West on a Wednesday😅 This was one of those trips where I did what I’d planned and picked up a couple of bonus termini along the way😎 If you want to follow my trip here‘s a map.
The initial plan was to get a train from Marylebone station out to West Ruislip. Although I have done this before, it hasn’t been done since I started the Freedom Pass Project, so both of the stations are needed. The earliest train I could catch from Marylebone was the 10:44 because I can’t use my pass before 9:00am. To get to Marylebone I routed East Finchley-Euston on the Northern Line then Euston-Oxford Circus on the Victoria Line and finally Oxford Circus-Marylebone on the Bakerloo. There are other ways to get there but that’s probably the quickest😎
I was at Marylebone early enough to photograph one of the Birmingham loco hauled services with its Vossloh class 68 on the front…
…The Caterpillar engine made a great sound as it departed. I took some other shots around the station including this memorial to Adrian Shooter…
…before boarding my train to West Ruislip.
West Ruislip is served by 1 Chiltern Railways train per hour. Here’s 165003 with a Gerrards Cross to Marylebone service…
…It is also the westernmost terminus of the Central Line which operates 9 trains per hour during off-peak periods…
The main entrance to the station is on a road bridge which gives a good view of the line northwest of the station. The view is different from my last visit as there is a construction site for the HS2 project next to the line…
Although West Ruislip is only served by 1 train per hour, the line is busy with services to Oxford, Banbury and Birmingham which pass through at speed…
My next planned part of the day was to ride the Central Line back to Northolt – a turnaround point for some Central Line trains…
…I had a pleasant seat in the sunshine while I waited for one of the terminating trains to take me to my next planned stop – Greenford. The target here was the Greenford to West Ealing GWR service. Here’s 165121 running into Greenford…
So far, so good… That’s my planned termini / farthest points for the day completed with my arrival at West Ealing😎👍 What to do next? I hopped the next Elizabeth Line service to Ealing Broadway. I do need to ride one of the Underground lines to or from that station to be able to cross it off. But, I’ve shelved that for another day. I decided instead to catch one of the GWR services into Paddington. These are operated by Class 387 units – here’s an archive shot of 387174 at Ealing Broadway…
…At Paddington I had minor problem when my pass didn’t work the ticket barrier. There was a member of staff on hand who, when I caught his eye, asked “Whatcher Got?” I showed him my Freedom Pass and we had a brief chuckle about the vagaries of ticket barriers 🤣
From Paddington I chose to get on the Circle Line for the single stop run to Edgware Road station. That’s another terminating point cleared off. I immediately got on the next train from Hammersmith and did another 1-stop run to Baker Street…
…I stopped here to have a late lunch – Treats on platform 2 do an interesting selection of wraps 😎 I was sitting on the seat extreme left of the photo when the member of staff on platform duty asked me – “Is that good?” and gave a double thumbs up😅 I confirmed it was indeed ‘Good’😀👌
After lunch I took a Metropolitan Line train starting from platform 1 north to Finchley Road station, thus clearing off Baker Street as a terminus. Then I changed onto the Jubilee Line to West Hampstead. A short walk across West End Lane to the London Overground station where I caught a Stratford bound service as far as Gospel Oak. A change to the Goblin and another train as far as Upper Holloway. As I left the station, a 263 bus was arriving at the stop so I hopped on that to complete my journey back to East Finchley.
A total of 7 termini crossed off for the project and an overall fun day out 😊👍
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