November 2009's odds and sods.

September 2009's odds and sods.

August 2009's odds and sods.

July 2009's odds and sods.

June 2009's odds and sods.

February 2009's odds and sods.

WSMR are amazing! With a railcard, we got from London
to Wrexham and back again for £13. We were treated
like first class passengers all the way. The menu was
fantastic, the food was fresh and absolutely delicious.
The prices were reasonable for a TOC and buffet staff
personally delivered the food to us at your table.

Josh's East Midlands bash. We spent most of the day
darting back and forth from Nottingham, Leicester and
Derby and got to stop at and see the new East Midlands
Parkway station before it was opened. Sam and I had the
fantastic idea of him staying at mine before bashing the
Northern 180s to Blackpool the next day, only to find out
on the way back that the 180s were Monday to Friday
only.

January 2009's odds and sods.

The best birthday ever. We were lucky enough to get
HSTs both to and from Sheffield and had a great time in
first class with all the free tea and coffee. Upon arriving at
London, we were almost trampled by mass amounts of
tourists on the underground, so instead we ate at St
Pancras and Alex bought me a caterpillar birthday cake.
Thanks to Dan, Josh, Baggy, Sam, Jack, Craig, Alex, Miles,
Brandon, Jordy and Alistair for such a great day and the
presents!

Dan's rather hellfire pre-birthday bash treat was a trip
to Sea Life Scarborough. I've been before, but because it
was in school time, we had the entire place to ourselves.
We were at the front for all of the animal feedings and
got to see the otter training, which involved rather cute
otters Cherry and Eric performing tricks and following
commands for beef in order to train them for vet visits
and any other human contact. Despite the weather, this
was absolutely awesome. Thank you Daniel.

December 2008's odds and sods.

Miles and I planned to catch the Spitfire's Christmas
Cracker railtour from Manchester Victoria to Blackpool
North and back for the bargain price of £20. We managed
to drag a "norm" by the name of Rachel along too. She
seemed rather bemused by the world of rail enthusiasts.
Fortunately, despite the amount of people waiting to join
the tour at Manchester, we still got on. The tour was lead
by double headed class 37s; 37248 and 37676.

College was cold, so Rachel and I went and sat in the
little religious room with the radiators and bean bags and
took some rather random pictures of each other to
entertain ourselves.

I went out to Dove Holes on bonfire night with a few
college friends and after the fireworks, we somehow
managed to walk all the way from Dove Holes to Buxton
in the pitch black and get home safely.

November 2008's odds and sods.

My parents have been redecorating the house, and there
was some spare wallpaper paste left over, so I cut
pictures out of my old RAIL magazines and pasted them
all over my door.

This was a typical Ascot meet, but despite almost every
train of the day being cancelled or delayed, everything
somehow turned out well. Me and Mark even managed to
get two free first class upgrades.

After missing my train to London, I spent fifteen minutes
or so on the end of the platform. As it was starting to
get dark, and I don't know my way around a camera yet,
my photos were a little blurred.

October 2008's odds and sods.

Miles' RailUK meet on the class 47s to Skegness. I got to
meet quite a few new people, and was recognised a
couple of times too by people that I didn't know. After
the spoon bash, me and a few others got on the next
service to St Pancras. Dan was on a first class ticket,
leaving me and Sam stuck in standard. Fortunately, the
train manager was nice enough to let us sit in first class
with Dan. We got to Waterloo to find the Dorset
Dumpling arriving on platform 17.

All of the various tickets, plans, sightings and every
single train that we travelled on during our bash.

September 2008's odds and sods.

The final day in Wales, and of our bash. This day was
reserved for the rest of our valleys coverage and some
first generation DMU thrash. The Arriva bubble car really
was hellfire and clagged all the way to Cardiff Bay, where
we spent the next few hours before having to catch our
HST back to Reading to go home to Dan's.

Lots of Pacer bashing involved during this day of
travelling up and down the valley lines. Once we arrived
at the rather disgusting Merthyr Tydfil, we had to find the
bus station, which was difficult considering that there
were no signs anywhere. We just managed to catch our
bus though and got to the Brecon Mountain Railway for
a narrow gauge steam bash. Later that day at
Aberdare, we were greeted by a teenage boy running
around on the tracks with a freight train set to come one
way and a passenger service due any minute to come
the other way. We alerted the conducter and driver and
he was given a telling off, but nothing more.

The first day of our three day Wales bash involved
covering the three West Wales lines; Fishguard Harbour,
Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock. We had quite a long
time in Pembroke Dock, so went for a walk around the
town. Unfortunately, it was quite late, so most places
were closed. We ended up finding and ASDA and
spending the rest of our time there.

Unfortunately, the one time that we didn't need to make
any connections, we were early. Despite a good nights
sleep, Dan and I were both too tired to spend another
day bashing and got the next train back to Ash Vale to
relax for a few days before going to Wales.

