Rover ticket day 2/3

I'd struggled to pick 2 days that I could go out travelling within a week of my previous trip due to socials at Uni, so I decided to go out on a Sunday for a few hours before a social in the evening. Yes, I know, socials on a Sunday? The thing was, I've been a member of the UoN Salsa team over my time at uni and we were all going to one of the city's many salsa nights, which took place at a bar on a Sunday night every week. Another thing to bear in mind was I have been living in catered accommodation at uni for 3 years and I made the final decision to go out too late to order a packed brunch for the morning (we got breakfast and dinner in hall Mon-Fri with money to spend on our meal card to purchase lunches, whilst at the weekend we got brunch and dinner). This basically meant that I had between 11.30am and 6pm to leave my accommodation, go out on the trains, and get home to get changed for my social. I therefore planned to stay relatively local to Nottingham, and made this the Nottingham-Tamworth-Stoke-Derby-Nottingham day.

I went down to eat Brunch as early as I could (11am) and left my accommodation straight afterwards to head to the railway station. The first train of the day was heading for Cardiff Central via Birmingham new Street operated by CrossCountry. The limitations of my East Midlands 3 in 7 day Rover ticket didn't allow me to head into Birmingham itself, so I alighted at Tamworth, where I made my way down from the high-level platforms to the low level ones (which took me a minute to figure out where I was going).

I then boarded a London Northwestern Railway service to Stafford,before changing for another train to take me to Crewe via Stone.

On arrival at Stoke-on-Trent, I had a wait of approximately 35 minutes, so got a drink and sat in the waiting room. I must admit it's quite nice in there. I've sat in there on a previous occasion, when I had a 55 minute wait for a train having missed one by just 5 minutes on the way back from a Salsa Dance competition at Keele University a couple of years ago. Whilst it seemed to take a while for my drink to be made, I really enjoyed it. It was some sort of chocolate frappe if I remember correctly, full of sugar to keep me going until I met my friends at like 7.30pm.

From here, I simply boarded the train to Derby, where I changed for a CrossCountry service back to Nottingham. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from this stretch of the journey as my phone battery ran out and I'd forgotten to take my portable charger with me, but it was a nice station. My connection at Derby was easy as well and I made it home without any issues. The phone battery issue I had on this day is a brilliant example of why, even if I'm sent an e-ticket as a pdf, I will always print a paper ticket off on journeys, albeit I hadn't ever actually used an e-ticket before around 7 months after this incident occured.

Stations visited: Blythe Bridge, Lichfield Trent Valley, Longton, Rugeley Trent Valley, Stafford, Stoke on Trent, Stone, Tamworth, Tutbury and Hatton and Uttoxeter.

Station Count: 164

I'll leave this here I think as the next day I travelled was most certainly on the longer side of things and to put the two trips together would make an exceptionally long day.

The first big trip....

After coming up with the idea for GirlonRails, I had a few weeks to wait before I could get out on the trains again due to uni commitments and exams, but in June I did 3 days within the space of a week travelling around the East Midlands on a 3 in 7 day Rover ticket. The way Nottingham University's terms work is that we have 2 weeks between the end of our summer exams and the end of term, where there are various award and celebration events taking place, so whilst I couldn't physically go home until the end of this period I had plenty of time free to be able to travel. I'd hoped to do the same this year but coronavirus happened.

So, to day 1 - 6th June 2020. This was the Nottingham-Bedford-Bletchley-Coventry-Leicester-Sheffield-Worksop-Nottingham day. It was a long day. A very long day. I left home at 8.30am to make my way to Nottingham station, via a quick stop at Greggs to buy breakfast and lunch for the day. I then bought my ticket and made my way onto the first train of the day, which was bound for London St Pancras. I couldn't actually go that far though due to my rover ticket only being valid as far as Bedford, and that is where I alighted, having ticket off a number of the stations on the Midland Main Line.

I had been keen to do the Bedford-Bletchley Marston Vale line for a while at this point and the new trains (the class 230 D trains, formerly London Underground District line D78 stock) had entered service a few weeks before this trip so I was particularly excited for my next train, even though I had a 25 minute wait at Bedford for it to arrive. Before long, I was on the move again and heading for Bletchley on the D-train. It was quite strange to see the transformation of the D78 stock, which I had used in London just before they were replaced, but I did like the class 230 and think similar transformations are a good way to re-use these trains. I know this is what is meant to be happening on the Isle of Wight and, once the new service has been introduced, I will be planning on going over to the island to check the new rolling stock out.

