Purpose of the trip
Planning a trip on Sunday was probably a mistake. My very tentative early plan worked on a Sunday with no engineering work. When it came to the actual Sunday both my local line and the road north of Oxford were unavailable so I decided it would be a good day to visit the extensions (so far) on the Birmingham Metro.
The services used today were:
| HeadCode | Dep Time | Route | Arr Time | NRT | Railmiles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2C15 | 0849 | Wokingham - Reading (4) | 0902 | 6.75 | 6mi 66ch |
| 1W35 | 0911 | Reading (7) - Worcester Foregate St (1) | 1101 | 85.25 | 85mi 2ch |
| 2S08 | 1121 | Worcester Foregate St (1) - Birmingham Snow Hill (3) | 1222 | 35.75 | 34mi 72ch |
| 1V24 | 1400 | Birmingham New St (11B) - Worcester Foregate St (1) | 1439 | 24.5 | 29mi 33ch |
| 1P63 | 1511 | Worcester Foregate St (1) - Reading | 1656 | 85.25 | 85mi 2ch |
| 2C56 | 1724 | Reading - Wokingham | 1737 | 6.75 | 6mi 66ch |
| Total | 244.25 | 248mi 1ch |
Notes:
As before my thanks to Real Time Trains for the material in the links.
Operations on the Day
The morning commences badly, I take a different road route to Wokingham and find traffic lights in Crowthorne and another two sets along the road past what used to be the TRL and is now a housing estate. It then gets worse when SWR provide a pair of 455 units (really?) on the service to Reading. They do not have toilets and should never be used on long distance services. The train also runs three minutes late and the tight connection becomes tighter. Three of us are adjacent to the front doors of the 455 and run for the connection – I am the slowest and we all make it. It then departs a couple of minutes late which is welcome.
The plan for today was designed to deal with the inevitable Sunday engineering works and therefore the available routes are limited – hence heading towards the west from Oxford. Departure from platform 7 at Reading is not via the new flyover but we snake around it and are sent down the slow lines.
As we pass Radley there is a field full of men clad in black undertaking metal detecting across the entire area – I wonder what has been lost?
What I find really odd is that this service has more stops than the one two days ago and yet manages to reach my destination point in almost exactly the same time – which feels very odd to say the least.
As a sidelight one of the curves I believe I need to cover which I have tried to include on these excursions is the one from Cheltenham Spa direct into Worcester Shrub Hill and I had tried to plan it into a couple of days on this rover – but timewise they became too long. However later in the year we are booked on a steam special to Worcester and checking the planned route I find it will do the missing curve – which I perhaps should have been checked much sooner – so removing the need for it on these trips.
Having gone into Worcester Foregate Street the West Midlands train visits Worcester Shrub Hill before reversing and heading towards Birmingham Snow Hill from the other direction to my trip earlier through that station earlier in the week. So far so good. At my destination it is a cold walk around the corner from Snow Hill to the lift up to the immediately adjacent St Chad’s tram stop – which is not enhanced when I find that the lift is not responsive to the button and steadfastly refuses to descend from platform level. I climb the adjacent stairs.
On finding myself on St Chad’s tram stop I find there are no trams this morning; however the display says there will be one in about 20 minutes shortly before the 1300 opening time on the notice and I decide to wait – if it turns up as shown I can still do the entire route. As I stand there the arrival time gets put back a couple of minutes and then after about 15 minutes and I get ever colder it is put back to another 20 minutes or so, at which point I give in – this is simply not going to happen.
I walk across central Birmingham to find New Street and the restaurants in “Grand Central”. I make a poor choice of restaurant in the hope of getting something hot and spicy and decide that a warm bowl of sludge is not worth finishing. I should just have got the train home, which I do eventually but have a 30 minute layover in Worcester so find the cathedral which we will visit later in the year. It turns out the steam special will be going to/from Shrub Hill so it will be a longer walk and so I only know half the route!
Back at Reading they have imposed yet another set of 455s on the passengers. I assume this is because it is effectively “free mileage” on soon to be withdrawn units but depriving those passengers of toilets is a very poor decision and one which I hope a return to public ownership will correct as soon as it can actually get the 701’s into service – after all they were originally due in 2019 with fleet service in 2020.
Costs / Ticket Checks
No ticket checks today apart from the barriers at Snow Hill and New Street, even Wokingham is a straight walk in and out.
Rolling Stock
GWR IETs, the dirty West Midlands units and 455s – are any of them attractive?
Summary
I would have been better off staying at home – it was particularly cold today and no new track was achieved at all. Even the food was poor.