For some years now, London Midland Trains (LMT) to coincide with the October half term break have offered a day ticket to anywhere on their system for just £15. A look at the map and the area it covers shows just how good an offer it is.
This the fourth time I have taken advantage of it.
The services to and from London and Liverpool and all points in between are in the hands of Class 350 EMU’s built by Siemens AG in Germany. They are known as ‘Desiro’s.
The 350/1’s were built in 2004 for ‘Central Trains’ and ‘Silverlink’ while the 350/2’s were a later purchase by LMT in 2008/9. A further batch of 20 are currently on order. These will be split between LMT (350/3) and ‘Transpennine Express’.
They are fast, quiet and comfortable.
From where I live, the nearest LMT station is Lichfield Trent Valley (LTV). The station has two levels.
The main, lower one is on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) terminating in London to the South and Liverpool in the Northwest.
The upper one goes to Birmingham and on into the West Midlands towards the the Welsh border. The two most Westerly outposts being Shrewsbury and Hereford.
The route for today was straight down the main line to Rugby. Then North to Stafford. Liverpool was next returning to stop a while at Crewe. Finally back to LTV and home.
The WCML is famous of course for the Anglo-Scottish expresses and in some ways the LMT operation is a little overshadowed by their high speed neighbour.
Nevertheless they provide a vital and necessary service quietly, confidently and comfortably.
The services into Birmingham from LTV are in the hands of Class 323 electric units and here we see 323242 just before departure.
350 106 and 350 254 seen at Stafford.
They normally run as four coach sets but they can of course work in multiple.
350 105
Approaching LTV.
350 123
At Rugby
350 110
At Stafford
350 120
At Rugby
No comments:
Post a Comment