London, The Silver Mainline. (29/12/12)

To start todays trip we decided it would be best to pay for a taxi to get into Redditch in time for the first train of the morning. By having a poor understanding of how fast the taxis are we arrived into Redditch with 30 minutes to spare after collecting tickets (oops) so decided to visit the Red Diamond depot where most the fleet were parked before heading out for the days duties.

A rather poor photo to the left shows 20913, MX57 UPS inside
Redditch Depot, 20913 is a Black Diamond livery
Optare Solo which has been in Redditch for a few weeks

The 06:27 which was formed of 323208 which we used to Birmingham to allow us to make the Chiltern Mainline service to London after a cushy stop for Breakfast. 

323208 is seen photoed at Five Ways on a previous visit to Birmingham

From Birmingham the plan was to use the Chiltern Mainline service to London Marylebone from Birmingham Snow Hill, the service comes from Kidderminster starting there at 07:12 and arriving into Snow Hill at 07:51 where it then goes forward stopping at a small handful of stops along the way, allowing Chiltern to offer a service worthy of competing with Virgin and London Midland. The Chiltern service was formed of 82302 and 67015.

67015 is seen at London Marylebone

From London Marylebone and after meeting Adam Priseman outside we decided to head to London Euston on Stagecoach London's 15117 on the 205 service which runs from Paddington to Bow Church via Marylebone, Euston and Liverpool Street. We stayed here for 20 minutes to photo the variety of buses that serve London Euston station from operators such as First, Arriva, Stagecoach, Go Ahead and Metroline.

Arriva London VLW198, LJ53 BFE is seen outside London 
Euston while waiting for a space to clear

The next move was to head to the busy Oxford Street where several buses serve due to it being a busy shopping location with a variety of shops for everyone, to get here we boarded RATP's London United  SP143 on service 10. These Scania OmniDekka's have an unusual seating arrangement downstairs due to having a standing engine.

Metroline's VP577, LK04 ENE is seen on
Oxford Street with a service 98.

From Oxford Street we left Adam who decided to go and find some Arriva stuff ... He has a thing for them ... So we decided it was time to grab some bikes and get cycling! I wanted to check out a location in the Victoria area of London where it is good for train photos. From Oxford Street we cycled to Marble Arch, then along Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner. With London being rather busier than elsewhere in the country it is worth taking caution when cycling however with bus lanes on most roads this is a far safer option than the open road and most bus drivers will give you a wide space when passing which is always appreciated! From Hyde Park Corner we cycled down Grosvenor Place and up Buckingham Palace Road to the cycle point by Victoria Coach Station. This ride came in at 2.2miles and 9mph average speed.

YourBus 4006, FJ60 EGZ is seen
arriving at Victoria Coach Station

Victoria Coach Station is located just a stones throw away from Victoria Train Station which is connected with the Tube station making it a key interchange with a Bus Station also located just outside the Train Station.

WVL124, LX53 AZT is seen loading at
Victoria Coach Station on a service 11.

From here we cycled to the next point which was located by Ebury Bridge, however we got lost and ended up by The Thames and across the river from the former Battersea Power Station.

Battersea Power Station.

We had missed our turn and ended up cycling an extra mile around a rather large block however we found the back of the Rail Depot located just outside London Victoria.

First Capital Connect 377522 waiting
for its next call of duty.

After we found the right location we parked the bikes at the Cycle Dock and proceeded to the location, 10 paces from the cycle dock which was the entrance to the Network Rail site, which provides a great location for train photography outside Victoria Station.

455820 is seen leaving London Victoria.

From Ebury Bridge we cycled to Pall Mall's St James's Square, where we decided to walk up to Piccadilly Circus to get some more bus photos.

Arriva London's OA332, J332 BSH.

Piccadilly Circus is a busy hub for buses and tubes being one of the tourist hot spots being a key location near Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace, having finished photoing at Piccadilly we decided to use some Tubes to get to Liverpool Street Station.

We used to tube from Embankment to Waterloo then Waterloo to Bank and Bank to Liverpool Street where we headed for a 205 bus to Angel which turned out to be 15101 another Scania OmniDekka!

From Angel we cycled to Oxford Street, down to Victoria and then through Buckingham Gardens and to Marylebone.

From here we ended up on 168217 back to Birmingham Moor Street on the 18:06 service.

168217 waits time at London Marylebone.

From Birmingham we got 323217 back to Redditch on the 20:13 service which was running slightly late so by the time we got back to Redditch we ended up missing the 58 and waiting half an hour for it to get back to do a 57 (These being circular routes following the same route)

323217 is seen at Redditch.

From Redditch we caught 67640, VX54 MRU on the 57 service to Washford, Redditch where we then had to walk back to Studley due to no buses running to Studley after 7.15pm, Welcome to Redditch!

67640 is seen in Redditch on a previous day while running an X3 service.

Thanks for Reading.