At Bletchley, I changed onto another train for the single stop up to Milton Keynes central. My plan had been to change here and then at Northampton, but I found a single train which stopped at all stations between Milton Keynes and Coventry, so took this instead. At Coventry, I changed for a train towards Nuneaton, where I boarded a CrossCountry service to Leicester via Hinckley. I had debated going in towards Birmingham itself, but the validity of my rover ticket prohibited this. I even had time to buy a drink at Starbucks in Coventry station, on which they nearly spelled my name correctly.....

At Leicester, I boarded a East Midlands Trains (now EMR) Meridian up to Sheffield, calling at Derby on the way. I'd never actually travelled in Standard Class on a Meridian (with the only trip I'd made on one being on an extremely cheap first class fare) and I was pleasantly surprised. I often use EMR to travel between Nottingham and London but by booking advance fares can often get a first class ticket at around lunchtime for less than £20, which by the time I've had a couple of drinks and a snack, is well worth the slightly more expensive ticket. It also saves me from having to carry a bottled drink with me when I have loads of luggage on the way home from/back to uni, which means my lunch can fit in my laptop case and handbag.


By the time I arrived in Sheffield, It was approaching 5pm and I decided to grab myself some dinner before I continued my journey, so headed for the station's trusty Burger King restaurant.

I then headed back onto the platforms to get back on the trains, this time with Worksop being my destination. I was very disappointed on my arrival at the platform to find that a pacer was in, not because I hate them, but because the pacer was not my train. I'd always wanted to have a ride on them because, being  a southerner I'd simply never had the opportunity. Alas, when my train arrived it was not a pacer, but I still boarded it, vowing to ensure that I rode a pacer when I returned to Sheffield later that week. Unfortunately for me, the connection to the Nottingham train gave me a 40 minute wait at Worksop station, although there are certainly less pretty stations to wait at.

From there, I boarded the train down the Robin Hood Line to Nottingham, where I headed home for the night. As we left Worksop there was even an Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) unit in a siding!

Stations Visited: Aspley Guise, Bedford (Midland), Bedford St John's, Bedworth, Bermuda Park, Bletchley, Bow Brickhill, Bulwell, Coventry, Coventry Arena, Creswell (Derbyshire), Derby, Fenny Stratford, Hinckley, Hucknall, Kempston Hardwick, Kettering, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Langwith, Lidlington, Long Buckby, Mansfield Town, Mansfield Woodhouse, Millbrook (Bedfordshire), Narborough, Newstead, Northampton, Nuneaton, Ridgmont, Rugby, Shirebrook, Stewartby, Sutton Parkway, Wellingborough, Whitwell, Woburn Sands and Worksop.

Station count: 154

I think I'll leave this here, but over the next couple of posts I'll be telling you about the rest of my travels over that summer.

More recent history.....

Since looking at Universities I didn't really use the trains that much until 2019, other than the trip to York I mentioned a few weeks ago, and the termly trip home from university for the holidays. In fact, I only did uni twice a year because we had to clear all of my stuff out and it needed a full car plus a roofbox (plus me bringing at least 1 suitcase of stuff home at Easter). What can I say? I'm not a very light packer. Plus I need summer/autumn clothes in September but I need winter stuff too, so it's complex. Side note - when coming home for the current pandemic I filled a car.... and there's probably at least the same amount left in Nottingham.

Anyway, there was one trip in April 2018 where I ticked off some more stations, albeit before I officially started this thing. I went to Birmingham with family for a few days and we happened to use a section of the cross-city line, between Birmingham New Street and Redditch to the South, and north as far as Aston. Although we did it in a few different sections.

The day we arrived (I think it was a Thursday), we checked into the hotel before going to Cadbury World. We didn't actually go to Cadbury World, we just went to the Cafe and the Shop because it was like 3.15pm before we got there and we didn't have time to go again (plus we'd actually done Cadbury by road literally the year before). To do this, we got the train between Birmingham New Street and Bournville (and back again). The next day, we went to visit family who live in the area, getting the train to Redditch to see them for lunch before returning to our hotel in Birmingham city centre. We did a couple of things in the city centre itself, including the Thinktank science museum on this trip as well. On one day, we ventured up to Aston on the train from New Street to visit Star City, an entertainment complex on the northern edge of Birmingham, very close to Spaghetti Junction and the M6. We went bowling and did mini golf and had an apple pie from McDonalds for lunch. Seriously. If I remember correctly, we'd had a big breakfast in the hotel that day and were planning on going back for dinner so didn't want something too big for lunch. Why we chose apple pies, I'm not sure. Probably because if we'd ordered saver menu burgers we'd have all wanted to remove various bits. Yes, I'm the worst offender. If I order any burgers with sauces or pickles on them I remove them on the touch screens.

