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Battered @ Battersby
Stuart Boyd • 23 July 2019
Sunday 21st July 2019 - Lovely relaxing day to reach a milestone
Sunday morning stroll through the woods and over the hills, sounds good right? Well it was, it was blooming awesome.
I headed to the station from the hotel, hopped on the first train of the day and headed to my first station of the day, Kildale. That announcement that city commuters will of not heard before, "at the next station only the rear door will open, if you are wanting to alight at Kildale, please make your way to the back of the train now". Personally i love hearing that announcement as it means there is a good chance it is going to be a little cute rural station. Kildale did not disappoint my theory. The platform did fit the whole 2 carriages, but it was very tight. It quite possibly is my favorite station on the Esk Valley line. Anyway time to take a walk.
The walk was beautiful. I headed all up hill for what felt forever. The hill never seemed ending, bear in mind these are hills that the buses struggled with the day before. After taking the wrong footpath, then cutting through overgrown woodland, i made it to the monument at the top. The views were quite special, i then headed back down the hill. Needless to say, the walk down was much easier than the walk up.
At the bottom of the hill i arrived at my next station, Great Ayton. Now at Great Ayton this is where i encountered my one delay. The train from Hexham was running 20 minutes late which worried me that my connection at the next station was going to be in jeopardy. Back to Great Ayton station. There was quite a few people waiting to board the train to Whitby, family days out to the seaside i expect. But it was good to see people using the train rather than the car.
When the train arrived on I hoped, after a quick chat i discovered that the 2 x 156s were running at a reduced speed. I also learnt that I need not worry about my connection at Battersby because the train from Whitby would go into the platform first and wait for this train to pull in first and leave again, guaranteed connection you could say. Apparently this is a maneuver that only happens on a Sunday.
Now there was two trains at the one platform, with the Whitby bound unit at the front blocking the other in. Unfortunately the service for Whitby was having issues getting going, not sure what it was but it basically wasn't moving. In the end it got going (No idea how it made it to Whitby!) Now it was my turn to get moving, easier said than done apparently. Off we went to head towards Middlesbrough. less than 50 meters from the platform our trains brakes randomly decided to go on hard. Unit restart was required then we got on our way 26 minutes late.
By this point my schedule had been well and truly battered. I was planning what to do as there was no way i was going to make my connection at Thornaby for the Transpennine Express service to Yarn. Then we pulled into Nunthorpe station and the guard said we had to wait there for the single track ahead to become clear. I'd had enough of the sight of 156 units by now so decided to bail at Nunthorpe, as it turned out the train that was coming in was going to be the one i got after my Yarn excursion. So i was sort of back on plan, i'd dropped Yarn, but picked up Nunthorpe instead.
After quickly heading the the Spar shop by Nunthorpe station i boarded 158844 and headed to my next station on a very quiet service, I think it was so quiet due to 156479 only running 10 minutes ahead so most people would of boarded that one. I had a pleasant half hour journey to Billingham. While on my way to Billingham I made a discovery... If i was to walk quickly i could in fact make a bus that would take me to Stockton station allowing me to get an earlier train meaning I could fit in an extra station in on my day. Now Billingham was nothing to write home about, and neither was Stockton station. So on I moved to my extra station... Hartlepool.
After Hartlepool I took a service to Seaton Carew where i had a 5 minute connection for my next train, unfortunately I had no time to look around or head to the beach. The killer blow was there was a sainsburys right by the stations that I also did not have time to get any lunch from.
Time for Difficult station of the day, Teeside Airport gets one train per week in one direction only. This used to be 2 trains per week (1 in each direction) but due to the bad state of the footbridge and of platform 2. The service was cut in December 2017.
Once i had alighted at Teesside Airport i was having a sense of deja vu. I felt the same as when i was stood at Redcar British Steel the day before, a feeling of neglect and nothingness. To be completely honest i was feeling a little disappointed. I had looked forward so much to visiting both Redcar British Steel and Teesside Airport that the reality of been there was that they were quite sad places to be. Not so much from a station point of view, but from an all you could see around was evidence of what used to be there. It was mixed feelings leaving the station and starting my walk to Dinsdale.
This walk i'm sure isn't that long really, but on this particualar Sunday let me tell you this, It felt like 100 miles away! Choosing to walk the road route after one third of the walk i was really regretting this decision. Anyway i made it to Dinsdale. Found a Shop, purchased some pop, sandwich, chocolate and headed to the station.
While sat at Dinsdale station i had a decision to make, go off plan in order to get my 700th station that day. I decided to throw the plan in the bin and go for the 700th. So after boarding at Dinsdale I headed to Newton Aycliffe where i wasn't there long enough to have a real look around, i had to jump on the next service back down the line to Heighington.
At Heighington there was quite a bit of notices up about the history of the station, how it played a part in the war effort in the 40's. How the original station building are some of the oldest still in use on the national rail network, It's worth noting that the old station buildings are no longer in use as part of the railways.
After my read up on the history of the station i took the next service heading to Bishop Auckland, the end of the line nowadays, although it did used to go further in the past. I'm not entirely sure where it did go to either, i did ask the guard and he didn't know.
Now after a quick bite to eat in the weatherspoons in the town i hopped on a bus to Durham. On the way i passed through some nice looking villages/towns. Must go back on the bus for more of an explore of the area... Every Last Bus Route has a certain ring to it.... Who knows ;-)
I decided to get off the bus well before the station in Durham as i wanted to take a walk through the city, it was beautiful. Really beautiful.
After a short wait at Durham it was time to head to my final station of the day, the 700th station of the challenge.....
Yep Darlington became my 700th station visited on my challenge. As with Newcastle station I was slightly surprised at how nice Darlington station was. LNER even sent a fairwell gift for me in the form of an Azuma... I will leave the photo below to end my blog.
