As much as I like trains, I was never really able to find any good reason to walk to the other side of town to watch trains, and thus the only times I saw trains were either when I was actually riding them (which was and still is an infrequent occasion) or the rare event when some truck comes along pulling train carriages on its back (like the Class 769 EMU that I saw at the Ashby Road/Epinal Way roundabout in December last year.) However, one day in early September, I decided to go to the station for a spot of... trainspotting.
I had been hoping to see some of the newer arrivals to the East Midlands Railway, such as the Class 170 Turbostar or the Class 185 Adelante; however, the only trains I saw were all older trains, though I was no less pleased to see any trains at all, given how infrequently I see them. Also, I didn't realize how high the parapets of the Nottingham Road bridge were!
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| The first train that I saw was a seven-car Class 222 Meridian, no. 222003 Tornado, operating the 09:53 service to London St. Pancras. It arrived at Loughborough about eleven minutes late, due to someone being hit by a train somewhere else. (Another train was shown as being more than an hour late due to the same incident.) |
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| The Class 222 was introduced in 2004. 222003 was originally a nine-car train, though one car was removed by the end of 2006 and another was removed in 2008, the removed cars being used to extend shorter four-car Meridians. |
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| All of Midland Mainline's Meridians were passed to East Midlands Trains in 2007, where they were later joined by four four-car Meridians from Hull Trains which remain in their original configuration. All Class 222s were subsequently inherited by East Midlands Railway in 2019. 222003 was photographed still in the East Midlands Trains livery, two years after that franchise expired! |
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| Class 158 Super Sprinter DMU no. 158866 is seen at Loughborough with the 10:07 to Cleethorpes. |
It was also on this day that I took the most photos ever during a single outing until that time - nearly 570 photographs, which has only been beaten once...
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