Our last day in Scotland. Covering the far north line was
one of the things that I was most looking forward to
during the trip, but our train stopped between Blaur Atholl
and Dalwhinnie and we were told that we were stuck
behind a slow moving freight train. We missed our
connection to Wick, so instead took the train to Kyle of
Lochalsh where it was raining rather heavily. We spent
our time between trains in a cafe talking to a couple who
had travelled just about as many places as we had.

This would have been our second steam train of our trip,
but when we were buying our tickets, we were told that
the steam train had failed and we were going to have a
diesel locomotive. I was expecting a 101 or something of
the sort but much to my delight, it was a class 31.

Our third day involved lots of branch line bashing around
the south of Scotland. Lines covered include Largs,
Stranraer, North Berwick and the recently re-opened line,
Alloa. As it was raining when we arrived back at Glasgow,
we took the SPT Subway between Buchanan St to St
Enoch. Of course, we wanted to get value for our money,
so took the longest way around before finally arriving
back at the Euro Hostel.

The first day of our Scotland bash got off to a very bad
start. I was awoken by our attendent informing us of our
one hour delay. This meant that once arriving at Fort
William, we would have missed the Jacobite. Fortunately,
unlike any other First Group TOC, ScotRail were nice
enough to put us all in to taxis and arrive at the next
station to catch the Jacobite.

The beginning of mine and Dan's annual bash. we couldn't
be bothered to do anything before catching the sleeper,
so got up late and then got to Euston an hour or so early
to get food and phot the loco. Once on the sleeper, I got
some tomato pasta and Daniel had haggis, neeps and
tatties.

Our final day in Wales before heading home. We had a
couple of hours between leaving the lodge and our
train, so we had a browse around some of the few
shops in the town. Instead of heading straight home,
we decided to stretch the day out as much as possible
and go to Llandudno, but unfortunately after a walk
around and fish and chips on the beach, it started to
rain really heavily, so we got the next train back.
Overall, it was a brilliant holiday, and I've now
completed my North Wales coverage.

This was the main bashing day of our holiday. After a
look around Machynlleth, we got to the station and
found that 76079 was already there waiting for us. A
couple of steamy hours later, we arrived in Pwllheli
where we had a Cadwaladers ice cream and a look
around the market stalls. After getting the train times
confused, we ended up in Porthmadog rather early, so
spent the time browsing gift shops before our train to
Blaenau Ffestiniog. We had to make a quick dash for
our train, but we made it and arrived at Betws-y-Coed
where we would stay before the last day of our holiday.

The first of three days on a holiday with my Mum. As we
couldn't make it to the Cambrian Coast in time, we spent
the first day in Aberystwyth browsing the shops,
spending time on the beach and we had a ride on the
cliff top railway before making our way to Machynlleth to
our accommodation for the night.

Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures from this rather
fantastic bash, as I was too busy either being a ned or
feeling tired and ill. I got the first train to Manchester at
0554, and then after a bash all the way to Newquay and
back, I finally got home at 2355. It was a great day, and
I met quite a few great new people.

August 2008's odds and sods.

After Miles came over to buy some of my OO gauge track,
we made a dash for the next train and spent some time
photting at Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly. Saw a
66 at Stockport and managed to get one of my
favourite shots yet of a 92 at Manchester Piccadilly.

A day out with the rather fantastic photography, Dave
Dawson. We spent some time at Shrewsbury, but I
missed the Class 60 and 67 and there weren't even
many units about, so we went to Crewe where we found
47s, 66s and an 86.

My first attempt at railway photography with my Finepix
S9500. I don't know how to use it yet, so it was set to
auto, which caused a few problems with overexposure
on some pictures. All in all, I think the pictures turned out
well for my first try. I may well do this more often.

My entry for the Railway Scavenger Hunt. Despite the fact
that I wrote most of the tasks and the rules, I still didn't
win. It was great fun though. I started off at Manchester
Piccadilly, then went to Sheffield, then Derby, Birmingham
New Street and finally ended up in London. For once, I
took my S9500 out with me, and it has inspired me to
give railway photography a go.

Vegging for planes with Daniel on a bridge near North
Camp station. We saw a Vulcan, Airbus and The Red
Arrows. Please note that planes are really, really
hard to phot with a camera phone.

Even though it was a bit of a miserable day, and we were
late, what we saw of the carnival this year was pretty
awesome as usual. After the carnival, me and my Mum
randomly went to get pizza in Stockport because the
queue for Buxton's Subway was too long.

They're much harder to find than you think. We spent
ages circling the same pair. My favourite so far is either
SuperSgtPepperYellowLambSubmarineBanana or
Deerlambeltbanana. They have extremely stupid names.

July 2008's odds and sods.

After last week's Settle and Carlisle trip quite
spectacularly failed, we tried again this week and
everything went smoothly. The Settle and Carlisle was
fantastic, but unfortunately for us, we got a four hour ride
on a Merseyrail Pacer along the Cumbrian Coast.

