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 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
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