On the final Saturday in January, I decided to have an impromptu ‘railday’ and so headed to Pennines to explore the region with a South Pennines Day Ranger. This ranger ticket costs just £25.20 for adults or £16.65 with most railcards and allows unlimited standard class travel on most operators within a region bounded by Bradford (Interchange), Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield.
Having arrived in Corby on the afternoon train from Derby (read about that here), I had about a 50-minute wait until my booked train to London left at 1837. Unfortunately, Corby station has rather limited facilities and there is no first class lounge available. The station does have both a ticket office and coffee shop located within the ticket hall/waiting room area, however both were closed during my visit and the lone vending machine on the platform was ‘in operation’ but empty.
After my underwhelming trip from London to the Midlands with East Midlands Railway, I was looking forward to giving them another two attempts the following day. Therefore in the early afternoon of Tuesday 20th August I headed back to Derby station to take one of the rare trains that arrives into Corby from the north, 1P99, the 1627 Derby – Kettering service. After a planned arrival into Corby at 1747, I’d then have just under an hours wait until I took the 1837 Corby shuttle back down to London St. Pancras which will be covered in a later blog.
Monday 19th August 2019 brought a clear and chilly morning as well as the first weekday trains operated by the new East Midlands Railway (EMR). EMR had begun operation just a day earlier, beginning it’s period as the operator of the East Midlands franchise having taken over from it’s predecessor East Midlands Trains. Although many branding changes had already taken place, there was very little change this early in the franchise and so the 0831 departure from St. Pancras to Sheffield was still the sole train each day that offered a full breakfast service from London.
In October I headed to Birmingham for an event and decided to sample what would be a new product for me, Chiltern Railway’s Business Zone. I’ve traveled up the Chiltern Mainline to Birmingham multiple times, enticed by the extremely cheap advance fares available, however I’ve never been lucky enough to time my trip to coincide with one of the handful of trains each day that have the Business Zone available.
After a day riding the rails of West Yorkshire, I was back at Leeds station a couple of hours before my train back to Peterborough. As with my journey north, I was able to get an Advance Single, just three days before travel, for £29.05 travelling in first class, and so when I got back to Leeds, I headed towards LNER’s first class lounge.
Flights & Times 