Finally, a RailUK meet that went well! We somehow
managed to get ahead of our plan, and we got to spend
almost an hour on the beach at West Kirby. We all got
ice creams before our train to Hamilton Square.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 086.
My attempt to photograph all seventeen of the major
railway station signs in the UK.

Our plan for the day was to take a trip up the Settle and
Carlisle and then return home in time for tea. Once we
finally arrived at Stockport, we were told that there had
been a power failure at Manchester and nothing was
running. There were four trains on each platform at
Stockport, and five Thunderbirds waiting around just in
case. The first train that managed to leave Stockport was
a Euston train, so we just hopped on and went to London.
Unfortunately, there was then a points failure at Wilesden,
so the train arrived an hour late. Hopefully going to do the
Settle and Carlisle next week or sometime soon.

June 2008's odds and sods.

Steam trains and sea life. What a fantastic combination.
This is the third aquarium centre I've been to recently,
and I still think that Scarborough was the best. Although
the otters at Weymouth were the best I've seen so far.

Yet another one of Ascot's meets that went horribly
wrong. This time, he managed to plan the meet around
the Trent Valley, which was closed that day due to faults
and such other fun stuff. It was a great day despite all
the delays and missed trains. Alex came back to London
with me, but I started to get quite ill, so he carried all my
bags and took me to Waterloo to make sure I was okay.
Thanks Alex.

My current ear piercings. Left lobe and helix. I'm planning
on getting two more below the helix piercing at the top,
and also stretching the lobe slightly. I'm going to keep
it below 6.5mm though.

After our visit to the Sea Life centre in Scarborough, me
and my Mum thought it would be fun to go to Blue Planet
at Ellesmere Port to compare the two. The sharks there
were huge and we even got to stroke the rays.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 087.
One of my tasks was to have someone else plan my day
for me. But this was all done last minute, and everything
went wrong, so even though I did as much of the plan as
I could, I failed. I'll have another attempt at it with a
better plan sometime.

My fifty day surprise from Dan was to go to The Cans
Festival on the 3rd of May, but it was too busy to get in.
We stopped by whilst waiting for a train from Waterloo
today. The tunnel is covered in amazing stencil artwork
from many different graffiti artists, including the rather
famous, yet unknown Banksy.

For once, I managed to wake up when Dan was going to
work and get on the train to London with him. From
there, I decided to go to Dawlish for more summery
seaside fun.

I woke up at 2pm, and after seeing what a warm and
sunny day it was, I got on the next train to Woking and
made my way to Portsmouth Harbour to get the ferry
to the Isle of Wight. I'm glad I didn't take a coat, as it was
apparently the hottest day of the year so far.

The New Measurement Train (aka The Flying Banana) was
sitting around at Euston and I managed to get a couple of
pictures of the interior. There were loads of computers and
a conference coach with a long table and lots of seats.

Not being very happy with only being fifth place on
RailUK's mileage leaderboard, I took the long way home
again. This time I went to Glasgow as well.

Londonning around with Dan on a Sunday. After making a
list of what we want to do in London the previous day, we
got up early and tried to do as many things from the list
as possible. As you can see, we only managed about five
things, but it was a great day out nonetheless. Dan's
fifty day surprise for me was a look at The Cans Festival,
but we didn't manage to get in as half of London turned
up for it.

May 2008's odds and sods.

A day out to Scarborough with my Mum. She'd been
wanting to go to a Sea Life centre for ages, so I thought
we should go on her day off. We got the first train from
the North Bay Railway to the Sea Life centre, where we
spent over four hours going around in circles to get a
second look at everything. The otters were probably my
favourite part of the centre, although I loved the
penguins, jellyfish and rays.

Me attempting to make a banana and poppyseed fruit
loaf. I think it turned out quite well, and it managed to fill
two cake tins.

My Mum bought me a child's £1 lucky bag the other day.
It. was full of sweets, a toy train and a colouring book.
This was my favourite picture in the book, so I took the
four wax crayons included and managed to do quite a
good job. Note that I only had red, yellow, green and
blue wax crayons, and shading with them was
extremely difficult.

Instead of taking the normal way home from Buxton to
Ash Vale, I went via Edinburgh. Over four hundred miles
out of my way, but fun nonetheless. The battery on my
iPod ran out, so I made a little "veg" sign to wave at the
train spotters standing around on the platforms ends.
They were not amused.

A rather spontaneous RailUK meet with Mark (Ascot) and
the other Mark (Mushroom) around Mersey. We didn't get
as much coverage as expected because Ascot managed to
give us a three minute connection at Moorfields.

1001 things in 101 days. Task 019.
As promised, I made Daniel's birthday cake all by myself.
It's three stories tall and has over an entire big bar of
Bournville chocolate in it. I had to carry it over 220 miles
from Buxton to Ash Vale and managed to fall over twice
on the way. Fortunately the cake survived.

VAST live at the Carling Academy in Islington, London.
Supported by Elle Milano. This was my first time seeing
VAST live, and they played all of my favourite songs with
a few new ones too. Definately the best live show I've
ever seen.

April 2008's odds and sods.

Pokémon Snap is a photography simulator. It was first
released on the Nintendo 64. Thanks to the lovely people
at Nintendo, it's now available from the Wii Store for £7.
Here's some of my favourite pictures that I've taken in my
first couple of days playing the game.

The Severn Valley Railway's grand re-opening after the
line was destroyed by flooding. Due to many generous
donations, the line is now fully repaired and running
normal services. Even though it was the last day of the
re-opening, the queues for tickets extended outside the
booking hall and the trains and platforms were full of
rail enthusiasts and families all enjoying a day out on the
railway.

Heathrow Express were accepting London travel cards on
their services, so we got the train to Heathrow Airport
and then got the Piccadilly line back. After seeing a Grand,
Central HST at King's Cross we found platform 9 and 3/4s
from Harry Potter on our way to St Pancras.

As we now have four ferret harnesses it means we can
take them all out at once. We let them run around the
garden for a while to make sure that they couldn't escape
the harnesses and after half an hour, the girls climbed up
onto my knee and fell asleep.

Instead of making my way home from Dan's I thought I'd
spend some time with the lovely Ascot and get some
coverage and mileage. I finally got the Great Malvern line
which I'd been planning on covering for a while and saw
a London Midland liveried Turbostar.

Dan and I making a fudge cake. It turned out a little
squishier than we'd hoped, but it still tastes good. Our
cooking never goes completely to plan. Also a few pictures
of me, Dan and Dave and ferret.

March 2008's odds and sods.

The setting up of Daniel's brand new, shiny Samsung
52" LCD TV and also very brand new and shiny PS3. The
TV stand's instructions were completely useless, so we
had to figure out and assemble it ourselves. Dan did most
of the manly work though.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 053.
Pictures from my task of finding and eating at least fifty
different fruits.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 096.
A day in the life of me. I tried to take as many pictures as
I could, but my phone makes a loud shutter noise and I
didn't want to look stupid.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 030.
Our first attempt at "pimping" a snack. It didn't turn out
quite how we imagined, but it was still damn tasty! We
may try this again with a simpler snack sometime.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 040.
The completion of task 040 as I shoved ten full sized
marshmallows into my mouth.

Dan bought some Tesco brownie mix which we finally
decided to make at almost midnight. It turned out
rather thin, but very tasty. We ate it all in a couple of
hours.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 090.
My progress towards the challenge of gaining pro status
in all of the Wii Sports games.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 031.
Me drinking alcoholic shots.

Some pictures of me (with my new braces) and Dan
pulling stupid faces together.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 053.
Pictures of all TheLondonPaper sudoku puzzles that I've
managed to complete.

101 things in 1001 days. Task 073.
Pokémon Blue running on my iPod.

Pictures of my "Valentatines" card from my not so
secret admirer. Thank you, it made my day!

After waking up at Baggy's house the morning after the
Lincolnshire trip, instead of going home, I convinced
Baggy to come on a trip to the seaside at Skegness
where we spent the day. Unfortunately it was a rail
replacement bus from Boston to Skegness and I get
travel sickness. I spent Almost an hour of the journey
home hanging over a train toilet.

Me and Baggy decided to finally take a day out
together and ended up travelling around Lincolnshire
on a day ranger. Once returning to Lincoln at around
1730 we decided to catch the 1952 to Cleethorpes for
a night time seaside trip after wasting over two whole
hours in Toys 'R' Us.

My 2.0GHz Apple MacBook.

My cool wall of trains.

A little bit of London Bashing before going to see the
pair of 37s on the Buffer Puffer railtour. We ran into Tom
Loader and some others at the end of the platform and
carried onto the next station to get some more photos.
Some idiot pushed the emergency button on the
underground though, so we had a lot of running to do to
get there in time before it left.

Odds and sods from February 2008.

Mine and Dan's early morning gingerbread
decorating.

A day of London Underground coverage and a visit
to the new and improved London St Pancras
International railway station.

January 2008's odds and sods.

My birthday present from David was a ticket for the
Electric Scot Farewell tour. After over three hours of
waiting on cold station platforms, the tour was
announced as cancelled. Unfortunately, this was the last
chance to catch the 87s, as they were soon to be on
their way to Bulgaria.

A few of my favourite pages from my Chirstmas present,
the PostSecret book by Frank Warren.

Some London Underground coverage on the Central
and Metropolitan lines to West Ruislip and Uxbridge.

As part of my birthday present, Dan bought me a ticket
for The London Transport Museum's 1938 tube stock
tour. The tour covered the East London line, just days
before closure.

RailUK meet for the Lincoln Christmas shuttles, formed
of top and tail WCRC 47s. Also in the area were railtours
with 50049 and DRS + Victa Westlink 47s.

