We're Not In Cardiff Any More: A Weekend on the Welsh Valley Lines

Last month, Ian and I headed to explore the the complex network of railways in South Wales. I'd once changed trains in Cardiff, and I'd been through to Swansea on my All-Line Rover a few years ago, but Ian had never been past Newport. Certainly, neither of us had ever explored the suburban rail network around Cardiff, which turned out to be one of the nicest networks in the country, combining suburban commuter trains with spectacular Welsh scenery.

Half a dozen lines emanate northwards from Cardiff up each of the major valleys, with lines to Merthyr Tydfil, Aberdare, Treherbert, Rhymney, Ebbw Vale, and Maesteg. They are joined by the line heading south out of Cardiff along the Vale of Glamorgan, with branches to Penarth, Barry Island and Bridgend. Together, they form the Valley Lines, one of the densest suburban railway networks outside London, as seen in the map below.

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

The original plan had been to cover the whole network in one weekend. Unfortunately, on the weekend we picked - 9th/10th March - there were engineering works between Barry and Bridgend, which prevented us from completing the whole network in one weekend. In a way, though, that was no bad thing; even without doing the Vale of Glamorgan we had a long weekend on our hands, because the nature of the network – a series of branch lines emanating from Cardiff – meant we had to go up and down each line, there being, in most cases, no links between the 'tops' of each line.

As is so often the case, however, there used to be links between the lines; many fell victim to the infamous Beeching axe. In some cases, there are bus links between towns in neighbouring valleys, but some of them are so slow that it is quicker to go down one valley and up the other! We did use one bus in the end - but we're getting ahead of ourselves...

Saturday 9th March

0750 Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 0816 (actual 0823)
Headcode: 2Y59, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350126
Distance: 19 miles

I joined Ian on a London Midland service to Birmingham New Street, and wolfed down some much-needed breakfast. The train was a few minutes late into Birmingham, but a quick change ensured that we made our connection to our next train:

0830 Birmingham New St to Cardiff Central, arr 1021
Headcode: 1V04, operated by CrossCountry using Turbostar 170636
Distance: 112 miles

The train from Birmingham to Cardiff took us through all-too-familiar territory down the Cross-Country Main Line towards Bristol. At Gloucester, however, we branched off to head down the western bank of the Severn, through the Forest of Dean, under the Severn Bridge, and into South Wales; the line afforded us good, if somewhat hazy, views across the Severn to Bristol.

Once we arrived in Cardiff, Ian grabbed his Valley Lines Day Explorer ticket (I had already bought mine in Coventry), before we jumped on our first valleys train to Penarth:

1031 Cardiff Central to Penarth, arr 1046
and
1047 Penarth to Cardiff Central, arr 1059
Headcodes: 2P31 and 2D26 resp., operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Sprinter 150256
Distance: 2.75 miles each way

Penarth, once a major seaside resort frequented by many residents of south Wales, is now a dormitory town for Cardiff, with pensioners making up a significant proportion of the population. The railway line to Penarth once extended on round the coast, and rejoined what is now the Vale of Glamorgan mainline at Cadoxton, but closures under the Beeching axe curtailed the service, and Penarth station is now a dead end.

This somewhat explains our confusion on board the train: we thought, as a seaside branch line, it should be going downhill. Instead, however, the line rose approaching the terminus; legacy of the days when continued round the coast. The line was otherwise unremarkable, taking just 15 minutes from Cardiff Central to Penarth; we had many more lines to go on, so we didn't linger and headed straight back to Cardiff.

1121 Cardiff Central to Maesteg, arr 1215
and
1217 Maesteg to Cardiff Central, arr 1309
Headcodes: 2L51 and 2G60 resp., operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Sprinter 158831
Distance: 28.5 miles each way

The line to Maesteg is unusual in many respects: for one, it is one of the only valley lines which does not go directly north from Cardiff; instead trains travel through open countryside, along the South Wales Main Line to Bridgend, before turning onto the branch to Maesteg. Thus, it does not end up as the north end of a north-south line through Cardiff, but rather the west end of a east-west line: many trains from Maesteg continue through Cardiff and terminate at Cheltenham Spa.

On this occasion, it was also unusual in being served by class 158: almost every other train we got on the valleys were either Pacers or class 150s, with class 158s usually reserved for longer distance services. However, class 158s do offer greater capacity, and while the train to Maesteg was rather quiet, the train back became ever more packed as we got into Cardiff; though of course by this time it was Saturday lunchtime, with shoppers heading to Cardiff in their droves.

Lunchtime for us consisted of buying some sandwiches in M&S, and eating them while waiting on the platform during the 40-minute gap to our next train. While we were waiting on platform 6, however, we noticed that a person had somehow fallen off platform 4 onto the tracks!

Fortunately the First Great Western service which was just coming into platform 4 at the time saw the person and managed to stop in time, and the staff on platform 6 (there being no platform 5) stopped the Bargoed service well short of the danger. There ensued ten or so minutes of trying (and eventually succeeding) to rouse the apparently rather sozzled passenger, culminating in various drivers, guards, platform staff and BTP officers lifting the guy back onto the platform.

The passenger seemed no worse for his excursion onto the tracks - he'd probably just had too much to drink - but having blocked the tracks for ten minutes there was then a backlog of trains to unclog. The 13:41 to Aberdare eventually departed over ten minutes late, running non-stop to Pontypridd to make up time. The 13:46 to Bargoed, behind it, was similarly sent non-stop to Caerphilly to make up time. Eventually our train to Coryton came in:

1351 (actual 1401) Cardiff Central to Coryton, arr 1413 (actual 1414)
and
1415 Coryton to Radyr, arr 1454
Headcode: 2V31 and 2C29 resp., operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Pacer 143616
Distance: 4.75 miles and 9.5 miles resp.

Our train eventually rolled in and left ten minutes late. To make up time on this very short journey, we called as normal at Queen Street, before proceeding non-stop to Coryton, missing out all five intermediate stations. That allowed us to make up almost all our delay, and we arrived in Coryton just one minute late. Coming back, we left just a minute late and ran more or less on time throughout the rest of the journey.

The Coryton line is a rather odd single-track branch, just two-and-a-half miles from Heath Junction to the end of the line, but with five intermediate stations. This makes the station rather close: Ty Glas and Birchgrove are just 17 chains (about 340m) apart - the closest two stations in the country. Better yet, the fixed distant board (indicating to the driver to brake) for the end of the line at Coryton is before the penultimate station at Whitchurch!

We returned back through Queen Street and Central before heading on the so-called City Line to Radyr via Ninian Park. The route snakes round the back of Canton depot, affording a good view of all the rusting old locomotives and rolling stock, together with several trains not running that day due to maintenance.

Although the City Line opened in 1859, and is often used as a diversionary route when the "mainline" to Radyr via Llandaff is blocked, the intermediate stations only opened in 1987, since when a stopping service has been provided. We changed at Radyr onto a train to Merthyr Tydfil that had come via Llandaff:

1510 Radyr to Merthyr Tydfil, arr 1601
Headcode: 2M38, operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Pacer 142082*+143605
Distance: 18 miles

Until now, all the lines (except Maesteg) had been suburban, never getting out of the built-up sprawl of Cardiff. But as we headed north on the Merthyr line, the line climbed more and more into the hills, and gradually the suburbs faded into sinewy settlements along the valley floor, with the hills getting larger and barer. This wasn't Cardiff any more: this was the foothills of the Brecon Beacons, and it made for pretty impressive views.

The line itself is double-track up to Abercynon, where the branches to Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare split, each being a single-track line with passing loops to allow a half-hourly service (combining to form an every 15 minutes service from Abercynon south), having been upgraded in 2008 with EU funding (prior to which each branch was just hourly).

