rail Services Class 37s make a spirited start hauling several Railhead Treatment Train wagons - to the obvious delight of some, and the chagrin of others!
An EMR Class 158 takes me to Norwich along a line I’ve described before, so I’ll save my words for the changes I am about to encounter, as the railways radiating from ‘old Northwic’ have been transformed.
Finally, Greater Anglia’s total fleet replacement has borne fruit. Gone are all the Class 153s and ‘156s’ that rattled around the Norfolk Broads, the old locomotive-hauled inter-city fleet, and the ‘short sets’. Now, apart from EMR interlopers, it’s a Stadler railway.
But it’s not just the trains that have changed. In 2020, a £ 60m project to replace semaphore signalling on the lines to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth has been completed, and I catch the 1550 to the former to see the work.
I know the lines well, as I come here at least
once a year to judge several stations for the Community Rail Awards. Some now look very different. Pretty little Cantley has lost one of the last two co-acting semaphores in the country, while Reedham (with a lovely little museum in the station building) has had tracks remodelled and the tall signal box is boarded up, waiting to be moved to the North Norfolk Railway. To Network Rail’s great credit, it has donated as much of the old signalling as possible to preservation groups.
Despite this, the lines are a pleasure to traverse and enjoy the beauty of the Broads. And a Class 755 (with their big windows and comfortable seats) is an ideal train to use.
At Lowestoft, I change route to head down the East Suffolk Line to Ipswich, which I’ve not used for several years. The line is single track as far as Halesworth, but many of the stations retain their original buildings - including refurbished Beccles, which boasts a station cafe and community rooms. The same is true of Wickham Market and Woodbridge stations. You could easily pile on the pounds with a ‘cafe crawl’ along this line!
I’d forgotten how scenic parts of the line are - the railway crosses a host of streams while meandering through meadows or skirting woodland. My train is hardly empty either, proving once again that the COVID picture is complex with rural lines doing better than commuter ones.
Arriving at Ipswich, I have my first chance to try one of Stadler’s inter-city sets, in the form of 12-car 745002. Again, I am impressed.
I’ve no sentimental attachment to locomotive-hauled stock such as the Mk
3s. I’m old enough to remember when they were new, and I’ve always loathed the fixed armrests of the IC70 seats. They were a stepchange in their day, but that was half a century ago.
The ‘745s’ are a breath of fresh air in comparison, and with far better seats in my opinion. They can also shift! The only oddity I notice is a fine mesh embedded in the window glass, which sometimes catches the light to create an odd effect - but that’s a minor niggle.
While the train itself is quiet, I do have two elderly ladies sitting opposite me. Their accents betray them as Londoners, and throughout the journey they keep up a wide-ranging and knowledgeable conversation that encompasses international politics, TV, history and theatre.
At one point they apologise to me for being so voluble! I tell them I don’t mind in the slightest, explain what I am doing, and say this is what I’d missed so far on my trip.
I part company with them at Stratford, in east London. The massive interchange is still busy, but nowhere near how it was. I watch near-empty Tube trains come and go before one of the remaining London Underground Class 315s carries me onwards to Liverpool Street, their original low back-seating giving away their age despite the modern moquette.
Liverpool Street is subdued but still full of life. The mezzanine floor is closed, so I can’t get the photographs I wanted. Mask etiquette is also patchy, so I don’t hang around. Instead, I take the Metropolitan Line to King’s Cross. The Tube is busier than I’d expected but doesn’t feel unsafe.
After checking into my hotel, I visit King’s
Cross to get some pictures, then explore Euston. After a long day, I reward myself with a pint outside the Euston Tap and chuckle when I see the Stop HS2 ‘protection’ camp opposite. They can stay there till doomsday for all they’ll achieve - they’re camped where HS2 isn’t going!
As I sip my beer, I wonder what the next day will bring, as I will be exploring commuter London…
DAY 5
At 0700 I begin my tour of the capital’s cathedrals of commuting, starting with a trip from St Pancras on Thameslink’s 0730 to Brighton.
In pre-COVID days, I would have been weaving in and out of shoals of other commuters as they made their way across the city. Instead, Friday feels more like a Bank Holiday Sunday, with no tide to swim against.
