Freedom Pass Project – Update

I had a moment where I thought about calling this one Knockin’ out Knockholt… I decided that it might cause problems for anyone following the series, so we’ll stick with the update.

On Monday I had intended to go out to Slough but that was based on me being out of the house at around 08:45. Just after 7am Epi asked if I could give her a lift to the station – Most of my readers will know of the ‘Woman getting ready to go out’ delay. It’s one of those differences between the sexes that makes us who we are as humans. It’s something that frustrates me but I also know that some of my things frustrate Epi too. A good relationship is built on acceptance of these different priorities😅 So I fired up the car and took her to the station. The impact on my day is theoretically a 30 min diversion from what I was doing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way and I then get sucked into a time-warp of my own… losing more minutes as I start getting ready myself…

The reason for going to Slough was to try and get some more diverted freight before Network Rail fix the Nuneham Viaduct – which they plan to complete for 10th June. But with a couple of hours knocked out of my day I headed out onto the tracks with no fixed idea of what I was going to do.

As a trainspotter/transport enthusiast, flexibility is important – it goes with the territory. I looked at my outstanding terminal points and decided to head for Knockholt on the Southeastern. So, Northern Line to Kentish Town where I pick up a Thameslink towards Farringdon. When I arrived on Kentish Town Thameslink, there was a Class 222 unit sitting on the northbound mainline so I ventured down onto platform 4 to check out which unit it was. There I found a young lady with 2 children so, having ascertained they were waiting for a train to Mill Hill Broadway, I directed them to Platform 2 (Nothing normally uses Platform 4). She was very grateful. Us trainspotters sometimes get treated poorly by the general populace – we’re a convenient easy joke. But unlike a lot of those people who like to snigger, we usually help people!

Popping down to Knockholt entails getting to London Bridge – So a Stopper from Kentish Town to Farringdon. Normally another train directly from there but I decided to break my journey at Blackfriars to get some shots of the Class 700’s passing through or, in the case of 700058…

…terminating with a service from Sevenoaks.

There is some irony here because, when I got to London Bridge, I would be boarding a train to Sevenoaks. It’s just that there are two different routes involved and Knockholt isn’t served by Thameslink😅 From London Bridge, once I’d taken a short hop from Blackfriars, it was a Southeastern service that took me out to Knockholt.

Knockholt station is, for want of better words, in the middle of nowhere – roughly halfway between Orpington and Sevenoaks. It has a shelter and modern ticket office…

…but no sign of staff on duty at the time I visited (lunchtime). There are bridges to the north and south of the station and I wandered down to the southern bridge which is an occupational crossing for farm traffic and also a footpath. That’s where I took the photo above but I also got to catch a pair of Class 707 units heading into London…

…707013 leading 707006 amid some lovely summer greens😎

There are several trains through Knockholt each hour but only a half-hourly stopping service. Passing fast trains are usually formed of Class 375 units like 375819…

…While the stopping services are worked by class 465 and 466 units…

…466030 leading my train back to Grove Park – The lady at the controls giving a friendly wave as she drifted past👍

Grove Park is a Junction – some of my readers will remember some shots from there before I started my Freedom Pass Project. The reason for leaping off there is the Bromley North Branch. Bromley is served by 2 stations, ‘North and ‘South. I’ve travelled to Bromley South on several occasions for football – Wingate & Finchley vs Cray Wanderers…

…It’s a 30min walk from the station but what the hell😅

The line to Bromley North used to have direct trains from London but is now usually a shuttle service operated on the ‘One train in Steam’ rules. So I travelled from Grove Park and back again on 465172…

…Bromley North is quite a pretty station…

…But unfortunately the bar was closed so I had to make my way into town to find a sandwich…

…Then it was time to make my way home. Two more termini cleared off my Freedom Pass wanted list😎👍

The Freedom Pass Explained

My friend, and regular visitor Debra, has asked several questions regards the Freedom Pass and my journeys using it. I decided that to answer those questions and give a full understanding, a post was needed. This is going to get a little complicated in places so please bear with me!

The first question – “Are these short distances you travel between stations?” – is probably the most difficult to answer without context. So to give an overview of the potential distances I think we need to envisage the area covered by the pass. Broadly speaking, this is London and its Suburbs within the M25 Ring Road…

Image from Google Maps

…That yellow line forming a rough circle through the green areas around London. Ignore the smaller circle that you can see inside the built up areas – That is the North and South Circular roads and our pass takes us a lot further out than that!

Now we need to talk about ticketing because that plays a key role in where our pass can take us. There has been a strong desire to get away from paper tickets on public transport for many years. There are many reasons for this ranging from convenience for the travelling public to political machinations. In 2003 Transport for London introduced the Oyster Card for travel within London on Buses, Underground, Tramlink and the Docklands Light Railway. It was subsequently expanded to include travel on national rail services too. Pricing for journeys is based on a system of concentric zones. The area initially covered has expanded over the years – this is the current zone map…

Map courtesy of Transport for London and available on the TfL website

In general the Oyster Zones form the basis of where the Freedom Pass can be used with a few anomalies. This is the simplified map showing the route validity for the Freedom Pass…

Map courtesy of Transport for London and available on the TfL website

Now to answer that question – short distances? In comparison with getting on a train to go to Scotland these are short distances. But to give a sense of scale using some London Overground routes as an example… Watford Junction to London Euston = 17 miles; Stratford to Clapham Junction or Richmond = 17 miles; Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside = 14 miles give or take. A trip from Watford Junction down to East Croydon using London Overground and Southern services would be just over 25 miles.