The valleys of South Wales were not just powerhouses of industry, but also one of the birthplaces of the Labour movement. The Taff Vale Railway - builders of this line - were the losers in one of the formative labour law cases of the early 20th century, which held that unions could be liable for loss of profits due to strike action. The case lead directly to the formation of the modern Labour Party, and overturning said case was one of the Labour movement's first big achievements.

Merthyr Tydfil itself, in comparison to its beautiful surroundings, is now rather run-down, one of the many victims of the coal mine closures in the 1980s. Where once major industries dominated, derelict factories and run-down towns stand as a legacy of Britain's now-vanquished industrial past. Even the bus station - with 16 stands for a town of 30,000 people! - feels too big for the present day. We didn't have too long to wait for our bus to Rhymney:

1620 Merthyr Tydfil bus station to Rhymney Royal, arr 1653
Bus #3 operated by Stagecoach South Wales
Distance: approx 9 miles

Rather than go all the way back to Cardiff and back up another valley, we got a bus from Merthyr Tydfil to Rhymney, saving ourselves a good hour. Our ticket was (supposedly) valid on the bus, and the driver did accept it - though he seemed a bit bemused by the ticket! The bus ride, partly along the soon-to-be-dualled Heads of the Valleys road, was marked by steep hills and tempting glances northwards into the Brecon Beacons.

After half an hour, we got off by the Royal in Rhymney and wandered down from the town - perched on the valley hillside - to the railway line at the bottom of the valley. We had most of half an hour to wait; with the wind starting to pick up and not much shelter on the platform, we were glad when the train finally arrived, about ten minutes late:

1729 Rhymney to Cardiff Queen St, arr 1824
Headcode: 2P87, operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Pacer 142073+143614*
Distance: 22.75 miles

The reason for the train's late arrival became apparent once we got on: it was running on three out of four engines. On the steep valleys - many of which have long stretches of 1 in 50 - that makes quite a difference. Fortunately, our trip back to Cardiff was downhill!

The line to Rhymney, unlike the line to Merthyr, seemed closer to the valley floor; with the sun now below the tops of the hills, the views were more subdued, but nonetheless very nice. Rhymney itself is a small village, and not until you get to Bargoed do the settlements have any size to them. Slowly but surely, though, as we headed down through Ystrad Mynach and Caerphilly, the Cardiff suburbs - and the darkness - encroached, and we alighted at Queen Street in the dark, with one last train to catch:

1836 Cardiff Queen St to Cardiff Bay, arr 1840
Headcode: 2B20, operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Sprinter 153353
Distance: 1 mile

The Cardiff Bay branch is an odd little line, just a mile long. One train shuttles back and forth between Queen Street and Cardiff Bay, with a round trip every 12 minutes. It wasn't always like this, though: even until 2005, there were some through trains from the valleys into Cardiff Bay.

While the shuttle should be run by the Bubble Car, Arriva's bubble car is out of action for the next few months with a transmission problem. Usually this would see the service replaced by a Pacer, but instead we had a one-car Sprinter making an unusual appearance on the Bay shuttle.

Cardiff Bay, once one of the biggest docks in the world, is by some measures one of the most successful urban regeneration projects in the UK: the docks, largely derelict after the Second World War, have been transformed by the Cardiff Barrage into a large commercial area, with a concert hall, a leisure centre, the Welsh Assembly, and a wide variety of shops and restaurants. Indeed, we had a lovely dinner in Café Rouge, before walking over to our hotel just outside the city centre for the night.

---

Sunday 10th March

After a good night's sleep and a suitably large breakfast in the restaurant adjoining the hotel, we walked leisurely back to Cardiff Central, grabbed some lunch to eat on the train, and headed for our first train. Sunday morning engineering works meant most of the valley lines were shut, with just one remaining open all day:

1130 Cardiff Central to Ebbw Vale Parkway, arr 1229
and
1229 Ebbw Vale Parkway to Cardiff Central, arr 1331
Headcodes: 2N13 and 2F34 resp., operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Sprinter 150279
Distance: 28.75 miles each way

The line to Ebbw Vale reopened in 2008, after 46 years without trains. While once the trains ran to Newport, today's services run to and from Cardiff Central, running along the South Wales Main Line for ten miles, turning off towards Ebbw Vale just a mile short of Newport. Indeed, the trains are explicitly shown on the departure board as not calling at Newport; it's a rather odd situation, but one that's hoped will be improved in the future.

In fact, that those improvements were not part of the line's original opening is now looking questionable. The line is one of rail's great success stories: from nothing they have generated 570,000 journeys per annum on the line, well in excess of the forecast 400,000. Another seven miles of double track would be required to double services to half-hourly, which is looking more and more necessary. That said, that extra track will require something like £17 million - nearly as much as the £28 million it cost to reopen the line in the first place.

The line itself is one of the prettiest in South Wales: the Ebbw Valley is a bit more steep-sided than the others, and the line climbs steeply at 1 in 65 for most of its length, curving sinuously to follow the valley sides. The line ends at Ebbw Vale Parkway, some way outside the town centre, though an extension into the town has also been proposed. The line was pretty quiet on this overcast Sunday morning, but nonetheless busy enough to help explain the line's popularity.

1341 Cardiff Central to Aberdare, arr 1442
and
1454 Aberdare to Pontypridd, arr 1522
Headcode: 2A12 and 2F30 resp., operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Sprinter 150252
Distance: 23.25 miles and 11 miles resp.

Our next train - up the line to Aberdare - involved a touch of déjà vu, on more than one count. For one, we were partially retracing our steps: this time we took the "main line" to Radyr, via Llandaff rather than Ninian Park, but from there we followed the Merthyr line once more, peeling off at Abercynon to turn left and head up the adjacent Cynon valley to Aberdare.

Secondly, the guard on this service was the same guard as on our service to Coryton the previous day - and she recognised us! In fairness, we had had a brief conversation on the train to Coryton, explaining that we didn't care that it was non-stopping everywhere, we just wanted to go to the end of the line and come back. We did exactly the same here, but at least we were changing at Pontypridd...

By now the relative warmth of Saturday had been replaced with a biting easterly wind, bringing a colder, greyer feel to the place: it felt more barren, even if it was just less sunny. Parts of the line to Aberdare felt a little more exposed, being in a slightly more open valley. Aberdare station itself was surrounded by a huge carpark, nearly empty but no doubt well-used by commuters on weekdays driving to the station, which is on the edge of town.

We headed back down the line as far as Pontypridd, one station south of Abercynon. At Pontypridd, a third line peels off to Treherbert. We disembarked and looked in vain for a toilet: the very friendly guard was able to advise us to head to the pub, but with just under fifteen minutes we decided not to risk it.

In a somewhat odd arrangement, we duly went through the ticket barriers, before crossing the footbridge over to the northbound platform, somewhat staggered from the other, and waited in the not-quite-windproof shelter for our final valleys train:

1536 Pontypridd to Treherbert, arr 1610
and
1617 Treherbert to Cardiff Queen St, arr 1714
Headcode: 2T12 and 2Y64 resp., operated by Arriva Trains Wales using Sprinter 150257
Distance: 10.75 miles and 22.5 miles resp.

The line to Treherbert heads west from Pontypridd rather than north, through the more built-up Rhondda valley; while the Aberdare and Merthyr lines had long stretches of open countryside, the line to Treherbert featured just a few glimpses.

In a remarkable symmetry with the Merthyr and Aberdare lines, the line is single track beyond Porth, with a passing loop at Ystrad Rhondda, the alphabetically last station in Britain. On weekdays this permits a half-hourly service. Sundays, however, see a much more limited service on the valleys, with services to each of the extremities of Treherbert, Aberdare and Merthyr running just once every two hours.

Treherbert is one of only two valleys to have sidings to store trains at the "top", the other being Rhymney: four sidings at Treherbert, and five at Rhymney, mean trains don't have to run up from Cardiff first thing in the morning and back down in the evening. With a commuter network like this, getting people into Cardiff in the morning and back out in the evening is key, making the arrangement somewhat surprising. I guess the capital cost of building sidings in often cramped station areas outweighs the cost of a few empty stock movements.