Stations Visited: Alvechurch, Aston, Barnt Gree, Birmingham New Street, Bournville, Five ways, Longbridge, Kings Norton, Northfields, Redditch, Selly Oak and University.

A year later, in April 2019, I found myself in Birmingham overnight with some friends from University. We had early morning tickets booked to Cadbury world for a Monday morning at the start of our Easter vacation and had decided to make the most of relatively cheap hotel rooms available on Sunday nights and travel to Birmingham on the Sunday immediately beforehand. A lot of my friends wanted to go to the world's largest Primark, which had opened in Birmingham city centre only a couple of weeks before we went, but I decided to go and visit a train which had intrigued me for a couple of years, ever since watching All the Stations in 2017. That train of course being the class 139 Parry People Mover which operates on the Stourbridge Branch Line. I took the train from Birmingham Snow Hill station out to Stourbridge Junction, where I changed to get the shuttle down to Stourbridge Town. I actually ended up walking to KFC to get a drink (and a mini fillet burger because I was hungry) before getting the train back to Birmingham, staying on the train until Moor Street to meet my friends for dinner in wetherspoons. The line from New Street to Bournville is mentioned above and I'll be mentioning the line between Nottingham and New Street (via Derby) in a future post, so for now most of the stations ticked off are only those out to Stourbridge.

Stations visited: Birmingham Moor Street, Birmingham Snow Hill, Burton-on-Trent, Cradley Heath, Jewellery Quarter, Langley Green, Lye, Old Hill, Rowley Regis, Smethwick Galton Bridge, Stourbridge Junction, Stourbridge Town, The Hawthorns.

And that brings us to May 2019, when I went to a book signing held by Geoff and Vicki from All the Stations at the National Railway Museum on York. My journey on the day was between Nottingham and York, with a change of train at Sheffield Station. It was whilst travelling from York to Sheffield on the way home that I initially had the idea for Girl on Rails, and it was whilst having dinner in Sheffield Station's Burger King restaurant that I decided to go ahead with the idea. Therefore the first stations that I made a conscious effort to photograph were those on the line between Sheffield and Nottingham. I deliberately made the decision to use the stopping service, operated by Northern, rather than the faster service, operated by East Midlands Trains (as it was at the time, now EMR), to enable me to tick off some of the smaller stations. It was on this journey that I took the photo of the sign at Ilkeston station which eventually became my profile picture.

Stations Visited: Alfreton, Chesterfield, Dronfield, Ilkeston, Langley Mill and Sheffield.

The "Three Bridges" thing was because they asked what my local station was - even though I'd travelled from Uni in Nottingham, Three Bridges was my local station at home at this point.

Seeing as this wraps up all of the trips that were taken pre-GirlonRails, I think I'll leave it here and pick it up next time with the first big trip I took after conceiving the idea.


Station Count: 117

The Uni Hunt

I feel like this might be an excessively long post, but it feels appropriate to group these trips together. 4 years ago, we traversed the country looking at Universities, trying to find the right one. We visited a LOT of universities: UCL, Nottingham, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Southampton, UEA, Imperial College London and Sussex. The two London unis actually involved no new stations for me, but the others did, so let's start with Nottingham, where I ended up.

As far as London, I didn't stop anywhere new, but we did on the train from London to Nottingham. I loved the Uni and can't quite believe my time there has ended quite this abruptly. I'm hoping to go back to visit the city in the autumn, depending on the coronavirus situation of course.

Anyway, the stations I remember visiting are: East Midlands Parkway, Leicester, Loughborough, Luton Airport Parkway and Nottingham. I know there were others, but most of the others are mentioned in other (future) posts.

And then Cambridge. This was a weird one travel wise. When we went to look on the open day, we got the fast train from Kings' Cross to Cambridge. I then did a summer school, where they organised our travel. For some obscure reason, they routed me into London Victoria (as usual) but then, rather than me getting on a train at Kings' Cross, they left me on the tube to Finsbury Park and put me on a stopping train from there to Cambridge. It was nice in a way though as we'd formed a group chat before we went, and many others from the summer schools programme came to join us in the carriage that we kind of ended up taking over. I'm not entirely sure whether I've missed a station or not but I'm sure to end up going back that way in the future (probably to visit Cambridge North).

Stations Visited: Alexandra Palace, Cambridge, Finsbury Park, Kings' Cross, Hitchin, Royston, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City.

