(floorboards creaking)
Doors Closing.
(closing door)
Doors opening.
Lift going down.
(birds chirping)
Let me put my hat on.
I was gonna say, it's a cold November morning,
but it's not that cold.
I mean it is, it is chilly.
And also the sun is out.
Look over there, the sun's rising.
So it is.
But we're on the Eureka Business Park in Ashford.
Yeah.
We got the high-speed train down last night.
How was your high speed train experience?
It was fast. (laughing)
Now, luckily, my sister lives in Ashford,
but there's no room to stay the night,
but we dropped in to see my sister.
More importantly, I got to see my sister's kids.
Yep.
Although, her eldest, Adam, was kind of jacked in.
Hey, Adam!
Adam!
Adam, I've come to Ashford to see you.
Sh, not right now, not right now.
And we are heading for the station.
To the trains.
(upbeat music)
Morning, how you doing?
Can I get two adult singles to Doleham, please?
To Doleham, yeah?
Two singles, £20.60, please. Lovely.
She's there, Vicki's getting her tea.
We have our tickets.
It's before 9:30, so, we've got a two together rail card.
Did you get tickets already?
Yes. That was fast, man.
And he didn't even look at me funny
when I went, "Single to Doleham".
I thought he might be like "Don't you want a return?".
He knows your game. He knows our game.
Single, single, single.
(Train engine rumbling)
Are you tweeting? I'm Instagramming.
This is the southern service to Hastings
calling Ham Street, Appledore, Rye
Winchelsea, Doleham, Three Oaks, Ore and Hastings.
Due to arrive at Hastings 9:38.
Change at Hastings for services towards Eastbourne/Brighton.
How many passengers? Yes.
So according to the Office of National Statistics?
Mm-hmm? It got 3,553 passengers
last year. Oh.
That still sounds like quite a few.
Divided by 365
is 9.7 passengers a day.
Oh, well that's not that many.
(laughing)
Oh oh we're going, we're going
Whoa, that's early.
We're leaving 30 seconds early.
Bye Ashford. Bye Ashford.
Are we waving to Ashford? (laughing)
Somebody called James VT on Twitter,
says that this two car, 171,
is known as The Maggot.
Apparently. This train?
This train is known as The Maggot.
I thought it was three cars?
I'm pretty sure it's a two car.
So this is, um, carriage one.
Carriage two.
(coughing)
So just, just the two.
(door alarm dinging)
This train is the southern service to--
So I've explored the carriages.
How many carriages are there?
There were in fact two. (chuckling)
So maybe I'll leave all the counting to you on this trip.
(chuckling)
Do you know what class of train we're on?
You're holding up a finger.
How am I not to, how am I not to insinuate you mean one?
Seven?
One class?
One.
Seven.
One.
This is a 171 class of train. (laughing)
We're at Rye Station, Rye.
This train is the southern service
to Hastings.
For the signal at present
but when I do get some information
from the driver of the signal, I'll let you know.
This is the Hastings service.
Being held at a signal at Rye.
We haven't left.
We should've left at?
I want to say 9:16.
Geoff's chatting to the guard.
We're still waiting.
What's happening?
The announcement's just got on.
We can only get off the front coach at Doleham
because the platform is only long enough for one car.
One car?
A two car train is too long for Doleham, I love it.
(door alarm beeping)
Doleham! (train engine humming)
We're at Doleham, it's tiny. (laughing)
I was worried about where to meet Vicki at the station,
but fortunately we decided to meet at the meeting point.
Oh, where do I meet Vicki at this busy station?
Oh, look there's a meeting point.
Oh, there you are. (laughing)
I thought we'd never find each other.
I'm so glad there's a meeting point.
(laughing)
There's not a lot going on here.
Really, really, really not a lot going on.
So they've got the summary of train times
and it's the most sparse poster that I've ever seen.
Yeah, what do you think?
The station used to be called Guestling Halt
Guestling Halt?
What else did you learn from Wikipedia?
It used to have two platforms.
Okay, well done.
It's like, you know.
What else?
In the seventies they stopped using one of the platforms.
Okay. They used to run
hourly services. Okay.
But now they don't. Right.
We can buy tickets here.
See how much a ticket to Three Oaks is.
One way? Yeah.
£2.60 Okay.
Should we walk it instead? Sure.
I've realised two things on this
reconnaissance trip on the train.
One, always bring snacks.
Two, always bring gloves.
The third thing I've realised,
is always bring more sensible shoes than a pair of Converse.
(leaves rustling)
Bit of country walking. I've lost my other sock now.
I've already got a blister on my toe.
I've got mud in my shoes, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, we were prepared for the trains
but we weren't prepared for the country walk bit, were we?
(birds squawking)
You all right? Yeah, we weren't prepared.
(laughing)
(sheep braying)
Are we having a nature moment?
Look its, it's Mrs. Sheep
and baby sheep, hello.
So we got to a bridge over the railway.
So Doleham, we just came from,
is in that direction.
Three Oaks,
into the sun,
is in that direction.
Ow brambles! Yeah.
Ow!
The ubiquitous 35mm film canister.
Cool.
So we've hit the road.
There's a bridge over the railway.
So the railway should be here.
We should be back at, we should be back at,
should just be at, oh, (chainsaw humming)
there's a man with a chainsaw.
So we should, I'll speak loudly, be at Three Oaks Station.
And there's a noisy guy with a chainsaw down there.
That's really, really annoying.
So again, we're on a very short platform
that'll only fit one carriage.
There very clearly used to be a second platform over there.
Oh, there's another passenger coming.
There's another person.
We are going to Hastings, yes.
So what did you make of Doleham and Three Oaks?
Me? As our journey
comes to an end. Yes.
Because we're not going to film Hastings, right?
Oh, okay? Are we not?
I don't know, I liked it.
I mean, they're very small quaint stations.
They are very small quaint stations.
(train engine rumbling)
It's very meta. (laughing)
I really enjoyed it.
I enjoyed the walk as well.
And meeting the sheep.
The sheep was your favourite part wasn't it?
Yeah.
Okay, say bye.
(train engine humming)
(Upbeat Music)