32. West Midlands Day Ranger-08.06.21

As we opted to leave Northampton prior to the 09.30 start of the ticket validation (as we used our two-together cards for discount) Andy and I paid for a single to Rugby from Northampton.

During an hour or so at Rugby awaiting validation of our Day Ranger tickets, we captured plenty of freight. Whilst the station has lost much of its atmosphere over the years it remains a busy location with much to interest the enthusiast. Unfortunately, the orientation of the station makes photography tricky in strong summer sunshine. The journey to Stafford was taken on a rather late-running London Northwestern Class 350 that curtailed our plans onward from Stafford a little. The cause of the delays was put down to signalling issues in the Watford area affecting all services. A travelling team of revenue protection officers were much in evidence on this train catching three travellers in our coach with no valid tickets.

Following a late arrival at Stafford, our planned connection to Smethwick Galton Bridge was missed. We still had to get as far as Wolverhampton in order to get the next train out to Shrewsbury. The next train to Wolverhampton left us with about ten minutes at Stafford but this included a brush with a Class 56 on freight duties.

To get to Shrewsbury we wanted to travel on a Transport for Wales Rail Services. We travelled from Wolverhampton aboard an elderly Class 150 that, dating from 1984, made it by far the oldest train that we travelled on during the day.

In order to get to Crewe quickly rather than return to Wolverhampton and head north again using our Day Ranger validity, we opted to go off-piste. We bought a pair of off-peak tickets from Shrewsbury to Crewe travelling directly via the delightfully rural route through Whitchurch. Prior to departure Andy and I wallowed in a sea of GWR nostalgia at Shrewsbury with its mass of mechanical semaphore signalling!

A quick fifty-mile nip to Birmingham on an Avanti West Coast Pendolino in order to get us ready to head southwest towards the Worcester area.

In retrospect, this leg of our tour of the West Midlands should be described as heading into the dragon's den! After making the short walk from Birmingham's New Street to Moor Street station we could immediately see that there were problems with services south of Birmingham towards Kidderminster but exactly where and what the issues were was not being made clear to passengers. The internet provided no further information but did indicate that the problem should be cleared by 16.00 so we made the decision to head that way rather than the alternative plan B that of heading to Stratford-on-Avon and Leamington; as it turned out, this was the wrong choice!

It felt good to be getting away from the chaos that ensued around the Kidderminster and Droitwich areas! It took Andy and I a while to do this in order to get a service that was heading straight to New Street via the Midland route rather than back via the GWR route where all the problems appeared to be. The journey was uneventful with the standing start from Bromsgrove and the consequential assault of Lickey almost going unnoticed; how different to times past!

The penultimate leg of our Day ranger was a quick dash courtesy of Avanti West Coast from Birmingham back to Rugby where we spent some time earlier in the morning.

The final journey of our grand day out around the West Midlands was on another Desiro from Rugby back to Northampton. Unlike some of our other journeys during the day, this was uneventful with an on-time arrival.