Bath by Train

On Tuesday, 21st August 2019, I made a journey by train to Bath for a meeting. The timings of the trains I used were:-

Wolverhampton-Bath	Arrive	Depart
Wolverhampton		06:04
Sandwell and Dudley	06:14	06:14
Birmingham	06:24	06:42
Cheltenham	07:20	07:23
Bristol Parkway	07:53½	07:55
Bristol Temple Meads	08:05	08:23
Bath Spa	08:35

After a taxi from my home to Wolverhampton station, a Virgin Trains 'Pendolino' whisked me to Birmingham in reasonable comfort. But, using the escalators at the south end of the platform which are signed as giving access to other platforms, I knew that finding my departure platform would actually be confusing. I had to exit through the gate line near the main exit, walk through the dreadful 'Grand Central' shopping centre and re-enter the station through a different gate line before I could hunt for my train. When I reached platform 11B my train, a Cross Country 'Voyager' was present but shut-down, so all the passengers were glumly waiting on the platform. A few minutes before departure, the driver must have arrived because the train's diesel engines burst into life and after a short wait the doors were enabled, finally allowing the waiting passengers to board. My train, the 06:42 from Birmingham New Street to Painton, reporting number 1V41, set off on time on the former Midland Railway route via Five Ways.

When I was younger and carriage windows could be opened I would often follow progress by sighting each signal as we approached and often making copious (if illegible) notes on the track and signalling layout. A modern equivalent is to follow the route using a 'Smartphone' and the remarkable facilities of Railcam.UK which I outlined in the post Watching The Trains Go By. In the New Street display on Railcam UK, train describer 'berths' showed the position and reporting numbers of all trains but, once we passed Five Ways, signal aspects appeared on the diagram as well. As displayed in signalling centres, these are simply shown as 'red' or 'green' whereas the driver will also be presented with 'yellow', 'double yellow' or, sometimes, flashing aspects by the actual signals themselves. Older signalling systems, like New Street, only provide train describer information to Network Rail's external database but more modern systems supply signal data as well. The Network Rail database is interrogated by Railcam UK to provide the remarkable ability to track progress from within the train itself.

We made good progress 'under the wires' through the extended Bromsgrove station where electrification finishes and I noticed on the Railcam UK diagram train 2O70 ahead of us. Railcam UK confirmed that this was a Worcester to Bristol diesel multiple unit so it had joined our route at Abbotswood Junction. I wondered whether we would be 'baulked' by this slower train but, in fact, we arrived at Cheltenham about one minute early. This was just as well as the train filled right up with commuters heading to Bristol, using up all our station allowance. We left Cheltenham as booked, by which time I'd realised that, after its departure from Cheltenham, the DMU would leave our route at Barnwood Junction to call at Gloucester, where it would reverse and only rejoin our route well after my train had passed.

At Standish Junction the line to Swindon peeled off to our left then I noted Wickwar Tunnel, Yate station and soon we were slowing for the long right hand curve as we joined the Great Western Main Line at Westerleigh Junction, now 'under the wires'. We arrived three minutes early for our booked stop at Bristol Parkway. Despite at the improvements and extensions to the facilities here, the place still strikes me as having a rather 'temporary' appearance.

I believe electric trains now operate as far as Bristol Parkway on the Great Western Main Line. Although the line towards Wales Has been equipped with Overhead Line Equipment at least as far as Severn Tunnel Junction, services are no yet electric. There's no obvious work been carried out on the line from Bristol Parkway to Bristol Temple Meads and the route through Filton Abbey Wood, Stapleton Road and Lawrence Hill is still unsullied by 'knitting'. However, the Relief lines which were removed some years ago have been reinstated.

We arrived at Bristol Temple Meads on time, stopping in platform 3/4 under the airy, curved trainshed. Brunel's original terminal station featured a straight trainshed which is no longer part of the operational railway. The Bristol and Exeter Railway trains reached Brunel's terminal by an inconvenient, curved approach with its own platform. In the 1870s this area was developed with the impressive curved trainshed which survives and further platforms were added in the 1930s, more modestly provided with umbrella roofing.


Trainshed over the through lines at Bristol Temple Meads viewed from platform 3/4, looking west.

I'd not expected to see a Class 43 HST at Bristol Temple Meads since the advent of the Class 800 bi-mode trainsets had replaced them on the Paddington route, but there was an HST, in First Great Western livery, in platform 5/6. Railcam UK informed me that it was an empty stock working from Bristol St. Philips Marsh Depot to Hull by the Rail Operations Group, reporting number 5E23. I made my way through the wide underground passage linking the various platforms to wait for my service to Bath from platform 9. Whilst waiting, I took a few pictures.