On any day out I will usually be travelling sections of different routes to get to my destination, so none of the individual distances will be long. Lets do the trip from East Finchley to Harrow & Wealdstone as I did it last Tuesday… Northern Line to Archway = 2 miles. Then London Overground from Upper Holloway to Gospel Oak = 1 mile; Gospel Oak to Willesden Junction = 4.5 miles. Finally, Bakerloo Line from Willesden Junction to Harrow & Wealdstone = 5.75 miles – 13.25 miles total not including walking.

“Are they commuter trains, primarily?” – Yes. Although the term local trains is probably more appropriate to the national rail services I use as they run throughout the day rather than at peak times only. They usually call at all stops along the route.

“Light Rail” – No and Yes 🤣 The Docklands Light Railway speaks for itself…

…The Tramlink is Light Rail too…

…especially when it gets away from the roads😅 I guess you could view the London Underground as a form of Light Rail…

…but in reality it’s the worlds oldest ‘Rapid Transit’ and incorporates companies with mainline pretentions (The Metropolitan Railway for example) 😎👍

Additionally, the pass is valid on all London buses and on local bus routes throughout the UK!

Finally – the anomalies! I can travel to Watford outside of the Oyster Zones because it is served by London Overground (whose trains I must use). The same is true of Cheshunt, Amersham and Epping – all outside the M25 but served by London Overground, the Metropolitan Line and the Central Line respectively. When it opened, The Elizabeth Line introduced the biggest anomaly of all – I can now travel from Shenfield in Essex all the way across central London and out to Reading in Berkshire. That’s over 60 miles!

And in future, who knows? The possibility of Transport for London taking over the Thameslink routes has been mooted before – Cambridge, Bedford and Peterborough through to Brighton would become a possibility were that to happen😅 Never say never🤣

Freedom Pass Project – Update

Circumstances often play a role in what we decide to do on any given day. Wednesday was a strike day on the railways. Friday was also a planned strike day. Thursday looked like a washout from a trainspotting point of view with many routes recovering from the previous day. I looked at the, very handy, Transport for London website to see what was running reliably. Most National Rail services were disrupted with no service first thing. But those lines not being operated by government controlled companies were running a good service. These included London Overground and C2C. I decided that I’d knock out one of the Overground termini in the form of Barking Riverside and then see where the day took me.

I travelled to Barking via the Northern Line to Bank and the Docklands Light Railway to Limehouse. Here’s 357034 arriving at Limehouse with a Fenchurch Street service…

…As you can see it was a grey day and quite chilly. From Limehouse, I caught a Grays train out to Barking.

Barking Riverside opened in July last year and is part of the London Overground network served by trains from Gospel Oak. I rode on 710267 for the short hop to the new station. It makes quite an imposing view in a utilitarian sort of way…

…It sits beside the Thames and connects with river boat services during morning and evening peaks on weekdays and all day at weekends.

When I’m on one of these largely unscripted outings, I sometimes see something that draws me away from the trains for a while – In this case, some trucks along River Road which leads upstream towards Barking Creek. I photographed this nice DAF XG+ belonging to M.J.Griffiths…

…I also took a look downriver and photographed a dredger at Hanson’s Dagenham aggregates facility…

Having cleared off Barking Riverside for my Freedom Pass Project, I now had to choose what to do with the rest of the day. I decided to head back to Liverpool Street and pick up one of the Overground services from there serving Cheshunt, Chingford or Enfield Town – I need all three termini. So it was back on the Overground to Wanstead Park and a short walk across to Forrest Gate to pick up an Elizabeth Line train to Stratford…

…riding a Class 345 unit. I took a short break at Stratford to grab some lunch before continuing my journey into Liverpool Street on a Greater Anglia service. now fate took a hand in the day – I was thinking of going to Chingford but I was just about to miss that train so I decided to take the next Overground service which happened to be going to Enfield Town.

It’s quite a slow trip with lots of stops along the way but I finally made it to Enfield Town station…

…and once more faced a dilemma – go back to Edmonton Green and pick up a Cheshunt Train or go even further back to Bethnal Green for a Chingford service. I did… Neither!

Remembering that I need to knock off Crews Hill on the Great Northern line to Stevenage, I decided instead to walk across Enfield from ‘Town station to ‘Chase station. Anyone who read about my Ewell West to Ewell East adventure might feel a sense of trepidation but Enfield is almost home territory for me and I know exactly where both stations are😎 So I set off across town and took some bus shots along the way…

…as well as photographing this pair of Swans and their Cygnets on The New River…

…This is a man-made watercourse that was built to provide fresh water to London and still serves that purpose.

At Enfield Chase I was lucky enough to catch a late running Stevenage service…

…delayed when the scheduled driver was unable to get to work on time due to the knock on effect of the previous day’s industrial action – The relief driver was apologetic for the late running. For me the effect was less waiting at Crews Hill for a train back. As you can see Crews Hill station is not exactly brimming with interest🤣…

…But if you’re a gardener or looking for pets – it’s ideally located for a host of nurseries and pet vendors! I have shopped here before but I usually come by car😅

Looking north from Crews Hill you can see the trucks on the M25. What’s that coming?..

…It’s 717004, one of the last two of the class that I need to see and my ride back to Alexandra Palace where I’ll get a train to New Southgate before catching a bus home. A very enjoyable trip out and three more termini cleared off my Freedom Pass Project list😎👍