The Night Riviera

The Night Riviera is a sleeper train which runs from London Paddington to Penzance in Cornwall (and from Penzance to Paddington) 6 nights a week. I’d long fancied trying it to see what it was like so booked a brief trip to Cornwall to find out.

This is what I found out:

I booked just over a week in advance with a Railcard and paid £57.70 for a Super Off-Peak Single London Terminals to Penzance plus £89.00 for a sleeper cabin. You can forego the cabin and get an airline-style seat for no charge if you want to try and sleep in a chair in a room full of strangers instead. A cabin also gets you use of the lounges and showers at Paddington, Penzance, and Truro and a complimentary breakfast served to your cabin. Although the Night Riviera picks up passengers at Reading I opted to start at Paddington because who wants to hang around on Reading station at twenty to one in the morning, especially given that nearly everything on the station is shut by eight-thirty in the evening? That was another £21.20 for an off Peak Single with a Railcard but worth it. The 1st Class lounge at Paddington provided free hot drinks and snacks too.

As usual the train I intended to catch to Reading for a connection to Paddington was cancelled and the following one would just get me there in time - assuming it ran at all. Not wanting to risk it I left home early and got the previous departure, itself running twenty minutes late, and arrived in London with quite a bit of time to kill. So I went for a stroll around Tyburnia and had a pint before heading back to the station.

The lounge is located on platform 1 which is from where the Night Riviera usually departs but tonight we were directed to platform 8 instead.

I walked up to the front of the train to get the obligatory photo of the locomotive and then back to find my cabin in Coach F. Once aboard a nice lady came and checked my ticket, gave me the low-down on the train’s facilities, and took my breakfast order and what time I’d like it delivered to my cabin. Once settled in I went to explore the train along the very narrow corridors to the Lounge/Bar coach. This was very busy so I didn’t stop longer than necessary to drink a Coke.I went back to my cabin just as we departed Paddington at 23.46

The cabins have two bunks but for single occupancy the upper one is stowed away. The bunk is fairly narrow but because it runs across the coach it is plenty long enough for someone 6’5” tall - hence the narrow corridor in the coach. There’s a bedside table that lifts up to reveal a sink with hot and cold running water (and it is hot too) and a rubbish bin beneath. Light switches, 240v AC, and USB power outlets are located by both bunks along with a room service call button. Yes, room service is available all night if you don’t fancy going down the corridor to the lounge car in the night. There’s a connecting door to the adjacent cabin that is locked unless a party of more than two books adjacent cabins. What you will need to go down the corridor in the night for is the loo. Two are located at the ends of the coach. The sign outside your cabin will point to the ones in your coach but if your berth number is above 15 it’s almost certainly closer to the toilets in the adjacent coach and the coaches are all walk-through connected.

I sat on my bunk with the window blind open and watched the night slide by. Quite slowly especially since there were some track works going on. Not that the Night Riviera is a fast train. It takes about eight hours including stops to reach Penzance, a daytime express will do it in around five. After the stop at Reading I closed the window blind got under the duvet put my head on the comfortable pillows and prepared to nod off.

I might even have done so for a few minutes at some points in the next six hours. I have discovered something and that something is that I can’t get to sleep on a moving train. I wasn’t uncomfortable or anything like that but sleep refused to come. I think a lot of the problem was the novelty of the situation which wouldn’t let my brain switch off. The train trundled on through the dark stopping occasionally at a signal raising the question “I wonder where we are now?” and of course the temptation is to check on the map on the phone or take a peek out of the window. The tracks to the West Country are mostly smooth but not always straight and lying horizontal across a train in the dark subjects you to some odd G forces, with no visual references you feel like you are first being gently pointed head down then a moment later feet down. Onward to Devon, occasional sections of jointed rather than welded track for traditional ta-tum-te-tum train noises. At Exeter the train paused and reversed, I heard the locomotive run around the train, passing my window before re-coupling to the other end with a jolt. Clumsy bugger, doesn’t he know people are trying to sleep? 😀 A consequence of this manoeuvre that didn’t occur to me until later was that my cabin window which on leaving London had been on the left side of the train was now on the right so wouldn’t get any spectacular sea views along the coast at Dawlish 😢

By 6 a.m. it was getting light outside (although the window blinds are very effective) and I concluded that I’d had any sleep that I was going to get so cancelled the alarm I’d set on my phone, got up, washed (blimey that water is hot!) and dressed. I opened the blind and watched a very grey Cornwall passing by. Because of course the bright sunny weather we’d had all month had vanished as soon as I set off travelling - payback for having such unseasonably good weather when I was in Scotland I suppose.

We stopped at Liskeard, we stopped at Bodmin Parkway, and as we approached Par the nice young lady knocked on the door bearing a tray with a very welcome pot of tea and a sausage bap on it. Also brown sauce, tomato ketchup, and for some reason some sweet biscuits which I kept for “Ron”. 😋

I watched stops at St. Austell, Truro, and Redruth pass by and resisted the temptation to pull faces out of the window at the few early morning commuters on the opposite platforms. At Hayle I tried to get a photo of the river but mostly got the back of Asda. The penultimate stop was St. Erth where I noted the way to the platform for the St. Ives Bay Line that I’d be on later. I also noted how wet the platforms looked.