A trip along the Robin Hood line and an hour or so in
Skegness. Thought it'd be a good idea to get some
coverage around Lincolnshire before returning the next
day for the Lincoln Christmas Shuttles.

The Little Red Train spends a day in Caversham, Reading
entertaining small children at a local church event.

December 2007's odds and sods.

Damon and I took a trip around Berkshire to see the
First Great Western Valenta farewell and to get some
branch line coverage. We also took a look around
Maidenhead town centre and covered some of the
Central line on the London Underground.

Pictures from the journey to Chesterfield to visit my
Gran in hospital. I was very surprised to see a Class 66
sat in the station.

New franchises mean new liveries. Unfortunately I didn't
manage to catch the new liveried Voyager, but saw
some of the new vinyls on the sides of trains, and
ex-Virgin staff wearing bright pink CrossCountry coats.

As the East London line was soon to be closed, me and
Dan thought that an A stock bash was in order. After
the short journey up and down the line, we made our
way to Epping, for coverage and food where we saw the
old 1962 Central Line tube train out on rail treatment
duties.

Some pictures of Buxton, and the set of Question Time
in The University of Derby, Buxton. Later that night, I
travelled down to Ash Vale to stay with Dan for the
weekend, where got in touch with our inner children
and blew bubbles for over an hour.

The new gerbils; Grey, Gaara, Daisy & Ruby.

The day before the TOC shuffle. My master plan of
bashing didn't go to plan, as delays were having a knock
on effect and nothing seemed to be on time. Once
arriving at Derby, I was surprised to be greeted by the
New Measurement Train, a Class 47, 57 and two steam
trains on a railtour to my local station of Buxton.

Dan's father and step mother invited us to spend the
night with them at the Farnham Firework display. This
was my first time surrounded by people with flaming
torches, so understandably, I was a little nervous.

Whilst Dan was at work, I decided to get some London
Underground coverage on the Metropolitan line, as it was
too cold to be outside all day. But shortly after arriving at
Amersham, I'm told that my last Class 450 is on it's way
London Waterloo, so I race back to see it.

November 2007's odds and sods.

Dan had a day of free travel with South West Trains, so
we took advantage of this and travelled all the way down
to Weymouth. We also covered the Heart of Wessex line
and the limited service Melksham line. After running
around Bristol town centre for a while, we went to
Severn Beach and took a walk along the beach to see
the Severn Bridge, which looked beautiful in the
evening sky.

Some coverage around the South West and a visit to
Windsor, where we saw the Queen's castle. Windsor
was full of tourists, and was very traditional English
looking.

Some weekend bashing with Daniel on South West
Trains. We managed to get quite a bit of coverage for
me, and we also had a walk around the places that we
visited and found the Ian Allan building.

My trip to Hastings, where I got completely lost and
almost missed my train. I managed to meet Dan back in
London after he finished work and we spent some time
wandering around London and found a strange film
event in Trafalgar Square.

RailUK meet for the Tyne Valley HSTs with Ascot, Craig,
Vikki and David. We spent most of the journey doing
heads out and beating up Ascot.

Dan had a free gold card day of travel with South West
Trains, so we tried to get as much coverage done as we
could.

The Carillion bubble car was sat around at Stockport, so
I got some quick pictures before my train to Euston
arrived.

October 2007's odds and sods.

As the West Coast Mainline was full of engineering works,
I thought I may and well get some HST thrash and take
the Midland Main Line home. I spent the entire journey up
to Derby doing heads out. I had about half an hour before
my bus to Buxton, so spent some time vegging on the
platforms of Derby station.

A day of playing with Adrian's Swedish model railway. We
took an hour or so off to go and see the steam train,
"Clan Line".

Valentas, MTUs and Voyagers at Reading. I had a while to
wait for my train, so I decided to take a few pictures.

Instead of staying in all day I got the train to Woking and
bashed a few of Daniel's local lines, including the Alton
and Ascot lines. When Dan got home it was time to bath
the ferrets.

In our two hour break from college Tony, Carlo and I went
down to Ashwood Park to waste some time and saw
something being set up with big inflatable toys. After
hanging around for a while we found out that it was free
for university students. We decided to join in and pretend
we were university students. We missed our programming
lesson and turned up over an hour late, soaking wet.

Open day at Newton Heath depot. After travelling from
London, I met up with RailUK members David and we
wandered around vegging the various units and locos.

Some South West coverage and a return bash on the
Lymington slammer with Dan. We even got to see some
of the Class 442s sat around at Eastleigh.

We heard that 57601 was going to be passing through
Peak Forest, so me and my Dad took a ride to the lineside
to see it. It was late, and by the time we saw it, it was
starting to get dark.

September 2007's odds and sods.

Our last day of the trip was dedicated to East Anglia
coverage. The train out of Liverpool Street was late, but
fortunately, we still managed to catch our connection after
a bit of a dash. We got to the North Norfolk railway, which
was great fun, even though it was full of children and the
elderly. Later, we spent an hour or so on the beach at
Great Yarmouth before heading back to Ash Vale for a
well deserved night of rest.