The train was reasonably well-loaded in both directions, the Sunday afternoon "rush" gradually picking up with people heading home after the weekend. At the end of our weekend in and around Cardiff, we disembarked at Queen Street - more central to the town than Cardiff Central - and wandered into town.

After the remarkably nice and recently redeveloped area of Cardiff Bay, we half-expected the city centre itself to be somewhat run-down, but we were gladly proved wrong, a variety of modern shopping developments making for a modern, clean city centre. We ate a very swift (yet no less enjoyable) meal in Wagamama, being in and out in less than an hour, before walking back to Central to head home.

1845 Cardiff Central to Birmingham New St, arr 2044
Headcode: 1M83, operated by CrossCountry using Turbostar 170115+170114*
Distance: 112 miles

Our train back to Birmingham once again followed the Severn estuary up through Chepstow and Lydney; rather than a hazy daytime view, we instead had a crisp, clear night-time view across the Severn to the northern suburbs of Bristol. Aside from a brief wait outside Newport, the journey was uneventful. By the time we got to Birmingham, our final train had already arrived:

2114 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 2144
Headcode: 2Y49, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350130
Distance: 19 miles

Our final train, taking me home to Coventry and Ian to Northampton, put us back on more familiar territory, and brought back a much-missed feature: electric traction. After an entire weekend of noisy diesel units struggling up the steep gradients in the Valleys, I suddenly realised just how much nicer electric trains were when we pulled out of New Street with not much more than a whirr. Not having to raise your voice to make yourself heard is definitely an advantage.

But electric trains have many more advantages, so many that in fact the Valley Lines are set for electrification. By 2020, the whole of the Valley Lines will be electrified, as part of a £9 billion programme of electrification and upgrades to the railway network. Every train we took (except the Birmingham-Cardiff trains) would be electric if we did this again in about seven years' time.

The Cardiff Valleys are perfect for electrification. For one, the hills enable a significant speed and acceleration benefit to be gained by using electric traction, simply because the train doesn't have to haul its own engine up the hill - diesel engines are heavy!

More than that, though, the density of the network means that the ratio between the number of services to be converted to electric traction to the length of wires to be erected is remarkably high, ensuring value for money. The lines are also short enough to not require lots of expensive feeder stations from the National Grid, with probably just one major feed in Cardiff being sufficient.

We had a lovely weekend up and down the valleys, missing out only the Vale of Glamorgan Line, linking Cardiff to Bridgend via Barry. While the line to Barry - with a short spur from there to Barry Island - has always had a frequent passenger service, the last section between Barry and Bridgend was reopened in 2005, with stations at Rhoose (for Cardiff Airport) and Llantwit Major. While not as brilliantly successful as the Ebbw Vale line, the line has nonetheless proved popular.

Ah well, there's always next time...

Rare Track Days #6: Diverted from the Robin Hood Line

On Sunday 17th February, I took a day-trip to Mansfield, just north of Nottingham. Until 1995, Mansfield had been the largest town in the country without a railway station, surprising given it has a population now of over 100,000 people. Between 1993 and 1998, however, the Robin Hood Line re-opened a route from Nottingham to Worksop, connecting the towns of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Sutton and Mansfield to the railway network once more.

On this occasion, however, the usual line between Nottingham and Kirkby was shut. Instead of running parallel to the NET, Nottingham's tram network, out via Hucknall and Bulwell, our train today had to be diverted via Toton yard and a very little-used line via Pinxton. I had, in fact, planned to do this the previous weekend, but my stomach had other ideas and I had to postpone a week; fortunately this was the third of three weeks on which the diversion was taking place.

1024 Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 1047
Headcode: 1G02, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390001
Distance: 19 miles

I started, as always, with a Pendolino to New Street. This was, in fact, the first Pendolino of the day from London to Birmingham, and so was pretty busy: Saturday night and Sunday morning is used for a complete block of the tracks south of Rugby, to allow essential maintenance, meaning the first Pendolino north out of Euston leaves at 08:50. On arriving in Birmingham, I once again had a long wait for my train north to Derby; although the train had come in from the depot at 10:45, it wasn't until five minutes before we departed that the guard came down and released the doors:

1130 Birmingham New St to Derby, arr 1238
Headcode: 1S43, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221137
Distance: 39.5 miles

Due to another set of engineering works, the mainline between Birmingham and Derby via Tamworth was shut, and trains were diverted via Lichfield. While the line to Tamworth sees little in the way of suburban traffic, the line from Birmingham to Lichfield gets six trains an hour in each direction on weekdays, providing Sutton Coldfield and the northern suburbs of Birmingham with a frequent service. On Sundays, however, the service is reduced to half-hourly, giving enough space to squeeze in up to two diverted CrossCountry trains each hour.

That said, the track via Lichfield is only maintained to a speed of 60mph rather than the 125mph on the line via Tamworth (simply because most of the time it doesn't need it), making the journey a bit slower. However, between Lichfield and Wichnor Junction, the line usually sees no traffic other than a few freight trains and a few empty stock movements. While I'd done this bit of rare track a couple of years ago, last time I was standing in an absolutely rammed Voyager; this time I made sure I was first on the train and grabbed a good window seat.

In fact, while the train was busy, it wasn't rammed and I had two seats to myself, making a swift getaway on arrival at Derby a little bit easier. I hoped to make a two-minute connection at Derby: the Birmingham-Derby and Derby-Nottingham trains were both running hourly, but no-one had really thought of people wanting to make connections from one to the other. So in spite of waiting for time - we were early! - for 7 minutes at Lichfield City and 13 minutes at Burton-on-Trent, I had to cross my fingers... We arrived at Derby a minute early, and I legged it over the footbridge...

1240 Derby to Nottingham, arr 1300
Headcode: 1D00, operated by CrossCountry using Turbostar 170520
Distance: 16 miles

Made it (with about 30 seconds to spare). Because of the engineering works, the Birmingham-Nottingham services were just running a shuttle between Derby and Nottingham; this one didn't even call in between, and after twenty minutes we arrived in Nottingham.

Nottingham station is in the midst of a major rebuild, with a six-week blockade planned for the summer holidays later this year to completely replace the signalling, during which no trains will run. In the meantime, the station canopies are being renovated, and a new bridge is being built over the station to carry an extension of the tram lines to Clifton and Beeston. After wending my way over a footbridge covered in scaffolding, I waited for my train to arrive from Mansfield.

1328 Nottingham to Mansfield Woodhouse, arr 1421
and
1426 Mansfield Woodhouse to Nottingham, arr 1517
Headcodes: 2H04 and 2D04, operated by East Midlands Trains using Sprinter 156404
Distance: 29.75 miles each way

Unlike on weekdays, when Mansfield gets a half-hourly service to Nottingham and hourly to Worksop, on Sundays the service is reduced to just one train every two hours between Nottingham and Mansfield Woodhouse, consisting of one train just shuttling back and forth. As such, if I'd missed my connection at Derby it would have lengthened my day out by two hours...

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

The engineering works at Radford Junction prevented us from taking the normal route - shown in orange on the map above - and instead we went the long way round shown in blue. (For reference, the Midland Main Line is shown in yellow.) Going through Toton was itself relatively rare - most trains between Nottingham and Sheffield run via Radford Junction and Trowell Junction, and avoid Toton. But the section from Ironville Junction to Kirkby Lane End Junction, via Pinxton, was much rarer - the only regular use it gets is by freight trains and a couple of empty stock movements, with passenger trains only using the line when absolutely necessary.

