Tuesday 9th June 2015
It was not the earliest start, but it did have to be a prompt start, Newquay's ticket office opens at 10am, allowing 20 mins to get a supplemental ticket.
Back in 1988, British Rail abolished First Class in an way. It was removed from nearly all services overnight except on InterCity lines. First class tickets were abolished and instead the "First Class supplement" was introduced for the trains that it remained on. For a while, there were a lot of people enjoying the first class seats that had been declassified, but as refurbishment went on those were mainly withdrawn.
Since then, the withdrawal has continued, there has been no first class on Cross Country services since 1994, it was withdrawn from ScotRail inter city in 2005 when the class 164's came into use on the long distance routes. More and more standard InterCity services have dropped it outside of peak hours and there have been discussions that the new Mark IV coaches will only be built in Standard Class.
Western Region only have first class on a train when it has a restaurant car, which is designated first class, this has reduced first class a mere 8 services a day out of Paddington and rumour has it that there will only be 6 from next year. However, the restaurant car service has a very high reputation with food designed by Rock-based chef Nathan Outlaw. So as the train I am travelling on has a restaurant car, I buy a supplement from Plymouth to London Paddington, it costs around half the standard fare from Plymouth to London.
However, first it is a quick run down to Par in a class 117 unit and then a short wait for the "Cornish Riviera Express", which at this stage is a class 47 with 5 coaches for a fairly swift run calling at Bodmin Road and Liskeard before arriving into Plymouth with about 20 minutes before departure. The 47 is detached and within a few minutes three more coaches are added by a shunter, another Open Standard, a Restaurant Car/Buffet and an Open First. The trick is to sit in the Open First to dine avoid noise from the restaurant car, half the Open First is dedicated to dining. My supplement and reservation are quickly checked and I'm asked if I want first service on leaving Plymouth or second service on leaving Exeter St Davids. I choose first service.
In the old days, the Riviera was non-stop Plymouth to London, but at various times it has had stops at Newton Abbot, Exeter and Taunton. These days it is just Exeter and the schedule is less punishing than it was 10 years ago because of the age of the locomotives generally hauling it. It is generally scheduled in the summer for double-headed Westerns, but as the new dual-power Class 80 locomotives have started trickling into the UK which can operate trains along the whole WCML, a handful of class 50's have been transferred to the Western Region. We, however, get a pair of Westerns something that probably won't last more than another year.
The menu is very simple, three starters, three mains, three afters, I quickly choose the tomato starter, the plaice main course and the cheese. There have been rave reviews about this all over the place, but at £35 for lunch there needs to be. I choose cider to go with it.
Service starts fairly quickly as we move out of Plymouth, through the tidal valley of the Plym and the station at Plympton and then up Hemerdon Bank. The South Devon line is challenging and also very scenic, the odd abandoned station and plenty of abandoned branches, several of which were very controversial at the time. Only the Ashburton branch remains mothballed and there has never been a serious proposal to reopen it.
As we pull through Newton Abbot, the starter gives away to a very nice looking plate of plaice, but the timing could be better, there is the sea wall run to enjoy. Of course, one of the least controversial closures was the Teign Valley line, which had closed to all but the odd diversion well before Beeching and was completely closed by flooding in 1968. With the seawall breach, serious consideration was given to looking at the Teign Valley again to avoid the long drag on single track and poorly signalled lines through Okehampton and Tavistock.
The sea is benign today, no fountains of spray over the train and after Starcross I get on with the plaice which is delicious. We have a short call at Exeter and half a dozen people join us in the Open First, all for dining. A climb up the Exe Valley and then along to go through Taunton on the fast line and through the flying junction at Cogload onto the Langport and Castle Cary and through Castle Cary and around the avoiding lines for Frome and Westbury. We then come into the line of the Kennet and Avon canal and at Newbury, we have a signal check and see that this is the limit of the GW electric system as we wait for a class 361 Networker to get out of the way. Their diesel cousins the parts of the commuter services that are not under the wires.
There is some delay going through Reading which is currently being resignalled and has been the cause of delays for some months now and at this point I suspect at least working timetables have taken into account of it - all this is, of course, preparation for when the wires reach Swindon next year where similar work is being done. Of course, the main driver of this is not the effects it will have on InterCity, which has struggled to maintain its market. But on the growing London Outer Suburban market.
Indeed the journey is full of Networkers, both the electric and from the as yet unwired branches, the diesel versions. They are as fast as us and the electric ones can accelerate better which I understand has caused some interesting scheduling decisions.
We are a few minutes late into the extremely long Platform 1 at Paddington and I've missed my next train already, but that doesn't really matter as we are in London now and the next service runs every 20 minutes. Paddington is the gateway for Heathrow Airport, although for many years it was reliant on the Tube Line. Since Heathrow Terminal 5 opened in 2006, there has been two services from Paddington, the every 15 Minutes Heathrow Express and the every 20 minutes Heathrow Electric. The Express goes direct to Terminal 5 and then to Heathrow Central and finally to Terminal 4. The Electric makes stops en route, only calls at Terminal 5 and then goes on to Staines it is more of a workers service. Both are unusual in that the service is a 24 hour/365 days a year service.
The 4-coach unit for the Electric are third generation units with air conditioning, powered doors and facilities for the disabled, although they are less than ample on luggage space. The reason for taking this is really so I can avoid taking my small bag on the tube. Anyway with only three stops on the mainline and two stops on the branch before terminal 5, it isn't a slow journey and then it is direct to the dedicated bay platform at Staines.
As I'm a little later than I had hoped, I'm a little concerned about the next service to Aldershot being very full and instead of having 23 minutes to get it, I have 8 minutes. 8 is just enough and there are still a few seats left which is great. It's a quick half hour on a 8-coach modern unit to Aldershot and just before the hordes pour out of the Great Wen.
The purpose of this diversion is sat in the Bay Platform here, whilst two trains an hour run through on the electrified line to Alton, one train runs from Aldershot to Winchester direct along the Watercress line. As the Southern Region has increased its profit year on year and has virtually no mothball charges, it has extended its third rail to fill in the remaining diesel lines. The third rail has been extending along the Watercress Line since the start of Spring which will be one less habitat for the Class 210 "New Thumpers".
Whilst not as noisy as the old Thumpers, the noise of the DMU is quite a bit more than the modern third rail unit. The 3-coach unit is quite full, but has mainly emptied out by the time we reach Alton, a few more get off at the two request stops and then we halt at Alresford where most of the rest of the passengers get off and wait for the up service to pass us. When we leave for Winchester, there are only half a dozen people in the carriage and after passing under the M3 which crosses the line with a spectacularly ugly bridge we pull into Winchester on time.
