East Midlands Three in Seven: Day Three

Here we are once more. It’s another grey and ever-so-slightly damp day as I wait on Willington station for the 10:25 Cardiff – Nottingham again.

It will be overstating it if I said I’ve “agonised” over the day’s timetable, but I’ve certainly given it a lot of thought. The basic intention is to explore the southern and western extents of the rover ticket. I’ve explored various permutations and the upshot is that if Nuneaton features in the mix in any way, I’ll have a 2½ hour wait in Derby tonight which, frankly, I don’t really want to do. The original plan as I published earlier in this blog has me going anticlockwise and heading for Stoke first. However, I’ve done more-or-less the same journey in that direction before, and don’t really want to wholly retread the footsteps. So it’s looking like heading south, down the Midland mainline to Bedford, east-to-west over to Bletchley, then back north (with an hour in Milton Keynes) to Stoke. Then back over the North Staffs to Derby and home, hopefully, for tea time.

• Willington 10:25 — Derby 10:34
• Derby 11:01 — Leicester 11:23
• Leicester 11:32 — Bedford 12:17
• Bedford 12:55 — Bletchley 13:38
• Bletchley 13:43 — Milton Keynes Central 13:48
• Milton Keynes 14:50 — Stoke on Trent 15:48
• Stoke 16:33 — Derby 17:28
• Derby 18:13 — Willington 18:20

Let’s see how that pans out…

East Midlands Three in Seven: Day Two

Another enjoyable day out on the railways of the East Midlands. As with last Thursday’s spiel, all this is written primarily for my own (future) reminiscence. Anyone else is of course welcome to dig in if you feel so inclined, but it comes with no guarantee of satisfaction….

The plan…

• Willington 10:25 – Derby 10:36
• Derby 11:16 – Sheffield 11:44
• Sheffield 11:53 – Doncaster 12:33 [Northern service Lincoln – Adwick]
• …..or Sheffield 12:24 – Doncaster 13:04 [Northern service Sheffield – Scunthorpe]
• Doncaster 13:37 – Cleethorpes 14:41
• Cleethorpes 15:37 – Grimsby 15:33
• Grimsby 15:45 – Lincoln 16:40
• Lincoln 17:26 – Nottingham 18:30 (option for a stop off in Newark)
• Nottingham 20:40 – Willington 21:17

Read all about it after the break…

East Midlands Three in Seven (Day One)

 Introduction

 

Let me warn you right now: This is not going be a riveting read, especially if you don’t know me and you’ve found this blog by accident. I don’t even really expect any of my family & friends to really get much out of it. Its here primarily for me – or future me – to refer back to whenever.

 

The basis of this mini-adventure is an East Midlands Three Days in Seven Rover rail ticket. You can read all about it here.

 

Meanwhile, what happened on Thursday follows after the ‘more’ break. It was written ‘on the fly’ and edited to try and make it a little more coherent after the fact. Consequently the tense may be all over, and you’ll have to put up with a bit of my ‘inner vernacular’!