It's clear why it's not normally used: the diversion adds more than twenty minutes to the journey time, and the stations at Bulwell, Hucknall and Newstead are well-used, and the station at Langley Mill is served by Nottingham-Sheffield services. (Oddly, though, the line passes through Ilkeston without having a station there. I wonder why...)

Being diverted, however, meant that our first stop was Kirkby-in-Ashfield. To get there, we headed back the way I'd came, towards the complex of junctions at Trent, turning sharply right at Attenborough Junction to head north through Toton. From there we followed the Erewash Valley, once the Midland Main Line from London to Sheffield, through Trowell Junction and Langley Mill, before turning right at Ironville Junction.

From Ironville Junction we climbed up the hill to Pinxton, at first at 40mph, but slowing once we passed over Pinxton level crossing to crawl at 20mph up to Kirkby-in-Ashfield. The line produced some rather nice countryside views, looking resplendent in the first hints of spring sunshine after what has been a long, cold winter. Once we got to Kirkby-in-Ashfield, normal service was resumed and we called at Sutton Parkway and Mansfield Town before arriving at Mansfield Woodhouse, technically a separate village which has now coalesced into Mansfield proper.

With one train every two hours, I decided not to hang around and after a brief leg-stretch on the platform got back on the train, which left after just five minutes. Having eaten my lunch on the way up to Mansfield, I spent the ride back down the hill to Nottingham enjoying the views. The main difference was that, rather than the engine roaring just to keep to 20mph going up the hill from Pinxton, going down the hill the driver was able to coast most of the way.

While the way up had been fairly quiet, the journey back to Nottingham was slightly busier with people heading into Nottingham for a Sunday afternoon. Thanks to a good run from Attenborough Junction, we arrived into Nottingham a few minutes early (at least according to the public timings), and I trotted over the footbridge to get a train back to Derby and head home.

1522 Nottingham to Derby, arr 1550
Headcode: 2A46, operated by East Midlands Trains using Sprinter 156415*+153321
Distance: 16 miles

An unusual combination of a 156 and a 153 ran this stopping service back to Derby, calling at Beeston, Attenborough and Long Eaton. Long Eaton station is not ideally sited for the town, but it's a case of needing the station to be near the railway line: the obvious place for a station, and indeed the former site of Long Eaton station, is on the Erewash Valley; but there are no regular services on the line between Trent Junctions and Trowell Junction, precluding the possibility of a station there for the time being.

I had another rushed connection at Derby, this time with four minutes to make it from platform 2 to platform 1, exactly the opposite change to what I did three hours previously. Fortunately, the CrossCountry train I was connecting into was a few minutes late, and I made it with time to spare:

1554 Derby to Birmingham New St, arr 1626
Headcode: 1V85, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 220016
Distance: 40.75 miles

The line via Tamworth was only shut until about 15:30 or so, so we were one of the first trains to head south via Tamworth rather than Lichfield. The difference in running time was stark: here we took just 32 minutes to run non-stop from Derby to Birmingham, where this morning we had taken one hour and 8 minutes to do Birmingham to Derby via Lichfield (albeit with an enforced 12-minute stand at Burton-on-Trent). I think many people had decided to leave travelling until later in the afternoon, to avoid the engineering works, because my train was full and standing from Derby, and I was lucky (or, more accurately, quick enough) to get a seat.

In the end we were three minutes late leaving Derby. I had held out hope of making a four-minute connection at New Street onto the next train back to Coventry, but the three-minute delay persisted all the way to New Street, and the doors opened on the dot of 16:29 on platform 10. The 16:30 was leaving from platform 6, and I duly legged it across the concourse at New Street...

1630 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 1650
Headcode: 1B53, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390009
Distance: 19 miles

Made it, again; fortunately it was held for another arrival to make it in from Walsall before it could leave, and we duly left a minute late at 16:31 or so. Given the policy of locking doors about 30 seconds before departure, I doubt I would have made it but for that. Admittedly I could have quite easily made the next train - just four minutes later out of New Street - but making tight connections is always rather satisfying.

It also meant that I arrived home in Coventry before 5pm, and with the lengthening evenings this afforded me the rare privilege of walking home through Spencer Park with the sunset bright on the horizon to the south-west. For one very enjoyable day in February, it almost felt like spring...

Rare Track Days #5: More Doncaster-York Diversions

Not content with travelling on two diversionary routes between Doncaster and York the previous weekend, on Sunday 27th January I set out to tick off a third, much rarer diversionary route. Rather than test Jonathan's hospitality once more, I set out instead on a day trip to York, no small undertaking when it ends up being a 470-mile, 12-hour round trip.

Once again the ECML between Doncaster and York was closed (see the yellow line on the map below), but this time not at Colton Jn, but rather at Shaftholme Jn, rendering both the previous diversionary routes unworkable. While East Coast were being sensible and simply running via Leeds (the blue line), Grand Central were running on a novel diversionary route via Normanton (the orange line).

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

Before I could go on the diversionary route, though, I had to get to either York or Doncaster. Unfortunately, the line between Sheffield and Doncaster was closed, so the easiest way to do it was to go to York, go to Doncaster, come back to York, and head home. To do it all in daylight, I started with the first train of the day from Coventry:

0837 Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 0906
Headcode: 2C99, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350108*+350125
Distance: 19 miles

Because Saturday night and Sunday morning is used as maintenance time on the railways, the first train on a Sunday morning is comparatively late; not that an earlier one is really needed given the small handful of people on my train.

My initial plan had been to try and make a six-minute connection at New Street onto the first train of the day heading to York, in order to have some time in York. If everything had gone to plan, I would have changed once more in Derby for the once-a-day East Midlands Trains service thence to York, which because the Sheffield-Doncaster line was closed was diverted via Pontefract Baghill.

Unfortunately events conspired against me: we lost a few minutes on the way into Birmingham, pulling into the platform three minutes late. However, the signalman had only cleared us halfway down the platform - standard practice at New Street is to use the two halves of the platform separately, but on this occasion we were an eight-car train and wouldn't fit.

I was in the front coach, so I didn't notice this at first; all I noticed was that the doors didn't open. Then we heard "will the guard please contact the driver", presumably so he could ask "am I all on at the back?" The answer clearly having been no, we moved forward and stopped further down the platform.

The doors opened at 09:11, right next to the footbridge; I legged it up and across to platform 10, and ran down the stairs to find the 09:12 was down the other end of the platform. But it was too late; the doors had already been closed, and by the time I got to the back of the train it started to move off.

Having now lost all hope of having more than twenty minutes in York, I bought a sandwich to have for lunch on the train, and waited patiently for the 10:12 train to arrive.

1012 Birmingham New St to York, arr 1326
Headcode: 1S41, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 220016+220027*
Distance: 168.75 miles

With no hope of going via Pontefract Baghill, I was instead condemned to more than three hours on a Voyager from Birmingham to York. Here we were subjected to the wrong kind of diversion: the train was diverted via Leicester, because of engineering works on the mainline between Birmingham and Derby, but I've been that way several times.

Instead of being interesting, it just made the journey to Derby over twice as long: just under 1 hour, 25 minutes for a journey that can take less than 35 minutes. Still a bit tired from the early start, I dozed off for a while.

The one good thing about this particular service was it was double the usual length. Normally CrossCountry only run four- or five-car trains on these long-distance services, but the engineering works south of Birmingham meant they had some spare, and so we ran with two Voyagers coupled together, which meant everyone could spread out a bit more; even when quite a crowd got on at Leeds there was still ample room.

Having eaten my lunch on the train, I disembarked at York and headed over to catch my Grand Central service south to Doncaster:

1352 (actual 1356) York to Doncaster, arr 1445 (actual 1451)
Headcode: 1A61, operated by Grand Central using Adelante 180114
Distance: 46 miles

With the ECML blocked, the East Coast service between Doncaster and York was reduced to hourly and diverted via Leeds. These left at 58 minutes past each hour; the diverted Grand Central service I got slotted in as the 13:52 departure. It was thus the first train to Doncaster for nearly an hour, and was thus quite busy.