Due to fat people stealing our sleeper reservations, we
were upgraded to first class, where we found Jordy. After
little more than three hours sleep, we carried on from
Penzance and covered most of the Cornwall branches
with Jim. I saw 158815 for the first time , which was
unofficially named after me by a friend. They wrote "Gizzy"
in both cabs of the train. I was rather excited to see my
train and see how great it was. Later on, we caught it
on a service to Liskeard, but it failed at Par and we were
all kicked off. I love my train.

Our third day of bad luck. As we were in First Great
Western territory, we were expecting things to go wrong,
and had prepared a few backup plans. But being FGW,
they managed to ruin every single plan we had. Somehow,
we still managed to get most of the coverage that we
wanted, and even got a trip on the Dartmoor railway.
We had advance tickets for the Night Riviera train to
Penzance at four in the morning, so we had to wait in
Exeter St David's waiting room with homeless criminals.

After being rather tired from our trip so far, we somehow
slept through the morning alarm and no one thought to
wake us up until half an hour later. This pretty much ruined
our plans for the day, but we still managed to do the Heart
of Wales. Over three hours on a 153. Ouch.

Despite being rather tired, we got to the station in time.
But of course, the Buxton train was late, causing us to miss
our connection at Leeds by a matter of seconds. After
having a short trip around Bradford, we caught the next
S&C train, sat back and enjoying the scenery.

Having slept at Manchester Piccadilly and caught the
stupid 'o' clock train to Shrewsbury, we got the WCRC
Cambrian Coast Express to Porthmadog, where we took
trips along the Welsh Highland and the Rheilffordd
Ffestiniog Railway. The RFR was my favourite, but after the
overnighter, I managed to sleep through most of it.

busiest days of the whole week. Having never done an
ALR, I thought it'd be a good idea to spend all day and
night travelling and then sleeping at Manchester Piccadilly.
Not one of my best ideas. First we got the ferry from
Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight and took a trip on the
preserved railway there. Then we got some coverage
around the Southern branches before making our way to
London Kings Cross to catch the 2200 HST service to
York. Almost dead, we caught an airport service over to
Manchester and slept there for the rest of the night.

My Mum took a few days off in the Summer holidays so
that we could spend some time together and have a
miniature holiday. After spending 8hrs on a HST to
Newquay and exploring the town a little, we made our
way over to Lostwithiel where we stayed the night. On
the second day, we went to Dawlish to relax by the sea
and then travelled to Daniel's that afternoon to save
another 8hr journey.

Stephen Trower invited a small group of RailUK forum
members to the Great Cockrow Railway for a free day
out on the miniature trains.

Some of the many trains I saw on my travels home from
Daniel's.

As a random day out, Dan's Dad and Stepmum took us
to the Hollycombe Steam Collection in Hampshire. It only
cost £10 to get in and then the fairground rides were
free! There was also a miniature railway, and a steam
train.

Brighton's annual Summer gay pride parade. Before the
parade started, me and Dan released our inner stoats
and took a ride on the Volks Electric Railway. The pride
parade was massive and there was a local church giving
out free drinks.

My Dad and I went to the East Lancashire Railway for a
day out. Took us ages to get there, cause the Metrolink
had engineering works, so we had to find out way there
on buses.

August 2007's odds and sods.

Memorex's birthday trip on the sleeper up to Aberdeen.
We spent the day in Glasgow with the very, very Scottish
Jordan and the got the sleeper back from Aberdeen to
Crewe that night. After getting into Crewe extremely
early we got the first train to Holyhead and then spent
some time exploring Wales.

cooking never goes completely to plan. Also a few pictures
Despite the Manchester Wheel being very overpriced,
Mum insisted that we ride it. Only to find out that she
didn't like it.

A trip to Buxted and Uckfield with Dan. We didn't have
long to get food, but after some running around we found
a petrol station with amazingly cheap food.

My second visit to Peak Rail. This time with Daniel. It
rained all day, but this didn't stop us doing heads out. We
also got a ride on the narrow gauge railway.

On Dan's first visit to Buxton, we decided to watch the
local carnival. After the carnival had ended, we made our
way to the school sports field to fly a 99p kite that we
bought on the way to the carnival.

A day travelling around the West Midlands with Ascot.
He somehow managed to hit the emergency stop button
on the escalators at Birmingham New Street and blamed
it on me.

A trip around the Cumbrian coast on a RailUK meet. When
we arrived back to Carlisle, we found even more RailUK
members photting the Class 47s.

My trip to Ayslebury. I was hoping to get a ride on the
Chiltern Bubble, but it wasn't running. Fortunately there
were lots of bubble cars sat around Aylesbury to
compensate.

A day of coverage while Dan was at work. I never
expected to see the steam train and bubble car. I got a
valenta leading my HST back to London. The guard wasn't
too happy about me doing heads out, and kicked me out
of the first class vestibule. I had to spend the rest of the
journey in between coaches in the corrugated part.