Finally at ten past eight we arrived at Penzance - that was actually 15 minutes late so I might try my luck for Delay Repay 😄 I gathered up my luggage, which consisted of one 30l backpack, and alighted onto the platform with a lot of people who had obviously come equipped for a six month expedition to the outback. I headed directly to the coffee machine in the customer lounge and a seat on which to plan my next move.

I was in Penzance at 8.30 in the morning with five and a half hours to kill before I could check into my hotel in St. Ives. What the bloody hell am I supposed to do now?

Find out in the next “exciting” episode!

 

 Spoilers: Flickr Album of my photos from my Night Riviera  trip to Cornwall

EDIT 4th July. Got £14 back in Delay Repay for being 15 minutes late at Penzance and £21.20 (the full ticket price) back for the delay caused by the cancellation on the Sandhurst to Reading journey. Result!

Sunnymeads - in the sunshine!

Sunnymeads Station is the least used station in Berkshire according to the latest release of the Office of Rail and Road estimates of station usage 2023 to 2024. 

 

The station saw 24,560 passenger entries or exits which also means it ranks 2,199th across the UK. It’s not far from home so I thought I’d go and add 1 to the statistics for 2024-2025 😀

 

 

 

It’s no surprise that this isn’t a busy station. Located between Datchet and Wraysbury on the line from Staines to Windsor & Eton Riverside it sits in a private residential estate and lacks a car park for commuters. There’s a ticket machine but  not a ticket office. No ticket gates, no loos, no waiting room. There’s somewhere to park your bike though and (apparently) Wi-Fi. It’s very much not step free since access to the island platform is via a footbridge. There is a Customer Help Point and electronic displays showing the times.of the next departures. Two trains per hour are provided by South Western Railway in each direction, to London Waterloo, (via Richmond) and to Windsor & Eton Riverside.

 

 

 

 It’s quiet here, at least if you can ignore the jets taking off from nearby Heathrow Airport. It was a midweek lunchtime when I visited and I saw two passengers get on the train towards London and one who got on the same train to Windsor that I caught. There really isn’t a lot to do while waiting for a train. The best view of the station is from the Welley Road over bridge on the up side of Sunnnymeads, accessed via a footpath and a few steps alongside the line.

 

 

 

 Back on the platform waiting for the next train to Windsor I was glad that it was actually sunny at Sunnymeads unlike when Geoff Marshall made his video.

While waiting I was able to speculate about the mystery object in the field next to Platform 1. A submarine? A space capsule? Or just an old septic tank 😀

 

 

 

 Right on time my 1249 train to Windsor & Eton Riverside arrived and it was 71017, one of SWR’s recently introduced Arterio trains, so a first for me visiting Sunnymeads and a first ride on an Arterio. These 10 coach units certainly don’t fit on Sunnymeads’ platforms so it you’re planning on coming make sure you are in the front 7 coaches. I took a ride to Windsor & Eton Riverside - I think that might be a first too - and had a mooch around Windsor in the sunshine.

 

 

 

 I walked to the station from Datchet village but if you’re coming by train to Sunnymeads it’s around three quarters of an hour from waterloo or six minutes from Windsor & Eton Riverside.

 

With little else to do I took a few photos which are in this Flickr Album

 

 

 

 

 

Come to Sunnymeads and see if we can lift it off the bottom rung of Berkshire’s stations next year 😉

 

My Flickr Year 2024

 People like Pacers ☺

Doing the Locomotion, a trip to Darlington and Shildon.

I’ve been to the National Railway Museum in York twice, first on a school trip around 1977 and again in 2017. I’d never been to the other National Railway Museum site, Locomotion,in Shildon, County Durham though although I’d often thought about it. It’s not quite as easy to get to from here in the south as York but now seemed like as good a time as any so I booked a couple of nights midweek  in a hotel in Darlington, which was the closest I could find a railway-convenient vacancy. Then bought a couple of train tickets, packed my bag, and crossed my fingers for a good trip. 

 

Despite a delay between Reading and Paddington (when isn’t there? This time it was due to a vehicle striking a bridge) I easily made my connection to the LNER Azuma at Kings Cross and was whisked north. Such a long way north too although the limited number of stops helped make it feel less. Despite it being a busy train the seat next to mine remained empty and since I had showered that morning it must have been because strangely the reservation indicator showed “may be reserved later” although it never was.

 

Walking from the station to my hotel I thought “this is a bit bloody warm for t’North” and realised I’d managed to book my trip for a mini heatwave and in a hotel room without air conditioning 🙄 It was a bit of a sticky night even with the window open and a fan going. (The following day hit 25 C, I checked the weather at home, 31.5 C! Dodged that then.)

 

Of course the only sensible thing to do was go for a beer and marvel that a pint of Guinness only cost £3.55 in the centre of Darlington. In a real pub too, The Old English Gentleman, not sodding Wetherspoon’s. There was some football match going on so I don’t know if that affected the price but seriously compared to my area that’s a cheap pint 🙂

 

Not being any kind of football fan I went off in search of something I am a fan of, a curry. Cafe Spice, tucked away down a narrow passage called Clark’s Yard was midweek quiet and definitely provided the goods. Tasty chicken dansak, saag paneer, and mushroom pilau rice washed down with a couple of Cobras and quite wallet-friendly. Replete I returned to my hotel room and chilled out in front of the telly. Chilled isn’t the right word obviously given the overnight temperature remained stubbornly high.

