Our tickets on Continental Airlines Flight 4424 are actually on Virgin Atlantic Flight 24, departing LAX at 8:50 pm, PDT. We leave home by taxi at about 6:15pm, check the luggage at the Virgin Atlantic counter in LAX Terminal 2, and make our way through the security checkpoint to the departure gate. After a 90 minute wait, during which we see the aircraft arrive and disgorge its LA-bound passengers to go through immigration and customs, we board the plane for our 10+ hour flight to London, Heathrow. After dinner, the coach cabin settles down for the night, except for those glued to their individual entertainment screens.
As usual, I don’t sleep on the airplane, so I read half the time and doze the other half until the cabin begins to stir as we approach the SW coast of Ireland. In LA, this is 5 am, but here its already 1 pm BST as we have morning juice, coffee, and breakfast. At 3 pm, we land at Heathrow from the West, but then we sit near the gate for 30 minutes before moving in for disembarkation. A simple passage through immigration and customs follows. By 4 pm, we’re ready to head for central London.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
|
|
9-18-99 |
Heathrow Express |
4:15pm |
Heathrow-Paddington |
EMU Class 332 |
|
After a walk with the luggage outside Terminal 3, we re-enter and go down to the Heathrow Express platforms. A train is right there, and we board for the quick trip through the tunnel under the runway and then up the Great Western mainline to Paddington. Here, we visit the WH Smith’s bookstall, getting our all-line timetable, plus a number of magazines. I’m very disappointed by the dearth or railway-oriented books compared to previous visits to such bookstalls as recently as December, 1994.
A taxi ride takes us to the Comfort Inn, Kensington, on Cromwell Road near Earl’s Court and the West London line. A new Tesco’s supermarket is nearby, and after checking-in and depositing the luggage in the room we walk down to take a look. Dinner in the hotel follows; the meal is fine, but it takes over 30 minutes to get the bill and pay! An early night follows.
Morning (8:30 am) finds us refreshed, my missing night’s sleep quite forgotten. We take some local photographs, have the included breakfast, and take a taxi over to King’s Cross for the ride up to York. The Pakistani taxi driver is quite chatty, and we pass Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, Madame Tussaud’s, and the new British Library before arriving at King’s Cross station. Here, we visit WH Smith’s again (better, but still not good), then Chris sits in the temporary first class lounge while I walk to the end of the platform for photographs. Soon enough, it’s time to walk around to Car H, the full fare first class car, on the “Northern Lights”, our train to York whose ultimate destination is Aberdeen.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-19-99 |
GNER |
11 am |
King’s X - York |
HST Mark 3s |
Class 43 |
Those surrounding us in the carriage are Americans from Wisconsin and South Dakota. Their London guide, Jane, has to keep returning with various messages and lost articles of clothing! They have difficulty believing we’re traveling at 125mph, further up the line.
We head North over the familiar line, looking at unfamiliar sights such as the WAGN (West Anglia, Great Northern) depot at Finsbury Park and the GNER (Great North Eastern Railway) depot at Bounds Green. The old loco sheds and freight yards at “new England”, just N. of Peterborough, are nor a Royal Mail regional distribution centre.
Coffee, tea, and shortbreads are included in the 1st class fare, and served about once an hour. The train is delayed by Sunday engineering works, especially at Retford. However, these seem to have been included in a special timetable, since we actually wait for departure time at Doncaster. At Templehirst, we enter the line segment to Colton Junction, built to avoid subsidences in the Selby coalfield. We arrive at York about 20 minutes later than expected, visit the WH Smith’s at the station (this one actually has a fair selection of books, the only one we’ll find actually at a station during the entire trip), then take a taxi to the York Novotel, our home for the next five nights. This proves to be more than the claimed “10 minute walk” from the station.
After settling into the room, we walk into the center of York. I remember that there is a path alongside the River Ouse, so we go that way from St. George’s fields, rather than along the city streets. To our surprise, most of the shops in York are open for business, so we patronize a couple of bookstores, and then Marks & Spencer, where we buy a box with 80 decaffeinated tea bags, which turns out to be enough to last us for the entire trip. (Each hotel room has a rapid water-heating carafe that can be used for making tea or coffee. Enough decaf. coffee is available to suit me for mornings, but we needed the tea bags for evenings, etc.
For dinner, we walk back to the Lowther Arms, where we had earlier seen an ad. For dinner at prices less than half the hotel dining room. The Roast Beef and the Steak & Kidney Pie were both excellent.
Today, sister Jill and brother-in-law Dick are visiting from Bramhope, just N. of Leeds. It's been five years since I saw Jill, and 20 since we saw Dick. We walk in to York to visit the Jorvik Center, a recreation of the “sights, sounds, and smells” of Viking York, located in the place that Viking ruins were found during excavations for the Coppergate shopping complex. Recreations are of actual buildings, were possible to estimate, and parts of the actual excavations can also be seen. Afterwards, we visit the Shambles, were I patronize another bookstore, and Chris buys a large needlepoint kit of Mallard on an ‘80s excursion over the Settle and Carlisle. We then walk around about two-thirds of the remaining walls (75% are still there) of the old City of York, conversing as we go.
After more conversation in our room, we go the “The Sidings”, a restaurant and hotel located in old Mark 1 carriages alongside the Main Line about five miles N. of York. Although this was much more expensive than we had expected, we enjoyed our “snack menu” meals. Jill and Dick depart after returning us to the hotel.
