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The Day I Went To Denby Dale.....

There's been a lot of time spent in Leeds recently whilst Philippa is on her Youth Talent Pathway course with British Athletics & one of the contact days being on a Monday gave a bit of a gricing opportunity.

There's been a lot of negativity on the Northern rail franchise and it will transfer to become a directly operated railway in a couple of weeks time.

So, with a few hours to kill & an £8.10 West Yorkshire Day Rover ticket in prospect, it was time to head off in search of Pacers and wherever the mood took me......


The first trip was from Headingley into Leeds on a late running Knaresborough working which was particularly busy. Once I got to Leeds, it was a decision on where to go next - there was a Knottingley departure that I thought might be a Pacer but turned out to be 158, so I thought I'd try something new as 195123 was sitting on a Manchester Victoria departure via Bradford. Ideally, I was wanting to head to Huddersfield for a trip towards Sheffield, so I thought I'd give it a go.
The acceleration on these new trains was very good and whilst they're reasonably comfortable, the ride quality isn't great as they're quite bumpy. There was a bit of on the hoof planning thanks to real time trains and I could get to Huddersfield with a change at Halifax. I'd never been West of Bradford on the train before, so it was all a bit new.

As the train from Halifax to Huddersfield was a bit late, I missed the train I'd planned to catch on the Huddersfield to Sheffield line, so I had a quick trip to Dewsbury and back with TPE - my first trip on one of their 802's and a reasonable trip apart from disruption at Mirfield with a bridge strike.



So, the fun bit started when I got back to Huddersfield and it was great to see a 144 lined up as the traction to Sheffield. The plan was to catch the train to Stocksmoor and then have a couple of minutes wait to catch the train in the other direction. However, the bit I didn't check was whether the train back had left Sheffield, which when I did check it, I found it to be cancelled - a bit too late as I'd already left Huddersfield. So, what to do next ?

A quick Google suggested that Denby Dale was probably the best place to bale out as it looked like the biggest place and somewhere to get some food. As it turned out, it's a curious little place and I learned a few things, just in case you ever go :-

1) you can only use a contactless card for payments of more than £3 in the NISA.
2) the cash machine at the Post Office gives out fivers
3) it's got a cracking little bakers with a Cornish pasty for only £1.20 !

Now that I've discovered these facts, it's a place that I won't forget in a hurry.

Luckily, the next train back to Huddersfield was on time but sadly wasn't a Pacer & a pair of 153's was the order of the day.  The plan was to then catch a TPE 68 from Huddersfield to Leeds but sadly this was cancelled & a 185 had to do before I had a Usain Bolt like sprint in Leeds to catch the train back to Headingley, which I did, which wasn't bad in arriving at 14.30 but catching the 14.29 train !

A canny little day out & good value for an £8.10 day ticket.

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