 

The following morning after breakfast (and it would have been rude not to have had the full English included in the room rate) I walked to the railway station and got a return ticket to Shildon. I could equally have got a bus which would have taken about the same time overall but the train was actually cheaper with my railcard. Taking the train also led to a further adventure later which I probably wouldn’t have done had I been on the bus. 

 

Northern Trains two coach Class 156 grumbled along the former Stockton and Darlington Railway and I alighted at Shildon Station, a short walk from the Locomotion museum site. A much shorter walk in fact than the route that google maps took me on but I didn’t discover that until later. It doesn’t seem to know about the path which links the station to the museum. 

 

 

 

The museum now has two large buildings, or halls as they call them. The Main Hall contains the reception desk, cafe, shop, and the oldest exhibits and is passenger train focussed. Here is Locomotion No.1 the locomotive, Rocket, the Deltic, the prototype HST, and the APT amongst others. Here also is the children’s play area and the primary school parties to be navigated around and avoid when taking photos.

 

 

 

On the other side of the site is the New Hall. This is basically a big train shed and focuses on goods trains. It was somewhat quiete on my visit since the school groups weren’t in it. Large steam locomotive, very shiny Class 31 Diesel locomotive, cranes, shunters, and a variety of goods/freight rolling stock which are often overlooked for the more glamorous passenger services. There are clear information boards for the exhibits (as there are in the main hall) and I learned a good many things about railway goods services that I didn’t know before.

 

 

 

Outside between the two halls there are some sidings with more shunters and the replica Stephenson’s Rocket and here also is his iron Gaunless Bridge from 1823, the very first railway bridge to use an iron truss.

 

 

 

Away from the halls back towards Shildon Station (along the path google maps doesn’t admit to) and in the village are a number of historic buildings and structures which are also part of the wider Locomotion site. Shildon was the location of the Stockton & Darlington’s main engineering works making it the world’s first railway town and earning it the title of “The Cradle of the Railways”. The preserved buildings include a warehouse, a Sunday school, the goods shed, and a row of cottages including Soho House, built for Timothy Hackworth, steam locomotive engineer and the S&D’s first locomotive superintendent.

 

 

 

In the 20th century Shildon developed into the largest railway wagon works in the world employing around 2500 people and capable of building 1200-1500 new wagons a year and overhauling 20000. Despite a campaign to keep it open and find new orders it was closed down in 1984 by British Rail Engineering Ltd. and the Tory government resulting in most of the male workforce of Shildon losing their jobs and Shildon ceasing to be a “railway town”.

 

Is Locomotion worth travelling a long way to visit? Absolutely yes. Also entry is free, although they encourage donations (or just buy yourself something from the shop or cafe) and you don’t get better value than that. I took a lot of photos too.

 

 

 

I spent about 3 hours in Shildon and on the train back to Darlington wondered what else to do for the rest of the day, which was very hot and sunny. Then I realised that the train carried on all the way to Saltburn-by-the-Sea and I’d never been there either...

Pilning (and Bristol)

April 13th

It seems to have stopped raining for the moment, time for a spring weekend getaway. I’ve not been to Bristol since 2020 before the you-know-what so I bought a small handful of rail tickets on Trainsplit and booked a couple of nights in a city centre hotel because I enjoyed Bristol last time and it’s easy to get to. I also had a little mission nearby that I wanted to do.

 

An emergency track repair on the GWR main line meant a delayed arrival at Bristol Temple Meads but I still had time to go for a coffee before I could check it at the hotel. The coffee was covered by the £3.90 Delay Repay refund I got from GWR though 😀

 

Bristol is a fairly walkable city so later I went for a stroll around the harbour, had fish and chips for tea (it was Friday night after all) and walked them off (a bit) along the trail around the south side of the Floating Harbour.

 

 

 

Which was thirsty work so I stopped at The Nova Scotia Hotel, an old pub on the Cumberland Basin part of the harbour. After a couple of very nice pints of local beer I walked back in the gathering darkness along the north side of the harbour back to my hotel.

 

 

 

 Saturday morning and time for the “mission”. The plan was to take a train to Severn Beach, walk part of the England Coast Path along the Bristol Channel/River Severn then inland to Pilning and catch the rare train back to Bristol. The weather forecast looked good. Well dry anyway.

 

The train to Severn Bridge was busy to start but as it progressed the passenger numbers dwindled and the views out across the estuary improved and half a dozen or so alighted at Severn Beach station.

 

 

 

 From the station I walked through the village of Severn Beach, a minor “seaside” resort whose attractions include a couple of cafes, a bakery, and Wow! a Public Toilet that is actually still open! You don’t find many of those in England. From there I took a path over the ditch, or rhine (pronounced “reen”) as it’s known here, and up onto the river wall.

And bloody hell that’s a cold wind blowing out of Wales! Coat on.

 

 

 

 I followed the sea wall along and under the Second Severn Crossing, a.k.a. the Prince of Wales Bridge, which carries the M4 Motorway to and from Wales, supplementing the 1966 Severn Bridge which can be seen further upstream. The tide was partly out and the path along the concrete wall was littered with bits of tree, some quite large, washed down from inland.

