Howay man
Why aye man! I'm on the toon!
My north east adventure started with a nice relaxing ride up the Cumbria Coastline to Carlisle on Northern unit 156486. The Cumbria Coast is one i quite often travel on, every time I do this journey I think about how lucky i am to live on this line.
During my travel between Carlisle and Newcastle i visited several stations. The first of which was Prudhoe. I got off here and thought i had enough time to take a quick walk to get a photo of the castle, I was wrong. I got half way then saw the time so had to fast track back to the station, just as i got on the platform the train was ready to depart. So no photo, but i managed to get to go back, the only cost of going back later in the day was losing out on food eating time.
Anyway, on to the next station. I arrived at Metrocentre which is located in Gateshead. When at Metrocentre i had a quick look around, took some photo's and then headed back to the platform to get the stopper train to Dunston where i had half an hour to kill. As i exited the station i saw some lads eating chips and thought I would go in search of the chip shop in hope of food (to make up for loosing food time later on). No luck, even a look on Google Maps showed nothing. So back to the platform where i just took some photos of passing units.
After boarding my first pacer of the trip (I didn't get a photo, or write the number down, I don't do that). I headed back towards Hexham, although I got off at Wylam where i had a 3 min connection. At this time i was travelling in commuter hour. Getting pictures was getting tough as you can see by this image below
As you can see this very kind gentleman tutted as he walked past then stepped just as i took my photo, he didn't hear me tutting at him because i could hear his music blasting.
Anyway. On to another station, the next station to visit was Blaydon. Blaydon was where i had planned to go and get some food from one of the many food outlets near the station, instead i opted for a fast walk to the local garage and got a couple of bottles of pop and a bar of chocolate to keep me going. This is the point where i headed back to Prudhoe, on this occasion i got my photos, job done.
Now Prudhoe was dealt with I hoped on the Pacer and made my way to Newcastle. Now, this was my first visit to Newcastle station and had no idea what to expect, I'd not even seen any pictures online. I found Newcastle station to be rather beautiful. Quite bright and airy. Busy but there was plenty of space. There was the usual Friday afternoon drinkers, who accounted for most of the noise. After taking a few snaps I noticed a Sainsburys, which meant only one thing... Bacon and tomato ketchup sandwich for tea on my next train...
Anyway, on to Chathill. There was one little surprise for me, a 156, 156454 to be precise. I was expecting nothing but pacers around Newcastle, so I fully expected an obscure run up to Chathill to be nothing other than a pacer. Upon departure from Newcastle the train was surprisingly full. It didn't stay full for long the further north the train headed the emptier the train got. On arrival into Chathill there was 10-12 people who alighted. I loved the station buildings at Chathill, the waiting room on the southbound platform had flowers everywhere, it really was not what you'd expect at a train station, especially one that only gets 4 trains per day.
The stretch of line between Morpeth & Chathill has more arkward station other than Chathill. Upon departing Chathill we headed south towards Widdrington. I got a very nice welcome at Widdrington, a fish and chip show next to the station. I got a hot dinner that i didn't expect last night. With hot food in my belly I headed back to the station, got a few snaps then headed to the bus stop. I waited for the Max X18 Arriva North East bus service that would take me to Morpeth.
Once at Morpeth i got some snaps and then hopped onto my first LNER service of the challenge, the LNER service took me down to Northallerton where I took a few pictures in the dark before hopping onto a Transpennine Express service to Middlesbrough, the guard on this service even let me sit in 1st class. One could say perfect end to the day.
The actual perfect end to the day was arriving at my Premier Inn and going to sleep!
Until tomorrow everyone.
Cheers
Stu :)
