Spotting trip planned

What tickets will you be using? I hope you understand about Oyster and journey time limits.

It may be that you will be better off with paper tickets, which can be expensive. Or you could buy platform tickets, which cost £1 each. However if you visit all these locations in one day and include journeys from your home stations it may still be better to buy paper one day Travelcards. The hassle of being deemed to have failed to touch out after a journey (because you are on the platform train spotting) is such that the higher price of a paper ODTC makes sense.


re: your choice of stations, if you solely want Underground trains then your choice of stations are OK.

In the past I've stood at the London end of West Hampstead Jubilee Line as then the Chilterns can be seen as well.

Royal Oak will also give you the FGW services, although the direction of the sun can be a pain for photography.


Another station which might be of interest is South Kenton. I've often used the London end of the platform, and although again the direction of the sun can be an issue there is a very wide choice of trains to see, including Bakerloo Line, Overground and various WCML. My profile pic comes from South Kenton, it was facing north so the sun's direction was not a problem. Oh and if you do go to South Kenton make sure your journey from Queens Park is in a Bakerloo Line train, as these pass through a trainshed.

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Good luck with the station staff. In theory you are supposed to tell them before spotting so that they know that you are not "loitering" at the station. The trouble is that it gives them the chance to say "no", especially if you intend to use cameras. So I rarely do this myself. Note however that if filming you must not use tripods, even if you are right at the end of the platforms where few passengers go.

Simon

I'm sorry that my comments about filming at stations has caused an upset.

I agree that the overwhelming majority of LU's station staff are indeed friendly and welcoming but I have also had some very bad experiences.

Probably the worst was during the special run of the 1938 Tube Stock Heritage train immediately prior to the introduction of the new signalling system on the Northern Line, when a member of station staff at Leicester Square told me that it was illegal to film the trains and had I not caught the next train to a different station I would have missed seeing the Heritage train on that leg of its travels. I had wanted to film the same train passing through the same station but at different platforms. btw, I was using a small hand held camcorder / no tripod.

I later learnt that the Traffic Circular had actually told staff about the special journeys and that people should be allowed to film its passing. Had I know this at the time I would have made a formal complaint.

Simon

Thanks for all the replies guys, we had already considered the touch in/out with oyster so the plan is to get a paper travel card. If im at a station for more than an hour even with a valid ticket I always make myself known to a member of staff and find 99.9% are absolutely fine. Purpose of the trip is for numbers as just starting out, photography will come at a later date. I choose the stations listed simply by checking out you tube to see where I could see the most at a outside station.
Will let you know how I get on.

If it's a bright day and you want to take maximum advantage of the available daylight as the train enters the station, the ends of either Goldhawk Road or Shepherd's Bush Market are both open, and I've never seen a member of LU staff on the platforms of either. (They would need to climb a lot of steps and there's no real need for them to do so.)

I'm not sure how far the canopy extends at Wood Lane, but when stopping there it always feels rather enclosed.

By classes are we talking purely about Underground stock? There are very few places you can see more than one type at the same time - Finchley Road - Wembley Park, Rayners Lane to Uxbridge, Barons Court - Ealing Common, Mile End, and (if you are at the right places to see through the cross-tunnels), at places like Stockwell or Oxford Circus.. To see a bit of everything, you could go from Excel to Bank, then Waterloo, Embankment, Westminster, Green Park, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Holborn, Lancaster Gate and walk round the corner to Paddington.

"check the numbering in my app for as many units as possible in the time"

Not sure I understand what it is you want to do.

Thanks, that's helpful.


Sorry I was not clear.

This is a smartphone app for recording train numbers.  It has a database of loco/unit/car numbers.  For a long time I resisted adding TFL numbers to the database as I felt I didn't know enough about TFL to be able to get it even vaguely accurate  (and don't have the time to maintain it).  However, a number of people requested the inclusion of TFL, and someone even sent me a list of numbers.

When I started to look at the list(s) I had been sent, I spotted a number of problems with the data I had been given and following more research, would agree with your comment "there's a few lists floating around with a number of errors that are commonly reproduced".  I've done the best I can to get it accurate, although I'm sure it's far from 100%.

What I wanted to do in the time I have available (as I said, I don't get up to London that often) was sample as many lines as possible (tube and sub-surface) and see how the data in the app compared to real observation.

Hope that makes more sense, and thanks for the help.