 

 

 

 After passing under the M4 and I reached New Passage Pier. This used to have a railway terminus and ferries across the Severn before the 4.4 miles long Severn Railway Tunnel superseded them in 1886. There is an information board at the point where you walk over the site of the tunnel. Beyond New Passage I turned inland to follow the Severn Way along The Pill river but soon and to backtrack because someone had let the cows out. The cows themselves weren’t the problem, the fact that the ground wasn’t yet firm enough to support them was since they had puddled the surface into an impassable quagmire and when the mud reaches over the top of your boots it’s time to change your plans. Even the cows didn’t seem to be enjoying the conditions. I re-routed via New Passage Rd. crossing the M4 in what according to the signs visible from the over bridge appears to be a no man’s land between England and Wales, and after a couple of miles reached Pilning. Well to be accurate I reached The Plough, where I was glad to have time to enjoy a pint of Wadworth’s and where they didn’t seem to mind the mud splattered apparition that just left a visible trail in and out of their saloon bar.

 

Pilning Station

 

Pilning is a formerly quite important station on the South Wales Main Line between Cardiff and Bristol. Potentially it could be an important transport hub for the surrounding area. Currently it’s the ninth least used station (2022-2023 figures) in England though due to under investment, poor management, and reduction in services that looks very like an attempt at closure by stealth. Until 2015 there were two trains a day, one in each direction. In 2016 that was reduced to two a week, the minimum permitted under the operator’s franchise. In November 2016 as part of the Great Western Mainline electrification the footbridge to Platform 1 was removed and the decision made not to pay to replace it. So now the two trains a week run in the same direction, towards Bristol, on a Saturday timetabled at 0832 and 1532. To make a return journey from Pilning you need to leave early in the morning and return early in the afternoon travelling to Severn Tunnel Junction and then back to Pilning. It being Saturday and GWR it’s not unknown for the trains to be cancelled. You can see why the locals are not happy. The publicity around the above has, because UK rail enthusiasts being what they are, resulted in something of an upturn in passenger numbers though and Pilning refuses to die. I added 1 to the statistics. Why? Because it’s there of course.

 

 

 

 Fortunately I only needed to make a single journey from Pilning to Bristol Temple Meads, cost with a railcard £3.60 and scheduled to take 20 minutes. Why the 37 minute trip from Bristol Temple Meads to Severn Beach earlier only cost £1.35 is a mystery known only to the gods of the UK rail ticketing system. I arrived in good time to take a look around. There’s not a lot to look at.

One platform, unlit because no one would replace the unsafe lighting and so trains cannot call after dark. One small shelter with a seat. This was actually occupied on my visit by the other two passengers travelling from Pilning that afternoon!

 

 

 

 An information point and a train times poster pretty much completes the set. There’s one station name sign ideal for selfies wearing your “#footbridge4pilning” tee shirt. No, I’m not sharing it here 😜

 

A couple of trains passed through while I was waiting, one in each direction. There’s no train departure board at Pilning obviously so I was keeping an eye on the Train Track app on my phone - fortunately something Pilning does have is a decent mobile signal. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that the 1532 train was now shown as “Delayed” with no estimate of when I might arrived. Told you, GWR + Saturday. Eventually it’s ETA was given as 1546 which kept moving away until 1549, which is when it finally appeared.

 

 

 

 This train from Cardiff Central to Penzance in Cornwall had left Cardiff late and was quite well loaded. Interestingly I had a seat reservation, Coach C Seat 78, but although the seat was vacant that was only luck since the reservation wasn’t shown on the on board display above the seat. (GWR+Saturday again?). Anyway it got to Bristol Temple Meads 19 minutes late so I got a refund of… 90 pence. Not enough for a coffee sadly.

 

Pilning ✓

 

I headed into Bristol city centre to buy a brush to remove at least some of Gloucestershire from my boots and jeans and then get something to eat. I had intended to return to the Nova Scotia later but frankly I was knackered having totted up a dozen miles walking and fortunately I had made provision in the handy fridge in my hotel room for such an eventuality. And that’s a really big television at the foot of the bed to fall asleep in front of.

 

Flickr Photos from the trip.

 

 

 

 

London's Spooky underground station.

Where can you stand on a deserted station platform during London’s rush hour?

Well the answer to that carefully crafted click-baity question is lots of places obviously, from disused stations to places that aren’t in London. So let’s narrow it down a bit to an active station and in Zone 2.

 

I’ve been to Essex Road station. It’s been on my to-do list for a while. It’s underground but not on the Underground, although it used to be. Originally built by the Great Northern & City Railway on its underground line between Finsbury Park and Moorgate, between 1933 and 1975 it was on a branch of the Northern Line known as the Northern City Line or, from 1970, the Northern line Highbury Branch. In 1976 the line reopened as part of British Railways and Essex Road is the only deep level station in London served only by Network Rail trains, nowadays operated by Great Northern.

 

I arrived on a train from New Barnet at about six-thirty in the evening, late in the “rush hour” but comfortably within the TfL peak period. Within thirty seconds of alighting the train I was on a deserted platform 1.

 

 

 

Crossing a side passage to platform 2 I found that almost as empty save for one grey-hooded figure whose presence didn’t register at the time. Were they really there or a ghost?

 

 

 

 There really are ghosts at Essex Road.

