Sit down and relax

That’s the beauty of a train day. Solitude, no responsibilities - just me, camera, notebook and the trains. I’ve planned my itinerary. I’m in good time at the station. This is my “go to” comfort zone - usually.

The ticket machine on the station is still not working, so I ring up customer services. “We know about this”, the voice answers. It’s been on their “to do” list since the11th of January, apparently. In spite of this, I already feel slightly uncomfortable. I haven’t got a ticket before travelling and I’ve got to explain myself again to the conductor. Just like last time, the conductor doesn’t appear before we arrive - five minutes late, this time - into Nottingham. Just like last time, I collar the ticket man as I get off and just like last time, he tells me his ticket machine is not working properly. I have three minutes to catch the connection to Leicester.

“Tell them on board the train”, he says. I walk down the St Pancras-bound express in search of the conductor, who is nowhere to be seen. I stand in the vestibule between carriages A and B so I can see someone coming, as its only twenty minutes until I get off again. No one comes. When I alight, I go straight to the conductor who has suddenly appeared as if from nowhere on the station platform. I explain that this is the third time I’ve tried to buy a ticket. She has no time for this now, she tells me, as the train is ready to leave. “There’s a booth at the top of the stairs. You can buy your ticket there”, she adds, showing just a smidgeon of irritation at being asked about it at all.

“I’ve come from Lowdham”, I blurt out as I embark on my fourth attempt in an hour to buy a travel ticket, but the lady on the other side of the counter senses my exasperation and smiles. “Don’t worry”, she says, and within seconds I’m clutching my passport to the rest of my supposedly carefree day at the still very reasonable price of £10.05 [accompanied by a senior railcard].

And relax!

I know it was irrational. It was their fault not mine. I was in good faith. I was not trying to evade payment. I would not have been subjected to a £100 fine. But I still felt uncomfortable to the extent that I couldn’t enjoy myself fully until it was resolved.

The rest of the time went better than expected. I’d been drawn to a return to Leicester again by a notice on YouTube of the arrival at the depot two days earlier of five Class 68s, three of which would be new to me. In fact, one had already disappeared, but I copped two and got my first look at a new Class 99, No. 99003. The three additional Class 66 cops were the unexpected icing on the proverbial cake.

A young boy came up to me on platform three. He must have been about ten years old. “Are you a trainspotter?” he asked. I smiled and admitted that I was. The evidence was conclusive, after all – warm coat and woolly hat for standing around in the cold, notebook and pen at the ready, well-thumbed loco-shed book alongside me on the bench and a tatty old rucksack that is now reserved for this very purpose. His mum, with an American accent, explained that he was already hooked on trains and that they were wondering where the best places would be to go to see them. They had come down on the train from Loughborough, so I offered hem Derby, Peterborough, Doncaster and Nuneaton as being within relatively easy reach. She mentioned Birmingham, but I think I managed to put her off that subterranean nightmare of a station. I should have added Stafford and Crewe, of course, but they already had plenty to go on. As they thanked me and turned away, I said that watching trains had given me a lifetime’s pleasure and that I hoped he would find similar enjoyment, too. It was a really heartwarming moment.

Then it was back to the business of extracting gentle pleasure from observations in amongst the usually fairly mundane happenings on the national rail network. The 12.36 to Sheffield was cancelled because “more trains than usual are needing repair at the same time”. Well, that was a first and who would have thought it. Sidings around the country are bulging with underused and withdrawn rolling stock, yet the feeling you often get is that the operating companies are constantly teetering on the edge of the resources necessary to run a railway and therefore repeatedly getting caught out with a shortfall when something goes wrong. What it comes down to is not enough employees or multiple units on stand-by. Maybe East Midlands Railway could also take another look at their ticket machines, both those carried by the conductors and the ones on the platform, if they are really interested in improve their image. 

  

 

Doncaster in the Rain

After timetable changes, the 10.49 from Retford to Doncaster is now a Hull Trains service and no longer the previously rostered Class 91 hauled train to York. The booking office at Retford is obviously part of LNER, so I made a point of checking that my anytime day return ticket is valid on other companies’ departures, which I was assured was the case. The ticket only states that it is “valid via any permitted route”, which is not quite the same thing as any permitted companies’ services, nor does it list which ones are “permitted”, either.

The 7 Class 60s recently parked in warm storage at Doncaster Down Decoy yard were partially blocked off by two rakes of wagons as we slowed in the approach to the station, so no photo opportunities there then. I caught a glimpse of them, including the four that were new to me, leaving me with just four more to track down before they, too, run out of work to do on the national network.