Until next time
Stu :)
Day three of the walk saw me starting nice and early at Llandudno Junction. With one simple aim, to get as far along the Conwy Valley as possible! Betws-y-Coed was the minimum target for the day. On this day I was joined by KD ( @roadsignreporter over on YouTube ). Walking to Glan Conwy was easy enough for us both, I kicked myself that I hadn't pushed myself the day before! Blooming beer! After Glan Conwy it was time for the first of the many hills that Wales was going to throw at me during this walk. We had to head up the steep hills to avoid walking along the very busy footpathless A470. You can see the scale of the diversion on the Strava map at the bottom. Things improved at Tal-y-Cafn when we arrived at the lovely station. Had a good chat with the Network Rail level crossing staff there who refilled our water bottles for us. After this we headed across the fields and along the B5106 which we would follow mostly until Betws-y-Coed. Only really leaving the road to pop to the required stations to walk too. We had a nice surprise at Dalgarrog when we came across the Dolgarrog Railway Society platform where we chatted with one of the members. They told us about the work they are doing with the site. Was a really nice break from walking. Between Dolgarrog and Llanrwst our pace slowed down a fair bit, I think this was down to the heat, and it became clear Betws-y-Coed was going to be the end point for the day! We reached the village and the road kindly dropped us off at the Spar shop and bakery so was able to stock up on some essential cakes and drinks. Shout out to the TfW guard on the train back to Llandudno Junction who kindly wavered the fare for the journey. Was much appreciated!
Day two of the walk saw me walking from Bangor to Llandudno Junction. This day was a lovely walk mostly along the North Wales Coast Path. With getting ahead of schedule the day before I was able to relax a little today. So the target today was Penmaenmawr, anything after that was a bonus. On this day I was joined by friend and boss. Special mention to Ian, honestly without him keeping me on full pay while on these charity walks they simply wouldn't be able to happen! We stopped at the beach café at Penmaenmawr where comically we was counting out pennies to pay for our lunch as the café didn't accept card! While having lunch we looked at how far we would be able to walk. We set our target on Glan Conwy. We was going well following the A55 right until we arrived at Conwy where we went to a pub for a pint... After this we decided that with beer in us we wasn't going to be making it to Glan Conwy. Instead we slowly made our way to Llandudno Junction where we called it a day!
Day one of the walk would see me walk from Holyhead to Bangor. This was not the original plan. The original plan was to only walk to Bodorgan. But upon reaching Bodorgan and just missing a train I decided to push on and just see how far I could get! Sadly on day one I was on my own that day. But that was probably a good thing, I don't think many would of approved of walking 32 miles!
Kildale station is located on the very scenic Esk Valley Line that runs from Middlesborough to Whitby. From the June 2024 timetable change the station will see 8 trains per day, 4 in each direction! Although this is a limited service it does give you the opportunity to do some exploring of the area.
I set of on a walk with my sisters dog and headed for the disused canal from Kendal. I followed along disused canal to the village of Natland. I then swapped the disused canal for the river. After following the riverside path, I came across a footbridge that I had planned to use, annoyingly it was closed! Annoyingly I was planning to use this footbridge, due to this there was a lenghty diversion. Thankfully the diversion wasn't a total waste of time, I was able to walk through the beautiful Sizergh Castle and then head back up to my original route plan and headed to Helsington church and view point. After spending a little time chatting with my Dad (who's ashs was scattered there) me and Bailey then headed up to Scout Scar before setting of back down towards Kendal. Upon reaching the River Kent I decided that my feet was still feeling good and I headed back along the river to Hawes Bridge. I then headed up into the village of Natland and then up to Oxenholme where my walk came to an end!
A blog about the new Northumberland Line that is scheduled to start opening in the Summer of 2024.
This walk was a tail of two halves! The day started with walking through Reading suburbs and then through the city centre. Things mid morning took a positive turn as we headed to the The Kennet and Avon Canal which I then followed for the remaineder of the day. Only hopping away from the canal to go on to station platforms. A very enjoyable walk, even in the scorching heat! Stations visted today was: Reading, Reading West, Theale, Aldermaston & ended the day at Midgham. By walking between Aldermaston and Midgham I actually have managed to get a station ahead on my plan which can only be a good thing as I head down to the more difficult reagions of Somerset & Devon next week. Until tomorrow :)
Todays walk was a little bit of a tough one, mainly due to the excessive heat which is only going to get worse as the week goes on. Thinking there will be some early starts coming up to try and miss the worst of the heat! Today was a mixture of roads and walks across fields. Discovered there is some beautiful countryside between Maidenhead and Twyford. I strongly encourage you to take this walk! Stations visited today: Burnham, Taplow, Maidenhead and ended at Twyford. Was great to have Nick Badley along with me today. Make sure to check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@NickBadley . After the walk myself and Nick headed to Windsor where we met up with Coastway Will and had a Nandos dinner where the unlimited refils was very much used again and again! Until tomorrow :)
Todays walk saw me starting at Southall and heading straight to The Grand Union Canal. We followed this for most of the walk today. Stations called at today was: Hayes & Harlington, West Drayton, Iver, Langley before finishing the walk at Slough. Was great to have pals Jack and Dave with me today. Laughed for the most part, especially when we got the wrong place for the London/Buckinghamshire borders. That video on twitter got filmed twice lol. Massive thank you to everyone supporting the event via donations to either/both: Donate to Samaritans: https://justgiving.com/page/greatwesternwalk Support me with the challenge: https://www.gofundme.com/f/GreatWesternWalk My photos from today are below. Daves photos from today can be found here on his Flickr photostream: https://flic.kr/ps/3ppCTV Until tomorrow :)
Walk around Windermere: