Pleased some of you's have had enjoyable days out, but do you think I did? Read on to find out...
I didn't note the buses and times of the journeys that were made today but for what I want to say it's not really important details.
Things started off fine, my journey to Sheffield went pretty smoothly where I got a Virgin Trains East Coast Class 91 to Doncaster where I then changed to a Northern Class 142 which did annoy me slightly as I was hoping for something different, oh well.
Met my enthusiast friend in Sheffield Rail Station where we then went to Sheffield Bus Station where we hung around waiting for the Metrodecker demonstrator on loan to First which we rode for the full X78 to Doncaster. Whilst in Sheffield Bus Station I signed some papers allowing me to take photos in the bus stations in the area, was hoping that this would cause me no problems, no! In Doncaster Bus Station a Powells driver opened the doors and shouted "YOU AREN'T EVEN ALLOWED TO TAKE PHOTOS IN HERE!!!" this is my first verbal abuse I've had from a driver in the two years I've been talking photos.
The enthusiast friend that was with me today had a problem with his camera, so we looked for somewhere that may be able to sort the issue with his camera, unfortunately there wasn't anywhere like that within Doncaster so we had to jump on the X78 and go somewhere else where the name of the place escapes me that had a Jessops, unfortunately they couldn't sort his problem in the shop so that was a total waste of time!
In said shopping centre we went to McDonald's for lunch, we went in the express lane which unfortunately threw me and resulted in me forgetting to order fries which annoyed me.
We then went back to the bus station and unfortunately the X78 we got to Rotherham Bus Station was rammed, no seats upstairs when we left and the bloke behind me decided to use the headrest to hang his coat on, this is not what's it's for and I'm sick of people doing this!
In Rotherham Bus Station we encountered another smart arse driver who said something along the lines about us having to pay for him to be in our photos. Just about every other person on the buses took offence to us here, especially the passengers where many of them pulled offensive hand gestures at us. As we were sick of the StreetDeck's on the X78 we decided to wait for the Metrodecker to come back, only to find out it had been replaced by a single decker, although the X78 branded StreetDeck's seemed to be on various different routes today. We then got another StreetDeck back to Sheffield. One thing that really angered me today was the fact that although these StreetDeck's have WiFi, they haven't set it up on all the buses that we had on the X78 today which is a total pee take, if I exceed my mobile data limit this month, they will getting a very strongly worded email from me.
After a little bit more spotting in Sheffield, we both went to catch our train, it was 3 minutes late into Sheffield but by the time we got to Wakefield we were 10 minutes late, my mate departed at Wakefield. After departing Leeds we were starting to make up time only to fall further behind thanks to about 20 stupid kids trespassing on the line, apparently a brick or something like that was thrown at the train and we had to sit somewhere for about 5 minutes shortly after passing them. We were 14 minutes late arriving into Darlington which meant I was unable to catch the 5A home as it's impossible to get from Darlington Rail Station to Darlington Town Centre in less than a minute, so I was left with two options, the 20:15 Sapphire 7 or Northern train back to Newton Aycliffe, as my previous journeys on that 7 have been a bit rowdy in the past I opted for the train, what a mistake this was, I was about the only sober person on the whole train, to make matters worse the train left from platform 1 instead of 4 due to a late running Virgin Trains East Coast service wanting to be on platform 4, unfortunately this confused some of the mortal passengers, some of a group made it onto the train but others hadn't, when it was time to leave some of them were on the wrong platform and when the doors closed some of the people who were on the train tried shouting to alert them that they were on the train but they couldn't hear this, sadly I certainly could as they were stood RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!! when they were practically screaming in my ears, so I had to endure 20 odd painful minutes on this booze cruise, was an unbearable experience for me.
So... Yeah... I know I say some of my outings have been the worst day out ever, but this one actually has been the worst one I've ever had, these have to be without a shadow of a doubt the worst places I have ever been to and I certainly ain't in a hurry to return to these dumps. Photos will be on Flickr tomorrow, providing I can bare the thought of rooting through the photos of drivers and passengers who gave us grief over the course of the day.
Thanks for reading my tales of woe from today.