On the recently re-landscaped pedestrian approach to Doncaster station is the sculpture “Building Speed”. It celebrates the more than 2,000 locomotives built at Doncaster locomotive works, known as “The Plant”. The collaborative piece initiated by Doncaster Council and installed by CB Arts includes a series of vertical rails inscribed with the names of some of the locomotives built in the town that had carried the names of various winners of the St Leger.

Back inside and out of the rain, the footbridge across the platforms had disappeared since my last visit, though part of it still remains on the west side to allow footplate staff to cross the lines to the sidings and stabling point adjacent to the station.

Doncaster remains its usual busy self with passenger trains, but there is also enough of a freight locomotive mix to keep me interested. At the platform end, I waited patiently while two avid spotters called out the numbers of individual container wagons into their phones. When the train had passed, I asked what the number of the Class 70 was that had just disappeared to the north, light engine. They couldn’t tell me, as the loco did not have its number on the side. I felt a little puzzled by the situation in which wagon numbers had assumed an immediately greater importance than locomotives, but I suppose my own affliction in this direction is really only a matter of scale. I don’t even bother with unit numbers these days, never mind carriage numbers. There are just so many of them. I’d be getting a cricked neck or vertigo by merely trying to record them all. I’ll reserve my passion for actual locomotives, which I find is quite enough to be going on with.

I went elsewhere to discover the identity of the Class 70. “01” said the first person I asked. “001?”, I asked in reply, as there is a second series of Class 70s, starting with 801. He confirmed this with an unconvincing nod, and my suspicions turned out to be justified when No. 70801 eventually pulled into view again. Freightliner yellow doesn’t wear well unless you are going to wash it fairly regularly, I decided, reminding myself at the same time to put my high-vis cycling jacket through the eco-wash programme when I got home. 

     

First train day of the year

I’m in good time at Lowdham station. Last time, it took me ages to work out my requirements on the only ticket machine and it still wouldn’t give me a railcard deduction on my return journey. This time the screens are completely blank. As there is no sign of life, I ring the adjacent help point. I am directed to “Just board the train and tell the conductor the machine is not working”. By the time we reach Nottingham, where I change for Leicester, the conductor has not put in an appearance, so I go to find him. “Go out of the station and buy a ticket at the ticket office”, he says, but I’ll miss my connection if I do that. “I’ll just see if I’ve got a charge on my ticket machine, then”, which unsurprisingly, he has. I nice relaxing start to my day out, then. I’m only here for a bit of unhurried and unworried gentle escapism, after all. Leicester station is as busy as usual. Loads of purposeful business people wait for the London trains. Many are engaged in earnest conversations via their headsets, “The only thing I’d say is two things….”, is a noticeably loud offering that makes me smile. The train back from Leicester is late leaving and signal-checked all the way into Nottingham, by which time I’ve missed the Lowdham train by three minutes and have an hour’s wait, instead. Not the most straightforward of journeys but I didn’t care a bit. I had enjoyed a few hours of mindlessness on Leicester station and even got quite excited when Class 60 No. 60028, which I had not seen before, crept out of the depot before reversing back in and onto another siding. Some new Hitachi Aurora sets were in service with others being tested out. There was no sign of the new Class 99s, unfortunately, but I can wait. In fact, I’m already looking forward to trying again before long. Perhaps they’ll have fixed their platform ticket machine by then, as well. 

   

GCR Winter Steam Gala January 2026

The trains were solid on the Saturday of the gala, which was the best of the 4 days, weatherwise. With 3 visiting engines and regular freight movements, including the oil tanks and the wind cutter set, it was the usual rapid action that we have come to associate with GCR gala days. The only stretch of double track main line on any heritage railway in the country really is the GCR’s own distinctive USP.

Shed Bash

We didn’t refer to it like that in the old days, though it has become spotters’ common parlance since those times. I don’t think we did, anyway. Mists of time, etc. The forecast was for light cloud, which actually turned out to be thoroughly overcast, dark and dismal all day. Additionally, that was an all-day in which whatever daylight could be mustered for photos ended shortly after four. Undetered, I set out on my intended circular tour.

Realtime Trains suggested a light engine movement to Worksop that I could photograph in the station, so I timed my departure accordingly. As I was in good time, I chose instead to go straight to Tesco’s car park where, round the back of the superstore, you get the best view of whatever is being parked outside the Swietelsky maintenance depot. Currently, it is playing host to the first ten Class 93 Stadler-built tri-mode locomotives [electric, diesel and battery] manufactured in and shipped from Spain, whilst they undergo tests on the national network.