 

Well there are ghost signs at least. Although the trains are run by Great Northern throughout the station there are signs of the long departed Network SouthEast. This was a part of BR that served London and the south east of England between 1982 and 1994. You can see the NSE branding along the tunnel walls in the above platform photos but there is more. On platform 1 there are signs showing the stops on the city bound line to Moorgate.

 

 

 

While on platform 2 the country side network is shown stretching our into Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

 

 

 

It was eerily quiet - I didn’t even hear a See It, Say It, Sorted - while I lingered to take some photos and since I felt like loitering too long might attract attention I made my way towards the exit. Unlike many underground stations from the early 20th century Essex Road didn’t get a mid-century rebuild so there are no escalators, only lifts to the surface. An oddity is that to go up from the platforms you first have to go down a flight of stairs followed by the echo of your own footsteps.

 

 

 

Which leads to a spooky tunnel that curves around to the lower lift lobby so you can’t see your destination - or what might be lurking in the passages leading off to the side.

 

 

 

Which turned out to be the lonely figure of a passenger making their way to Platform 2 in the corresponding tunnel from the lift.

 

 

 

Because it’s not as spooky as you might first think, this subterranean world being well lit and festooned with CCTV cameras. The lift wasn’t empty either, half-a-dozen passengers having just arrived from Moorgate direction. The only thing hiding in the station above was the single Oyster/Contactless reader (there are no ticket gates here) which I failed to spot until I’d passed it.

 

Outside in the dark I paused to photograph the rather architecturally nondescript station building.

 

 

 

Then headed off down Essex Road towards Islington and the City.

 

 

 

Essex Road Station √

 

An interesting oddity, atmospheric if only a little spooky, don’t make a special trip though, I was passing through anyway.

 

A train trip to Scotland, part 3.

A train trip to Scotland Day 6: 15/05/2023 Thurso to Inverness.

Trains from Thurso to Inverness are a choice of stupid-o’clock in the morning or 1306, I chose the latter since although it meant an inconvenient hour’s wait between having to check out of the hotel and getting the train, taking the earlier departure would mean killing 90 minutes in Inverness before checking into the next hotel. The weather looked fine so about 1100 I decided to check out and get a picnic lunch to eat down on the promenade. Half way there and the sky darkened and it pissed down. There is a sad lack of shelters in Thurso and the rain lasted just long enough to ensure that there was now not a dry surface available to sit on in Thurso other than an uncomfortable bus shelter or the railway station train shed. The latter became my picnic lunch location. The views aren’t up to much but at least it was dry. I awaited the train and read my book. The train arrived with enough time to offload those who’d ventured from Wick to the bright lights of Thurso and load those of us heading south to leave on time at 1306. Goodbye Thurso, or perhaps Au Revoir.

My allocated seat got swiped by the wheelchair user's wife (I assume) so I'm travelling backwards again apart from the first 10 minutes. I’m on the coast side of the train though so should get better views as we head south. This journey is the reverse of the trip up so sort of familiar. At Kinbrace there were four deer next to the station but the train didn’t stop so if they had wanted to be on it they should have made their intent clear. Held out a hoof or something The expected good sea views came along the north side of Beauly Firth.

 

At Ardgay we paused and then came the announcement that we would remain here for 15 to 20 minutes, delayed by a fault on the northbound train which we needed to pass at Ardgay Station. Once it had arrived we carried on down the line. Conon Bridge and Beauly stations both have such short platforms that passengers have to board or alight from one specific set of doors in the middle of the two coach train, as directed by the guard. In contrast some of the other stations have platforms much longer than will ever be needed nowadays but presumably saw much longer trains in the past. By Muir of Ord we were running only 2 minutes late and were still only 2 minutes late when we pulled into a sunny Inverness. It didn’t feel like it had been a 4 hour journey although I did have my head in a book for quite a bit of it - The Necromancer’s Apprentice by Icy Sedgwick in case you were wondering. I walked out to Premier Inn Inverness not-so-Central and checked in again, nicer room this time but on the road and railway side of the building. I had a whole day in Inverness tomorrow so started looking online for something to do.

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A train trip to Scotland Day 7: 16/05/2023 Inverness and Elgin.

Kilt makers and woollen shops aside the most touristy place to visit in Inverness is probably the castle and as that was closed while they had the builders in I decided to make a side trip to Elgin where the map showed an interesting-looking motor museum. Elgin is a short train ride away. By the time I got to the station I had to put my coat on. Sunny spells and spots of rain, fingers crossed that it didn’t get wetter. I eschewed the ScotRail app and bought my ticket at the station, in the actual ticket office as most of the self-service machines were out of order. £9 return with Senior Railcard isn’t too bad. The train departed at 0946. At Scotland’s newest railway station (at the time of writing) Inverness Airport which opened in February 2023 we paused for 5 minutes, perhaps to fully appreciate what £14m gets you in the way of a station nowadays. The answer is not a whole lot. Two platforms, a bridge with lifts, some bus stop style shelters and some dot matrix displays. And a longish walk to the airport.

 

The Moray Motor Museum is on the other side of Elgin town centre from the railway station, about a twenty minute walk so with the train arriving at 1040 and the museum opening at 1100 I was the first customer through the door, the man hadn’t even finished Hoovering. This is a small museum in one single storey building but has a really nice collection of cars from Veterans to a one-owner Mark 2 Ford Granada, a lot of motoring and other ephemera, and is well worth the tenner admission charge. I spent an hour there and then went across the road as the museum admission includes a complementary tea or coffee in the DIY shop restaurant opposite. However the queue to get a table there was so long that I gave up and went back into Elgin town centre and found a Costa instead.

