Spotting 2025 – Week 8

I think we’re starting to drift out of the post-loss period. For the first half of the week Epi was in Zimbabwe with her brother Gabriel handling the funeral activities of our brother Victor. After a weekend holding the fort at this end with, ultimately nothing to do, I welcomed my Son home from Leicester on Monday pm as told in last week’s Spotting post.

With some timespace to myself I decided that Tuesday the 18th would be a day out spotting. The weather was fine – Glorious sunshine in fact! I didn’t have a plan of action and I was once more a victim of the revised bus schedule of the 232 and a bit of personal uncertainty – probably a hangover from the trials of the past 6 weeks. But, ultimately I brisk-walked down to the station to catch the Northern Line southbound. I dithered here too – lots of half-term families meaning not a lot of seating so I waited for a semi-empty train. It was only once on the train that I decided where I would go – and, even then, it was fluid to the point of being liquid🤣

I changed at Kentish Town – something we had been denied for 18 months. They’ve done a great job of cleaning the tiles and replacing the worn-out escalators. But it was clearly too much trouble to clean and repaint the stairs. And they still haven’t finished the ticket hall meaning that passengers have to leave the Underground station and then re-enter the Thameslink station. So much for integrated transport! My plan by this time was to take a Thameslink to West Hampstead and walk over to the Mildmay Line station from which I would head over to Willesden Junction. After that I had nothing concrete.

At Willesden Junction I realised that I had timed it right to photograph the TescoLiner as it took the Harlesden Chord…

…On this occasion hauled by 66422 ‘Max Joule’. There were a couple of other enthusiasts on the bridge, one of whom I vaguely recognise. We had a brief chat before they rushed off to video another freight that was expected on the North London line through the high-level station.

I wandered onto Old Oak Lane to see what was on Willesden Euroterminal. Along with 66798 and 08703, I was able to catch 66506 shunting spoil wagons associated with the HS2 project…

…All overseen by a Carrion Crow on the catenary😅

From Willesden I went on a Haulage spree that was designed to pick up some Class 455’s. In a previous post I mentioned the planned refreshment of the 378’s and the likelihood of some Class 710 Activity on the Mildmay Line – 710377 provided my ride down to Richmond👍

At Richmond I picked up the Kingston loop and Class 455, 5920, round to Raynes Park. Sister 5911 then carried me on to Wimbledon before 5901 took me to Clapham Junction. I stopped on the station for a while to catch some photos of the 455’s. Here’s 5901 coming back out from Waterloo on its way to Shepperton, with 5705 heading to Waterloo…

…I posted this image on Bluesky with the caption ‘How many more sunny days…’, a reference to the long drawn out retirement of these units. After taking the photo I popped off the station to grab a bite of lunch from the local M&S before catching a Southern service up to Harrow & Wealdstone – a trip that afforded the opportunity to log whatever was sitting on Wembley Yard.

Then it was a London Northwestern train back into Euston before taking the Overground back out to Willesden Junction and reversing my original route to go back home. The tally for the day was 154 logged of which I needed 7, including 159002 which cleared off that class (see my ‘2 Years On‘ post!). I also picked up 6 new for haulage👍

Wednesday was a quiet day then, on Thursday, it was time to head down to Heathrow to collect Epi as she returned from Zimbabwe. I had hoped to get the 232 over to New Southgate and do a 717 hunt on the way but that didn’t work out so I went down to East Finchley and changed once again at Kentish Town for the Thameslink.

Thameslink, it turned out, were having one of their all too numerous cancellations days – the 10:07 to Sutton being a victim, so I had to get on the 10:22, formed of a train which reverses here – In this case worked by 700006. I rode down to Farringdon and changed to the Elizabeth Line, taking the first train, 345029, as far as Paddington where it terminated – at least it was a new one for haulage.

The next train was a Reading Service which I rode out to Ealing Broadway. If I’d been tight for time for the flight arrival, I might have had an issue🙄 Fortunately, I had plenty of time – Indeed time to take a break at Ealing Broadway and have a coffee from Costa before completing my journey. Finally picking up the late running 11:18 to Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3.

Passing through Southall I had the sight of both 34046 ‘Braunton’ and 70000 ‘Britannia’ in steam – presumably a systems check as I don’t think they had any specials to run that day. Here’s a photo of 34046 taken back in December 2023 at Clapham Junction…

Once at Heathrow I spent a while waiting in Terminal 3 for Epi as her flight somehow turned a 10mins early into a 40 mins late between the time I left home and the time I got there. I took the opportunity to grab an ‘All Day Breakfast’ sandwich from the M&S next to the arrivals meet and greet area.

With Epi back on land, I escorted her home. Friday was a day to catch up with some outstanding things of which there are many and a lot of them likely to be ongoing. Saturday’s football was cancelled – Waterlogged pitch at Hastings. All of which left me the chance to write yesterday’s summary of spotting over the last two years and this post about last week’s activities.

Hopefully, next week will see more normality and maybe some more ‘organised’ spotting activities – See you then 😎👍