Branch Line Britain - celebrating Britain's minor railways

Blog 2024

January 2024

End of the line at Southminster railway station 23/1/2024

23/1/2024 - Wickford to Southminster and return

January is always a quiet month for train travel for me and after recovering from a head cold and last week's sub zero temperatures, I decided that rather going stir crazy, I would go out on a short local (for me) train trip. This involved a short twenty minute drive to Wickford, where I was able to make a quick journey to the Essex village of Southminster and back on the branch that started this website back in 2007. My fare back then was £6.10. Today sixteen years later was just £7.75, showing train fares haven't gone up that much. Mind you I did get senior railcard discount, so would have been about £10. Wickford station building has sadly been demolished and it is in the middle of being rebuilt, so a bit of a mess. My train is a five-car class 745 unit, much too big for a small branchline like this, but who am I to argue. Plus there is a guard checking tickets both ways. About twenty people get off the train when it arrives in the bay number 1 platform. It is timed to arrive to connect with both London and Southend trains and a couple get off the train from London and straight onto mine. The train leaves dead on time at 10.56 and stops at all the stations on the line - Battlesbridge, South Woodham Ferrers, North Fambridge, Althorne, Burnham-on-Crouch and Southminster. I would say that there are no more than twenty passengers on the train for both journeys, with South Woodham ferrers being the busiest station, followed by Burnham. At Southminster about five passengers get off, including me and I have just enough time to take a few photos of the train and station which has a large sign saying "To let" outside it. The massive crane and sidings used by nuclear flask trains are still in place, though I'm not sure if it is still used. The rails didn't look rusty, so maybe some trains still use it. Its a nine minute turnaround on this single track line with a passing loop at North Fambridge. The three biggest stations all have coffee shops which are open, so they must be getting enough trade to survive. An interesting journey for me after so many years not travelling on it, but its nice to see it is still going and providing a useful public transport link in a quite sparsely populated part of Essex.

 

February 2024

Liverpool Street train at Ipswich railway station

6/2/2024 - Rayleigh to Shenfield and return. Shenfield to Colchester. Colchester to Ipswich. Ipswich to Shenfield.

Went up to Ipswich for the day, meeting up with a friend. As with previous recent trips on Greater Anglia services, I am pleased to report that all the various trains I caught ran on time, with plenty of room. I noticed that on every service I caught I had my ticket checked by ticket collectors, who in some cases were supported by "Revenue enforcement officers".


13/2/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street and return.

Went up to London for the evening to attend a speaker event.

 

20/2/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to West Ham. London Bridge to Brighton.

Went away to Brighton for a few days with my wife. The journey pased OK with no problems.


21/2/2024 - Brighton to Lewes and return.

Went to lewes for the day by train. It absolutley poured down all the time we were there!


23/2/2024 - Brighton to London Bridge. West Ham to Leigh-on-Sea. 

Came back home from Brighton with no problems as on the trains we caught.

 

 

April 2024

After a rare month of not travelling by train at all in March, it was back to business in April.

17/4/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street and return.

Went up to a hospital in Stanmore near the tube station. 


30/4/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street and return.

Went back to the hospital in Stanmore.

 

 

May 2024

Marlow Railway Station 18/5/24

11/5/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to West Ham. London Bridge to Caterham. Caterham to Purley. Purley to South Croydon. South Croydon to London Bridge. London Fenchurch Street to Leigh-on-Sea.

Went to Croydon for a gig. Decided to go down the branch to Caterham before the gig, a journey I hadn't made since 2007. All went well with abrief stop off in Caterham before the return journey went awray. At Purley some of the doors of the train got stuck and after a ten minute delay a guard opened one and we were told to get off. Luckily a Thameslink train was just coming into the other platform, so we all rushed down the stairs to the next platform and managed to get it. 

 

18/5/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street. London Paddington to Maidenhead. Maidenhead to Marlow and return. Maidenhead to Twyford. Twyford to Henley-on-Thames and return. Twyford to London Paddington. London Paddington to London Liverpool Street. London Liverpool Street to Leigh-on-Sea.