The tour doesn’t start until evening, so we ride around W. and S. Yorkshire during the day (by train, of course). Although our first train doesn’t leave until 10:10am, we’re finished with eating our included breakfast early, and have walked over to the station by 9:15 or so. We buy “Day Return” tickets to Leeds for an amazingly cheap price. (This price is subsidized by the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (PTE).). While Chris sits reading at the platform we will leave from, I walk out to the North end of the platform to watch arrivals and departures. Standing out there, I reflect on the essential similarities to the way things had been when I used to visit York regularly for trainspotting purposes 40 and more years ago. The platform layout is the same (but the track layout different, with the goods crossover to the Scarborough lines completely absent). The impact of the overall roof and the adjoining hotel are still strong, as is the view towards the Ouse. The old engine shed and goods station are now the NRM, but except for the new roof on the engine shed appear much as before. Of course, the trains are quite different, and the electric catenary both adds a new dimension and detracts from the ambience at the same time.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
|
|
9-21-99 |
Northern Spirit |
10:11am |
York-Leeds (via Harrogate) |
DMU Class 155 |
|
|
9-21-99 |
Northern Spirit |
11:46am |
Leeds-Sheffield (via Swinton) |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
9-21-99 |
Northern Spirit |
2:08pm |
Sheffield-Leeds (via Barnsley) |
DMU Class 144 |
|
|
9-21-99 |
Northern Spirit |
5:05pm |
Leeds-York |
DMU Class 158 |
|
Soon enough, it’s time to get on the DMU for Harrogate and then Leeds. We set of northbound, past the yard at the NRM, and then switch of the East Coast Main Line onto the branch to Harrogate. This is a single track line with semaphore signals and level-crossing gatekeepers. It passes through the area of the English Civil War battlefield of Marston Moor, then across the viaduct over the river Nidd at Knaresborough. Harrogate station has been disfigured by a hotel built partially across the track. South of Harrogate, we pass over the river Wharfe on Arthington viaduct, and look to the SW at the ridge where Jill and Dick live. Immediately, we’re into Bramhope tunnel, and emerge in the Leeds urban area, above Airedale. After arrival in the old LNWR/NER platforms at Leeds, we buy another set of Day Return tickets from Leeds-Sheffield at an even cheaper price (subsidized by both the West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire PTEs). Our next train is late, and although it departs before the GNER train to London, it waits on Whitehall triangle to follow that train down the line to Wakefield (Westgate) and the eventual spur to the old Swinton and Knottingley Joint, which we take to Swinton, and then down the Midland Main Line to Sheffield. As we reach the Micklefield area, I notice the open spaces (mostly ‘derelict’ land) where the coal mines had been in the 1950s. We see only a couple of pithead winding assemblies the whole day. On the way into Sheffield, it is clear that the blast furnaces (or Bessemer converters, whichever they were) have all gone, although a number of steel finishing and specialty steel factories still exist.
Stepping outside the Sheffield station, I’m completely lost. The only landmark that I recognize is the serried ranks of blocks of flats (some of the worst council housing in England, the rough equivalent of Cabrini-Green in Chicago, or the erstwhile Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, in the US.
When I was last here, almost 40 years ago, Pond Street Bus Stations was an open paved area next to a muddy parking area (for buses). Other than the railway station, there were no other buildings at the bottom of the hill, which was muddy grass. (All this, of course, was courtesy of the Luftwaffe, some 20 years before that date.) Today, Pond Street Bus Station is a fancy intermodal center, and the hillside is covered in Sheffield’s second university. A steep walk up through the university and past the city library brings us to the center of Sheffield, which is now paved over (unlike York, where the central “no-vehicle” area is still laid out as streets for night time deliveries). We don’t have time to walk along The Wicker to the other shopping area, so we retrace our steps (downhill this time) to the railway station, get another set of tea and coffee, and board our train back to Leeds, this time via Barnsley, Wakefield (Kirkgate) and Castleford. Again, the absence of the erstwhile coal mines is quite evident as we pass up the Don valley to Barnsley.
At Leeds, we leave the station to walk up to The Headrow to look at Leeds Town Hall, and then over to the various Arcades along the Briggate shopping area (also vehicle-free during the day). I remember visiting two arcades (and the large central market hall nearby) back in the 1950s, when the trams still ran on Briggate; there are many more arcades, now. Returning to the station, we get on a Trans-Pennine DMU for our high-speed return to York.
This evening, our tour opens with a ‘get acquainted’ dinner. Although we meet George Drury, our tour guide, we’re seated at a table for two, and so meet none of the other tour members. (Five of them, out of 20, are either George’s immediate family, or accompanying his family members; one of the family members brought along a cold, which will have a big impact on the tour group by the time we get to Wales.) We’re glad this dinner is included in the tour price, since we wouldn’t have wanted to pay the menu prices (more than twice the price of the Lowther Arms for lower quality food—the only advantage would have been the ability to return to the buffet for additional helpings had we wanted to.
This morning is a walking tour of York (covering things we’d carefully steered clear of on Sunday and Monday), starting from the Hotel and concluding with lunch before we head to the station for our afternoon train. We walk to the bridge over the Ouse (at St. George’s Fields), the SW end of the city wall (which we don’t go on), Clifford’s tower and the Castle Museum area (we don’t go in the museum), the old half-timbered town hall, The Shambles (wherein we’d bought the needlepoint kit on Monday) and the Minster, where we were given a guided tour of the interior (with a different guide). We had lunch in a restaurant located in the old school buildings, behind the Minster. I spend some time chatting with Bruce Anderson, an ardent photographer, who has been on some of the same excursions we have in the western US, although we’ve never met before. After dinner, LNER listmaster Ian Fraser calls, and we shoot the breeze for over an hour, about things “LNER” and about the railway book trade in the UK, today, inter alia.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-22-99 |
Northern Spirit |
1:45pm |
York-Scarborough |
DMU Class 158 |
|
|
9-22-89 |
NYMR |
4:50pm |
Grosmont- Pickering |
BR Mk1s + Gresley Buffet |
S-180 2-8-0 2253 |
Our first train ride as a group is from York to Scarborough. George hands out regional railpasses that will cover today, Thursday, Friday, and a small portion of next Monday’s travel. The Scarborough trains depart from the platforms the Hull trains used to leave from, when the route via Market Weighton was still open, so these were always our last views of York in trainspotting days. After a quick run to Scarborough, we board our coach for the drive to the NYMR. The coach is unique, having been handpainted with a wraparound painting of the skyline and buildings of York. Our driver has chosen to use the inland route to Grosmont, via Pickering, so we only see the North Sea in a quick look back over Scarborough, but we do pass through the picturesque village of Thornton-le-Dale. Then we ride up on the moors to the east of the railway (which is several hundred feet lower) and descend the steep hill into Grosmont.
The North Yorkshire Moors Railway permits visitors to its locomotive facilities, so we walk the half mile through the pedestrian tunnel, and go around the various sheds. One shed contains A4 streamlined pacific ‘Sir Nigel Gresley’ in early BR blue, numbered 60007, plus rebuilt West Country 34101, ‘Hartland’. We also see WD 2-10-0 ‘Dame Vera Lynn’, BR Standard 4-6-0 75014, and a number of preserved diesels. Then its back to the Grosmont station, a visit to the bookstore (finally, a bookstore with a good selection of railway-oriented books—but not too surprising, based on what Ian Fraser had said in the previous evening’s ‘phone call). Our train is headed by a wartime 2-8-0 built by Baldwin, of all people (we come 6000 miles to ride behind an American steamer?). We travel in an interesting Mk1 open saloon built for the London Midland Region, right next to the Gresley Buffet Car (properly finished in varnished teak). On the way we pass the other train in service, headed by a Black 5. At Pickering, Ian Fraser is there to greet us, we get to put the face with the name, and chat for another 10-15 minutes until the coach is ready to leave for York.
