Having finally made it to London my plans changed somewhat due to the power of social media. I’d not arranged to socialise but a friend who was in Brighton had read my blog and suggested meeting up in London on his return. Then another friend who’d just flown back to the UK from Ireland signed up to the meet. The obvious point for us all to rendezvous was around Victoria station, which is what transpired. That was handy for me as I had time to take pictures on the old South-Eastern side of the station which is still home to some the old BR-built Class 456/466 EMUs which work services to places like Gillingham, Orpington and Gravesend.
Having enjoyed photographing various services it was time to adjourn to the St George’s Tavern which is a Nicholsons, pub adjacent to Ebury Bridge over the SER station in Pimlico. It’s a classic old London corner boozer that’s tucked out of the way so doesn’t see much tourist traffic. The three of us enjoyed a catch-up for a couple of hours before heading off in different directions, but not before a couple of us went back to photograph these beasts which had appeared on a railhead treatment train (RHTT)
As I had some time to kill and a Travelcard at my disposal I nipped aboard another 465 to head out to an old haunt at Denmark Hill. The old station building has enjoyed a charmed life. In 1980 the building was devastated by fire but was resurrected by Bruce’s brewery as part of the much missed Firkin chain, when it was named the Phoenix and Firkin. The pub’s changed a lot since those days, but it’s still called the Phoenix. My fond memories of the area date back to 1981 and a lovely weekend spent with a female friend from Southport that involved a fur rug in front of a roaring fire in a house that it transpired was owned by an arms dealer. Happy days!
The next day was the main event and why I’d returned to London. I was due at an HS2 media visit to a rather special site – the Wendover green tunnel. I’ll blog about the visit in full later but for new here’s a few pictures and details. The 1.4km is being built from precast sections made by a company in Ilkeston, Derbyshire which are transported by road to the site. It’s not often you see a tunnel being built above ground, much less have the chance to explore one!
Our guided tour and explanations lasted several hours, after which I was glad to get back into a warm train for the trip back into London! We’d had snow that morning but fortunately it didn’t disrupt the visit, although there were still plenty of traces on the ground along the route back to Marylebone.
Marylebone’s now a unique London terminal, as it’s the only one that’s still 100% operated by diesel trains, with no plans to electrify services. However, the elderly Class 165s that form the backbone of local and suburban services are due to be replaced in the near future, but there are no firm plans on how decarbonisation will be achieved, or even what a new fleet will look like. In the meantime, these BR built units soldier on. They’re pretty dated on the inside, with no mod-cons like plug or USB sockets. However, they do retain the old 1st Class seats at the front of the vehicles, which are rather comfortable – if threadbare!
By the time I got back to London it was late afternoon and the weather was hardly conducive to hanging around, so I made a beeline for Euston where I was just in time to catch LNW’s 15:46 to Crewe, which was worked by a pair of Class 350s. At least this service was running today! The train was packed leaving London but gradually emptied out en-route, allowing me to finally get a table seat and set up the laptop to begin processing pictures.
My journey back North was (thankfully) uneventful, if a bit late getting to Crewe, which seems a regular thing. I still made my Manchester connection and final train home from Victoria which saw me walk through the door at home just before 21:20. It had been a long couple of days!
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Paul Bigland 