(door beep )
YouTube, I've got a problem.
My problem is I'm addicted
to ticking off stations,
or in this case, tram stops,
which is why today I'm in Nottingham
to ride the NET, the Nottingham Express Transit.
Except nobody calls it that,
it's just the Nottingham trams.
There's 50 stops,
and I'm gonna to visit them all.
To help me do this-
it looks like you've just arrived by bus,
but you actually drove here.
Yes.
You drove here, right?
It's Jono.
Jono, which video of mine were you previously in?
Oh, that was the one-a-day cross-country service
from Guilford up to Newcastle?
So you live in Guilford now
but you're from Nottingham?
- Yes.
Where were you born?
I was born in Mansfield,
which is about 15 miles that way north from here.
So you have local knowledge?
Yeah, spent all my teenage years around this area,
coming into Nottingham to do shopping.
Did the trams exist
when you were a teenager in Nottingham?
Nope.
Is it exciting being back in Nottingham?
Yes.
He's not excited!
And you've chosen the route.
-Yep.
In fact, Jonno drew me a map earlier.
So it starts up in the north.
Goes down here into the city centre.
Branch to Phoenix Park there.
Stops at Nottingham station,
then comes all the way out west,
and down
to Clifton.
And this
is Nottingham Main Line.
- Problem I have is when I see the trams going to Hucknall,
I just think of Mick Hucknall with Simply Red.
I'm going to be singing
Simply Red songs all day.
Okay.
- [Jonno] Please don't.
- Jonno said no to Simply Red song singing.
All right.
And how long do you think this is going to take us?
I'm thinking like four hours.
(Geoff laughs)
- [Jonno] Something like that.
- [Geoff] And initial plan is
Toton Lane to Eskdale,
double back to Inham on the tram,
double back tram to Bramcote,
walk from Bramcote to Cator lane,
'cause they're very close,
tram to Central College,
then walk from Central College to Chilwell Road,
'cause they're very close.
After that,
not sure.
(tram passing by)
- [Automated Voice] This tram is for Hucknall.
- Jonno is in charge of ticking them off.
Okay, this is going to be a rapid edit between tram stops,
otherwise we're not going to fit these all in.
We are gonna do them all.
(tram doors beeping)
- Took us just seconds to get to-
Minutes, seconds to get to Eskdale.
We've got to cross over and go back one.
(tram pulling away)
- I like this idea of going A, C,
back to B, to D.
We should do that, staggered back and forth all day.
This is working fine.
(tram doors beeping)
- [Geoff] Inham Road,
train back to Hucknall is in three minutes.
We've been told that off-peak,
the trams run every 10 minutes on both branches,
so in the city centre, it's a five minute service.
But in the evening-afternoon peak,
they run up to every seven minutes.
(tram passing by)
- [Automated Voice] Bramcoat Lane.
- That's Bramcoat Lane, number...
four.
We're going to walk to Cator Lane,
which is that way.
(tram passing by)
- [Jonno] You can see the next tram stop.
- [Geoff] It's that close, isn't it?
It's that way.
It's literally-
- Yeah, two minutes walk.
- [Geoff] Jonno, was that,
there's two different types of trams?
- Yeah, when they built the first phase,
they ordered some trams from Bombardier,
- [Geoff] How many?
- [Jonno] and there are 15 of those.
- [Geoff] Okay.
- [Jonno] And then when phase two opened,
obviously they needed more rolling stock,
and they ordered them from Alstom.
- [Geoff] And you can tell,
'cause one's sort of more slanted,
and one's a flatter front end.
- [Jonno] Yeah, the model changed.
- [Geoff] There's like a slanted and a flat end.
(tram coming to a stop)
- [Automated Voice] This tram is for Hucknall.
The next stop is High Road.
- Which one of the two types of trams is that, Jonno?
[Jonno] That is an old stock.
- I think it's-
is that where they put the newer ones over the older ones?
- [Jonno] Yes.
- Alright, I concur.
(tram passing by)
- [Geoff] It's genuinely occurred to me just now that-
how do we know which way to go?
And then I just realised
you just follow the train tracks in the road.
We've actually kept walking because we had time.
We've come to Beeston Centre tram stop,
which is nicely integrated with the bus stop here,
and then we'll go back one west
to Chilwell Road,
and then turn around and sail back through here.
So we're going back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth.
(tram doors beeping)
- [Automated Voice] This is Chilwell Road.
- So for the purposes of the video, to speed things up,
I'm going to drop one or two,
maybe three montage music sequences,
as we tick off-
- [Automated Voice] This tram is for Hucknall.
- a whole bunch of stations, stops, in a row.
- [Automated Voice] The next stop-
- Goodness!
- [Automated Voice] -is Eastern Centre.
- Music.
(Montage music playing)
(Montage music continues)
- [Jonno] Nice montage, Geoff.
- We got to Nottingham
at 2:45,
and noted that there was a 2:58 train up
the Robin hood line to Hucknall,
which is the end of the tram line.
Then we'll then come back south.
We're setting us up just a bit of time,
and we got 10 minutes just to chill out,
12 minutes on the train to chill out,
out to Hucknall.
(train pulling away)
- There goes our train.
Made it to Hucknall,
but I can tell from the DMI
that it's now after three o'clock,
it's gone to an every seven minute frequency,
which will make things better for us.
It took us like an hour to do the first 10 stations.
And we had a two minute change there,
and I've come up to Butler's Hill, and we'll reverse.
I've got a three minute wait
and we'll go down to Bulwell Forest.
Then we're doing what?
We'll get the tram one stop to Bulwell,
and then walk to Highbury Vale-
No, hang on.
