Spotting 2024 – Week 16

The week started quietly – probably because I was getting more acquainted with my new Garmin Vivoactive 5 watch. Currently, it’s giving me a lot of fitness incentivisation – I just hope I can keep it up although it also advises when to ease off and have a less active day. So today I’ve stuck to one hour of walking at a moderate pace and now I’m resting in front of the pc😅

One of the things I have mentioned a few times is that my trainspotting outings were as much about getting a bit fitter as watching trains. That theme continued with my Thursday outing this week – A trip to Peterborough. I haven’t been to Peterborough station in something like 40 years – I dropped out of trainspotting in the late 1980’s and moved to planes. And, although I did visit the Nene Valley Railway back in 2008, I didn’t visit the mainline station. Here’s what the track layout at Peterborough was like when I last did some spotting there…

The track layout looks similar today except that bay platform 1 has gone. Platform 2 is now 1. 3 is now 2 and a new platform 3 allows trains to stop on the up fast line. The down fast still has no platform and platforms 4 & 5 are as in the diagram. There is a new island platform where the Flyash siding was – 6 & 7 – with additional tracks provided to allow passenger trains access to the Whittlesea lines. The Goods Loop remains. The station has two footbridges, one accessed by stairs and the other by ramps. What an ideal place to get some exercise while trying out all the photographic angles😂

Peterborough is on the east coast mainline from London to York and on to the North East and Scotland. It is also on cross England routes from East Anglia to the Midlands and beyond. This makes it a busy station for both passenger and freight services. Time to look at some of my day’s photographs.

…That’s a glimpse of the passenger services and I haven’t mentioned the Thameslink trains that run all the way from here to Horsham on the south coast via central London! It was one of these that I travelled out on from St. Pancras.

As for freight – it was very busy. I logged 16 trains passing through in the 3.75 hours I was there. Here’s a sample…

I haven’t covered everything in this post, just given a flavour. On the day I logged 131 locos and units of which I needed 31! That’s a good return. I also picked up both Thameslink units for haulage along with a couple of underground units too.

Saturday was an away match for Wingate & Finchley at Margate – An opportunity to take the high speed service from St. Pancras. In truth, when you’re going to Margate or Ramsgate, it’s only really high speed as far as Ebbsfleet. After that you’re on the normal tracks and travelling at the same speed as the other trains. The journey time saved is only 12 minutes compared with taking the train from Victoria. However, there is another advantage to paying the extra – two services for every one from Victoria! On Saturday however, signal problems at Ramsgate and a broken down train resulted in some disruption to the service. I had intended to catch the 11:37 via Ashford to Margate but that was cancelled. Fortunately, I had added in plenty of slack in my trip down to St. Pancras and I was able to get on the earlier 11:20 service. This routes to Ebbsfleet and then trundles around the north Kent coast calling at many of the larger towns along the way. In the end, routing that way took me past Hoo Junction and its stabling point where I logged 5 locos of which I needed 3! I also picked up a couple of the Class 375 3-car units working the north Kent branch lines, so it was a good result all round. The same can’t be said of the football which we lost 2-1 against a Margate team trying to escape relegation – I guess they needed the win more than we did but we must get a result against Carshalton next Saturday to finish in the play-off’s. Here’s a view of the seafront at Margate…

…And here’s 395027 arriving with my train home…

Totals for the day, 50 logged of which 9 were needs and I picked up 4 new for haulage😎👍

Hoping to fit in some more trips next week while continuing my fitness projects.😅