We have an evening appointment for a special tour of the National Railway Museum. We have the place to ourselves, and get to do a number of things, including walk through the various royal train carriages and climb in the cab of Mallard. We also see much of the locomotive collection, including GWR 4-4-0 ‘City of Truro’, another rebuilt West Country 4-6-2, and in the workshop area V2 ‘Green Arrow’ and partially-dismantled LMS 4-6-2 ‘Duchess of Hamilton’, reportedly about to be re-streamlined. Chris and I chose not to eat at the hotel, so we walk back from the NRM, stopping to eat on the way at (gasp!) Burger King.
Today, we have a full circuit of the Pennines (including the Settle-and-Carlisle line), along with the Darlington Railway Museum. After walking to the station, we board the HST from Plymouth (?) for the quick run up the ‘racetrack’ from York to Darlington (including passing ‘The Sidings’, where we had eaten on Monday evening). At Darlington, it’s raining, se we take a fleet of taxis over to the Darlington Railway Museum at the original Stockton & Darlington North Road station. When we see how far it is from Bank Top station (on the ECML) to North Road, most of us are happy it was raining and we didn’t try to walk that distance.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-23-99 |
Virgin Cross-Country |
9:11am |
York-Darlington |
HST Mk 3s |
Class 43 |
|
9-23-99 |
GNER |
11:20am |
Darlington- Newcastle |
Mk4s |
Class 91 |
|
9-23-99 |
Strathclyde PTE |
12:36pm |
Newcastle-Carlisle |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
9-23-99 |
Northern Spirit |
2:23pm |
Carlisle-Leeds |
Class 156 |
|
|
9-23-99 |
Northern Spirit |
6:07pm |
Leeds-York |
DMU Class 158 |
|
The Darlington Museum is much smaller than the NRM, and is rather reminiscent of the way to old LNER York Museum was arranged, although much lighter inside (due to the clean skylights). Everything here is of NER, or earlier, heritage including George Stephenson’s Locomotion for the original Stockton & Darlington services in 1825.. We take a taxi back to Bank Top station. Bruce asks the driver to take us to the front of the station; it appears there really isn’t one (the main entrance is down a ramp from an overbridge), so we go to the side with the clock tower centered in a large brick wall. Like other stations on the old North Eastern Railway with the same kind of large half-cylinder overall roofs (York and Newcastle on this trip), Darlington station was designed by G.T. Andrews. The familial resemblance of the overall roofs on the various large stations is striking.
As the tour group slowly gathers on the northbound platform, the announcer says our train from London has been delayed. Later, she says it will arrive behind a TransPennine service to Sunderland (via Newcastle) that is timetabled behind our GNER service. When the Sunderland DMU appears, George seems surprised. I point out that the announcer had said this would happen, and he responds “I’m glad someone can hear what’s being said.” I think the similarity between the Darlington accent of the announcer and the Hull accent I had to deal with as a youth may have more to do with our differences in comprehension than any ‘audibility’ problems. Soon, our train arrives, we board, and it departs. On the way to Newcastle, we pass over the long viaduct in Durham, and have a good view of Durham cathedral on the right. After passing by Heaton Yard, we arrive in Newcastle over the High-Level Bridge with views of the other mainline bridge, two road bridges, and the low-level Tyne & Wear Metro bridge for the local light rail system. We eat lunch purchased from a café in the station.
Our train to Carlisle comprises a Strathclyde PTE unit on a service to Stranraer via Ayr. A fellow passenger is transporting her cats, so Chris spends time visiting with them. Bruce has bought some medication for his sore feet, so he takes off his shoes and socks to use it right there on the train. We cross the Tyne on the High-level bridge again, diverge from the main line south, and run along the south bank of the river. We stop at the Gateshead Metro Center, a very large complex including a major regional shopping center and amusement park. There are acres of free parking, but apparently access to the Metro Center causes traffic jams for miles around. We follow the Tyne for miles; after we leave it behind, George says we will soon cross Hadrian’s Wall twice, but I don’t see either instance. After descending on the west side of the Pennines, we enter Carlisle station, cross the footbridge, and proceed to our next train. I insist on buying tea and coffee, because I expect to have no access to them until Leeds, or maybe even York.
Between Carlisle and Leeds, we lose two increments of 25 minutes each, due to a mechanical problem in the lead carriage of the Class 158 DMU, which is set out at Skipton. The first 25 minute stop occurs just after we split from the line to Newcastle at Durran Hill, and the second occurs at the first intermediate stop, Armathwaite. This train proves to have a trolley catering service, the first we’ve seen on a train service not provided by one of the “main line” companies. The trolley operator is obviously used to foreign tourists, especially Americans, as he explains his various offerings using terms the customers from the tour group can understand.
As we proceed up the Eden valley, several freight trains pass going the other way. This is the first concentrated freight operation we’ve seen since our arrival. Most freight routes are quite different from the major passenger traffic flows. Beyond Appleby, the climb into the Pennines begins in earnest. The weather is cloudy, even rainy, but not totally closed in, so we can see the valleys and the mountains. Climbing up through Kirkby Stephen and then Birkett Tunnel, past Mallerstang Common, we reach the line summit at Ais Gill (1169 feet above sea level—puny in North American terms). Another couple of short tunnels lead us to Garsdale where the truly scenic part of the line known as “the long drag” (for the climb in the other direction) begins. Rise Hill tunnel, Dent station (4 miles from, and 700 feet above, the hamlet it serves), Arten Gill and Dent Head viaducts with Whernside’s flanks to the west, Blea Moor tunnel, the summit of Whernside (2479 ft.) to the west, the great Ribblehead viaduct, Ribblehead station, Ingleborough (2376 ft.) to the west and Pen-y-Ghent (2250 feet) to the east.
Interestingly, the three mountains are all flat-topped, making it quite clear that the scenery comprises valleys sculpted from a relatively level upland plain, not mountains thrust up from a lower-level plain. Now comes Horton-in-Ribblesdale station, the two small viaducts at Sherriff’s Brow, Stainforth tunnel and then Settle station. Beyond Settle junction is Hellifield’s wonderful, but decayed, station, a beautiful example of Midland railway architecture. A few miles later we’re in Skipton, at the top of Airedale, where the lead car is removed. A hiker who sits at our table, after having to leave the lead carriage, turns out to be a Professor from York who knows some local facts that add to our comprehension. The train drops down along the river Aire, through Keighley (with the Keighley & Worth Valley platform adjacent), Bingley, Shipley (with the triangle for the Bradford lines) and into Leeds. Noticeable along this stretch is that most of the old woolen mills have been converted for “adaptive reuse” in new applications.
