Last Updated on Thursday 18th January 2004
Welcome to the Day Trip to Bangor Web Pages. There is a crowd of people some of whom are members of EMAROT, all living in the East Midlands, who occasionally enjoyed a regular Day Trip to the North Wales seaside town of Bangor.
In its heyday (roughly 1997 - 2001) regular trips were undertaken travelling behind Class 37/4 locomotives hauling a variety of 'proper' coaching stock of British Rail Mark 1 or early Mark 2 design.
During 2002 there was a brief return to locomotive haulage, this time utilising Class 47/4 locomotives hauling four Mark 2 air conditioned coaches. This came to a rather sudden end (save for one out and back working between Manchester and Bangor) and once again that was that - or was it?
Monday 31st March 2003 saw the introduction of two diagrams operating between Holyhead and Birmingham New Street which later changed to one out and back from Bangor to Manchester and a Crewe - Holyhead diagram. An executive decision has been made to carry out one or two Day Trips just for old time's sake, watch out for a few reports of this new Sulzer era!
Report For The Trip Of Saturday 17th January 2004
Another year and even less to do on the railway scene. Class 86s no longer ply the West Coast on passenger duty, the 87s have reduced workings and hardly any HSTs work cross country services.
Incredibly there are still a couple of loco hauled turns along the coast. No longer Regional Railways or First North Western but Arriva Trains (Wales) are now the operator.
The hauled turns consist of four coaches and a Class 47 one of which today is 47798 with former Virgin Trains coaches.
An outburst of engineering work meant it was impossible to make the 10:21 from Crewe off the 08:32 departure from Derby as had been the plan. Very fortunately a fast car became available of the Porsche 944 variety (!)
Said vehicle did cause a Cheesehouse tantrum mind you as extreme difficulty was encountered in squeezing into the rather miniature rear of the vehicle. Indeed upon giving up Mr Cheesehouse was heard to bellow "That's it, day caped!" At this point Mr B managed to feed himself in based on there being far more room than the normal locomotive engine room in some respects.
Once at Crewe platform alteration announcements caused some minor amusement as the "customers" were advised to proceed to the revised platform "in a calm manner".
798 was delayed during the run round performance eventually leaving Crewe at 10:44. Interestingly the train was both shown and announced as running to Bangor; more than likely owing to the fact another service (albeit operated by Virgin) is scheduled to leave Crewe at 10:23
For the record the coaches behind 47798 were 9522, 5983, 5991, 5989 - indeed Mr Cheesehouse remarked on the now rare sound of the brakes thereon! Meanwhile Mr B observed that his last trip to Bangor was on 12th January last year - to the Northern Ireland version on a thumper unit from Belfast!!
Arrival in Bangor was rather later than we would have liked as Valuable Drinking Time (VDT) had reduced as a result. Above is 47798 leaving Bangor on the generally unadvertised bit to Holyhead.
The first port of call was the increasingly infamous Hogshead which became the scene of yet another walkout due to the most uninspiring range of "beers" available. The Albion was next where the Burtonwood Bitter was on top form.
The route back to the station passes the Harp Inn murdering Wetherspoons.
Regular viewers may recall the outrage expressed on this site at the closure of The Harp Inn.
Imagine our sheer delight then at seeing that Greene King have fired a fully justified broadside at Wetherspoons in buying The Harp, very tastefully reconditioning it followed by a re-opening some 3 months ago.
Unfortunately the vinyl juke box has gone (replaced with a CD version) but other than that there are four real ales plus the excellent Bitburger Pils on draught - not of course that our so called Campaign For Real Ale will be that bothered due to their bizarre obsession with Wetherspoons.
The view above shows The Harp in its reopened guise, not something which looked
very likely in this view
Meanwhile back in the real world - we were so impressed with this 'against all odds' re-opening a hearty meal and a good quantity of Adnams Bitter were duly consumed at the expense of 47798 or 43067 + 092 back along the coast.
The 14:24 departure was duly boarded formed of 175007 - in all honesty when compared to the highly cramped abortions known as 'Voyagers' or 'Pendolinos' these are fine units with a good 80% of seats actually in line with a window.
175007 awaits departure from Chester
Mr B flew into a bit of a dither when a 47 plus Great Western stock whizzed by. One telephone call later and it was gleaned it was 47790 (once 47272 of boilered Haymarket fame!!) on a one way working.
It was decided to visit the Mill Hotel in Chester (the City of Mr B's birth!) where the excellent Caledonian Deuchars IPA was available. A suitable quantity later saw departure for the 16:37 off Chester which was 175103 giving a nice connection on to 87008 for a run to Stafford seated in the one time Sc12014 of Edinburgh - Glasgow push pull fame.
It would appear that the Stafford Arms has recently changed hands on account of a marked increase in the general quality of the venue.
Another sight hardly seen nowadays is a pavement made using bricks, or more to the point one in good repair as seen here near the Mill Hotel in Chester.
From Stafford it was a shopping experience with 221125 upon which coach B simply stunk of poo which Mr Cheesehouse reports as being a normal scenario on these objects. At least the 221s (tilting shops) have more substantial looking bogies than their (non tilting shop) 220 counterparts which appear to have accommodation bogies judging from their most flimsy appearance.
This most pungent of trips happily ended at Wolverhampton and was followed by a visit to the Hogshead. A little more farsighted than their Bangor counterparts Deuchars IPA appeared to be available. Sadly this ran out during dispense no doubt having been consumed by the recently departed football dross. There must have been some form of commotion as the nearby Wetherspoons retail outlet was noted as being closed for cleaning purposes - that'll teach them to knock lager & alco-pops out at such cheap prices which will automatically attract the dross.
Further to this on our return to the station notices were to be seen in the windows of said retail outlet telling of closure for the rest of the night on Police instructions. The next licensing hearing for the dump should be interesting then!
Once again returning to the real world 87019 was the power for the 20:19 out of Wolverhampton. Mr B boarded the train whilst Mr Cheesehouse toddled off for a photograph or three of the 87. Upon completing his task the central door locking performed thus causing Mr C to watch the train leave - ooops!!!!! Anyway, from a text message received it seems 170514 soon came to his rescue.
Rescue mission over both joined 221124 for another smelly run from Birmingham to Derby.
Words & Phrases Of The Day
Hacni = Hackney (as in Hackney Carriage or Taxi)
Bysiau a thacsis = Buses and Taxis (interesting plural of taxi here!)
Labordy Cyfrifiadureg = Computing Laboratory
The Day Trip To Bangor Picture & Sound Gallery
(Daily reports of activity along the Coast)