 

Boosted by a flat white I climbed Lady Hill, which is a prominent piece of high ground to the east of the centre of Elgin and not a member of the Scottish aristocracy. Up there are the ruins of Elgin Castle which are small, and the Duke of Gordon's Monument, which is very large. The view’s not too shabby either.

 

After that I went back to the station for the 1325 train to Inverness. This was delayed till 1337 as it had been held for a customer connection at Keith - that doesn't happen around here, if you miss your connection because of a delayed train then it’s  tough, I got stranded at Ascot once by SWR because of a missed connection to a last train.

 

Back in Inverness I went for an explore. It’s a mixture of touristy, full on tartan and pipes touristy, and ordinary big town shopping centre. I fancied a pint. The Caledonian looked ok so I went in. There were lots of families munching away in raised booths around the outside of the large room and lots of empty tables in the middle. There was no one behind the bar. There was real ale. Some time passed as I stood watched by the ruminating diners. Still no one behind the bar. Fuck 'em then, I walked out and went to The Gellions instead. This turned out to be a very Scottish bar with a big saltire on the wall and a folk music soundtrack. It also had a friendly and attentive barmaid and decent beer at £4.50 a pint. I would have stayed for another but had started yawning so went back to the hotel, collecting something to eat on the way.

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A train trip to Scotland Day 8: 17/05/2023 Inverness to Edinburgh.

I don’t know why I got up so early when my train to Edinburgh didn't depart until 1050 but I was packed and ready to go with an hour to spare so I went and got some food for an on-train lunch. In a piece of excellent timing I was standing by the gateline when the platform was announced so was first on board and bagged a forward facing seat with a cleanish window. We departed on time and the journey was uneventful, I read for most of it to be honest. I arrived at Edinburgh Waverley at 1429 and exited to Princes street via the multiple escalators. The city centre was very busy, a complete contrast to Thurso and Wick. I headed straight to my hotel, the Terrace again, where this time I had a huge room with a giant bed. Later I took a stroll down to Meadowbank Shopping Centre for KFC and then went to the Bellfield Brewery Tap Room for a pint to wash it down. Interesting place with a good range of beers. But probably more fun as a group especially as it was quiz night. Nice beer though, and the one I had in the Artisan Bar on the way back to the hotel was better still. I had a good night’s sleep - at least once the two talkative women next door had settled down.

 

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A train trip to Scotland Day 9: 18/05/2023 Edinburgh to Home.

Up and ready for the trip home, starting with the 1030 LNER Azuma to London King’s Cross. I’d feared that this train would be crowded so had booked a seat to go with my open return ticket. So that’s another train company I’ve had to set up an account with. As it turned out it wasn’t too busy. The seat across the table was occupied to Newcastle and reserved from there to London but the guy that boarded at Newcastle decided to forego the window and sit on the aisle side so we both had legroom. He then proceeded to extract from his bags and spread out on the table and seat lunch, drinks, phone, toiletries, a mouse, a mouse mat, and two laptops! Make yourself at home son. I passed the time reading, listening to podcasts and watching the scenery rush by. The run down the north east coast is still spectacular.

 

At 1449 the train pulled into King’s Cross. All going well so far. It couldn’t last, I got the Hammersmith and City Line to Paddington only to find on arrival that everything was screwed with multiple cancellations and delays caused by a points failure somewhere near Slough. It always seems to me that when it all goes wrong GWR are involved  in some way. A tannoy announcement advised anyone heading for Reading to go via Waterloo instead so I got on the Bakerloo Line and crossed London for a second time. I caught a SWR train to Guildford, not entirely sure if my Super Off Peak ticket was valid but the ticket inspector didn’t query it. An angry posh mum sat opposite on the phone complaining about her little darling being suspended from her public school. It's all so unfair and all the school’s fault apparently. She carried on moaning all the way through Woking before a dropped signal cut her short. At Guildford I caught the next train to Sandhurst, it looked as if it was going to rain just to top things off. In the event I was home at 1735. And dry too.

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I had a good trip despite the hiccups on the last leg (at least GWR has coughed up under delay repay and TfL only charged me for one journey from King’s Cross to Waterloo via Paddington) and enjoyed the North of Scotland. It had been some years since I’d been up there and I hope to return again in the future, whether by train or some other mode of transport. Meanwhile I’ve got about 250 photos to look through and this blog to remind me how much I enjoyed it.

Even if it did take a long time to get around to it. 

Here’s the Flickr Album with all the photos (249) that I took on the trip.

 

A train trip to Scotland, part 2.

A train trip to Scotland Day 3: 12/05/2023 Inverness to Thurso.