We change trains in Leeds. I’ve read reports that Leeds is the busiest station in the UK, outside of London, second-busiest overall (to Clapham Junction, presumably). Based on the activity we saw on Tuesday, and see again today, this is quite believable. Looking towards the west, especially to the northern leg of Whitehall triangle, there’s always at least one train in sight moving through the formation, and often two or three trains moving at once through the pointwork. Incidentally, the platform for the temporary Whitehall station to be used during the reconstruction of Leeds station approaches, is well along, but the buildings for it are barely started. Our return train to York is another TransPennine. Unlike Tuesday’s three-car train from Liverpool, via Standedge, this one is a two-car train from Blackpool, via Copy Pit. The return to York is expeditious. For dinner, we again go to the Lowther Arms.
This is moving day, so we set out the luggage and check out of the hotel. Again, we walk over to the station, along the river Ouse (for the last time this trip) to catch our train. We’re leaving earlier than expected, due to a change in travel plans across the Pennines.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
|
|
9-24-99 |
Northern Spirit |
9:37am |
York-Leeds |
DMU Class 158 |
|
|
9-24-99 |
Northern Spirit |
10:17am |
Leeds-Lancaster |
DMU Class 150 |
|
|
9-24-99 |
Northwest Trains |
12:25am |
Lancaster-Heysham |
DMU Class 156 |
|
We leave York on a DMU headed for Manchester, not Preston as originally planned, but get off in Leeds. We then move over to a platform in the old Midland railway section of the station, with its terminal platforms, to catch our connecting train. We go direct from Leeds to Lancaster via the “little North Western” because the planned route via Copy Pit has only a 1 minute connection at Preston (in the new timetable, which doesn’t start until Sunday, 26th!). Was this also the case for this date? The route is the same as yesterday (retracing our path) to Settle Junction, then over to Carnforth (where we can just see a little of the Steamtown site) and down the West Coast Main Line to Lancaster. Carnforth station is where scenes from “Brief Encounter” had been filmed under David Lean’s direction more than fifty years before. (We have a video that includes the railway scenes filmed here for that movie.)
At Lancaster, we arrive in one of the down-side bay platforms. We quickly ascertain that our next train will leave from the other down side bay, but isn’t here yet. I ask George when the train we were planned to have taken from Preston would arrive. He said that he thought it would be the one we would be taking to Heysham. I then asked why they would be backing that train into the bay platform, to which he responded “That’s a good question”. The train from Preston proves to be a DMU going to Windermere.
The short trip to Heysham involves a reversal at Morecambe station, along with manually switching a ground frame. At Heysham, we retrieve the luggage from the coach that brought it from York, and board the ferry, leaving the luggage with the crew for pickup in Douglas. We sit in the forward observation lounge, have “Manx Clangers” for lunch, the ferry leaves at 2:15pm and reaches Douglas harbor at 5;45pm, right on time. We debark, collect the luggage and walk it to the bus. The bus driver swears a lot while loading the luggage, then we drive along the Promenade to our seafront hotel.
Here, the bus driver takes us to the front door, instead of around the back to the main door on the next level. With bags in hand, we find the lift doesn’t come to this level without a key operator, who is not forthcoming in spite of repeated requests on the house ‘phone. Eventually, George reappears and tells us that it is a tour responsibility to move our luggage to our rooms, and we should go on upstairs leaving the luggage behind. When I say that it would have been nice to have known that 15 minutes previously, George’s only response is “Yes it would.” Shouldn’t he have told us, then?
(As an aside, we took this tour for the planning, arrangements, and luggage handling, not so we could have a guide. This day’s events show that not even our more limited set of needs was always met successfully.)
We have a meeting at 7pm, at which an official from Manx Transit describes the history of the island’s railways. We have three day passes good on all the railways, starting this evening. Bruce is upset that his does not start on Saturday, so that it would be good on the Monday, which he is also spending on the IOM. His discussion with the official on this subject delays the start of the talk and (it appears from later hearsay) really ticks-off George. The talk is very interesting, and well worth delaying dinner for..
After the talk, we get takeout fish and chips from the adjacent chippie, and eat them along the Promenade. I remark on how the seawall, seaweed covered rocks, and tidal range all strongly resemble those at Scarborough, where we spent our fortnightly holidays in the first half of the ‘fifties. Once we’re back in the room, the hotel fire alarm goes off, and we all have to go stand in the parking lot while the firefighters check out the building. Nonetheless, we get to bed in time for a good night’s sleep.
On Saturday morning, after breakfast, we set off for the Derby Castle station of the Manx Electric railway. We’ve been told the horse tram will be along in time to connect with the 10 am Manx Electric tram; some people opt for a bus, but George points out the big “Manx Electric” sign at the end of the Promenade, so we elect to walk. The big sign proves to be on top of the Manx Electric car barn, a couple of hundred yards to the north of the station, so the walk is even shorter than we expect. There is an older car barn adjacent to the station, which is organized as a museum with old and special trams located within. One of the ‘employees’ at this car barn museum is a cat named George, who exchanges a lot of attention with Chris. I inspect the outdoor areas of the newer car barn, north of the entertainment complex that has replaced Derby Castle, before we leave.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
|
|
9-25-99 |
Manx Electric |
10am |
Douglas-Laxey |
Tram & trailer |
|
|
9-25-99 |
Manx Electric |
10:30am |
Laxey-Snaefell |
Tram |
|
|
9-25-99 |
Manx Electric |
11:30am |
Snaefell-Laxey |
Tram |
|
|
9-25-99 |
Manx Electric |
2:30pm |
Laxey-Ramsey |
Tram & trailer |
|
|
9-25-99 |
Manx Electric |
3:15pm |
Ramsey-Douglas |
Tram & trailer |
|
|
9-25-99 |
Douglas Corp. |
|
To Hotel |
Horse Tram |
Horse |
The Manx Electric Railway runs along the top of the cliffs north of Douglas, with deviations inland where there are inlets (such as at Groudle and Laxey). We ride in the open-air trailer and enjoy the views back towards Douglas harbor and Promenade, and down towards the sea lapping at the rocks below. At Groudle was pass over a three arch curved viaduct. In half an hour or so, after passing over a four arch viaduct right before the station, we arrive at Laxey, where we transfer to the slightly wider gauge tram (3’6”, to accommodate the Fell rail in the middle—which in the event is used only for braking, not traction, rather than the 3’ of the main tramway) for the climb to the top of Snaefell. On this same tram up Snaefell is a group of “lads”—they’re anywhere from 30 to mid-50s in age—who turn out to be on the IOM for the weekend, from Liverpool. We see them quite a number of times during the next two days, and eventually start to joke with them about their ‘following us’ around the island.
At the top of Snaefell, we walk around to look at the views, and I walk up to the cairn at the very summit of the mountain (2036 ft above sea level, which is meaningful here because the sea is all around). I can see the Furness peninsula, in England to the east, Galloway, in Scotland to the north, the nearest part of Ireland, to the west, and Snowdonia, in Wales, away off to the south, as well as all around the Isle of Man itself. This is a very clear day. I chat with the “lads” as we point out the various long distance sights. After tea in the café, we find the “lads” on the tram with us on the way down. At Laxey, they get on the next tram north, while we walk over to the big Laxey Waterwheel (but don’t pay to see it up close and personal), then back into the village for a pub lunch, after which we walk around the village until it’s time for our tram northward. Chris finds several dogs to visit with while we wait.