One thing I struggled with was fitting all the Universities that I wanted to look at without taking tons of time off school. One way we found to get around this issue was to do 2 Universities in a weekend - Portsmouth and Southampton. It was hard work, and I went back to School on Monday more tired than I'd left on Friday, but it was well worth it to decide that neither was the right University for me. Actually that's a bit harsh, the Universities were both lovely, it's just that the courses weren't quite what I wanted. Anyway, we got the train to Portsmouth and Southsea on the Saturday morning (missing out Portsmouth Harbour, which is a slightly annoying stub I'm going to have to come back to but never mind) to look around Portsmouth University on that day. Our hotel for the night was at Southampton Airport because there was a bus from there to Southampton University, so after finishing at Portsmouth we went back to Portsmouth and Southsea to travel to Southampton Airport Parkway via Eastleigh. On the Sunday morning, we were up early to get the bus into Southampton to look around the University; we then got another bus to Southampton Central station from where we boarded a train home.

Stations visited: Bosham, Cosham, Eastleigh, Emsworth, Fishbourne, Fratton, Havant, Porchester, Portsmouth and Southampton, Southampton Airport Parkway, Southampton Central, Southbourne and Warblington.

The summer holidays came and went and on the first weekend of the new academic year, we travelled up to Norwich, to look at the University of East Anglia.

Again, as far as London we used Thameslink, stopping at stations I've already mentioned, but we alighted the train at Farringdon to get the tube to Liverpool Street for the train to Norwich. I did this in a day a few months later and I can tell you it was exhausting - a 16.5 hour day due to disruption (I think it was a signal failure or something) on the way home from London.

Stations visited: Colchester, Diss, Fanrringdon, Ipswich, Liverpool Street, Manningtree and Norwich.


And the final section, but by no means the least important, was the trip to one of my local Universities, Sussex. In the end I decided against going there as the course wasn't quite what I wanted, but I loved the uni and if the course had been right I may have stayed much closer to home!
I'd already stopped at all the stations en route to Brighton, so only ticked off 3 more: London Road (Brighton), Moulsecoomb and Falmer.

Anyway, I think I'll leave this here for now as we are about to jump forward a couple of years.

Station count: 86

Teenagedom

Ah yes, the summers between years 10 and 13. Freedom. My friends and I did several trips, including:

Littlehampton. Noteable because I accidentally misread a departure screen and got us on the wrong train home. Not the end of the world as we changed to prevent having to backtrack but I did get laughed at.

Brighton. We did this a few times. We've been to the Sea Life Centre, the Pier, the Mini Golf and the Shopping Centre. I'm sure we've been to other places but it's been a while.

Worthing. Or rather, West Worthing. I used to be a member of my local Youth Council and we went to a county-wide conference for members of youth Councils and similar groups. I vaguely remember having to negotiate with gateline staff at Gatwick airport station, as we had to change there and, coming home we had a 25 minute wait for our train when we needed the toilet. They did let us out into the airport to use the loo, thankfully.

Stations visited: Aldrington, Angmering, Balcombe, Barnham, Brighton, Burgess Hill, East Worthing, Hassocks, Haywards Heath, Hove, Ifield, Lancing, Littlehampton, Littlehaven, Portslade, Preston Park, Shoreham-by-Sea, Southwick, West Worthing, Wivelsfield and Worthing.


And then the odd ones out

These are the stations that I remember visiting, but either I've done so so many times that it was too hard to pick a category or I can't remember where else I've visited on that trip to give it a category. So here goes:

Blackfriars, City Thameslink and London Bridge. I regularly use thameslink, be it travelling to and from uni over the last 3 years or going for days out with family in the holidays.

Charing Cross and Waterloo East. We changed at London Bridge to do these two, on our way to the London transport Museum last summer.

Gatwick Airport. I've stopped at this station too many times to count.

Victoria - we always used to go into Victoria when we went to London as a family. Then southern started having strikes and now we tend to want stations more easily accessible from Thameslink. I passed through the station in February though when I made a couple of trips from Nottingham to London via Coach. Admittedly, on these trips the only thing I did at Victoria train station was purchase food.

York -  We've been on holiday to York, and I went to an All the Stations book signing at the NRM in 2018.

Stations visited: Blackfriars, Charing Cross, City Thameslink, Gatwick Airport, London Bridge, Victoria, Waterloo East and York.

Station Count: 50!

Anyway, that's all for today, otherwise I'll be running out of things to say before too long.

Stay Safe

Charlotte

The very early days

I've debated for a few days now where to start with this, because the order I did these stations and the order I ticked them off on my spreadsheet aren't the same. But in the end, I thought I'd be chronological and start with the stations I ticked off before GirlonRails was even a thing. Bearing in mind the constraints of the fact that I started this project whilst at University, and the fact that I'm currently unemployed, I decided to count visits I'd made before officially starting towards my total. I'm sure I'll visit some of these stations again, particularly as I'm sure I've probably missed a few, but let's start with the stations I've visited with my family.

