'Mission Impossible' Succeeded
 

Hi everyone, I am back on here since 'railway escapade 11' which I am pleased to say despite what looked like an almost impossible challenge, I managed to do it and got the photos I was after.

So, what was it about? Well, as I said in the Night Shots thread, I panned to travel over 300 miles of rail between Edinburgh and the East Midlands. However, I kept the beginning part a secret, here is what happened, John was the closet with the guess. I flew to Edinburgh from Nottingham East Midlands Airport with the fantastic BMI Baby. I just have to say how wonderful this experience was. I got in my opinion the best seat onboard on the front row with a window, and there were some absolutely stunning views of sunrise when we reached 2400 feet, but I really enjoyed the view of Forth Bridge as we landed.
The reason I decided to do this was because I had read comments on the fact that photography was a much easier task at airports compared to the railways with all of these barriers and staff stopping us. So I decided to try this out for myself and see just which one is easier. I can say now that photography at airports is just as big a task as at rail stations despite what people say. I have to say thanks to the BMI Baby onboard staff, who I guessed saw the flash on the camera go off, but had no problem with me taking photos and were really friendly.

After a few hours in Edinburgh and then it was onboard the 13:00 GNER (91128 pusing) as far as Newcastle. I had purposely reserved a seat so that I would fact the left side of the train, and luckily the train was in the formation I expected and I got some great views along te Berwick route. However, not far from Morpeth we had stopped for some time. Then there was an announcement saying that there were some signal problem in the York area, and we were in a que behind 2 other trains, however to be honest it wasn't bad at all, more time onboard the GNER and I got myself a nice hot meal from the menu (wonder if NX will keep to a similar food menu like the great one GNER has :D ).

Then after just under 2 hours on the 225, we arrived at Newcastle, then it was a wait until the 15:24 Virgin for my final Virgin Cross Country journey. In came 2 joint voyagers ;) 220005 & 220030. I joined on the back voyager which was much quiter than the front, though without an open shop. The service powered down south, and day turned to night as we arrived in the York area. However, after departing the voyager came accross a problem just outside of Meadowhall as it was stopped and reduced speed due to vandalism! The Voyagers finally arrived at Derby at 18:45, and that concluded my last Virgin XC journey. After this it was onto the final Southbound MML HST back to where I had began the escapade.

How pleased I was to have completed such a huge adventure, it was definitely worth the incredibly early start and is a perfect end for this years railway escapades.

The escapade is expected to be called 'The Edinburgh Astonisher' and the photos will be on my site later than usual by this Saturday. The reason for this is that I want to do some enhancement to some of the photos. It will be worth the wait. :D

It's good to hear that you had such an enjoyable trip David.
I hope you're not going to abandon rail in favour of flying :D

I think it all depends on the length of the journey. I think that rail is better when it comes to travel for over several hours, when you can go to the buffett and get some great food, and enjoy the sights as you travel, also I was lucky on the flight since the seat opposite me was empty, I am sure some people on here might have had the problem of being sat next to not so pleasant passengers on trains or planes. On trains you can move to a different seat (well unless you have a value advanced ticket :D ).

Though I think the ideas raise a couple of issues about the current railway network. All of this talk of taking out shops and buffetts, and having less seats is going to make the railways more unpleasant for travel, all for the need to speed up services to make better competitors against air travel.

In my opinion this should not be the case. Aircrafts go at 600mph and railways won;t ever reached speeds like this any time soon, I think they railways are good for the fact that you can have a pleasurable, relaxing journey which is enjoyable for several hours. I just hope the railways keeps this and does not go in favour of trying to fill every seat (and standing passengers) and have no catering in an attempt to speed up journey times.

My photos are now up:

http://davidhicks.fotopic.net/c1409390_1.html
http://thumbs.fotopic.net/334046000695.jpg http://thumbs.fotopic.net/338046000695.jpg

Thanks for sharing your pictures David.
Do you intend repeating the journey sometime in the future to see what changes the new franchises have made?

Thats an interesting idea. I might do when the new franchises have fully implemented themselves onto the network (with new liveries, interiors, ticketing systems, catering, e.t.c.). Next year I will have an almost brand new looking network to use :D .

Well done David, that must have been a very interesting day out. Had a look at the photos and they made up a nice story of your day. What next ???

Chris.

Well done David

Thank you, great when it all works out. For now that is it for this year (too cold and busy on the network during the Winter :D ). Got a long time to think out plans for next year :D .