The scenery north of Laxey is not as interesting as to the south, but nonetheless is fine to see. At Ramsey, there’s a small museum that takes a five minute look around. Some of our group decide to find a source of coffee, but Chris and I opt for the source back in the hotel room, and return on the next tram. The “lads” are on the same tram until the stop just south of Laxey, where they detrain. When we get back to Douglas, there’s a horse tram right there at the MER station, so we hop on and ride back to the Stakis Hotel and casino where we’re staying. For dinner, we again visit the chippie next door, but this time we eat in the restaurant portion, then take a long walk along the Promenade all the way to the harbor and back.
Sunday is not so fine and sunny as Saturday, but its still fine enough to walk to the MER station after a big bowl of porage for breakfast.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-26-99 |
Manx Electric |
10am |
Douglas-Groudle |
Tram & trailer |
|
|
9-26-99 |
Groudle Glen Railway |
11am |
Groudle Glen RT |
|
‘Sea Lion’ |
|
9-26-99 |
Manx Electric |
12:15pm |
Groudle-Douglas |
Tram |
|
|
9-26-99 |
Douglas Corp. |
|
Promenade |
Horse Tram |
Horse |
|
9-26-99 |
IOM Steam Railway |
2:10pm |
Douglas-Port Erin |
|
|
|
9-26-99 |
IOM Steam Railway |
4:15pm |
Port Erin-Douglas |
|
|
Today, we leave on the same tram service as before, but get off at Groudle to walk over to the Groudle Glen railway station. The walk drops well down into the glen, then climbs somewhat back up the other side. We’re glad there’s a little roof at the small station, as rain comes on quite heavily while we’re there. Sometime after we arrive, the “lads” show up. We’re all invited to visit the locomotive facilities while we’re waiting, then the steam locomotive takes us for the three-quarter mile run on the 2-foot gauge line. At the outer end, along the sea where the sea-lion and polar bear pits used to be, we discover that neither crewman has brought the key for the ground frame to run the loco. Around, so we have to wait while the diesel (summoned by radio) brings it up to us. When all is completed, we return to the starting point, climb back up to the road where the MER station is, and wait for our return tram (which seems to be a special service, not in the timetable). The Groudle hotel is empty, and apparently closed just three months earlier (June, 1999). At Douglas, the horse tram is again conveniently there, so we ride it the full length of the Promenade, then walk inland to the Steam Railway station, where we have lunch.
After lunch, the “lads” are there again, and we joke about them following us around. As it turns out, they’re taking this train to Balla Salla, where there’s a bus connection to Ronaldsway airport for their 5pm flight back to Liverpool. When they alight, I ask if this means they won’t be following us anymore, and they say that indeed it does. We take the Steam Railway train all the way to Port Erin, where we visit the museum, walk over to the beach, and have a tea break. Then we return on the same train we came over on. By now, it is obvious that the group cold has spread quite widely, with various people coughing very frequently on this train trip. This bodes ill for later in the week.
Dinner tonight is included in the tour price. George lists it as “19:30”, as if reading a train or bus timetable, but the staff takes this as being “9:30[pm]”, and has to scramble to get it ready for 8pm.
Once again, we pack and put out the luggage before breakfast (more porage), then are bused over to the harbor for our 9:15am ferry back to Heysham. After checking the luggage, we walk out to the boat, complaining again about the nutty layout of the ferry terminal in Douglas—there’s a covered walkway that has a section three flights of stairs up to pass over the ramp for driving the cars and trucks on and off the boat. The available lifts are completely inadequate for the flow of people, so most people have to take the stairs. On the boat, we again take seats in the forward observation lounge for the 3½hour trip back to the mainland. As we get close, we see the Blackpool tower clearly standing out along the Fylde coast. We leave the ferry, collect our luggage, deliver it to the coach that will take it to our night’s lodging, and head for our train to Lancaster.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-27-99 |
North West Trains |
12:58pm |
Heysham-Lancaster |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
9-27-99 |
Virgin Cross Country |
1:40pm |
Lancaster-Crewe |
HST Mark3s |
Class 43 |
The trip to Lancaster is an exact reverse of Friday’s trip over this line, including manual use of the ground frame and reversal at Morecambe. At the junction with the West Coast Main Line, we sit for a while, apparently due to a points failure, and eventually move out with only a very short interval before our connection is due. This time, we go into the up bay platform at Lancaster, and out onward connection (The “Cornish Scot” HST) arrives shortly thereafter.
For all of the group journeys by train, George had has a set of seat reservations for the group. The trains have not normally been full so we haven’t limited ourselves to the reserved seats. (The one crowded train was the leg from Leeds to York where we had missed the connection that had our seat reservations on it due to the late running of our train from Carlisle). This train, however, is full, with people occupying our reserved seats. Chris and I find seats OK, but George is left standing. There are no reservation tags on the seats in front of us, so their occupants refuse to move. However, I find the tags on the floor beneath the seats, and the occupants reluctantly leave. The individual regional railpasses we have been using expire at Preston. For the rest of the tour, George has group tickets for each leg, that cover us all on one ticket; this forces everyone to travel on the same train as George elects to use, whatever the circumstances.
We head south along the WCML, through Preston (with the big church and spire at the junction with the Blackpool lines) and Wigan, under the original Liverpool and Manchester just north of Vulcan Foundry, cross the Mersey and pass through Warrington and then Weaver Junction before arriving at Crewe. We will spend the rest of the afternoon at the Crewe Railway Heritage Center, which seems to focus on steam era signaling and signal boxes.
We board the mini coach (it’s just large enough for our 20 people—maybe a 24 seater) that we will use for the next two days, and drive the short distance to the Crewe Heritage center, which is located on the site of the former Crewe North Motive Power Depot (locomotive shed). As we park, the first thing we see is the body shell of the former Great Western Railway’s experimental gas-turbine locomotive (BR number 18000). Next to us is the retired experimental Advanced Passenger Train (APT), originally intended for the WCML in the 1970s, but never fully brought to realization (it ran a few test runs in actual service, and that was all).
