18th March 2011 - FOSW Day 3 and Isle of Wight Day Ranger

On Saturday 19th March I was due to my first complete rail tour, 'The Heart of Wales Rambler' with Peter. It was off of Eastleigh at 0552 so i clearly needed to be in the area for the night. I managed to get a day off work and was going to spend the day on the south coast and stay the night. Not long after we booked the tour Peter had the idea of going over to the Isle of Wight to complete the Island Line as neither of us have done this. Whilst there we had also planned a visit to both Wetherspoons. 

So I was on the 0553 off Plymouth to Exeter. It would seem we were lucky to get this train as shortly after it left Exeter to continue its journey to London it rolled back into Exeter! Anyway we waited for our train to Salisbury and once we got to Salisbury changed onto a FGW 158 to Portsmouth. We were going on the hovercraft to Ryde. We got to the Portsmouth area and had about an hour where we could bash as many units on the hill as possible between Fratton and Portsmouth Harbour. 

We headed for the Hover port at about 1145. This is where it went a little wrong. Signs for the Hovercraft bus were non existant and we ended up taking a long way round to the right direction! We were clearly going to miss the hovercraft and to top it all off it was pouring with rain. 

We decided to head back to the station and start again. On the way back we found the bus stop!!! The next bus was at 1300 (but i read the timetable wrong and thought it said every 30mins!). We then realised that we were right outside a Wetherspoons (The Trafalger) so we popped in for a pint! We were at the bus stop for 1230 (then i realised my mistake!) so we walked to the hover port (using the directions on the iphone now!). We got there in time for the next trip and they accepted our ticketes even though they were technically not valid. 

Anyway we finally got to Ryde and re planned the day as we had an hour less. We decided lunch was the best thing to do first. So we headed to Newport on the bus which took 30mins. Quick lunch in the Wetherspoons (The William Coppin) and back to Ryde for the main reason we came to the Island! To complete the line and everything that was running on it we took a train to Brading, changed for the return to the Pier and then did the return to Shanklin. This completed both units running on the day and the whole line. This gave just enough time to get a pint in the final Wetherspoons in Ryde (S. Fowler and Co). Then back to the mainland. It's a pity we didn't have an extra hour on the line but we still completed everything despite our mishap. 

Back over in Portsmouth we headed back to Southampton via Eastleigh. From here we checked into the hotel. We were going to go to two more Wetherspoons in southampton but we had seen that there were two 158s running the Romesy circuit that we each needed one of. So Peter planned a move to get at least two of the 3 that were on the circuit, hopefully ours. As it turned out we got mine and the other one, not Peters. 

Then it was back to the hotel by 2330 and sleep for the next day! 

43036 (0553) PLY - EXD

159015 (0726) EXD - SAL

158958 (0932) SAL - FTN

377474 (1055) FTN - PMS

450031 (1103) PMS - FTN

444027 (1108) FTN - PMS

313205 (1117) PMS - PMH

158958 (1123) PMH - FTN

450005 (1137) FTN - PMS

483007 (1510) RYD - BDN

483009 (1528) BDN - RYP

483009 (1550) RYP - SHN

483009 (1618) SHN - RYR

483007 (1657) RYR - RYD

450012 (1845) PMS - PMH

450013 (1845) PMS - PMH

444037 (1859) PMH - ESL

444033 (2000) ESL - SOA 

444020 (2014) SOA - SOU

450039 (2155) SOU - ESL

450075 (2203) ESL - SOA 

158887 (2226) SOA - SDN 

158884 (2240) SDN - ESL

444005 (2303) ESL - SOA 

Total miles travelled 263. A good day with 14 winners for haulage (despite my bad luck continuing with the 444s as I believe despite Peter having travelled on more he got more 444 winners than me!) and i saw another new Class 70 and Class 66 at Maritime for sight. At least 444025 hadn't turned up this time!!