Busiest day of the tour

 22 July

 

Highbury & Islington change (circled yellow) was wrong, the two platforms are at different levels so my idea of being able to run a train around the whole UK tour would fail here

 

There are 10 little trains on this map because I'll be on 11 trains in one day. Most of them are very regular, four or more each hour but there are two or three hourly services and if I miss two of them I could be late for checking in to the hotel.

The Ipswich Penta Hotel is a deep U-shape with the open end pointing away from the station and reception in the middle of the inside of the U. When I checked out I thought I could see an external door behind reception so asked if there was another way out to get to the station. "No" they said "you must go all the way round the outside".

 Ipswich Station, awaiting 10:41 to Chelmsford

 Penultimate first class journey, although only 18 minutes.

 Chelmsford. Another long wait for the train to Romford. The waits get shorter as we progress.

 Commuter style train to Romford.

 Romford platform 1. To Upminster.

 Overground train.

 Upminster for Pitsea train. 2min to spare.

 

 Pitsea platform 4. 10 minutes wait for Grays train.

 C2C train to Grays.

 Grays for the Barking train, in 12 minutes. Just started to rain.

 Another one of these trains. Terminates here so a comfortable dry seat.

 Next train on same platform in 7 minutes and there's a waiting room on this platform.

 Gospel Oak in 30min.

Decided to change my plan very slightly. Changing trains at London Bridge is a lengthy procedure. I see that I could change either at City Thameslink or Blackfriars to get the next train without having to change platforms, so that's what I'll do.

 Amazing. Just caught the train before the one I planned. No advantage though, still get same train from Highbury & Islington

Two problems at Highbury & Islington. 

Firstly the platforms are on different levels, like Moorfields. So my plan to find a route that a train could complete by departing from a platform adjacent to the arrival platform has failed - twice!  I must correct the route and try again next year.

Secondly, my train is cancelled. 

...also there's no signal here so I can't check later train times until I'm on the next train to Finsbury Park in 15 minutes.

 This is it, just two stops

 Train to Blackfriars

 Another reason for changing here is that it's over the Thames and there are views.

 My 11th train today is in 10 minutes 

 There's a first-class section but it's for everyone

 Clarendon Royal in Gravesend. My room here is the first for several years that has no table or chair, so the blog will have to wait.

But it does have an opening window and a working fan, unlike the Penta hotel, Ipswich, last night where the air-conditioning was jammed on 26.5degC, but the restaurant was much cooler.

This restaurant is actually a lively bar that serves food.

Someone ordered 2 cocktails at the bar. So far the barmaid has made four and served one.  The  other three went wrong. Ah, she's just served them to the couple next to me who were in stitches over the whole procedure. 

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