Had a day out with a friend travelling on two of the branch lines off the Great Western Mainline to the west of London. I hadn't travelled on these since 2007, so quite interesting to se the changes. Also was able to take photos of the bridges across the River Thames in both Marlow and Henley-on-Thames for a new book I am writing on the Britain's Inland Road Bridges which will be published next year.   
 

27/5/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to Fenchurch Street and return. London Victoria to Rochester and return.

Had a pleasant day out visiting Rochester. The travel was problem free with all trains running on time and plenty of seats available.   

31/5/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street. London Paddington to Totnes.

Went away for the weekend down to Devon to visit my uncle. A pleasant journey from Paddington down to Devon.

 

 

June 2024

No 5552 of the Bodmin & Wenford Railway at Bodmin Parkway on 2nd June 2024

1/6/2024 - Totnes to Exeter St Davids and return. Exeter St Davids to Barnstaple and return.

Went to Barnstaple for the day with my uncle, starting our journey at Totnes. The only problem was a tight change over at Exeter St Davids both ways with about six minutes for change platfomrs which involved going up and own stairs to do this. We managed it OK but is wasrather a rush! 
 

2/6/2024 - Totnes to Plymouth. Plymouth to Bodmin Parkway. Bodimn Parkway to Bodmin General and return. Bodmin General to Boscarne Junction and return. Bodmin Parkway to Totnes.

Went into Cornwall for the day, again starting at Totnes. This time the trains were up the creek with our train from Totnes going all the way to Penzance being considerably delayed on its journey from London Paddington. Watching it on Real Train Times it got slower and slower until it got cancelled at Exeter St Davids. We could have got the next train, a Cross Country service going as far as Plymouth, but decided that it would be crowded, so we had a cup of tea in the buffet and got the next Great Western train. This was an hour later than the one we should have got. It should have gone onto Penzance, but we were told to get off at Plymouth and wait ten minutes for a following train. We still got to Bodmin Parkway in time to catch the steam train from there, but had to abandon our planned visit to Lostwithiel. Buying a ticket for the Bodmin & Wenford Railway at Bodmin Parkway involves going into the signal box cafe at Bodmin Parkway and buying our tickets there. This involves someone ringing up the headquarters at Bodmin General and checking that there is space on the train. Once approval has been given we then pay with a credit card and then get given out set numbers, but not the actual tickets themselves. You have to pick these up from the ticket office at Bodmain General! It seems a bit of a palarva to me, but it made me wonder what happens in the height of summer when the trains maybe full?
Coming back from Bodmain Parkway, out train was about twenty minutes late, presumably due to the earlier problems, so we arrived back at Totnes about half an hour later than we should have done. I did claim for delay repay and got a full refund for going and a third back for the return journey.  

 

3/6/2024 - Totnes to London Paddington. London Fenchurch Street to Leigh-on-Sea.

A straightforward return journey, apart from being pretty full from Taunton onwards.


11/6/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street and return.

Back to London for a hospital appointment


17/6/2024 - Rayleigh to Shenfield and return. Shenfield to Marks Tey and return. Marks Tey to Sudbury and return.

Went up to Sudbury for the day to meet up for lunch with a friend. As usual, all my trains were punctual on Greater Anglia Trains.


22/6/2024 - Rayleigh to Shenfield and return.  Shenfield to Colchester and return.  Colchester to Norwich. Norwich to Great Yarmouth via Berney Arms. Great Yarmouth to Norwich via Ackle. Norwich to Lowestoft. Lowestoft to Beccles. Beccles to Ipswich. Ipswich to Colchester.

Had a pleasant day out with a friend making use of an Anglian Day Ranger ticket, travelling on the Wherry |Lines and the east Suffolk Line, taking in visits to both Lowestoft, where we went to Ness Point, the furthest east you can go to in Britain, and to Beccles for afternoon tea. All our trains were on time as I now expect with Greater Anglia.  

 

July 2024

1/7/2024 - Leigh-on-Sea to Grays. Garys to London Fenchurch Street. London Liverpool Street to Harlow Town and return. London Fenchurch Street to Leigh-on-Sea.

Had to go to both Grays and Harlow with my work today.