Phil's Madventures with Steam

OK here goes....... EXD^» WSB^» GCR^» RDG^‡ IET^▸ BRI^» BTP^▸ SWA^» PAD^»

As soon as I was aware of 'The Cotswold Venturer' railtour with 35028 'Clan Line' in charge, I made plans for a trip to Standish Junction to phot the tour as I have always wanted to take photos there, but never had the opportunity to do so. I was happy to forgo the chance to phot 'Mayflower' in my own neck of the woods as I have plenty of pictures of that particular locomotive.

So, my plans were.....

06:23 PIN - EXD;
07:00 EXD - WSB;
08:20 WSB - GCR;
10:17 GCR - SHU;
Walk 1.5 miles to Standish Junction (Black Bridge);
Phot the tour;
Walk back to Stonehouse station;
13:28 SHU - RDG;
15:01 RDG - EXD;
17:25 EXD - PIN.

The day dawns and I already knew that the bookend services were out of the question due to the landslip at Honiton Tunnel. However, my good lady wife volunteered to drop me to EXD.

The 07:00 EXD - WSB turns up as a 5 vice 9-car IET and was already full and standing (something to do with the green lot down the road having a lunchtime kick-off in west London! So, a very uncomfortable hour stood in a vestibule, pressed against the door!
An on time arrival at WSB and I am glad I bailed out as BTP were waiting for a few 'passengers causing a disturbance on a train'.
The 08:20 WSB - GCR turns up on time and I and several other board. A few minutes later, the Guard informs us that the service had been terminated due to 'a problem with safety equipment', so we were ushered across the platforem to the 08:40 WSB - BRI (which subsequently formed the 09:34 BRI - GCR, so no need to detrain at Temple Meads).
At 08:45, we were informed that the failed 08:20 was to be attached to the rear of our service, to take it to Bristol, where it would be detached before the service proceeded to GCR, so we finally left at 08:55!
A 10:49 arrival at Gloucester meant that I finally got to Stonehouse an hour later than planned, but I still had a hour to walk to Black Bridge, Standish.
It turned out that the railtour was running 15 minutes late when it passed my camera, so I had no need to rush, despite all of the previous travel shenanagans.

I had plenty of time to walk back to Stonehouse station, but on arrival, I discovered that my planned 13:28 service had been cancelled. However, the following SWA - PAD service had been given stop orders, so I wouldn't lose too much time. That service turned up 17 minutes late and, despite being a 9-car, it was even more crush-loaded than my train from Exeter earlier, so an extremely uncomfortable journey to Reading.

Arriving in time for my planned service back to Exeter from Reading, I opted to pay the £25 Weekend First upgrade and had a very pleasant, seated journey home!