I left home at 0945 to get the 1002 to Clapham Junction. This meant I saw the 1031 London Overground train leaving as I climbed the stairs on platform 14. Thus it was the 1046 train I caught, intending to to go to Gospel Oak. However, as we left Willesden Junction I noticed a large quantity of the class 172 units that provide the train service from Gospel Oak to Barking. It was therefore obvious bus substitution was in place: as has been the case at times for the last year as this line is electrified. Since I needed to get to High Barnet I looked at my bus map and saw that if I stayed on the train to Kentish Town West I could walk to Kentish Town Northern line underground station and thereby reach High Barnet. The entire journey took until midday, much as my wife's journey to work takes, two hours plus, to get to Kingsbury from home.
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| Two No 34s waiting their return to Walthamstow, in Barnet. |
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| VWH2052 The Metroline Volvo Hybrid bus that I would be catching at the stop below |
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| Barnet Church which is the nominal destination on the bus in the background on the first photo |
My departure was at 1208 and we began by heading downhill towards London with a wide panorama of the London skyline in front of me. Very soon though we turned to the left and lost the long distance views within suburbia. It is very similar to my original home town of Orpington with similar size and types of housing and associated parades of shops. Gradually the bus works further in towards Central London but gets no further than the North Circular Road for a good while, sometimes even running along it. We transited a huge industrial complex around Edmonton before finally heading in towards the centre of Walthamstow where I reached the bus station at 1318.
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| Walthamstow bus station |
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| VWH2052 resting before its long journey back towards Barnet |
In order to reach the next bus it necessitated two trains and bus. The first train I caught from Walthamstow Central to Hackney Downs at 1335. Trains from Walthamstow don't stop where I needed to get off though, which was Cambridge Heath. Therefore I had to change platforms at this station to get a train, which had originated from Enfield Town and was headed for Liverpool Street. These trains are both now operated by London Overground. I didn't have to wait very long at all and as we left the station at Hackney I saw one of the Rail Head Treatment Trains on the Graham Road curve, the second engine of which, 66723 Chinook was extremely dirty from the spray mixture they put down to improve adhesion. As I alighted from Cambridge Heath I walked around the corner and caught a No 55 to Shoreditch Town Hall and from there I walked to stop N to catch my next bus the No 35 to Clapham Junction.
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| The first stop for the route 35 at its NE end in Shoreditch, despite what it says on the sign it is actually between Shoreditch High Street station and the old North London Line station which closed in 1941 |
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| The No 35 (MHV62) resting before reaching the bus stop where I was waiting at 1408. |
I waited here only a short time before the Volvo hybrid MCV EvoSeti MHV62 arrived to take me along Bishopsgate and then Gracechurch Street before crossing London Bridge at 1425. Progress was slow but steady and it continued in this vein as we headed for Elephant and Castle and the Walworth Road. I was taken aback by the abruptness of the left turn at Denmark Hill/Camberwell Green. This affords the bus the opportunity to turn right across the road it was previously using and so head west to Loughborough Junction and subsequently Brixton. At Brixton there is another complicated means of turning right at Lambeth own hall as one needs to go around the triangle with Brixton St Matthew's church in the middle in order to turn left into Acre Lane. This road leads to Clapham Common and as we crossed this the drizzly rain which I had encountered between Edmonton and Walthamstow returned; perhaps this was a waving cold front! The bus turned right away from the common and right again to go to the Falcon and once across Lavender Hill terminated just south of the maze of railway tracks at Clapham Junction railway station at 1538-a total journey therefore of 90 minutes.
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| The bus leaving the stop at Clapham Junction. Unfortunately it was by now gloomy owing to the rain so the photo is a little blurred. |
After a short stop in the Halifax Building Society I then caught the 1552 to Caterham and got off at Selhurst to await a train from London Bridge which would take me to West Croydon and then onwards to home which |I reached at 17:15
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