In front of us is the old Crewe North Signal Box, still in its original location, although no longer a working box. The platform outside the upper operating area of the box is available for observing the trains running in and out of the north end of Crewe station—quite a number pass through, on the Manchester, Chester, and West Coast Main lines, as our guide is giving his introduction to Crewe and its railway significance. After awhile, we go in to the operating area of the signal box, which has two large track displays with occupation lights and miniature controls for the electrically operated points and signals located at appropriate spots on a repetition of the track diagram at desk height, for the two operators (per shift) to use. This was one of the first electrically-operated installations in Britain, dating from the mid 1930s (about the same time as the Hull Paddington box that my granddad took us trainspotters around in 1957). Phil Howard asks questions in which he’s trying to relate this to the New Haven tower he used to operate in the ‘50s. Downstairs, we tour the relay room and spend some time with a small demonstration signaling system that is used to explain how block signaling works in the UK. There’s also a small museum of LNWR/LMS signaling.
Back outside we walk along an array of preserved, but unrestored, diesel locomotives, past a small example of an LMS-era signal box that we don’t go in, and over to a large wooden signal box that strongly resembles those at the north and south ends of Shrewsbury station (as we’ll see the coming weekend). This one proves to have been the GWR’s box at Exeter West, and has been moved here complete with all communications instruments (‘bells’) and full size ‘armstrong’ point and switch levers, that originally controlled the mechanical point rodding and signal wires for the semaphore signals. This actually belongs to a signaling history group, that uses it to re-enact 1950s summer Saturday timetables, entirely for their own interest. Our guide gives us a tour of the operating area of this box, explaining the similarities and differences between this and the Crewe North installation.
We then walk over to the indoor museum area, in one of the old locoshed buildings, where there is a beautifully restored LNWR 2-2-2 locomotive, and one of the 1060 Metro-Cammell Pullman carriages (owned by an excursion operator) being re-painted. Soon, it’s time to leave.
We spend the night at Rookery Hall, a minor stately home turned into an exclusive (and very expensive) hotel located about five miles west of Crewe. There’s time to walk around and take pictures before dark, then we have a group dinner with an interesting after-dinner talk by Harry Twells, President of the LMS Society, who is an enthusiast expert on the railwayana and other non-train aspects of the LMS. Jan Smith has to leave the dinner because of the effects the group cold is having on him.
Harry joins us this morning for the visit to the Adtranz facilities located in the buildings and outdoor facilities that once were the LNWR’s, and then LMS’ Crewe Works (latterly part of British Rail Engineering). Adtranz occupies all of the remaining buildings and land of the former Crewe Works, although some of the land has been sold off, and the buildings demolished, to others who have built food and commercial goods distribution warehouses on it. The head of personnel for the local Adtranz branch explains the history of this part of the organization (it’s a direct descendent of the BREL operation that had latterly replaced British rail’s London Midland Region as operator of the works for BR), and the work that is being done here today (largely repair and maintenance of large mainline electric and diesel locomotives, along with some of the DMUs operating in the northwest of England). This talk is given in the board room, that also contains models (made by apprentices at the site) of a number of locomotives in British railway history, not all of which had any obvious relationship to Crewe works.
The personnel manager, and Harry, then conduct us on a tour around the remaining works buildings and outdoor facilities. We were cautioned in advance not to take photos of the Class 87 that had been involved in a recent collision with a DMU near Warrington, or of the DMU itself. The DMU was outside in the yard, whereas the loco was deep inside the repair shop. There were a couple of Class 92 electric locomotives (the freight locomotives that can run through the Channel Tunnel to the continent) there for maintenance work. We observed one of them, ‘Purcell’, using the transporter (‘traverser’) to get from a shop track to the track leading to the mainline. (One at least one side, the name was misspelled ‘Purcel’!) A second Class 92, ‘Handel’, was inside the erecting shop, along with a number of Class 87s. We also went to the wheel shop, the electric motor repair shop, and outside the paint shop, as well as around the (outside of the) rolling stock parked in the outdoor areas. As I remarked to Harry, the whole experience was very reminiscent of my visit to “the Plant” at Doncaster (the former GNR and LNER works then the major works for BR Eastern Region), back in the late 1950s, except that the former visit was in the last hurrah of the age of steam.
We head off from Crewe on our coach, traveling to Llanberis via the Chester by-pass, the new A55 highway, and the Conwy valley. No reason has ever been provided to the tour members explaining why we didn’t, or couldn’t, take a train along the North Wales Coast Line to Bangor, and then a coach for the short trip remaining to Llanberis. An hour or so after leaving Crewe, passing Chester on the bypass with magnificent views over the Dee estuary and more distant Mersey estuary to the tall building in Liverpool, we enter Wales.
Wales! Ah, Wales! Although the weather is fine and sunny as we enter Wales, it has darkened by the time we reach the Conwy valley, and is raining by the time we get to Llanberis Pass. The rain seems not to let up again, completely, until after the intense Friday night storm that floods the line from Machynlleth to Talerdigg, and results in our leaving Wales via substitute coach instead of train to Shrewsbury on Saturday.
Today’s lunch stop is in Bettws-y-Coed, a picturesque village of stone/slate buildings, where we find our first sausage rolls of the trip. Chris and I also make a flying visit to the Conwy Valley railway museum, across the footbridge from the station, and then acquire ice-cream cornets (cones) before it’s time for the coach to leave.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-28-99 |
Llanberis Lake |
4pm |
Along lake RT |
|
3 ‘Dolbadarn’ |
We get to Llanberis an hour later than expected, and go directly to the Llanberis Lake Railway, adjacent to the Welsh Slate Mining Museum, which we do not have time to visit. Bruce, who has come here directly from the Isle of Man after spending his extra day there, is already out on the line, even though it’s raining quite hard. The Llanberis Lake railway is a narrow gauge line built, to the gauge of the slate mining railways that used to operate in the region, on the trackbed of the former standard gauge Llanberis branch of the LNWR/LMS/BR. The ride along the lake (Llyn Padarn) is enjoyable, in spite of the rain, as is our conversation with the Guard in his compartment right next to the saloon Chris and I are riding in (up front, next to the engine on the outbound trip). On the way back, we stop halfway along the lake, at Cei Llydan, where Bruce climbs in to join us. On our return, we go to the hotel, where we eat dinner as a group, with a fixed menu (to the consternation of some group members).
Up to now, whenever we’ve arrived at a hotel, the first things we’ve done in our room are to completely turn off the heating, and open the window as far as possible. At the Royal Victoria, the former isn’t possible at all, and the window only opens a couple of inches. The room remains very hot (for us), and combined with the raging fever we’re both now running from the group cold, this makes for an utterly miserable night.
