(06 Apr 2014, 11:52 am)Dan wrote Well I set off yesterday on the 06:53ish Tyne & Wear Metro service from Stadium of Light to Central Station, arriving 07:15am. To my disappointment, I had refurbished Metrocar 4090 for this journey. I can - and have - dealt with Go North East's enthusiastic Next Stop Announcements at this hour and it's never been as painful as my journey on 4090 yesterday.
From Newcastle to Edinburgh Waverley, I had Class 91 set 91102.
I walked around the Princes St area for a while and then walked to Edinburgh Bus Station via St. Andrew's Square. Although the main objective was to get some change as I only had notes and Lothian don't give change, this allowed for some photography of many various coaches as well as some of Perrymans' fleet. Also new since I last visited Edinburgh was the Enviros on the 40/40A. Got a few photos of those too.
After this, I walked to Lothian's Central depot to see if anything was visible to photograph. Not a great deal there and it's amazing to compare how different it is on a normal operational day compared to the Open Day hosted last year.
I then jumped on a 26 to Lothian's Marine depot, and this is when it started to rain a little. Nevertheless, I got a few photos and then we were off again.
It was time to hunt down Volvo B5TL demonstrator 286, so I eagerly waited at The Mound until having the idea of getting on a Hunters Tryst bound 27 and hopefully seeing it en-route and catching it up on the following 27. This didn't take long, as we saw 286 the stop after The Mound! In true Edinburgh fashion, it was stuck in traffic and so we had enough time to jump off our bus and run back to The Mound so we could have a ride of it. We caught it with time to spare and had a ride of it all the way to Silverknowes on the top deck. Once we got to Silverknowes, we took some photographs and then when it was due to depart, we jumped on it again and had a ride back to the City Centre.
I took a few photos at The Mound and on Princes Street again while my friend from Edinburgh grabbed a sandwich quickly. Next on the agenda was to sample a Volvo 7900H as we only had a few minutes on them last time I was up there. We stayed on until Clermiston, and it was good to go there as I hadn't actually been there before.
Soon after, the 21 to Gyle Centre pulled in and we decided to get on that as I hadn't been on the 21 before. Again, it was nice to visit Gyle Centre as I hadn't been there before and there was quite a bit of variety, with a few smaller operators being present alongside Lothian and First.
After a quick photo session at Gyle Centre, we jumped on a 22 all the way to Ocean Terminal. I think most people have been to Ocean Terminal before so most will appreciate that it's a nice place to go for a little break as it has clean toilet facilities as well as places to eat. The long 50 minute or so journey there allowed me to sort through some of my photos and delete the "duplicate photos" I'd taken as buses were coming towards me.
To my surprise, the fair was on at Ocean Terminal and this meant that it was a lot busier (and louder) than usual. A Scania with the lovely seats turned up, and we jumped on that to Holyrood. I do have a soft spot for Lothian's Darts (well, some of them - there's one which has hideously squeaky brakes!) so I had a short ride of the 36 from Holyrood to the City Centre.
I grabbed a bite to eat in the City Centre, and then realised I had an hour or so left - so it was time to get as many photos as possible!
We did a quick tour of the City Centre again by walking to the bus station and then walking back to Princes St and The Mound, where I'd timed another photograph of 286. Walked to The Scotsman and got some photographs on that bridge, and that was me done for the day.
My train home was "Skyfall" 91107, and my Metro home was 4042. I was tired, so I wasn't particularly impressed when another refurbished one turned up...
I had a wonderful day and the weather was reasonably good compared to what had been forecast. I'm just in the process of uploading last year's Edinburgh trip photos to Flickr and I'm just glad that this time, my camera wasn't broken! Quality of those shots are awful but they're a lot better this time.
Sounds like another cracking day out. Look forward to the photos. Did you find you had enough time? Too much time? Not enough time?
I've just booked tickets during the Easter week, but I'm going to head up on the 1042 East Coast and back on the 1830. It should still give me over 5½ hours of usable time.