July 2007's odds and sods.

Right by Acton Main Line station, there is a small shed.
This is what's inside that shed. A massive OO and N gauge
model railway open to club members and visitors.

A railtour behind 66727 and 66723 for First employees.

My trip for coverage around Kent. If those are The White
Cliffs of Dover in my pictures then they don't look half as
impressive as they sound. I imagine there's probably
some better ones somewhere.

Dan was at work, so I thought I'd get some coverage.
For some strange reason, there were people dressed up
at each station on the Crouch Valley line. I managed to
get lost on the walk from Southend Victoria to Southend
Central. Apparently it's only half a mile, but it's much more
complicated than it looks.

The Little Red train event at Slip End School.

My trip on "The Parliamentary". A once a week, one way
service from Stockport to Stalybridge. For a short time due
to engineering works, the service was running in reverse,
so I decided to get it done whilst this was hapenning.

A day out with my Dad to our closest preserved railway -
Peak Rail. It took us a while to find it, as there was a
building site around Rowsley station.

After just completing my Maths GCSE I thought I had
earned some coverage. I ran to the station and got the
next train to Manchester. I managed to get the line to
Scarborough, the Yorkshire Coast line and then line from
Hull back to Manchester.

June 2007's odds and sods.

As I was walking down to the platforms at London
Euston, I was very surprised to see the press
photographing my train. It was 390029, once again in
an advertising livery. This time for "Monkey: Journey to
the West", a modern circus opera.

To avoid boredom and another day stuck inside, me
and Dan spent the day being tourists in London.
As soon as we got home, we let the ferrets loose
in the lounge to get some exercise.

Me, Dan, Stese, Chris, Matt, Martin, Adrian and
Stephen spent the day relaxing on Stese's parents'
boat. After reaching Walton-on-Thames area, we
turned back and ordered pizza to eat before
everyone made their way home again.

Yet another of the many frogs that live in and around our
garden pond.

Two lines that I'd been wanting to get covered for ages.
The Alsager line and also the Hope Valley Line via New
Mills Central, rather than the TPE line.

I managed to get hold of a Midland Mainline hat from
eBay. The only problem is, that it is about twice the size
of my head. Of course, I couldn't resist taking some
pictures with it on.

The LittleRedTrain's event at Ottershaw May Fair. My first
LittleRedTrain event and I even got to drive while no one
was around.

May 2007's odds and sods.

I got bored and decided to play with my camera phone.
Long exposure and shaking my phone around makes
really cool effects.

We had no work to do in our Child Development lesson as
usual, so I had some fun with the negative effects on my
phone camera.

Some of the frogs in our garden pond. The pond was full
of frogspawn. Hopefully I'll be stealing a few tadpoles
again this year and trying to raise them up to frogs.

I made my way back from Daniel's birthday party the same
way I got there. The Midland Main Line. Unfortunately this
time I ended up catching a Meridian instead of a HST as
the timetable said.

The night of Daniel's birthday party. Stephen had stayed
at mine the previous night, and we needed to get down
to Ash Vale. We took the Midland Mainline and did heads
out most of the way and then met Matt at Brookwood
before carrying on to Dan's house.

Ascot's West Midlands Challenge. Unfortunately, everyone
dropped out before the day, so it was only Me, Stephen,
Ascot and Matt doing the challenge. Even after over a
week of planning our journey times and routes, we still
lost to Ascot and Matt.

April 2007's odds and sods.

Me and some school friends spent the day in Stockport,
but I didn't have enough money to go bowling with them,
so I spent some time at Manchester Piccadilly waiting for
TPE's new Turbostars from South West Trains.

A few pictures of my model railway in our loft. It's a work
in progress and there's no scenery as we're still working
on the layout.

Last day of year 11 at Buxton Community School before
GCSEs. As it is a tradition at our school, even though it
was a non uniform day, everyone drew designs on their
school shirts.

It was one of our final few days of year 11 before we
started our GCSEs, so we thought some picture taking
was in order.

Playing around with the night mode on my camera phone.
We have way too many little lights on electronic
equipment scattered around the house, so I waved the
camera around at them and made lots of pretty pictures.

A day around London and East Anglia with Tom Loader,
Ramel, Gez and Jamie. We managed to catch the
20/20 Vision tour at Cambridge and Ely and then got back
in London in time to see the arrival of two Class 47s.

As usual, I was avoiding my art work, and decided to
draw on my hand and say that it was part of my project.
I thought it looked pretty cool though.

March 2007's odds and sods.

Tom Loader and I spent a day in London and later met up
with Ali, Sia, Ramel, Karahan amd Farmer Palmer. After
some running around London and hopping on and off
buses, Ramel managed to blag me, him and Loader on to
a Western railtour in the area for free.

Yes, we got so bored that we made Pom Bear crisps have
sex. We also filmed it and added voices.

