This Site
Copyright
Usually around this time of year the wife and I go away for a few days but this year however a family did the dirty on us and books the whole time away. This left us the only ones to look after the mother in law and also considering it was her 90th birthday the a**holes coouldn't even be bothered to be there for their own mothers birthday.
I was awake well before my alarm on the morning so got up, washed, dressed and even left early. I managed to get to Croydon early and caught the 05:10.
9R00 East Croydon to St PAncras International 700112 non winner [13m 40ch]
It's a good job that I made it as yet again the 05:40 was cancelled.
A lovely quiet journey up saw me too early for Greggs. I decided to hang around and when they opened I had a sausage an bacon bagette instead of a roll. I know wild eh? A casual stroll over to Kings ross allowed me lots of time to catch the 07:00 but what's this? The 06:15? Well I don't mind if I do. Through the barriers an along to coach C (the unreserved one) and once on I found a seat and ate my baggette.
1S04 Kings Cross to Edinburgh 801221 non winner [392m 72ch]
A train leaving 45 minutes earlier gets me into Edinbugh a whole 6 minutes earlier. Hold on ... SIX minues? Well it stops a lot more en route. The train arrived in to Edinburgh four minutes early.
With a couple of extra minutes I managed to have a little look around the station, get some food for later. It was nice to see the HSTs still plying their trade on the rails. All too soon it was time to head over to my traain.
2Y12 Edinburgh to North Berwick 385122 winner [21m 73ch]
North Berwick is a functional little station with no station building although it does have a shelter and on the non platform side it had an interesting sign saying North Berwick (of course). A short turnaround meant I boarded the same unit Back.
2Y01 North Berwick to Edinburgh 35122 non winner [21m 73ch]
Back at Waverley I had to move quick to get over to platform 7.
Okay. A bit of a thought here. SCotRail have really confused matters with the platform numbering. One end is 2 and the other end is 20. Far more complicated thn it used to be and makes trnsfers awkward to say the least. Still despite that I made my train with a couple of minutes to spare.
2T86 Edinburgh to Tweedbank 170402 winner [35m 34c]
The Borders Railway is somewhat of a success. The line was controversially closed in 1969 thanks to Beeching and Marples. By 2012 plans turned to work and in 2015 the line reopened. The line passes through some ovely scenery. Watch out for the church at Stow on the left hand side in he direction of travel heading to Tweedbank. Galashiels is possibly one of the most popular station on the route is is also, as announced on train, as the transpot hub for the borders bus services.
Tweedbank station is basic. a modern island platform. The rails from platform 1 extend to the road and if in the future there is scope for the line to extend over its old route towards Carlisle on the Waverley route. We can only hope.
2T87 Tweedbank to Edinburgh 170402 non winner [35m 34ch]
It was running a minute late therefor I had to race over from platform 9 to platform 2. Okay when I say race I rush carefully. I did make it.
1E21 Edinburgh to Kings Cross 801210 non winner [392m 71ch]