Fortunately, I had anticipated this: since I was using a vaguely complicated combination of day returns, I had decided to book my tickets online to save the hassle at the ticket office. While doing so, I reserved seats for the two Grand Central services I was using. Since I was using an anytime day return York-Doncaster, it didn't oblige me to use those services, but it did get me a seat. I thus ended up with a good window seat on an otherwise nearly full train.

The Grand Central diversion used several rare bits of track, two of which I hadn't previously covered. We headed south out of York, going straight on at Colton Jn, through Church Fenton, and straight on to Milford Jn. Here, rather than turning left and heading to Ferrybridge like I did last week, we continued straight on on the line to Castleford. This five-mile stretch of line is used by a handful of Transpennine Express services between Leeds and York as a diversionary route late at night, but I hadn't done it before and was glad to tick it off.

From Castleford we headed towards Normanton and Wakefield Kirkgate (marked K on the map). But just before Kirkgate station, we turned left at Turners Lane Junction, and took the "Turners Lane curve" round to Calder Bridge Junction. This is only scheduled for use by the 2330 Sheffield-Leeds service on a Friday night, but even that doesn't always use it. To get a train doing the curve in daylight was thus a real find.

So rare, in fact, that I wasn't even the only track-basher on the train - I spotted a couple of other people with railway atlases out, clearly intent on getting a train over the rare Turners Lane curve. (I was too shy to try and say hello...)

After the extra-rare track, from Calder Bridge Jn we started on the line to Knottingley, but turned off at Crofton West Jn and headed for the Leeds-Doncaster mainline, which we rejoined at Hare Park Jn. This is regularly used by a few Grand Central services, and I'd done it once before, but it's rare enough track nonetheless.

After nearly an hour plodding round these obscure railway lines, we eventually arrived in Doncaster. With nothing much else to do, I headed over to the other platform and waited for the next Grand Central service back to York, just half an hour away:

1519 (actual 1529½) Doncaster to York, arr 1616 (actual 1625½)
Headcode: 1N92, operated by Grand Central using HST 43465+43484
Distance: 46 miles

Unfortunately an earlier broken down train near Kings Cross had caused some congestion, and our train was running about 10 minutes late by the time it got to Doncaster.

When it arrived, I was glad to see it was an HST, rather than an Adelante: the Adelante from York had been a bit cramped, while this HST was rather more spacious. Grand Central have not heavily refurbished their HST carriages, and they retain their original seats, generously spacious and low-backed for good visibility. What's more, the window seat I'd reserved was on the opposite side of the track, so I got the other view going back.

Otherwise, the journey back to York was much the same; we had to follow a slightly delayed East Coast service to Leeds as far as Hare Park Jn, but once we peeled off to retrace our steps round the Turners Lane curve and back through Castleford there were very few other trains in the area, with Castleford geting just one train every hour.

After nearly an hour we made it back to York, where I had just under fifteen minutes before heading back south again. This time, platform 3 at York was rather emptier, so I hoped the train wouldn't be too cramped...

1640 York to Birmingham New St, arr 1950
Headcode: 1V66, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221122*+220021
Distance: 168.75 miles

As it happens I needn't have worried: once more we had a double Voyager, with nine carriages to spread out in. I found a seat with plenty of legroom in the quiet coach and settled down for the three-hour trek back to Birmingham. While Leeds looked fairly pretty in the late evening twilight, by the time we got to Sheffield it was completely dark outside.

I thus resigned myself to getting some work done, and succeeded in finishing off a few loose ends of mathematics that I'd been meaning to do for a few days. Even so, the journey back dragged on, not helped by a (booked) nine minute stand at Leicester to let an East Midlands Trains service overtake.

After a seemingly interminable trip, we arrived back into New Street. My next train to Coventry would have been the 20:04 CrossCountry service, but the platform was quite busy and I couldn't face any more time on a CrossCountry Voyager, so I waited for the next Virgin Pendolino:

2010 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 2030
Headcode: 1B81, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390011
Distance: 19 miles

After the all-too-familiar run from Birmingham to Coventry, I arrived back in Coventry after a 467.5 mile round-trip, on which I spent nine hours on trains (twelve hours from first train to last train). It was a lovely sunny day of track-bashing, though a rather long one - but worth it for the rare Turners Lane curve.

Rare Track Days #4: The Soon-To-Be-Electrified Parkside East Curve

After an enjoyable evening in Sheffield on the Saturday night, on Sunday 20th I headed across the Pennines to do a short curve of track in Newton-le-Willows, making up the third side of a triangle connecting the Manchester-Liverpool via Earlestown line to the WCML between Warrington and Wigan.

I started with a trip on one of my favourite lines in England, the Hope Valley Line:

1138 Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly, arr 1238
Headcode: 1R38, operated by East Midlands Trains using Sprinter 158862*+158788
Distance: 42.75 miles

After the Woodhead Line closed in 1981, the Hope Valley Line became the main line between Manchester and Sheffield. It criss-crosses the southern Pennines, with three of the longest tunnels in the country: Totley Tunnel, at 3 miles, 950 yards, was the longest in the country (not counting the London Underground or Merseyrail) until the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1) was built in 2007.

Between the tunnels, in the Hope Valley itself, is some of the steepest mountain scenery to be seen anywhere in England; the line hugs the hillside up the valley up to Edale. On a sunny day it makes for some of the most beautiful scenery to be had on any train in England; in the snow, however, it took on a whole other-worldly feel, with little colour other than the brown of the bare trees and the white of the snow, making for a train ride I won't forget in a hurry.

But all good things must come to an end: we emerged from the last of the tunnels in the outskirts of Stockport, calling there before crawling our way into Manchester. I had intended to get a Metrolink tram from Piccadilly station to Victoria station, but there were engineering works, so I did it the old-fashioned way and walked through a fairly quiet central Manchester.

Once in Manchester Victoria, my aim was simple: head to Preston and back. The usual route was closed at Salford Crescent, so a connection from the Manchester-Liverpool line to the WCML between Warrington and Wigan was in use. This map should help:

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

The dark blue line running east-west is the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830. What is now the WCML is marked in yellow, but in fact the green connection from Earlestown to Warrington opened next in 1831, and the orange connection from Parkside Jn to Wigan opened in 1832. The connection from Lowton to Newton-le-Willows only opened in 1847, while the WCML section between Winwick Jn and Golborne Jn opened in 1864.

Nowadays, however, while all three sides of the triangular station at Earlestown are used regularly, the only side of the Newton-le-Willows triangle that is regularly used is the Liverpool-Manchester stretch. I did the west curve (green) a couple of years ago; it's used by a couple of trains a day between Liverpool and Wigan.

However, the east curve (orange) from Parkside Jn to Golborne Jn - once the original line to Wigan - until recently saw no regular services at all. But in just a few years time it will become the main route for Manchester-Scotland trains, which will be diverted away from the busy Bolton corridor in connection with electrification works.

While there are now two trains each weekday over the east curve, they aren't conveniently timed; instead, I waited for a Sunday on which all trains were going that way, because of engineering works at Salford Crescent:

1339 Manchester Victoria to Preston, arr 1431
Headcode: 2N97, operated by Northern Rail using Pacer 142044
Distance: 36.75 miles

Unfortunately, "all" trains going that way meant just two an hour. When you consider that on weekdays the Manchester-Preston corridor gets up to ten trains an hour, it was no wonder that this titchy little two-car Pacer was... a bit busy.

It also had one of the worst seating layouts ever conceived, with all the seats in each coach facing the same direction, having very little legroom, and arranged with three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other. I took a window seat, but came to regret it after nearly an hour crushed into a rather small space.