This morning, there is persistent rain and heavy overcast. This doesn’t bode well for our trip to the top of Snowdon this morning. Clearly, this won’t be a repeat of the great visibility from the top of Snaefell! After breakfast (more porage, although not as good as on the IOM), we check out of the hotel and walk across the street to the Snowdon Mountain Railway’s Llanberis station. Yes, the train will run, in spite of the weather.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-29-99 |
Snowdon Mountain |
9am |
RT to summit |
|
(diesel) |
|
9-29-99 |
Ffestiniog |
2pm |
Blaenau F.-Porthmadog |
|
‘Vale of Ffestiniog’ (diesel) |
|
9-29-99 |
Central Trains |
5:10pm |
Porthmadog-Machynlleth |
DMU Class 156 |
|
The Snowdon Mountain Railway uses a rack-and-pinion (cog) system to overcome adhesion deficiencies at these gradients, just like the Mount Washington and Pike’s Peak lines in the US, and a number of lines in Switzerland. The railway has both steam and diesel locomotives, and although several locomotives appear to be in steam, our train has a diesel, and it seems likely that all services that do run today will use diesel traction. The rain has greatly enhanced the scenic appearance of all watercourses we will see on the mountain, but the cloud cover prevents any view of the surrounding mountaintops. The intervening valleys are quite visible, however, as are the myriad sheep occupying them. (There appear to be even more sheep here than on the uplands along the Settle and Carlisle line.) We find it necessary to open the windows in the carriage (consistent with preventing the rain from coming in) to keep them all from steaming up on the inside. Somewhere above the 2000ft. altitude marker, we enter the clouds, although the train has been cleared to proceed to the summit station. The café at the summit is shrouded in cloud, and no-one in our party walks to the actual summit. (On my previous visit to the summit, in 1956, we did walk to the very top, because the weather that day in 1956 was as it was this year, at the top of Snaefell, just four days ago.) After a half hour or so at the summit, drinking coffee or tea to warm us up, we get on the train again and return to the Llanberis station. After a walk through the gift shop, we repair to the lounge at the hotel to await departure time. Intermittently, the rain is so hard that even Bruce is deterred from taking up a position at lineside to photograph a subsequent train up the mountain.
At 11:30am, we leave on our coach for the ride to Blaenau Ffestiniog. After retracing yesterday’s ride over Llanberis Pass, we turn to go over Aberglaslyn Pass, then cut over to Penrhyndeudrath before turning east to go to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Between Aberglaslyn and Penrhyndeudrath, we twice encounter the formations of the former, now rebuilding, Welsh Highland Railway, including a massive stone arch over the main road through which we pass. At Penrhyndeudrath, we cross the Ffestiniog railway line along which we will later travel. On arrival at Blaenau Ffestiniog, we leave the bus to get lunch and take our train ride. Bob Milligan elects to continue with the coach carrying the luggage to the hotel in Machynlleth (and all remaining luggage trips), as a result of the effects the group cold is having on him.
Blaenau Ffestiniog is a wonderful example of the Welsh stone/slate-built towns and villages that are drab at the best of times, and utterly dismal and dreary in the rain, when everything is further darkened by being wet. IN this town, the effect is exacerbated by all of the spoil dumps from the old slate mines, surrounding the town. We eat lunch in a small café, then make our way to the station for our Ffestiniog Railway ride. The Blaenau Ffestiniog station is actually the old GWR terminus for its branch up from Bala. Thirty years or more ago, this branch was closed except for the stub from here to Trawsfynydd nuclear power station. When the line to Bala was closed, the ex-LNWR line from Conwy was extended a half mile or so from its then terminus at the ex-LNWR station (where the original Ffestiniog had also terminated) to connect with the stub of the ex-GWR line. Since the GWR station was more convenient for the town center, it was retained as the sole station for the town, and when the Ffestiniog diversion line was complete, the narrow gauge line was also extended to this station. Conwy valley trains use a single platform; Ffestiniog trains can use both sides of a new island platform.
As shown in the timetable, the Ffestiniog train we will take is diesel-hauled. When it arrives, it has the engine with the “Class 58’ outline, painted in National Power colors, as its power. It also has the train set with the buffet car and open saloon stock, even in standard class. Although the original Ffestiniog railway’s line reached the vicinity of the LNWR station, much of the route at the north end of the line now covers the diversionary route built from scratch by the preservation society, to replace the original line flooded by the lower reservoir of an electricity-generating pumped-storage project built in the 1950s. The several miles from Tan-y-Grisiau to Dduallt are all new in the 1960s and ‘70s. At the south end of the reservoir, the tunnel on the original line can be seen. At Dduallt, the diversion line passes over the original line, then circles around to rejoin the original line in a feature needed to gain the needed height for the line to pass above the pumped-storage generation facility and the penstocks behind it.
At Tan-y-Bwlch, we get to the portion of the line I’ve been on before—Jill and I rode up this far (as far as the line then went), back in 1959. (The whole family had ridden to Minffordd and back, as far as the line then went, in 1956.) Bruce gets off at Tan-y-Bwlch and takes the later steam-hauled train, rejoining us—to his surprise—at Porthmadog’s Central Trains station; he later says he should have got off at Dduallt to photograph the train on the loop that is part of the newly-built diversion line. We continue down through Penrhyndeudrath and Minffordd, past the maintenance facilities at Boston Lodge, and across the Cob (embankment spanning the Glaslyn estuary) into Porthmadog.
The planned connection at Porthmadog is too short, since the respective stations are at the opposite ends of the town. George decides to wait for the later Central Trains service, but doesn’t tell us until its too late either to take the following FR train (with its double-Fairlie steam haulage) or press for making the direct connection at Minffordd instead. George’s stated reason for the latter is that we would miss the locomotive facilities at Porthmadog, but these are actually at Boston Lodge, a mile to the east across the Cob. The failure to take the connection opportunity at Minffordd, thus getting to our hotel in Machynlleth a couple of hours earlier, so rankles Jan Smith that he discusses it repeatedly with his wife, Mary, for the rest of the day.
After visiting the bookshop (natch!), we walk across town to the Central Trains station, visiting the station for the short stub of the Welsh Highland railway, on the way. Unfortunately, the WHR is closed this week. The former Cambrian station facilities have been turned into a pub, which also serves tea and coffee. We partake of these refreshments until our train arrives from Pwllheli. This train head of across the Glaslyn, through Minfordd, then across the Dwyryd estuary (from which Port Meirion can be seen), along the coast through Harlech (where the castle is up on the hillside immediately to the left of the train and then Barmouth, across the Barmouth bridge, then down the coast through Tywyn and Aberdyfi and along the Dyfi estuary and river to Machynlleth. Here we detrain, and walk into town to the Wynnstay Arms for our night’s stay. The directions George gets at the station are “walk into the town until you get to the clock, then you’ll see the hotel. Of course, we don’t know how far the clock is, and George’s walking pace is much faster than many of the tour members. (Some of the slower ones elect to take the one and only taxi at the station, which makes two trips for them.) The directions prove correct, and the hotel proves to be a lovely old coaching inn. The included dinner has the somewhat odd specification that ‘any two courses’ of the fixed-price menu are included in the room price; the food, however, if very good.