Bristol Temple Meads, View from east end platform 9: Empty stock HST on far left and Colas Rail Test Train in High Level Siding.


Bristol Temple Meads Station: View looking west from platform 11.


Bristol Temple Meads Station: View looking east from platform 11, with Class 800 arriving in platform 13.

The Great Western Railway Railway Diesel Multiple Unit heading for Salisbury arrived on time and quite a crowd boarded. It took just twelve minutes to reach Bath Spa station, where many of the passengers alighted.


Bath Spa: View from Platform 2 looking towards London.

I made my way through the pedestrian passage to the south side where I was met at the small pick up/drop off area.


Bath Spa: Station buildings on Down side, viewed from passenger Drop-off Point, showing restored canopy.

After my meeting, I was pretty tired. I purchased a e-ticket for my journey back to Wolverhampton using an 'app' on my mobile phone during the car trip to Bath Spa station. This stored two versions of the ticket on my phone - a human-readable version and a machine-readable 'QR' code there's a useful article of 'QR' codes in Wikipedia here). Ticket inspectors on trains either check the details on the human-readable version or, sometimes, have a portable scanner which 'reads' the 'QR' code. But most of the ticket gates that have proliferated can't read e-tickets so a member of staff has to peer at the screen on your mobile and then let you through. But, to my surprise, the modern barrier at Bath was equipped with a small horizontal glass screen (like a miniature supermarket product scanner) so the computer in my smartphone talked to the computer in the ticket gate and I was admitted to the platform.

The return timings were:-

Bath-Wolverhampton	Arrive	Depart
Bath Spa		16:28
Bristol Temple Meads	16:40	17:30
Bristol Parkway	17:38	17:40
Cheltenham	18:08½	18:16
Birmingham	18:56
Wolverhampton

The first 'leg' was on the three o'clock Down from Paddington, reporting number 1C19. This was my first trip on a Class 800 'Bi-Mode' (here running on diesel-power since electrification of the line through Bath to Bristol is yet to happen). The train was, as expected, busy but I found a seat. I rated the experience as 'OK' but not particularly impressive. But it was only a short journey and I was tired - perhaps I'll enjoy my next trip on the Hitachi-built trains more.

Of course, Bristol Temple Meads was packed so I made my way across to platform 3 to await the arrival of the 15:25 from Plymouth (with a lot of other passengers). The train was due in at 17:22½, leaving at 17:30. To my delight, a refubished Cross-Country 'HS125' was working the service. From Railcam UK I confirmed that the train was scheduled into Birmingham at 18:56, leaving at 19:03 for Leeds where it was due to arrive at 21:02. The reporting number was 1E63. The train was heavily loaded but I managed to get a seat at Bristol and we were soon making our first stop at Bristol Parkway.


Bristol Parkway station.

Just over five miles beyond Bristol Parkway, at Westerleigh Junction, we passed over the single line branch which I believes serves Westerleigh Oil Terminal then the line to Cheltenham curves sharply away from the Great Western route to Paddington, with an overlap 'under the wires' on the Cheltenham line.


Bristol area rail: The line to Cheltenham curves away from the Great Western Main Line at Westerleigh Junction, with an overlap 'under the wires'.

Just before Yate station, the single line we'd crossed over converged with the Cheltenham line on our left. Railcam UK showed a DB Freight from Westerleigh Oil Terminal to Robeston (near Milford Haven), reporting number 6B47, on the branch.

At Cheltenham Spa, a lot of passengers left the train, but quite a few also joined. We then continued, without incident, to Birmingham New Street where many passengers, including me, disembarked but the platform was crowded with passengers waiting to join the train.

I quickly located the platform for the next Wolverhampton departure (a West Midland Trains service to Shrewsbury, I think) and I found a seat just before it left

Related Posts on other Websites

Bristol Temple Meads railway station (Wikipedia).

Book References

[1] 'Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Vol. 11, Thames and Severn' by Rex Christiansen (ISBN: 0715380044)

My pictures

Where necessary, clicking on an image above will display an 'uncropped' view or, alternately, pictures may be selected, viewed or downloaded, in various sizes, from the album below. Apologies for the poor quality of pictures taken from trains.

Bristol area railways.