Nonetheless, I succeeded in doing the soon-not-to-be-rare track. We headed west out of Manchester Victoria, as if for Liverpool, before slowing down for the east curve to take us towards Wigan: it being, as the map shows, quite a tight curve, though, meant we only crawled round it at all of 20mph.

We joined the WCML at Golborne Jn, and all of a sudden our little 75mph Pacer was sharing tracks with the 125mph Pendolinos, over eight times the length. We were, nonetheless, a stopping service, in the sense that we didn't just call at Wigan and Preston, but also at Leyland.

We arrived at Preston on time; with little to do for 15 minutes, I headed over to the other platform to head back the way I'd come:

1447 Preston to Manchester Victoria, arr 1531
Headcode: 1M95, operated by Transpennine Express using Desiro 185132*+185143
Distance: 36.75 miles

Fortunately, this time I was on the Transpennine Express service, a six-car train which had come all the way from Edinburgh, and which was only calling at Wigan. There was thus plenty of room for me to stretch my cramped legs out and have some lunch.

The electrification of various lines in the north-west has been talked about now for about four years, and the line I was using between Golborne Jn and Manchester is first in line for wires. Indeed, it has long been planned that the wires will be up by the end of 2013, with electric trains running by early 2014.

But now that we're getting close to that 2014 date, things have actually started happening on the ground. The north-west electrification is no longer just a part of a budget document and a coloured line on a map somewhere; it's actually happening.

Indeed, the gantries and masts going up quite quickly now: while there was just one small stretch of wire over Ordsall Lane Jn, just outside Manchester, a variety of different types of mast adorned most of the route between Manchester and Golborne, with a few miles in the middle with no masts yet. I look forward to coming back to this route in a year or two's time to get a brand-new electric train.

We had a small hiccup stopping at Wigan North Western: it seems the driver had thought he was only driving a three-car train, but when he pulled up the guard had to say to him "oi, this is a six car!" before he moved forward and released the doors in the correct location. Fortunately that didn't delay us too much.

We arrived back into Manchester Victoria on time, and I wandered back across to Piccadilly. I glanced up at the platform indicator and saw the next train to New Street went from platform 6, and as soon as my eyes caught sight of platform 6 I saw my train just pulling in, having arrived from Birmingham.

1607 Manchester Piccadilly to Birmingham New St, arr 1734
Headcode: 1V63, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 220016
Distance: 82.5 miles

Just as I was about to get on the train, I noticed the train said "Next stop: Stoke-on-Trent". I queried the guard, who said this was correct; on Sundays, half the trains do not stop at Stockport. So I can add Stockport to my list of stations I have passed through non-stop: thanks to my non-stopping Birmingham New Street on New Year's Day, the only stations on the WCML I haven't been through non-stop are Stoke-on-Trent, Runcorn, Preston and Carlisle.

Apart from that, the journey back to Birmingham was fairly quiet. I'd been texting Ian, and it transpired he was getting into New Street just twenty minutes behind me on his way home to Northampton; neither of us much felt like cooking, so I hung around in New Street until he arrived.

The snow, which had held off since Friday night, had started again, so we walked through the snow to Wagamama in the Bullring. After an impressively quick but enjoyable dinner, we walked back up the hill, with the snow now coming down a little heavier, and headed for the next train to Northampton, which was a stopper as far as Coventry:

1914 (actual 1924) Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 1944 (actual 1957)
Headcode: 2Y41, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350232+350106*
Distance: 19 miles

Unfortunately some frozen points at Rugby delayed the inbound service - which had been due in at 18:59 - didn't arrive until 19:16, two minutes after we'd been due to leave. By the time the driver got to the other end and all the passengers got on, we left ten minutes late. We weren't further delayed as far as Coventry, but unfortunately Ian was delayed a bit more getting into Northampton due to the points problem at Rugby.

I made it round and up the steps just in time to make a bus home, saving me the walk home - normally the station is a twenty minute walk, but in the snow it was more like half an hour. After 217¾ miles and over 4½ hours on trains on Sunday alone, I settled down to warm up after a very enjoyable - but rather cold - weekend.

Rare Track Days #3: Doncaster-York Diversions

Over the weekend of January 19th-20th, I set off to do a few interesting bits of track in the north of England, spending Saturday night in Sheffield with my friend Jonathan. The plan had in fact been to head north on the night of Friday 18th, but with six inches of snow falling during the day I thought better of it, and instead headed north on Saturday morning instead, deliberately allowing extra time in case the snow caused problems.

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) between Doncaster and York was shut for engineering works on Saturday, so trains were diverted on a number of lightly-used passenger lines. A large network of railway lines remains in Yorkshire, many of them used principally by freight trains to and from the many coal-fired power stations. This map might help:

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

The normal ECML route between Doncaster and York is marked in yellow, and the two diversionary routes we took are marked in orange and blue respectively.

0911 (actual 0922) Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 0942 (actual 0952)
Headcode: 2Y06, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350257
Distance: 19 miles

While the snowfall had wreaked havoc across the network on Friday night, by Saturday morning the problems were relatively minor. Nonetheless, London Midland's driver problems reared their head again, and my first train to Birmingham was ten minutes late having awaited a driver at Northampton. Even so, I made my connection at New Street without any problems:

1003 Birmingham New St to Sheffield, arr 1117
Headcode: 1S39, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221128
Distance: 77.25 miles

I headed north through Derby to Sheffield. In spite of having travelled this route many times before, the covering of snow made the familiar look new and other-worldly: gone was the normal colour palette of greenery, replaced with a beautiful yet muted spectrum of greys and browns. The snow made for quite a spectacle, particularly as we fringed the eastern edge of the Peak District.

Because of the engineering works, CrossCountry trains were not running via Doncaster, instead running either via Leeds or Pontefract Baghill. While I hadn't done the latter route, I had more important track to do, so I hopped off at Sheffield and wandered down the platform to head to Doncaster:

1141 Sheffield to Doncaster, arr 1214
Headcode: 1W36, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158848
Distance: 19 miles

This Northern Rail train to Scarborough via Hull started out pretty quiet from Sheffield, but rather more people got on at Meadowhall, a major bus and tram interchange to the north-east of Sheffield. We were allowed eight minutes over standard timings to get to Doncaster, with 33 minutes allowed for a journey of just 18 miles; and sure enough, even though we were held outside the station for three minutes, we still arrived in Doncaster five minutes early.

I had arrived in Doncaster with 45 minutes to spare, which I had allowed in case one of the trains had been delayed or cancelled. I found a warm waiting room and read my book. I had no intention of missing my next train, which was the last one of the day to go on this particular route:

1255 Doncaster to York, arr 1327
Headcode: 1N92, operated by Grand Central using Adelante 180105
Distance: 35.5 miles

The section of the ECML between Doncaster and York is a recent addition to the network. Due to subsidence as a result of coal mining on the old ECML through Selby, a new diversion avoiding Selby was built and opened in 1983 to avoid the crippling speed restrictions that would otherwise have been necessary.

The new line branched off the old one at Temple Hirst Junction, and joined the Leeds-York line at Colton Junction. The points at Colton Junction were being renewed, so we branched off the main line at Hambleton, where the new ECML (running north-south) crosses the Leeds-Selby line (running east-west) with connections from north to east - which I did previously - and from south to west.

The south to west connection at Hambleton is rarely used, only being scheduled for use by the 0655 Skipton-King's Cross on Saturdays. Being able to travel on the connection in daylight is thus rather unusual; but on this occasion a few of the Grand Central services - including this one - were diverted over this connection, and then onwards to York via Gascoigne Wood Jn and Sherburn-in-Elmet (see the orange route in the map above).

At Church Fenton, our pair of tracks were joined by another pair of tracks from Leeds, to which we crossed at Colton South Junction. We then passed Colton Junction, where a large body of men were busy removing the old points; it was quite surreal to have overhead wires but no track beneath them!