The whole concept of bunking round the sheds like we once did is consigned to the dim and distant past. Motive power depots today are guarded fortresses, surrounded by unsightly and off-putting palisade fencing. Spotters are left with two alternatives – lurking near the main gates in the hope of a glimpse of something, or locating a nearby spot where you can get a partial view of the facility. In Worksop, this means round the back of Tesco’s.

I’m immediately joined by a bloke in his car who draws up next to mine. It turns out he is a former employee at the depot and has even been invited to witness a naming ceremony for two diesel shunters this very afternoon. I’m encouraged to see that there are 5 Class 93s present and just visible through the barrier of trees, which as the gentleman points out, are rather more of a problem in summer.

The Class 37 from Derby is now set for an early arrival so I stay put to take my photo of No. 37607 from the same place, as it does a zig-zag approach on the up line, reverses onto the down line at the station and then reverses again to access Worksop Down Yard and the entrance to the sheds, where a high-vis clad operative is waiting to switch the points by hand. We are joined in time to see the action by another two like-minded blokes who are on more of a marathon day trip taking in Leeds Midland Road, which they have already been to, then on to Toton, which is where I’m heading next, before taking in Derby and Burton, at least, before the light fades on them completely.

There they are again on the bank at Toton. The bank is made of boulder clay and it has been raining a lot recently. The paths are all a sticky quagmire and my shoes and the legs of my tri-pod are already decorated with the red mud. My old telescope has a loose eyepiece and I have difficulty focussing it at all, but it’s still useful when it decides to play ball, because Toton depot is some way away over the intervening tracks and sidings. My companions are relying on binoculars and I’m able to help them with a trio of otherwise indecipherable, stored Class 60s.

I complete my round trip after a meal deal at the nearby Morrisons supermarket with a nose into Colwick’s depot on the other side of Nottingham. The light engine movement I’d hoped to intercept on the way at Netherfield had gone past by the time I’d extricated myself from a snarl-up on Main Street. I’d noticed by then that there was no suitable parking space available anywhere near the station, anyway, so that would have been a tricky one to reach in the first place. The depot entrance at Colwick is in an unwelcoming and unsurfaced off-road car park with plenty of large pot holes and puddles, where I stayed long enough to note the two long-term stored locos that were visible, Class 56 No. 56087 and Class 60 No. 60057. Then I went home to sponge the clay off my footwear with a bucket full of warm water.         

Charing Cross

I had never set foot in Charing Cross station, and so having just missed a bus to King’s Cross on the Strand, we took a few minutes to have look round. The gates and cobbled forecourt still provide access from the main road. The imposing Charing Cross Hotel dates from 1865, a year after the station itself was opened by the South Eastern Railway. The ground floor is now a row of retail outlets. In 1986, a vast new complex, Embankment Place, was erected over the roof and the tracks in the approach to Hungerford Bridge. Southeastern now operate the suburban services that head over the river towards Kent and Sussex.

   

Leicester, by train

Prompted by the Leicester and East Midlands Open Art Exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery and the added attraction of a possible sneak preview of 4 new Class 99s in their shiny new depot, we had a day out in Leicester. The Stadler-built 99s were wrapped up tight in their purpose-built shed with the doors firmly shut, so no easy cops for me there. The art display, however, was many and varied with a few interesting items spread over two large gallery spaces. The only railway-related offering was Sidney Jordon’s Ben’s Hut, a watercolour on paper, which was still available, it seems, at a modest £60. It shows a Midland Railway Johnson Class 2F 0-6-0, No. 52898, about to pass a platelayer’s hut and a wayside crossing, once Ben gets out of the way. I thought it was a nice scene, but without any stand out features that might have attracted any of the star prizes, from a technical point of view. The loco’s wheels look a little wobbly, for a start. The museum is being done up at present, though the dinosaur section is open and reminded me of the local importance of various significant finds within the Midlands fossil record.

We wandered off down New Walk and found the absolutely excellent Bread and Honey café nearby, for lunch. Leicester is steeped in history, whether it’s the Guildhall, the markets, the cathedral with its Richard III connections, or as the home of the tourism pioneer, Thomas Cook, remembered in a statue outside the station, and more recently, the near miraculous 2015/6 Premiership win of Leicester City by ten clear points. I’ll have to come again when the doors are open, though, to get my 99s.