For Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge I posted several shots taken at Kew Gardens last Tuesday. I also included a shot of a very nice pint of Fullers London Pride that I enjoyed in the Tap on the Line pub outside Kew Gardens Station. Epi and I had decided to stop there to refresh ourselves before catching the Overground back to Upper Holloway.
Sitting in the sun enjoying our drinks, I was also noting down the trains as they passed. It all seemed normal and I logged quite a few District and Overground units passing by. Time came to leave and we went through the ticket barriers to await our next Overground service which was due in 7 minutes. I set up my camera – fitting the tele-zoom lens because I wanted to take a shot of it approaching. I took a shot of the station in the meantime as there are a couple of stations groups on Flickr that appreciate views of railway stations without trains being prominent in the shot. Kew Gardens Station always looks good in the spring😎…
The clock ticked down and no train appeared – there should have been a District Line train before our Overground and that also had failed to appear. More concerning – nothing came through in the Richmond direction either.
With our train now somewhat overdue and the platform filling rapidly, it was clear that there was a problem and, sure enough, one of the station staff took to the tannoy to announce that there would be no trains for the foreseeable future. This was due to a signal failure at Richmond. The advice was that everyone should leave the station and use local buses to progress their journey. As we slowly made our way out (there was no point in rushing), one of the staff clarified that there was a track circuit failure.
Outside it was chaos – a lot of lost souls seeking redemption😉 Most just headed to the nearest bus stop and formed a queue without necessarily knowing whether the bus would take them to where they needed to go or not. Others were headed down to the main road past Kew Gardens. It was obvious that the buses were going to be very full and some people would have to wait for the next one. But, as you may have already guessed, I had a different plan.
I said to Epi – Lets walk to Kew Bridge Station and get a train from there. That’s the old Trainspotter knowledge coming into play once more😅 It’s around a 20 minute walk between the stations and includes crossing the Thames via Kew Bridge which you can see in this shot from 2010…
For those intending to visit Kew Gardens, the actual walk to the Elizabeth Gate from Kew Bridge Station is only slightly longer than the walk to the Victoria Gate from Kew Gardens Station so it is a good alternative for visitors coming from south and central London.
At Kew Bridge Station, while waiting for our Waterloo bound train, I was blessed with a brace of class 73’s on an engineering train…
…though only the leading loco, 73213, is visible in the shot because of the angle. The station is served by trains between Waterloo and Weybridge and I got a nice sun and shadows shot of 450077 pulling in with a Weybridge bound service…
By now it was rush hour and the platform was busy as our Waterloo bound train pulled in…
…We found seats and subsequently caught up with the Overground at Clapham Junction, making our way back home to Finchley. A nuisance for many but an interesting diversion for me😎👍
Considering the amount of travelling I do on trains, it’s rare that I’m ‘inconvenienced’ to this extent. Most of the time, I just go with the flow and a few minutes here or there don’t bother me. It’s always been like this even when I was at work. I have always prepared for issues when travelling. So many people assume that they have a right for everything to happen as they want it to. Sorry people – wake up to reality – sometimes things break! It’s better that they break in a safe manner like a track circuit failure, than we have a major collision. Often delays are a result of the system saving lives!😎
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