The diversion only lengthened the usual 25-minute journey between Doncaster and York to just under 35 minutes, and it is certainly the shortest diversionary route available. Nonetheless, for some reason not all the trains were using it, so I made sure to get a train that did.

The train itself was just five carriages long, with Grand Central's usual six-car HSTs replaced on this particular run with a Class 180 "Adelante", a rather unloved fleet of 14 diesel multiple units capable of 125mph shared between Grand Central, Hull Trains and First Great Western. Being only five carriages, it was fairly full, and the only seat with a window that I could find was a conveniently placed tip-up seat next to one of the doors; even so, I managed to eat my lunch.

I had half an hour in York to look round - time enough to buy a magazine - before heading back to Doncaster on a rather different diversion:

1400 York to Doncaster, arr 1450
Headcode: 1E13, operated by East Coast using HST 43320+43257
Distance: 34.75 miles

The vast majority of the diversions were not via Hambleton, but instead used a route via Askern and Ferrybridge shown in blue on the above map. The route via Ferrybridge is a standard diversionary route that drivers are trained on, and that seems to have been the limiting factor: even though this diversion took 50 minutes to get from York to Doncaster, there weren't enough drivers who knew the faster route via Hambleton to run that way.

As far as Ferrybridge, we followed the Dearne Valley line, which was once considered the main line between Sheffield and York. However, the fact that it avoids almost all the major settlements of the West Riding - the only major station being Pontefract Baghill - means that almost all services now run either via Leeds or Doncaster.

We left York almost the same way we came in (crossing at Church Fenton, rather than Colton South Jn), as far as Sherburn-in-Elmet. From there we continued straight on to Milford Junction, where we crossed over to the other pair of tracks: rather than going straight on to Castleford, we curved left and headed towards Ferrybridge.

We crawled along past Ferrybridge power station, leaving the Dearne Valley Line at Ferrybridge North Junction, and used the Knottingley Curve to Knottingley West Junction. This short section of track sees no regular passenger services apart from occasional diversions by East Coast, most of which are in the dead of night; to do the curve in daylight is thus fairly unusual.

At Knottingley West Jn, we briefly flirted with the Pontefract Line between Leeds and Goole, for all of a few metres, before immediately turning off again onto the Askern Line. This ten-mile-long line from Knottingley to Shaftholme Jn, on the ECML proper just north of Doncaster, is normally used only by a few Grand Central services between London and Bradford (which I did last April), and otherwise sees relatively little use.

On this occasion it saw a train every hour between London and Edinburgh. This particular train was, in fact, the "Highland Chieftain", the once-a-day service between Inverness and London. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as busy as the previous train, and I got a nice window seat in the rear coach. Of course, being an HST, there was no underfloor engine noise to put up with, which made the journey all the more pleasant.

We arrived at Doncaster - not normally a stop for the "Highland Chieftain" but a stop today to permit a driver change - a few minutes late; I grabbed a chocolate bar and then hopped on my last train of the day, a stopper to Sheffield:

1503 Doncaster to Sheffield, arr 1541
Headcode: 2P73, operated by Northern Rail using Pacer 144006
Distance: 19 miles

It wouldn't be a trip up north without a ride on a Pacer. Fortunately, as trains made from bus parts go, the 144s are a lot better than the other kinds of Pacer, and though I was somewhat lacking in legroom, the stops passed quickly enough.

All in all, a very successful day in which I bagged two pretty rare connections. After 204.5 miles, and only just over four hours on trains, I met up with Jonathan and spent the night in Sheffield, ready for another day of rare track on Sunday...

Rare Track Days #2: The Smethwick Connection

On Sunday 6th January, I took a day trip to Worcester, to cover just 500m of new track: a connection in the Smethwick area, about four miles west of Birmingham city centre, from the Birmingham-Wolverhampton line to the Birmingham-Stourbridge line.

Wait, why is there a connection between two lines out of Birmingham? Isn't there just a junction? Ah, no, you see there's more than one Birmingham - or at least, more than one Birmingham station. The Wolverhampton line runs from New Street, while the Stourbridge line runs from Snow Hill. The connection allows trains to and from Stourbridge to divert to New Street, instead of Snow Hill.

My afternoon started slightly late with a Pendolino to New Street:

1259 Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 1324
Headcode: 1G08, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390155
Distance: 19 miles

A journey I've done countless times before was livened up by being on 390155, one of the four newly-built Pendolinos added to the fleet in 2012. Although the train left Coventry nearly ten minutes late, we made up a little time and arrived at New Street just four minutes late, unusually coming into platform 1. I headed over to platform 5, to get my train to Worcester:

1345 Birmingham New St to Worcester Shrub Hill, arr 1436
Headcode: 1V17, operated by London Midland using Turbostar 170631
Distance: 35 miles

Trains heading south from Birmingham towards Cheltenham or Worcester normally head down the Lickey Incline via Bromsgrove - the steepest sustained gradient on the network, with nearly three miles at 1 in 37¾. However, for six consecutive Sundays in January and February, there are engineering works at King's Norton, so my train was diverted via Stourbridge, necessitating use of the Smethwick connection.

Other than engineering works, the connection at Smethwick sees very little use, with only a handful of early morning and late night services running that way for route knowledge.

It wasn't always this way, though.

When the connection was built, it was about as much use as it is today - occasionally useful but not vital to the everyday service. The connection was built in 1867 with the rest of the line from Stourbridge Junction to Snow Hill. Although originally operated by the Stourbridge Railway, they were absorbed into the Great Western Railway in 1870, and the Snow Hill-Stourbridge line quickly became part of the GWR's suburban network in Birmingham, which remained almost wholly separate from the former London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) network.

For a hundred years the connection saw very little use. In the 1960s, however, hell-bent on cost-cutting, BR decided to "rationalise" the network around Birmingham. A decision was made to cut costs by diverting all the GWR services onto LMS tracks and into the newly-rebuilt New Street station. This permitted the closure of the line between Smethwick and Snow Hill, achieved by diverting everything from Stourbridge over the Smethwick connection. Use was also made of a connection from Tyseley into the other end of New Street. This meant Snow Hill station could be closed in 1972.

The plan wasn't entirely successful, however: even in the 1960s there wasn't room to divert all the services into New Street station. The intention had been to also close Moor Street station, which lies at the other end of a 600m tunnel from Snow Hill, but Moor Street was forced to remain open to serve local services to Solihull, Leamington and Stratford.

By the 1980s, New Street was getting too busy, and plans were made to undo the closures. First to reopen was the tunnel between Moor Street and Snow Hill, closed in 1968 but reopened in 1987 along with Snow Hill station. The line from Snow Hill to Smethwick reopened in 1995, in one of BR's last schemes before privatisation, and the pre-1960s order was restored. The Smethwick connection remained in case trains needed to be diverted.

When there are engineering works or problems, being able to divert trains is invaluable - it (often) allows a service to continue running rather than having run buses (though on this occasion only London Midland were diverting, and CrossCountry's Birmingham-Cheltenham services were replaced by buses).

My train was to continue to Hereford after reversing at Worcester Shrub Hill, but I had plans for the evening, and so I headed across the footbridge to head back to Birmingham:

1455 Worcester Shrub Hill to Birmingham New St, arr 1539
Headcode: 1M12, operated by London Midland using Turbostar 172334
Distance: 35 miles

The previous train had been a class 170, well-suited to medium-distance inter-regional services such as Birmingham-Hereford. This, however, was a class 172, built in 2010 to replace the class 150 Sprinters on the Snow Hill suburban services, and are usually seen operating all-stations services, not running non-stop from Droitwich to Birmingham. They also have more seats and more standing room, with fewer tables, to enable the maximum number of commuters to be crushed in.

All this is by way of saying: I picked the wrong train to eat a late lunch on, having to eat lunch off my lap rather than a table. Ah well.

