A little disrupted – Last week on the rails

Having spouted off about my Son’s experiences on Thursday night it’s time to tell about my rail days out and share some images of a generally good week. I will start at the end since that is the downside, the bad bit. I had planned to be out and about on Monday, Wednesday and Friday but on Thursday I had my Flu Jab. This meant that I had some residual reaction. With the weather turning very wet on the Friday I decided that my good health was best served by staying in. As for the weekend – with my upper arm still being sore on Saturday I decided to give that a miss also. I had already spoken to the Football Club and advised that I would not be there on Saturday, nor on Tuesday’s upcoming match. I intend to return to football duty next Saturday.

So, with the latter end of the week consigned to staying indoors, what did I get up to on Monday and Wednesday? In both cases I got out to get some good train photographs and now I can share some of them with you.

Monday was a local trip – I wanted to try out the 100-400mm lens at West Hampstead on the North London Line – This being a location where the extra reach could produce some good results and so it proved. Here’s 378230 still in the old London Overground livery crossing the Midland Mainline…

…And at the same eastern end, here’s 66512 on the 4M91 London Gateway to Lawley Street intermodal…

Looking to the west I caught Class 66’s in triplicate much closer to the Metropolitan line overbridge than in the past…

…As 66762 approached with the 6L37 Hoo Junction Up Yard to Whitemoor Yard engineers train with 66847 and 66553 in the consist. 66847 was destined to take up Railhead Treatment Train duties in the following week.

Not everything that day was long lens – a walk across to another West Hampstead station resulted in shots of the Metropolitan Line’s S8 stock. Here’s 21104 leading an Aldgate bound train past Builder Depot’s graffitied walls with the buildings of West Hampstead forming the backdrop…

And a trip to Brondesbury Park gave a shot of 59205 on the 6M47 Chelmsford Receptions to Wembley Receptions 1-7 aggregates empties…

Just a fleeting pause at Upper Holloway to capture the 4M47 London Gateway to Hams Hall intermodal…

…a going away shot because some damned fool had parked a passenger service in platform 2 🤣

Wednesday’s trip was a little further afield – A day out to Oxford in the hope of getting some of the Class 70’s that work Freightliner’s Southampton Intermodals. It wasn’t to be – I need to look a little closer at the timetables and see if there’s a better time or day for these. But that doesn’t mean it was a wasted trip – Far from it as I recorded no less than 8 new locomotives along with 7 CrossCountry units and one of my outstanding Great Western 802’s as new sightings!

Oxford is a station that limits its photographic opportunities by having 4 tracks straight through the station without any real interest but we do our best with what we have and having a long lens definitely gives the chance to add to the variety in what we do take. Here’s 66519 passing though on the 4O90 Doncaster Europort to Southampton intermodal…

Then 802016 – visible in the sidings in the last shot – returned to the station as the 5P25 Oxford to Oxford empty stock working…

…This was the unit I had travelled out on and would form the 12:00 back to Paddington.

While it was waiting to depart, 66118 hammered through on the 4M96 Southampton to Birch Coppice intermodal…

You can appreciate I’m not going to show every train here – I’m just trying to give a flavour 😅 We were treated to a pair of old stagers now working for Network Rail and celebrating the Class 37’s 65th birthday in service on the UK railways – D6851…

…operating the 1Q22 Derby R.T.C.(Network Rail) to Bristol Kingsland Road survey train with 37610 bringing up the rear.

All those were from platform 3 – Platform 2 usually handles Chiltern Railways arrivals like 168325 seen approaching on the 1T23 London Marylebone to Oxford…

A walk over to platform 4 produced this shot 66097 threading its way between the signals at the north of the station…

…Whilst working the 4O21 Trafford Park to Southampton Western Docks intermodal. You may be catching a vibe here – This is the main route from Southampton to The Midlands for freight in much the same way as the North London Line is a route from London Gateway, Tilbury and Harwich. My long term readers may even remember a proportion of these trains having to be diverted via Acton and Willesden when a bridge failed a couple of years back!

Back to the present and 802010 arrives operating the 1D24 terminating service from Paddington…

…and here’s 221117 arriving on a Bournemouth to Manchester CrossCountry service…

…with lots of prospective passengers waiting to board. The driver looks pensive. I wonder if, having started at Bournemouth and passed through Reading – both University cities – He’s thinking ‘Not More Students’ as he pulls into Oxford 😅

I actually travelled on sister unit 221107 back to Reading…

…The first ride on one of these and, as it wasn’t too crowded, not a bad run.

And that was my Wednesday out – Thoroughly enjoyable. Now I’m looking forwards to next week and thinking about what I’d like to do. Monday I’d like to be in London and I may want to try and get a couple of last trips on the Class 455’s as these are rapidly going off lease now and I doubt they’ll see out October except for maybe a couple of units held over for a farewell tour. But nothing can be guaranteed – Lets see what the new week brings 😎👍