Normally, the corridors and concourses of St Pancras would be awash with commuters heading in all directions, but not now. There are still plenty of people around, although not in the numbers the modern railway had been built for.
The 12-car Class 700 I catch is 10%-15% loaded - when you consider they can (and do) carry up to 1,700 people, they’re real people movers. But not today.
I change trains at Blackfriars, in order to observe the reduced flows and get pictures before heading on to London Bridge. Rebuilt at a cost of more than £1 billion, the station has been transformed, but many of the commuters who used to pay their daily respects at this cathedral have turned agnostic!
I am pleased to see that many of the retail outlets have reopened to cater for growing
In pre-COVID days, I would have been weaving in and out of shoals of other commuters as they made their way across the city. Instead, Friday feels more like a Bank Holiday Sunday, with no tide to swim against.
Gazing across the concourse, I realise that for once I’d literally be able to count individual passengers… at 0810… at the UK’s busiest station… used by 94.2 million people a year. Amazing!
numbers of travellers, although the flood that would descend the escalators when a ‘700’ arrived has been reduced to a trickle.
Checking out the platforms, I notice school and college students have returned to boost numbers, along with building and retail workers. Suits, however, are largely absent.
I join an eight-car Southeastern service to get me to my next stop, Waterloo East. Many people get off and I am one of only four people left in the rear car - unheard of at 0754. I breeze through the elevated walkway at East station, with only a cleaner slowly disinfecting surfaces to impede me.
Arriving on the mezzanine floor at Waterloo, I see that the open-air cafe (a great place to ‘people watch’) is closed up. Gazing across the concourse, I realise that for once I’d literally be able to count individual passengers… at 0810… at the UK’s busiest station… used by 94.2 million people a year. Amazing!
After grabbing a few shots, I catch a (soon to be retired) Class 455 to Vauxhall, and then a similar set to Clapham Junction, where the passenger picture is the same.
Boarding an eight-car Class 450 to Woking, I have no problem getting a seat - only six of us are in the front car. Changing to a six-car ‘159’ onwards to Basingstoke leaves me in sole possession of another lead vehicle. Most of the stations we speed through are deserted, as are their car parks.
One bright spot is catching sight of brand new ten-car 701007, which is parked up in the station between test runs. I can’t get used to seeing non-gangway’d main line stock on the old Southern, even though we’ve had the ‘707s’ for several years now.
My time on the third rail is at an end. I’ve come here to catch a Great Western Railway service to Reading, and 165114 is waiting for me in the bay platform. It’s far busier than the South Western Railway services, but I find a seat and set up my laptop, as I want to try and book several GWR seat reservations.
Frustratingly, there is no way I can, as GWR’s website isn’t set up to allow it. You have to buy tickets to get reservations. The only thing I can do is head to the ticket office at Reading to buy them in person, so as soon as I arrive, I head over to the old station. There’s no queue and the helpful young lady quickly has me sorted out, although one train is supposedly fully booked.
It’s only when I look at my reservations that I realise that unlike LNER or Avanti, they bear no seat or coach numbers. What’s the point of that?
Having discovered this, I decide to make an attempt to catch an earlier train than I was booked on - and see what happens. The 1029 to Penzance is due in at the adjacent platform, and I make it with minutes to spare.
No one stops me, there are no announcements saying it’s full, and gazing in through the windows I can see vast numbers of empty seats - and no reservations. Plonking myself into an airline seat in coach D of a twocar Class 802 set, I settle in to watch and wait. Only eight of us occupy the car.
Just before departure, the seats behind me fill up with three young couples, who turn out to be a real pain. Some are wearing face coverings as chin supports, others not at all. Nor will they sit still - they hang over seat backs, block the isle, or just aimlessly wander up and down.
I immediately move away from them, putting several rows of seats between us as a safety barrier. They keep up their antics for so long that I tweet GWR for help, but the reply is less than helpful, telling me that only the BTP could enforce mask wearing when actually all I want is a public address announcement laying down the law.
In all my journeys, this is the only one where
I have felt frustrated at people’s selfish and wilful ignoring of others’ safety. A generic PA announcement was made, but with no reference to this bunch or that the train was supposedly full. The whole set-up felt haphazard and very different to LNER, which has really set the gold standard.
