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What on earth is ABCD-E? It stands for A Brigg Cleethropes Day - Excellent! .
Bold = Haulage, Red = Winner, All others are sightings.
Sometimes you do not truly realise how bloody awkward a line is until you try to plan on travelling on it. So much so you sort of forget to have a go at it. This includes the line between Trent Junction (effectively Gainsborough Central) to Wraby Junction (effectively Barnetby). This line has three stations on it; Gainsborough Central, Kirkton Lindsey and Brigg.
This plan was inspired but this article on Railway World's blog.
Sadly the line only has one train a day in either direction which could cause some difficulty in planning according to the article (see the image of the timetable on the article). With this in mind I decided to make two plans.
Plan 1
I decided on plan 2 so it was up early and a walk down to East Croydon for 9S00 East Croydon to St Pancras International 700129 (non winner) [13m 40ch].
Up to Greggs and a Bacon & Sausage roll for the train then up to the East Midlands platforms.
1F10 St Pancras International to Sheffield 222015 (non winner) [164m 68ch]
Being so early the trains was not as busy so a lovely pleasant ride. I do like cl.222s, although I know some don't. My issue with EMR is the lousy Wi-Fi and it seems the majority of the Midland Mainline has a poor phone connections. It's quite frustrating.
We started to loose time en route and ended up at Sheffield 9 mintes late. Luckily I had left a fair amount of time to change trains. I wandered out to get a packet of crisps and a magazine (I've still not read it properly and it's November 2nd!). I also took a walk up to the tram stop and managed to actually see one then as I was heading back in to the station there was a Rail Head Treatment Train formed of a pair of 66s.
2H01 Sheffield to Cleethorpes 150228 (winner) ✅ [71m 41ch].
The train was fairly populated for pretty much the whole journey and some people got off at Gainsborough Central. One commented he'd not used the station for a long time. The OBS kindly allowed me to jump off at all three stations on the line (Gainsborough Central, Kirkton Lindsey and Brigg) and grab some photos for the staion.
At Cleethorpes I took a walk to the Wetherspoons a new one for me ✅. After food and a cider it was back to the station for a few photos of the stations and its environs. A couple of other services arrived in (EMR and a TPE).
I liked that the train crew from my train arrived back with their lunch of fish and chips.
All too soon it was time for the return leg.
2H00 Cleethorpes to Sheffield 150228 (non winner) [48m 10ch] This itme I only took it as far as Retford when I had only a 7 minute connection. But I made it with a minute to spare.
1Y86 Retford to Kings Cross 801205 (winner) ✅ [138m 40ch].
It was lovely and quiet on the train with only about 10 people in my carriage.
A walk over the road then on the 9P45 St Pancras International to London Bridge 700012 (non winner) [3m 26ch]. Where I met the wife. We then travelled back hime on 2J51 London Bridge to Selhurst 377305, 377320 (non winners) [11m 40ch].
All in all it was a pretty good day.