I was up at 0730 feeling much refreshed after a good night’s sleep. I had a cup of tea and a hot shower then checked out and walked back to the city centre, stopping at Morrisons’ supermarket to get breakfast and lunch for the journey. It was overcast and a little cold but importantly not raining so I sat by the River Ness and ate my sausage roll, leaving a pile of puff pastry crumbs which I’m sure the pigeons took care of when I’d gone. Returning to Inverness station my train, a two coach Class 158 was already at the platform and ready to board. I had a seat reservation for this trip which was A50. There was nothing on the outside to indicate which of the two was coach A so I guessed correctly that it was the front one, confirmed by the label on the seat. Seat A50 turned out to be a table facing backwards by the cycle storage so lots of legroom. I settled down and was able to confirm to every passenger that got on after me that this was indeed coach A. Because every one of them asked. I was also glad I’d picked up something for lunch as the guard announced that there was no catering service on this 4 hour journey and anyone who wanted to rush out and get something had about 15 minutes to do so. Today was actually a national rail strike day but fortunately this didn’t affect ScotRail - unless it included the caterers. 

We departed on time at 1041 and headed East along the South side of the Beauly Firth. The better views were out of the opposite side of the train but after 10 minutes or so I did spot four hares haring around a field. At Beauly we turned North up through Dingwall and from here it was only getting more scenic. The little train rattles along at a fair pace and I mean rattles as much of the line is old style jointed track rather than modern continuously welded stuff. Oh but the views! Although lineside trees made getting any good photos difficult. There are several request stops along this line where the train slows but does not stop unless someone is waiting to board or has informed the guard that they want to alight. Rogart was the first of these at which we stopped and was accompanied by the announcement that “Rogart has a low platform please take extra care when alighting the train”. Which makes a change from the usual “Mind The Gap”. The unique and picturesque Dunrobin Castle seemed to be the busiest request stop, serving as it always has the turreted, opulent castle, Clan Sutherland's home since the 1400s, and its museum. At Brora we were treated to the loud speakerphone conversation of a bleached blonde in a puffer jacket. Why would anyone do that? I believe the local term is “Ned”.

 

I can see the sea out of the opposite side of the train. Is that a seal? Nope, just dirt on the window. At Helmsdale, which sounds to me like somewhere from Tolkein’s Middle Earth, the sun came out and the scenery got even more impressive - in fact it wouldn’t have looked out of place in Lord of the Rings. From Forsinard to Altnabreac huge stretches of empty moorland upped the wow factor again. At Georgemas Junction the train does the strange thing of reversing to travel up to Thurso before coming back through Georgemas Junction to terminate at Wick. So for the last 10 minutes of the journey I got to travel facing forwards.

 

And so I arrived at Thurso, the most northerly town on the UK mainland, on time and in brilliant sunshine. With half an hour to lose before I could check in to the Premier Inn adjacent to the station I went for a wander round town to check out the lie of the land, get a can of Irn Bru (because Scotland) & a cake, which I ate in the gardens in the middle of the town surrounded by colourful tulips. Not an obviously Scottish scene.

 

My Premier Inn Thurso room on the second floor directly overlooked the railway station, so good for trainspotting if there had been more than 5 trains a day. It seems to be quite a new hotel too, or has recently been refurbished. After a rest and a cuppa and a shower I headed out into the evening sunshine in search of food and since it was Friday only a fish supper was going to suffice. A most excellent fish supper was obtained from the chippy between the Co-Op supermarket and the River Ness which seems to be called either Reid’s according to my receipt or #500 Catering Group - Big Fish, Little Fish in a cardboard box according to Google Maps. I think it just said Big fish little fish on the shopfront. Whatever it’s called I thoroughly recommend giving it your custom if you’re in Thurso. I found a bench by the river and thoroughly enjoyed my haddock and chips. Thus fortified I walked along the river to the harbour mouth and around to the beach. The sun was shining on Dunnet Head to the North East, which is the northernmost point of the UK mainline so what’s that land to the North then? That was Hoy, in the Orkney Islands which I had never realised was close enough to be seen quite clearly from here. You live and learn. At the West end of the beach I climbed the steps and path up onto the cliffs where I found the campsite which must have one of the best views in the UK, perched on the cliff top overlooking the Pentland Firth and Orkney Islands. It’s also across the road from a Lidl so I popped in there for supplies and walked back to the hotel much the same way as I went. I planned to go to Wick the next day but a piece of paper posted in the ticket office window at the railway station said sorry but it would be closed Sat 13th May and there’s no ticket machine. So I downloaded the ScotRail app to buy a return to Wick for the next day. What a palaver. It’s not a good app. Why do I have to activate the ticket that I’ve already downloaded? Why can I only do this on the day? Why no pdf ticket? Why can’t I add it to Google wallet? All completely unnecessary. This feels like a crappy bus company app. It actually made me appreciate the GWR app that I usually use and that’s going some.

 

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A train trip to Scotland Day 4: 13/05/2023 Thurso and Wick.

I breakfasted on seeded wholemeal rolls with soft cheese and Kabanosi so sort of healthy.

