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…