Letting my frustrations ebb away, I allow myself to be distracted by the scenery of the Berks and Hants route. This is my first trip since part of it was electrified and the HSTs replaced by Class 800s. I have to say
I am impressed by the train’s performance, although the internal ambience is rather spartan. I know some people have complained about the seats, but I find them fine - even for a journey of this length.
But what I do miss is a buffet. At one point a trolley comes through, but it just isn’t the same as being able to stretch your legs, check out how busy the train is, and prop up a counter while you enjoy a coffee - or something stronger.
Sadly, the overhead wires run out at Newbury, leaving us on diesel for the rest of the trip down to the South West. Even so, the performance of the ‘800’ is pretty good, although when we pass Westbury on the avoiding line I do notice the set ‘hunting’, accompanied by a knocking noise as we round the curve.
Speeding on through the countryside, we join the main line from Bristol at Cogland Junction and make our first stop since Reading, at Taunton. A few passengers are present on the platform, but none join our coach.
The same pattern is repeated at Tiverton Parkway, where the adjacent M5 motorway displays a level of traffic that the railways would envy right now.
At Exeter St Davids, I note the huge new railway offices nearing completion on the site
of the old goods shed, showing the level of investment in what’s become an increasingly busy depot.
The next part of my journey, clinging to the Exe estuary before reaching the sea at Dawlish, has to be one of the great railway journeys of the world - whatever the weather. It’s simply stunning, with so much to observe as the tides ebb and flow, changing the character completely.
This year there’s a new addition. Moored by Babbacombe Bay are four massive cruise liners, more like floating apartment blocks than the graceful ships of old. They’re victims of that industry’s collapse due to COVID, and who knows when they’ll set sail again?
Ploughing on via stops at Newton Abbot and Totnes, we reach Plymouth, where the train divides. I’d had a quick walk through my set before we arrived, counting a grand total of 89 people in Standard Class.
The station is busy with trains - and passengers of all ages, although large groups are conspicuous by their absence. A handful of travellers join our car, but it doesn’t get uncomfortable and the journey over the border into Cornwall is relaxed.
This feels like a completely different railway. The twists and turns of the track as the line threads its way through the Duchy immediately give away where you are - as do the pockets of GWR semaphores at places such as Liskeard, which has some unusual examples. This is one of the few remaining main lines operated by semaphores, so savour it while it lasts, because the network is changing fast.
Finally, we arrive at the furthest west I will be reaching on this Rover - Truro. I’ve come here to see how the Cornish branches are faring, and gauge if ‘staycationing’ is having any effect on passenger numbers.
The station itself is certainly busy. Both main platforms hold dozens of people and there are plenty waiting for the Falmouth branch train - worked by a two-car Class 150, which is a sign of how much things have improved. In the space of 12 years we’ve gone from hourly single-car ‘153s’ to half-hourly ‘150s’.
The Cornish branches (and their Devon counterparts) have been booming. COVID may have dented this, but from what I can see nothing like the damage it’s done elsewhere on the network. The train I catch is standing room only, carrying a mix of locals (young and old), students and holidaymakers dragging suitcases.
I had noticed when looking to book a hotel around there that availability was scarce and prices high - now I can see why. I hop off at the delightful little station at Penmere (which has an active station friends group) to get some pictures and see if my train’s loadings are a one-off. They aren’t - the next service down to Falmouth town is equally busy.
The return working is quiet, but only as far as Penryn, where a large student campus provides a large amount of traffic for the line.
Back at Truro, I retreat east on my last train of the day, which also takes me back in time as it is one of GWR’s short-formed HST ‘Castle’ sets. It too is busy, ferrying a mixture of tourists and locals, and it makes a welcome change from the rattling and sometimes asthmatic diesel multiple units that used to struggle on the Cornish gradients.
Sadly, I am only on it as far as Par, which is journey’s end. I have had a fascinating couple of days, taking in a large chunk of the rail network with some major contrasts and scenes I’d never expected to see.
How COVID has affected the network in different ways and at different locations is becoming clear - as is the TOCs’ individual attitudes and approaches. What would the picture be like in the final part of the UK jigsaw - Wales? You can find out in the third and final part of my trip…