East Croydon to London Bridge

Journey on Thursday, 28th March 2019

I've been a reasonably frequent traveller between East Croydon and London on various visits. Normally, the service from East Croydon to Victoria with a single stop at Clapham Junction is the most convenient, using the line originally built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR). But Victoria was not the first LBSCR terminus in London - that was Tooley Street, later called London Bridge. So I sometimes use the fast service from East Croydon to London Bridge along the 4-track route through Norwood Junction.

Travelling up to London from Croydon on 28th March for a meeting near London Bridge, I arrived at East Croydon in time to watch a fast train to London Bridge departing. I decided I'd still plenty of time to get to my meeting so when the next train to London Bridge, a stopping train via North Dulwich, arrived I decided to board it. The map below shows the normal route to London Bridge and the route my stopping train took. The development of the railway network in south London is quite hard to follow. To see the whole of this pre-grouping map and extracts of some areas, follow the links from my post Pre-grouping Railway Map.


Detail from pre-grouping railway map showing LBSCR main line via Norwood Junction (thin green) and route via North Dulwich (thick green). The original map was published by W & A K Johnston under the title 'Railway Map of England and Wales 11th Edition'.

I'd only previously travelled on parts of the route the train would take. The whole route belonged to the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in pre-grouping days, but the South Eastern and Chatham Railway was 'implicated' around Tulse Hill, Peckham Rye and, of course, on the last 1.5 miles to London Bridge.

We left East Croydon on the Slow line and at Windmill Bridge Junction took the flyover which took us over the Brighton Fast lines to our first stop at Selhurst. From here the route is 4-track, paired by use, to Victoria. Travelling on the Up Slow my train made station stops at Selhurst, Thornton Heath and Norbury.


Norbury: View from train on Up Slow showing Banner Repeater TVC672 on platform (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)

After the Streatham Common stop, my train diverged to the right from the Victoria Lines onto the Streatham Spur, then joining the line from Mitcham Junction.


Streatham Common Spur: View from train heading for Streatham showing Victoria lines and, in background, bridge carrying Mitcham Line over the Victoria Lines (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)

We stopped at Streatham, passed through Streatham Tunnel and Leigham Tunnel and then, approaching Tulse Hill, were joined on our left by the line from Streatham Common and on our right by the line from Wandsworth Common before stopping at platform 3 of the four-platform Tulse Hill station.


Tulse Hill: View from train in platform 3 showing signals VC760 and VC762. Note expansion joint in running rail and traction current bonding (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)

Leaving Tulse Hill, the route to Herne Hill (used by some 'Thameslink' services) diverged to our left before we entered the 331 yard long Knight's Hill Tunnel, then making stops at North Dulwich and East Dulwich.


North Dulwich: View from train showing platform 1 (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)

At Peckham Rye Junction, we merged with the line from Victoria via Clapham High Street and continued over the arches to platform 2 at Peckham Rye on the South London Line.


Peckham Rye: View from train approaching station 'over the arches' showing 4-aspect automatic signal VS443 (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)


Peckham Rye: View of platforms 3 and 4 and rear of signal VS444 (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)

After our stop at Queens Road Peckham, Old Kent Road Junction allows London Overground services to diverge right and join the East London Line at Silwood Junction but my train continued to a brief stop at South Bermondsey before joining the remarkable expanse of lines for the final mile and a half to London Bridge. Still following the original alignment of the London and Greenwich Railway across a series of viaducts but now expanded in width to carry no less than eleven running lines, the area received major modernisation during the Thameslink Project which also completely rebuilt London Bridge station.


Approaching London Bridge on Up showing signal TL4204 on 11 Reversible at Brunswick Court Junction (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)


Approaching London Bridge on Up showing former Area Signalling Centre (South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail)

There's a brief mention of the pioneer London and Greenwich Railway here and the later period on the L.B.S.C.R. at London Bridge is outlined in Origins of the Southern Railway: Part 2: L.B.S.C.R..


London Bridge Station: View from Platform 12 looking South-East after my arrival. Route set for departure from platform 13 to track 9.


London Bridge Station: Concourse near entrance to Platform 12 showing departure display.

After my London meeting, I returned to Wolverhampton from London Euston. There are a number of pictures in the collection South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail taken on that journey.

Related articles on this web site

Notes on Some Early Railways in England.
Origins of the Southern Railway: Part 2: L.B.S.C.R.

My pictures

Where necessary, clicking on an image above will display an 'uncropped' view or, alternately, pictures may be selected, viewed or downloaded, in various sizes, from the albums below. Apologies for the poor quality of pictures taken from trains.

South Croydon to Wolverhampton by rail
East Croydon Area Rail.
South London Railways.
London Bridge Station.