Earlier in November I headed up to Darlington on an LNER service with the intention on nipping up the Bishop Auckland branch and visiting the National Railway Museum’s second site, Locomotion at Shildon. Unfortunately, what I didn’t take into account was forgetting to check the opening hours, finding out on arrival that Locomotion is closed on Monday and Tuesdays. My trip was on a Tuesday…

Just as we all thought there was some semblance of order to this series of blogs and vlogs with me heading further and further north from Peterborough, I decided to mix it all up a bit and head to London to do the six most southerly stations on the East Coast Mainline (ECML). From the bustle of the terminus of King’s Cross, via the busy commuter station at Finsbury Park to the suburban stations of Harringay, Hornsey, Alexandra Palace and New Southgate, this section of the ECML is very varied with plenty to see and do.

For episode three of Exploring the East Coast, I once again decided to head north and tick off the next two stations beyond Newark, the Nottinghamshire town of Retford and the South Yorkshire railway town that is Doncaster.

a couple of years away, East Midlands Railway (EMR) has needed additional rolling stock to fill the gap. Whilst the introduction of class 360s on the new EMR Connect services has helped by freeing up some class 222 Meridian’s, four former Hull Trains class 180s have been sourced to fill that gap for a couple of years.

With the aim of ending up in Derby by the evening, my choices for episode 3 of ‘Exploring the East Coast’ were to head south and eventually get an EMR service from St. Pancras to the Midlands or head north and make my way back down to Derby from Yorkshire. In a way I chose both, as to head north to Retford and Doncaster, I first headed south to London to catch the second Hull Trains service of the day out of the capital.

Following my exploration of Peterborough and a handful of stations towards London in my first ‘Exploring the East Coast’ adventure, my original plan had been to visit the remaining 18 between Hitchin and King’s Cross over the course of a few days before beginning to go north from Peterborough. However, as with all plans, this one went awry and my end destination for day two of ‘Exploring the East Coast’ changed, resulting in me heading for Grantham and Newark as opposed to the stations between Hitchin and Hatfield.