I activated my railway ticket in the stupid app, showered, dressed, and was at the station 15 minutes early to get the 1102 departure. There are not enough trains per day to risk missing one. The next one isn't until this afternoon. The return train will be at 1600 so Wick better have enough interest for 4 hours. It’s pleasantly cool with broken clouds but I still packed a waterproof coat in my day bag because Scotland. There is a gull nesting in the cess opposite the platform at Thurso about 12" from the rail. It did not seem happy that I had spotted this fact. It flew a short distance away and watched me. The nest full of eggs was well camouflaged against the ballast without the white gull on top of it. The train arrived, the gull stayed put. The train left on time and rattled along through mostly flat or gently undulating countryside scattering startled lambs across the fields as it went by. It only takes about 28 minutes to get from Thurso to Wick. I finally arrived at Wick three and a bit years later than originally planned and six years after I had the idea of doing so. There were no unexpected celebrations or flags out ;-) 

 

In fact I don’t think I’ve ever come across a town that was so quiet on a Saturday lunchtime. Quiet that is apart from the 2nd hand shop with a set of huge speakers out on the pavement playing pop music. This was next to the street market which was made up of half a dozen yellow tents and a Police car. Two of the tents were empty. There were plenty of retail opportunities available at reasonable rents - i.e. empty shops, much like any other UK town. I walked down to the harbour which still has some working boats, Wick used to be a major herring fishing port, now servicing the offshore wind farms appears to be a bigger business.

 

I found a map of local walks and decided to head south along the cliffs to Wick Old Castle and back which would occupy a couple of hours. The wind proved to be cold but if I put on a coat it was too warm so I took it off again and just walked a bit faster. My route along the cliffs took me along Trinkie Road. The Trinkie is a seawater swimming pool at the foot of the cliffs. Trinkie is the Scottish word for trench and the pool was created about 70 years ago from part of a quarry. When I passed a crew with pressure washers was cleaning the green algae and seaweed from the white painted rocks that form the pool. Ready for the summer visitors I suppose.

 

A sign at the castle car park said the castle was closed due to the danger of falling masonry but the path to the castle remained open so I carried on. On the way up a random old man coming the other way stopped to tell me they "hadn’t made this path properly and should have used quarry dust and rolled it", though why he felt I needed to know this and what he expected me to do with the information I can't imagine. Anyway the castle which is situated on the edge of precipitous sea cliffs turned out to be small enough to see most of it from outside the temporary metal fencing that surrounded it. It’s also within a military firing range so there’s a sentry hut by the path and a flag pole which fortunately today sported no red warning flag.

 

It was a pleasant walk with a lot of seabirds to see and as predicted took a couple of hours there and back so on returning to town I rewarded myself with a pint. In the Alexander Bain. Yes it’s a bloody Wetherspoons, don’t @ me, all the other bars looked a bit sketchy - something to do with the lack of windows, I don’t like going into pubs with no windows, it’s one reason I’ve never been in the Blind Beggar. Wick’s main town centre shop seems to be Poundstretcher so I got some bits I needed there and walked back to the station along the river and across the two footbridges. There was now mist visibly billowing in from the sea so it was nice to get on a warm train back to Thurso.

Wick. Tick.

It was much brighter in Thurso so I had an evening stroll then came back to the hotel to watch TV. Oh, the Eurovision Song Contest. Turned off the TV and read Agatha Christie’s ‘The Man In The Brown Suit’ instead.

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A train trip to Scotland Day 5: 14/05/2023 Thurso and Scrabster.

It was, as they say in Scotland, dreich. It was also Sunday. Not wanting to waste a day hiding from the weather I wrapped up in my waterproof coat and walked along the coast to Scrabster. From the clifftop at Thurso I could see the huge white mass of a cruise ship dominating Scrabster harbour. This it turned out when I got to the harbour was the Seabourn Ovation which at 690 feet long and 92 feet wide is deemed to be a small cruise ship. Even so I wouldn’t want to have to try to hide it.

 

Scrabster is very much a working port with fishery and timber companies filling the harbourside area. It’s also the port for Norhlink ferries to Stromness in Orkney which explains the number of German motorhomes and motorcycles that were queuing up at the port. The ferry port aside Scrabster was very much shut on a Sunday morning which was a shame as by now I was quite wet and would have welcomed some shelter and a hot drink. This was not to be so I turned round and walked back the way I’d come to Thurso.

 

At least the rain was clearing. There Are some nice houses along the cliff top road East Gill between Scrabster and Thurso although they are probably very exposed in the depths of winter. Near where the excellently named Wolf Burn empties into the sea is a second world war pillbox on a small, lumpy promontory sticking out from the cliffs. This is on the site of the ancient Scrabster castle or the 'Palace' of the Bishop's of Caithness, first recorded in 1328. You wouldn’t know this unless you looked it up like I did, there didn’t seem to be anything on the ground to indicate that it was just another WW2 pillbox.

 

All the cafes in Thurso were shut too. I went back to my hotel and of course the sun came out as soon as I arrived but I’d had enough exercise for the time being and decided to spend Sunday afternoon resting my sore feet.

Later I ventured out into the evening sunshine and a northerly breeze that meant it wasn’t as warm as it appeared from indoors. Exploring the back streets of Thurso I stumbled across the ruined Old St. Peter's Kirk tucked behind the houses near the river. You could easily walk past and not realise it’s there, indeed I had previously done just that. I went for a last look at the beach and there was an orange-hulled ship anchored in Thurso Bay, not sure what it was but looked similar to the vessels that service the North Sea oil rigs so maybe that or the offshore wind farms? I would have hung around to get a sunset picture but for the cold wind and that sunset doesn’t happen until past 2130 in Thurso in May so retreated to the shelter of the hotel, TV, and got ready for the journey back to Inverness the next day, the start of the return home.

Part three will follow, Inverness, Elgin, Edinburgh and the long journey home.

Here’s the Flickr Album with all the photos (249) that I took on the trip.