The pictures that my cousin Frankie painted for me as
part of my Child Development coursework.

My Mum had a day off work, so we spent the day in
Edinburgh. I didn't realise at the time that I was spending
Valentine's day with my Mum. It was fun though. We took
the WCML there and the ECML back for a little variety.

For part of my Child Development coursework, I had to
spend a day with my cousin and play with him in order
to study his motor skills.

A few pictures of Voyagers at Birmingham whilst I was
waiting for my train.

Febuary 2007's odds and sods.

A little trip around the country. Getting up incredibly early,
I made my way to London and from there spent three
hours on a Turbostar to Lowestoft. After a short break, I
went home via Leicester and Derby on the bus.

The final day of the Class 442s before their withdrawal.
Me, Stephen, George and Jim spent the entire day
travelling up and down the SWML on the units and
managed to catch the very final service from Weymouth,
arriving back at Stephen's at some time around 1am.

Mine and Stephen's trip to Weymouth on the Class 442s.
On the way back, we got an entire coach to ourselves.
For some reason, Stephen thought it'd be a good idea to
flail from the luggage rack.

January 2007's odds and sods.

On my way back from a day out with Mark I got stuck
waiting at Crewe station for half an hour. I decided to
waste some time and take some photos.

Some pictures of Meridians, HSTs and dog boxes at Derby
and Leicester. I was waiting around at the stations and
thought I'd take some pictures.

December 2006's odds and sods.

Me and Ascot took a trip around Newport, Bristol and
Cardiff where we found Jim and Farmer Palmer. 50049
"Defiance" was in the area on a passenger service, so we
managed to fit in a good bash before I had to start
making my way home.

Yet another Child Development lesson. Me and Katie had
lots of fun winding Lisa up. I can't figure out why she
always sits with us, as she always ends up storming off.

A few pictures from school. It was a dress your best day,
so everyone was feeling a little loopy, and as usual, I was
there to photograph it.

Caitlin, Tom and I went to see my favourite band, The
Dresden Dolls play live at the Roundhouse in Camden,
London.

A day out with my Mum on her day off to go Christmas
shopping. I got to pick some of my Christmas presents.
We went to Pizza Hut too.

On my way from a day out in Leeds, I got a few photos
of trains at Manchester. The third picture of the Virgin
Voyager even got me second place in a competition. I won
a Virgin Trains mousemat.

November 2006's odds and sods.

A rather random non uniform day at school. We always
feel the need to take pictures when we're not all in
uniform.

You wouldn't believe the fun you can have with a sticky
label. As usual, we had two hours of boredom in our
Child Development lesson, so used that time wisely to
act like idiots.

October 2006's odds and sods.

I spent the day at Leicester, then me and Cait made our
way back to Buxton on the bus. Unfortunately, she
decided that she was hungry, so we missed the train to
Derby. After a two hour wait at Derby, we eventually got
home.

A few pictures from my walk to the bus stop on the
market in the early morning.

The usual Monday morning boredom. Being the mature
people that we are, me and Kate pulled faces to cheer
ourselves up.

The weekend of mine and Caitlin's six month anniversary.
She took me out to Frankie & Benny's and to the cinema
to see The Black Dahlia. It was a great night.

Every Winter we get loads of frogs in our pond that come
to lay their frogspawn. They're usually quite calm around
people, so we have no problem picking them up and
stroking them.

I took Cait to see the wonders of Manchester's China
Town. We bought two huge bags of fortune cookies, Mr
Tom bars and sesame seed bars. After getting back into
Buxton, we sat by the pond at Pavilion Gardens and
watched the ducks for a while.

Our usual Child Development boredom lead to some
rather random pictures. With over two hours and nothing
to do, we're bound to get a little crazy.

September 2006's odds and sods.

August 2006's odds and sods.

The arrival of 390029 after it's first run up to
Manchester in the promotional Superman livery. As I
was on work experience at the time, the driver gave me
a minute to sit in the cab and have a look around.

July 2006's odds and sods.

Europride - The biggest gay pride event to come to the
UK. Me and Caitlin met up with her friend, Dan and we
spent the day hunting for anything rainbowey to buy.
There were loads of live acts in Trafalgar Square, including
The Blue Man Group.

A weekend away in Leicester with Caitlin. Hannah came
over for some madness and did Cait's hair.

Pictures of some of the passenger services sat in
Manchester Piccadilly railway station, taken during my
dinner break from work experience at the near by Rail
House offices.

June 2006's odds and sods.

Whilst escaping the dreaded drama lessons at school, I
came across a huge family of about seventeen little
ducklings.

My year 10 art exam done in oil pastel on A3 paper. Also
a picture of my friend Catherine's exam.

May 2006's odds and sods.

A random day out with my friend from school, Jamie.
When we got back to Stockport, there was a steam train
sat in the platform and plenty of enthusiasts with their
cameras out.

All photos taken by Chris Lowe. Used with permission.