They took us to the sea

AKA: a trainspotter's day out...

It was so sunny I wanted a day-trip to the seaside, so I sped from London to Brighton and then, being wilfully perverse, I got on another train -- this one going towards Seaford.

Oh, alright, damn your interrogation tricks! I confess: I actually wanted to ride on one of these, a Class 313, since it's been refurbished by Southern. These units used to live blameless lives on the North London Line (now part of London Overground), and they were designed for intensive metro operations. They've now been put to work on the Coastway routes, long, rambling lines running along the beautiful shoreline, for which they don't seem entirely suited (not having any lavs, for instance, in an area with a decidedly elderly population and journey times of more than an hour).

But the good news is that the refurbishment is actually rather good, and these three decade-old trains are rather enjoyable. Simple but comfortable. Nice.

This one sped me to Lewes...

...where a change of trains gave ample opportunities to admire the distance chalk cliffs before my next train (a Class 171, of which more later).

And then, finally, the sea...

In my tortuous journey I had been aiming all along for Bexhill-on-Sea, another of those shingle-beached resorts that time has left behind.

My real objective here was the De La Warr Pavilion, a giant piece of 1930s Modernism utterly out of place in this traditional seaside resort. Beautifully restored, on the inside it's rather grand and lovely, all fittingly ocean liner-ish.

The outside is a little disappointing: the sheer bulk of the Pavilion doesn't, for me, sit so easily on the seafront. Hence no pictures.

So I returned to Bexhill station for my train and, as I was early, I had a chance to take photos. Lots of them.

Because Bexhill is actually rather an interesting station.

For a start it's vast. Much bigger than a town of this population would normally require, presumably kitted-out in the expectation that hordes of holidaymakers and day-trippers would otherwise overwhelm the station.

The station buildings are on a giant raft, with a road in front that passes at right-angles to the tracks. The buildings are reached by long, gentle ramps from each platform.

The space under the raft is intriguing (and pigeon-infested), and luckily I only saw the "Keep out" sign as I was walking away rather than before I went in.

At the end of this undercroft is a glorious mechanical semaphore signal:

And, joy of joys, it's matched by another semaphore signal at the other end of the platform -- here the arm has been raised to show the route for my train has been cleared ahead:

The tiny, 2-car Class 171s that form many of the trains at this station are dwarfed by it:

Still, there are lovely views from the windows...

Back at Brighton station, a photograph of the old LBSCR (London, Brighton & South Coast Railway) clock proves impossible to resist:

And, the final unexpected treat, my train home is to be a Class 442, a Wessex Electric, one of the high-ish speed trains designed for the London-Southampton-Weymouth route but, in our crap railway system, now finding a new home on the London-Gatwick Airport-Brighton run.

Around a quarter of a century old, these 442s have been perfunctorily refurbished but they still offer a good customer experience. For those who like that sort of thing, they also hold the world speed record for third rail traction.