The Isle of Wight
Yes, I'm starting with a place that even All the Stations haven't visited (!). Being based in the south east means that, as a child, I'd been to the Isle of Wight with my family a few times. We'd almost always do either the Steam Railway, or go to Shanklin Chine. I must admit, more often than not, it was the Steam Railway, because the point at which we were visiting the Island was the point at which my younger brother was Thomas the Tank Engine's biggest fan. I liked it, but he was obsessed. Now he couldn't care less.

Therefore the first place to start, I guess, is at Ryde pier head, where we got off the ferry from Portsmouth and got onto an old tube train (1938 stock). We always did a round trip to Shanklin, either before or after we went on the Steam trains. We always used to drive to Portsmouth from home, mainly so if my brother fell asleep on the way home it wasn't an issue, which is a shame because otherwise it would allow the stations between home and Portsmouth to be counted at this point. Never mind. I'll probably go back at some point in the next few years, after the new trains have been introduced.

Stations visited: Brading, Lake, Ryde Esplanade, Ryde Pier Head, Ryde St John's Road, Sandown, Shanklin, Smallbrook Junction.



It's here where it gets a bit confusing, because stations I've visited on multiple trips are more often than not on my list from the latest places I've visited. So this section of the blog will have some holes in it. Bear with me, the missing stations will pop up in a later post!

Guides Trips
I don't make a big thing about this, but I'm a leader with Girlguiding. I was a Brownie and then a Guide, before becoming a Young Leader at age 14. In the last 14 or so years, I've been on several trips, but a couple spring to mind.

1. Birmingham. Yes. Birmingham. We went to a national event in Birmingham, at the LG arena as it was then (the one on the NEC site), back in 2012.

I must admit, the only 2 stations I remember from this trip are the station we started at, and Birmingham International, our destination.


2. New Forest. We've been camping in the New Forest a couple of times, both of them with me as a Young Leader. I'm sure I'm missing some stations I stopped at on this list, but I've visited many of them since. We had to come home on one occasion via Clapham Junction, so I remember visiting there with a massive bag full of camping kit.

3. Wembley. A similar event to the one in Birmingham (basically a Girlguiding only pop concert). I've done this on a couple of occasions, most notably when I left my uni at 6.30 in the morning, 2 weeks after moving in in first year, to go and surprise them. I then went home for the night because we decided it would have been too long a day (in excess of 14 hours) to go back to Nottingham. Plus, I had the chance to pick up a few bits from home that I'd forgotten the first time around.

Stations visited: Amberley, Arundel, Billingshurst, Birmingham International, Brockenhurst, Chichester, Clapham Junction, Crawley, East Croydon, Ford, Horsham, Pulborough, Wembley Central.

I think I'll leave it there for now, with a station count of 21.

Stay Safe

Charlotte

In the beginning!

Hi, I'm Charlotte and welcome to the official Girl on Rails Blog!

Where to start? Well, other than the fact that lockdown has me bored to the point that I'm writing a blog? 

I thought I'd do an a quick post about me!

I'm in my early 20s, and a final year Biochemistry student at the University of Nottingham, albeit I'm at home in Sussex currently due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I've been interested in trains for as long as I can remember. I'm also a fan of Musical Theatre, and particularly modern shows; my favourites at the moment are Six and & Juliet.

My interest was spiked even more in 2017, during All the Stations, when I realised that going to all 2563 (as it was then) stations was something that people did. I followed All the Stations to the point that I was a kickstarter backer for the Ireland edition and have done a lot of their quizzes during the current pandemic.

And it was in the spring/summer of 2019, when I was coming to the end of my second year at Uni, when I met Geoff and Vicki from All the stations, at a book signing they held at the National Railway Museum in York. It was a long day (12 hours!) and it was on the train back from York to Sheffield that I decided to start Girl on Rails, and I started to take photos of stations from Sheffield. A twitter and instagram account followed, as did a facebook page, although I'm most likely to be found on twitter, and I did a few day trips over that summer to start ticking off stations.

So what are the rules for the challenge?

I have to stop at every station in Britain. I'm not getting off the train at each station because of time constraints on my journeys, but I can't be on an express train. If a station is a request stop, as long as the train I'm on can stop, it counts, although I will try to stop at as many of these as I can and get off the train.

I've counted all the stations that I know I've used before the challenge, such as those I've visited with my family.

I'll be blogging about my previous trips and my planned future trips for now, and then taking you along for the ride when we can get back out on the trains!