- We're walking from Bulwell Forest to Bulwell,
getting the tram from Bulwell to Highbury Vale
on the Hucknall line,
and transferring to the Phoenix Park line.
- So we're off-
see a tram,
at Bulwell Forest.
- And we're walking to Bulwell.
- Why is there a level crossing here?
'Cause Croydon trams don't have a level crossing.
'Cause it's an open system.
Why at the junction here,
is there a level crossing for the tram?
- They took one track from the Robin Hood line,
so there is a main line track just there,
just the other side of the tram track,
and the level crossing was already here for that.
So it made sense just to keep it
for when they built the trams.
(tram coming to a stop)
- We're off at Highbury Vale,
but look over there.
It's the other Highbury Vale.
That tram is waiting to go south.
Are we just about to miss one going north?
- [Geoff] Is this going north?
- It is.
It says Phoenix Park there anyway.
(tram doors beeping)
- Out at Phoenix Park.
We've got three minutes to walk down the hill
(Geoff laughs)
to pick up the same tram.
I mean, I don't think we'll do it.
- [Geoff] Look!
Double arches!
We're definitely walking through an old alignment.
(ground rumbling from tram)
- [Geoff] Where are we?
- We are here at Hyson Green Market.
- And what's the plan for the loop?
(Jonno exhales)
- We are going to walk to The Forest,
get a tram to Noel Street,
walk to Beaconsfield,
get a tram to Shipstone Street,
walk across to Radford Road,
and then carry on the rest of the way
towards the city centre.
And in case you're wondering,
we did just do
David Lane,
Basford,
and Wilkinson Street.
And then after that, we'll do the core section
through to Nottingham Station,
and then I'm just going to montage it up
all the way to Clifton South.
Phew.
(people talking nearby)
- Off at Noel Street.
That was really quick, like 60 seconds.
And hopefully just,
I can already see it Beaconsfield Street
another minute up the road.
Jonno?
- [Jonno] Yeah?
- If we ran, do you think we could catch the same train?
(Geoff laughs)
Jonno doesn't wanna run.
I was all for running!
Come on, man!
It's just there!
(tram doors beeping)
(tram passing by)
(Geoff panting)
Yay!
This is Radford Road!
- [Jono] Yeah.
(tram doors beeping)
- So that's all for the high street,
we're in the city centre section.
So it's a simple case of tram one, walk one,
tram one, walk one, tram one, walk one,
until we get to the station,
the big station.
And then it's all the way to Clifton South.
Other one.
I really want a cup of tea,
and I need to go to the toilet.
(Geoff laughs)
This is where you say,
"You should have gone before we left, Geoff."
- [Jono] You should have gone before we left, Geoff.
- I don't know how many this is,
but right now in the corner,
there's a pop-up thing that will be like,
that's about 30-ish, 32?
I'm going to guess, let's guess.
I think you've done 34 out of 50.
I honestly haven't counted.
How many do you think?
- [Jono] I'll go 35.
- 35, so higher wins?
Whoever is lost at this point, buys the teas.
- Yeah.
- Okay, here comes our tram.
(tram passing by)
- Jono, I had a quick count on the tram,
you're not gonna believe me.
It was actually exactly 34.
But now the internet don't believe me.
They're like "You must have known!"
That was a genuine finger in the wind.
- YouTube, YouTube.
- No, no!
No, I just guessed the 34,
and it's exactly 34!
So if there's a place to get a cup of tea,
then the teas on you, my friend.
(tram passing by)
- Come join me, Jono.
Hi!
Welcome to the intermission part of today's programme.
(leisurely piano music)
- So it takes about four to five hours.
Not that we're actually timing ourselves.
But behind us, Jono, is?
- The old exchange building?
- We're sat in...?
- The old market square that everyone local
knows it is as "Slab Square",
because of the number of slabs paving it.
- All I can see is an attractive water feature,
and then like hundreds of pigeons.
- Mhm.
It's great.
- Just thought we should interject the tram video
with like, a little local intermission.
- [Jono] Uh-huh.
So this is the centre of the city.
- This is very much seems like,
the heart of Nottingham's shopping district.
- If you were meeting someone who is coming in
from a different direction,
this is where you do it.
- [Geoff] So whatever our final time is,
add 10 minutes to it for our official tea break.
And we're just going to chill for a second,
and then crack right back on.
Oh, we get, the tram is over there.
That is the market square stop.
And then we'll head
south.
Cheers.
(leisurely piano music)
(train doors beeping)
- [Geoff] (singing) Trams, trams, trams.
- [Geoff] So you've got 10 seconds to do this.
Go!
- Okay.
So at this point, the tram goes along the viaduct
for the former great central railway,
which used to extend all the way along here,
and disappear into a tunnel portal
which is now buried
beneath this art studio.
- [Geoff] Jono?
- Mhm?
- We've got a problem.
- What's that?
- The video, look in the corner.
- Oh yeah.
- It's already over 10 minutes.
(Jono inhales sharply)
- So we're going to have a super edited,
speeded up montage music section for the last section,
where we go tram one, walk one, tram one, walk one,
tram one, walk one,
all the way to Clifton South.
- Mhm.
- All in about 15 seconds.
Are you ready?
- Yeah.
- Like this.
(Montage music playing)
(Montage music continues)
- We're onto the home straight!
We got out at?
- Summerwood Lane.
- We're going to finish at-
- Clifton South.
- By getting the train.
Thanks-
- Tram.
- What did I say?
- Train.
- It's been such a long day!
But it's been fun.
That's all 50 tram stops.
- [Jonno] Yep.
Nottingham, tick.
- So, Like button, Subscribe, smash...
stuff.
- Thanks, Jono!
Goodbye, Nottingham!
Bye.
(tram doors beeping)