RMweb Premium 47137 Posted September 21, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 21, 2014 At the moment I split my time between Edinburgh and Hatfield Peverel, and for the last trip I decided to try the train instead of the usual flying. Here is an account of the return journey, which was on Saturday 20th September. I arrived at Edinburgh Waverley most of half an hour before the due departure time of 10:30. Such is the intensity of use of the station assets, there would be three trains from platform 11 before mine. Edinburgh to Kings Cross is my longest UK train journey, but during my wait on the station I had time to listen to an announcement of the ‘Cross Country’ service to Penzance. Some people had quite marathon of a journey in front of them. Somehow I imagined the train would be in the platform a full ten or fifteen minutes before departure, but instead a member of the station staff arrived with five minutes to go and proceeded to marshal the intending passengers to the applicable parts of the platform according to their seat reservations and class of travel booked. To my delight, this service did not start at Edinburgh, but rather at Aberdeen and so it would be a HST 125 set and 400 miles of express diesel haulage to look forward to. The down journey had been an electric-hauled Mk IV set, which is fair enough I suppose but the wider-bodied Mk III, with the HST seat layout seems about the best we have in the country. I’d pre-booked a first class ticket, and to top this off I landed a solo-style airline seat in a corner of the leading coach. This would be one of the fastest trains I could expect to use in Britain, with just four stops booked at Berwick on Tweed, Newcastle, Darlington and York. Due into London Kings Cross at 14:52. The train rolled out of Waverley at 10:30 sharp, and accelerated briskly, I imagine we had reached 90mph or more by the outskirts of the city. The landscape for the first leg to Berwick is fairly open and nondescript, and the only landmarks I caught were some glimpses of the A1 trunk road (a single carriageway here) and open views of the coast and sea. I would expect the drive from Edinburgh to Berwick by car to take rather more than an hour, and so when we arrived barely 40 minutes after setting off I started to realise just how fast this train would be. I opened a basic GPS application on my smart phone and then, after leaving Berwick, I watched the speed of the train simply rise to 120 mph and hold this for mile after mile. A slack to 100, then 110 for a while, then 120 again. It seemed the driver was keeping this 450-ton train within one mph of the line limit with consummate ease and I suppose making the most of a relatively quiet length of railway. The train slowed to a precise 85 through Alnmouth, then 45 for the significant left-hand bend at Morpeth. And, at 11:56, we rolled to a stop at Newcastle. The train doors remained locked here for a little while, and we did not set off until 12:07, seven minutes behind schedule. As we got underway, we were told the unlocking had been delayed to allow the Police to attend the train. You can insert your own explanation here. Progress to Darlington was mostly 105 to 110 mph. The biggest landmark on this leg is Durham cathedral. We passed through Durham at 75 mph, so I didn’t see it for long. The stop at Darlington was from 12:32 to 12:36, clearly minimal to make up some of the time lost at Newcastle. There is a large sign reading ‘Edinburgh 200 miles’ about four miles north of York, and we passed this sign at 12:57. Taking off the three station stops of 5, 11 and 4 minutes to give 128 minutes of running time, this equates to an average speed of around 94 mph. I had a tantalising glimpse of the National Railway Museum as we reached York at 13:02. This was an even briefer stop, leaving at 13:05 but still six minutes behind schedule. We had just 1 hour and 47 minutes available to cover the 188 miles to Kings Cross and still arrive on time. We reached a steady 110 mph, and crossed a construction site for a major new road at 13:25 (Rossington), then over another railway at 13:32 (Retford), and Newark crossing at 13:41. We passed a stationary intermodal with a class 66 in a lay-by loop, and then stormed through Peterborough at 14:05. One hour exactly York to Peterborough, from a standing start, an average of 112 mph. Five minutes later the speed had reached 125 mph, and some familiar station names ripped past: Sandy at 14:21, Stevenage (I think) at 14:29; and through the two tunnels at Welwyn in 18 and 8 seconds respectively. Welwyn itself at 14:33 was the last station passed at over the ‘ton’ (114 mph), and we had slowed to 98 mph for Alexandra Place at 14:42. The brakes went on at Harringey (14:43) and we slowed to a stop just north of the Copenhagen tunnels at 14:47. 187 miles in 1 hr 42 min, giving a start to stop average speed of exactly 110 mph. We were too early. We waited two minutes (which seemed to last an eternity) and set off again. We rolled to a halt beside Kings Cross platform 1 at 14:51:50, ten seconds to spare. I took an underground train to Liverpool Street and then cradled a beer for 45 minutes before boarding the 16:02 service to Ipswich. This was formed by a class 321 set scheduled to call at Stratford, Shenfield and Chelmsford, and then all stations to Ipswich. It ran at a steady 82 mph from Stratford to Shenfield, passed through Ingatestone at 75 and saw a fleeting 90 on the final leg from Chelmsford, before slowing for Hatfield Peverel and delivering me at 16:39. Dead on time. - Richard. Edited 22 Sep 14 to add the names of Rossington and Retford. Edited 22 Sep 14 to append advertised timings, in case someone is reading this a few years from now: Aberdeen d 07:52 Stonehaven d 08:10 Montrose d 08:33 Arbroath d 08:49 Dundee d 09:07 Leuchars d 09:21 Kirkcaldy d 09:45 Inverkeithing d 10:01 Haymarket d 10:20 Edinburgh Waverley d 10:30 Berwick-Upon-Tweed d 11:13 Newcastle d 12:00 Darlington d 12:29 York d 12:59 London Kings Cross a 14:52 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 You mean it wasn't a "typical" overcrowded journey with a dirty, late running train? Most journeys I've done have been in clean but rather crowded trains, and usually on time give or take a couple of minutes, usually on the Marsh line from Ham Street to Brighton, with a change there to Portsmouth Harbour. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 47137 Posted September 25, 2014 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted September 25, 2014 You mean it wasn't a "typical" overcrowded journey with a dirty, late running train? Most journeys I've done have been in clean but rather crowded trains, and usually on time give or take a couple of minutes, usually on the Marsh line from Ham Street to Brighton, with a change there to Portsmouth Harbour. Well ... I think there are three things here... Cleanliness: The parts of the London train I saw had been prepared to a high standard. However, because the trolley service was so good (and the coffees so plentiful!) I never ventured beyond the few yards from my seat, at the trailing end of the first coach, to the two vestibules behind it. The seat and the table were clean and in good condition, tho' I don't know how many times this stock has been refurbished. I saw HST power cars on test back in around 1975-1976. Overcrowding: Coach M was perhaps 85% full. My seat had been booked from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, then me from Edinburgh to London. I'd say this was a good use of assets. I get the feeling East Coast try to sell everyone a seat reservation, and I would imagine anyone setting off on a four+ hour trip would want to have a reservation. I didn't see anyone standing, and the overhead luggage racks had lots of space, but my view of the train was limited. Timeliness: I suppose anyone using Newcastle, Darlington or York will have seen the train to be "late". I don't know why the Police attended the train, but we could guess it was to meet one or more passengers; and either the staff of East Coast or the Police themselves found the visit to be necessary. The timetable seems to suit the train performance, with enough slack to recover one seven-minute delay, with a bit to spare, over the whole journey. The Ipswich train was punctual and not at all crowded. The interior was very worn, but it gets a much more intense foot fall than the HST. - Richard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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