Still, the views made up for the lack of tables: as one of the guards commented, "we're going the pretty way to Birmingham". The Lickey Incline, while steep, isn't particularly scenic. However, the line through Stourbridge and Kidderminster is really rather pretty, with views across to the hills of the Wyre Forest.

From Worcester to Stourbridge, we follow the old Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway route, opened in 1852 as the GWR's first mainline to Wolverhampton. But the section beyond Stourbridge is no more; the line through Dudley remains in situ, rusting away, waiting for someone to decide its fate, leaving Dudley as the largest town in the country without a railway station to call its own.

On getting to Stourbridge Junction, we slowed right down to 15mph and squealed our way round the curve onto the Stourbridge Railway. Most of the trains on this line are all-stations suburban trains, and so it was particularly nice to be non-stop on the next section through Old Hill: the Stourbridge Railway also had to get up the Lickey Hills, but did so a little more gradually, with just over a mile of 1 in 51, which we took at a brisk pace.

We stopped briefly at Smethwick to let a train go past in the other direction before turning right and going over the Smethwick connection once more. All of a sudden we emerged from the short tunnel on the connection to see overhead wires again; the Snow Hill lines are not wired, but the Wolverhampton line is, and we joined it at Galton Junction to follow it for just under four miles back to New Street.

1550 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 1611
Headcode: 1B48, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390008
Distance: 19 miles

I joined another fairly quiet Pendolino for the familiar run back to Coventry, to cap off an enjoyable afternoon in which I covered 108 miles for a very reasonable £7.15 day return.

The Smethwick connection may not be the longest or the most interesting bit of rare track out there, but it's one I'd been waiting patiently to do for quite a few years; it also reminds us that every line tells a story.

Rare Track Days #1: Avoiding Wolverhampton

New year's resolution: write more, shorter blogposts.

I've been on many trains over the last few months, but no big multi-day excursions like I usually blog about. Instead I've been on lots of little day trips, most of them to cover a short section of "rare track".

Most of the British railway network is used day in, day out. But there are a few bits of track that aren't used much, or are only used by freight trains. I'm trying to travel on the whole British railway network, so when one of these rarely-used bits of track is called upon for diverting trains, I jump at the chance.

So, here begins a new series of reports about the many little trips I do.

On New Year's Day, I traversed a line which avoids Wolverhampton; it was probably the weirdest day's train travel I've ever done.

Cynics might think that that avoiding Wolverhampton is a good thing; but it's a big enough city that everything stops, and skirting round the edge rather than going through the station is mostly pointless these days. That opinion, however, was not shared by the builders of the Grand Junction Railway, one of the pioneer railway companies of the 1830s who set out to join the country together by rail, by linking the London and Birmingham Railway to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; they saw fit to completely avoid Wolverhampton, giving it only a station at Wednesfield Heath, nearly a mile north-east of the current Wolverhampton station.

The Grand Junction and the L&B shared a station in Birmingham at Curzon Street, a little way east of New Street; only the frontage survives, but you can see it on your right on your way into New Street from the east, just before the tunnels. Their original route from Birmingham through Aston, Perry Barr, Bescot, and Wednesfield Heath survives, but has been supplanted for through traffic by the main line heading west from New Street through Soho, Smethwick, Tipton and Wolverhampton proper.

The original route through Bescot is still used by trains to and from Walsall, but the last three miles through Wednesfield Heath - between Portobello Junction and Bushbury Junction - do not see many regular passenger services, with only some of the London-Glasgow sleeper trains using it (but only on a Sunday night!).

Except on New Year's Day, when engineering works shut the WCML between Rugby and Stafford, and the only option was to divert London-Manchester and Liverpool trains via the original Grand Junction route. Well, that was the plan, anyway...

1151 Coventry to Milton Keynes Central, arr 1219
Headcode: 1B38, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390121
Distance: 44.25 miles

The astute among you will recognise that, from Coventry, Milton Keynes is the other direction to Wolverhampton. Unfortunately, while the trains were being diverted via Wednesfield Heath, they weren't stopping between Milton Keynes and Stafford. So in order to go on a bit of track near Wolverhampton, I had to go to Milton Keynes, in order to go back through Coventry to Stafford, and then repeat on the way home. So off I headed to Milton Keynes, where I had a half-hour wait to change trains.

1251 Milton Keynes Central to Stafford, arr 1416
Headcode: 1F17, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390137
Distance: 91.25 miles

The train from Milton Keynes to Stafford is probably the weirdest train journey I've ever made in my life. As I said, we were booked to run non-stop from Milton Keynes to Stafford. On the mainline via Nuneaton and Lichfield, this would be perfectly normal. But we weren't on the mainline, we were diverted to run non-stop through Coventry, alongside platform 3.

Running non-stop through a station you normally get off or on at is really weird. Admittedly we were following a stopping train, so we only went through Coventry at 40mph, but it was still seriously weird.

From Coventry the plan was that we'd to go along the mainline to Birmingham as far as Stechford, use another little-used bit of track from there to Aston, and then join the old Grand Junction main line through to Stafford. In fact, we were to use exactly the three dashed lines on this map:

Bad news: unfortunately, there was a track circuit failure near Bescot, and so we were unable to run via Wednesfield Heath. (Boo! That was the whole point of going on the train!) Fortunately, a check of Real Time Trains suggested that trains in the other direction were able to run normally, so I crossed my fingers that coming back we'd go through Wednesfield Heath.

Good news: being unable to run via Bescot left us with just one option: go via Birmingham New Street. Since we weren't booked to call, we proceeded through without stopping.

Yes, we went through Birmingham New Street station without stopping. (At the full permitted speed... of 10mph.) That was so weird it was slightly disorienting. I still can't quite get my head around having the line

Bham New St pf 6   13/47½ (!)

recorded in my logbook (where the / means that we passed without stopping). We continued to also run non-stop through Wolverhampton; surprisingly, we arrived at Stafford exactly on time, the diversion through New Street not having cost us any time.

I trotted over to platform 1, and waited for my train back:

1448 Stafford to Milton Keynes Central, arr 1615
Headcode: 1A40, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390006
Distance: 89.5 miles

I joined the train and sat for the next fifteen minutes with my fingers crossed, hoping desperately that we'd turn left at Bushbury Junction and not go back through Wolverhampton. We duly slowed down on approach to Bushbury Junction, consistent with turning left... and we did!

I'd honestly been waiting years to do the three miles of track between Bushbury Junction and Portobello Junction, so finally succeeding had me very nearly singing the Hallelujah Chorus to myself. You see, when they rebuilt the West Coast Main Line a few years ago, and upgraded the line between Rugby and Stafford from two to four tracks, they used the Wednesfield Heath line to divert trains every single weekend for four years. And I missed my chance. So to finally get the chance was super!

Once we joined the mainline at Stechford, instead of crawling along, we were afforded a short burst of a clear run, and accelerated up to 100mph - a speed we kept even through Birmingham International, but approaching Coventry we caught up to a stopping train and slowed down again.

Normally a train non-stopping Coventry towards Rugby would use platform 2; but the Nuneaton shuttle happened to be departing from platform 2, and rather than delay us, the signaller decided to send us across, through platform 3, and back over. So in one day I passed through Coventry platform 3 without stopping... twice!

We duly arrived at Milton Keynes, and I crossed the platform for the next train home:

1628 Milton Keynes Central to Coventry, arr 1733
Headcode: 2Y34, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350267*+350233
Distance: 46.25 miles

It happened that I'd just missed the fast Virgin Trains service, so the best option was to sit on the stopper via Northampton instead. An hour later, I found myself back at Coventry station for the fourth time that day - though only the second time that I'd stopped there...

So, in summary, I spent nearly four and a half hours on trains, travelled over 270 miles, and spent £38.05, just to go on a short bit of track outside Wolverhampton. Was it worth it? Yes, not just for the track; going non-stop through Birmingham New Street is not an experience I'd ever expect to repeat.