Spotting 2025 – Week 9

After the last few weeks it was a relief to get back on the rails for a couple of local days out. They turned out to be contrasting days too!

On Wednesday I decided that I was going out despite the threat of wet weather. I was a little late leaving but I had decided I’d get the later 232 to New Southgate and catch a 717 from there. I was thinking of doing a North London Line hop but I hadn’t really made my mind up as I didn’t fancy getting too wet. While waiting for my train at New Southgate, 717006 pulled in on the northbound platform – the last 717 I need for haulage! There was no way I could have got from platform 1 to platform 4 before it departed, so I just watched it close its doors and pull out. But that, combined with the rain starting to fall, gave me a new plan of action for the day – Hunt the 717 and possibly ride some other units too. Travelling towards Finsbury Park, I took the opportunity to check on Realtime Trains what time ‘006 would get to Welwyn Garden City and then extrapolate it’s likely return time at Finsbury Park – I calculated it should be working the 10:35 departure. With some time in hand I changed at Finsbury Park and caught a service into King’s Cross where I took some photos. Here’s 800106 ‘You Belong’ departing on the 10:00 to Aberdeen…

…’106 is advertising LNER’s support for the charity, CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). With so many tragic avoidable deaths on the railways this is a worthwhile cause for the company to be aligned with 😎👍

With no departing local units I had to take the Victoria Line back out to Finsbury Park where the rain was now getting heavy. Unsurprisingly, this was affecting traction and delaying some services including the 10:35 but at 10:39, here was 717006…

…with the Moorgate service. That’s my Class 717’s cleared off for haulage 😅👍

With the worsening weather, I decided to go all the way to Moorgate then on to Liverpool Street where I could do an out and back run to Hackney Downs and hopefully pick up a couple of 710’s for haulage and perhaps see the last one I need, 710125. Unfortunately125 continues to avoid me but I picked up 710104 out to Hackney Downs where I photographed 710122…

…before riding back to Liverpool Street on 710114. I now need just 15 of the 54 strong class for haulage. I hopped out to Stratford and back, picking up a couple of Class 720’s for haulage and then headed round the Circle Line to Cannon Street where I got 465006 out to London Bridge. Checking my watch, I realised I was in time to catch the Uckfield service to East Croydon – I thought “might get a 171 that I want.” Usually these daytime services seem to be made up of one of the 3-car 171 /800’s, so imagine my surprise when I found a 5-car train waiting with 171730 on the rear! That’ll do nicely 😎👌 Here’s 171730 taken at Peckham Rye on a nicer day back in last April…

I grabbed some lunch at East Croydon and while I was drinking my coffee, what should happen along but 377446 – The last Class 377 that I needed to log for the set! That was the icing on the cake of what turned out to be a great day 🤣👍 I logged 191 of which I only needed 3 but I cleared off a class. On the haulage side I picked up no fewer than 12 new and also cleared off a class!

Friday was bright and sunny with a frosty start. This time I decided that I was definitely going freight hunting on the North London Line. Over to New Southgate again and a 717 down to Highbury & Islington just in time to get 66418 on a Felixstowe North to Lawley Street intermodal…

…A new loco for me! And that set a bit of a trend for the day. I hopped one station east to Canonbury where I got 66190 on the Plasmor run. Then back west to Camden Road for a Garston to Felixstowe North intermodal. Then on to Hampstead Heath for the Tescoliner which was followed soon after by an engineers run – Tamper DR73939 going from Romford to Hither Green…

From there it was time to move to Brondesbury Park and photograph 66315 on the Hoo Junction to Whitemoor Yard engineers run…

…This is one of a batch of second-hand ex-European 66’s imported recently by GBRf – It arrived in February last year and only entered service in December.

On to Willesden Junction where 66104 passed through on a steel working from Tilbury to Trostre Works near Llanelli…

…Every one a winner! – And there’s more! 😅

Time to head back to West Hampstead where I got 66508 on the London Gateway to Trafford Park…

…and 90048 leading 90015 (with 66420 dead in train) on the Felixstowe North to Ditton…

Over the course of 4 hours I’d seen 13 freights of which I photographed 11! As I had already ridden all the 717’s and all the 378 units, I had a day of zero new haulage but of the 62 sightings logged, I needed 7 – 6 of those shown in the photos above! A great day out 😀👍

Saturday was a home game for Wingate & Finchley against Whitehawk – We won 3-1 but it was an entertaining game with both teams playing nice football. We seem to have found the right player to take on the midfield role that was vacant when Matty left to join Hemel Hempstead…