With our train not until quarter-to-eleven, there’s plenty of time after breakfast for a walk around the center of Machynlleth, so we walk about a half mile east, and a quarter mile south of the clock tower. Among the buildings we pass is the erstwhile Welsh parliament building (for a very few years), built in 1404 by Owain Glyndŵr at the time of the rebellion against England included in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. We return to the hotel, check out, and walk back to the station along the road to the north, to await our train.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
9-30-99 |
Central Trains |
10:44am |
Machynlleth-Aberystwyth |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
9-30-99 |
Vale of Rheidol |
2:30pm |
Aberystwyth-Devil’s Bridge |
|
9 ‘Prince of Wales’ |
|
9-30-99 |
Vale of Rheidol |
4:30pm |
Devil’s Bridge-Aberystwyth |
|
9 ‘Prince of Wales’ |
Naturally, the train is a few minutes late (it started in Shrewsbury), but we’re on our way for the 18 mile trip to Aberystwyth before 11am. On arrival at Aberystwyth, we walk to the seafront Bellevue Hotel. Our rooms won’t be ready until 2pm (surprise!), so we walk along the seafront in the crashing high tide overspray, climb up to the castle, walk back through the town center, ride the cliff railway (funicular) up and down (it is in the process of restoration, now that it is owned by enthusiasts), pass a funeral procession loading outside a church, get some tea and coffee at Burger King, and return to the station for our afternoon excursion. (The early arrival in town, and the subsequent inability to access the rooms, point up the strange choices of hotel locations for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. It would have made much more sense to come through to Aberystwyth on Wednesday, and then stay at Machynlleth on Friday. No reasonable explanation is offered, and George is clearly as in the dark as anyone else.)
The Vale of Rheidol station now occupies the space of the old Manchester & Milford (GWR, not Cambrian) platforms at the Aberystwyth station. The land formerly occupied by the V of R station is now a supermarket. Some of us take pictures as the V of R train arrives from its morning run, the engine moves off to the shed, and then returns to couple on to our train. We then board our train. Most of our group rides in our reserved spaces in the first carriage, but Bruce and I elect to ride in the open carriage, right behind the engine. This permits us to listen to, and photograph, the engine (and the countryside) during the climb to Devil’s Bridge station. At Devil’s Bridge, most of the group walks along the road to the location of the waterfall, but no-one is willing to pay the price asked for a hike down to the falls. Instead, we repair to the refreshment room for tea and coffee, before boarding the train for the return journey. Since the engine is now at the other end of the train, I elect to ride in the enclosed carriage, with Chris, on the way back. A quick walk back to the hotel follows.
Our tour itinerary says that dinner is included tonight. That isn’t what the hotel has been told, and George brushes me off when I ask about the discrepancy. So, we eat at a chippie in the town center.
A number of people elect to stay in the hotel, or do some shopping today, so only 13 of us leave to ride the Talyllyn Railway following breakfast in the hotel.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
10-1-99 |
Central Trains |
9:25am |
Aberystwyth-Machynlleth |
DMU Class 153 |
|
|
10-1-99 |
Central Trains |
10:49am |
Machynlleth-Tywyn |
DMU Class 153 |
(same one) |
|
10-1-99 |
Talyllyn |
11:40am |
Tywyn-Nant Gwernol |
|
7 ‘Tom Rolt’ |
|
10-1-99 |
Talyllyn |
12:45pm |
Nant Gwernol[1]- Tywyn |
|
7 ‘Tom Rolt’ |
|
10-1-99 |
Central Trains |
2:53pm |
Tywyn-Fairbourne |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
10-1-99 |
Fairbourne |
|
RT |
|
|
|
10-1-99 |
Central Trains |
4:??pm |
Fairbourne-Dyfi Jct. |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
10-1-99 |
Central Trains |
??pm |
Dyfi Jct.-Aberystwyth |
DMU Class 156 |
|
The 9:25 service to Machynlleth comprises a single-car Class 153 . . . yet, it has a catering trolley! When we get to Machynlleth, the catering trolley switches to the following service from Pwllheli right through to Shrewsbury, while our train goes to the motive power depot. Awhile later, the train from Shrewsbury arrives (the one going forward as the 10:44 to Aberystwyth) and departs, after which the same Class 153 comes back into the station as our train to Tywyn (going forward thence to Pwllheli). On this train, we retrace our steps of Wednesday evening as far as Tywyn, where we walk the 350 yards to Tywyn Wharf station for our ride on the Talyllyn railway. The TR is important, as it was the first preserved railway, back in 1951. The move to form the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, the forerunner of so many “heritage” railway groups in Britain today, was led by LTC (“Tom”) Rolt. The locomotive hauling today’s TR train is appropriately named “Tom Rolt” in his memory.
The first mile or so of the Talyllyn passes through Tywyn, and through the railway’s sidings and workshops. Other engines are visible through the windows of the workshops. Out in the countryside the valley is interesting, but our enjoyment of it is not enhanced by the steady rain. The line climbs steadily up the side of the valley, so that the upper end is a hundred feet or more above the villages below. After the locomotive changes ends at Nant Gwernol, and we exchange groups of hikers (some get off, others get on), we take a refreshment break at Abergynolwyn, some ¾ of a mile back from Nant Gwernol, which was the former end of the line. Here we eat lunch (more sausage rolls and pasties), and enjoy the behavior of a small boy at the adjacent table. Bruce leaves to head off down the line (he’s secured a lineside pass from the railway’s supervisors) so he can photograph us going by. Some time later, we depart downhill, and pass Bruce (set-up for a photo) just before the next station. By now, the rain is quite heavy. Back at Tywyn, we spend some time looking through the bookstore, then walk back to the Central Trains station. There, the twelve members of the group await our train in a platform shelter that has no seats, and can barely get all of us out of the rain. Just before our train arrives, a group of schoolkids arrives to take the same train to their homes down the line. Some of them are singing in support of the Welsh rugby team, since the Rugby World Cup starts this afternoon in Cardiff. The effect reminds me of the movie Lord of the Flies.
At Fairbourne, it’s still raining steadily, so George asks the Fairbourne and Barmouth Railway folks if we can get done in time to catch and earlier train back to Aberystwyth. Since the railway is not normally open on a weekday in October, and is operating just for us, this is easily arranged. This railway is “half the size of narrow gauge”, and is thus really small. The rain is heavy enough to get everyone cold and wet, but not heavy enough to obscure the view of the nearby mountainsides, or of Barmouth and the Barmouth bridge at the other end of the line. The location, once we get out on the line, reminds me a lot of Spurn Head, although nowhere near as remote, but it is an empty spit of land across much of the mouth of an estuary (in this case, the Mawddach). At the outer end of the line, good views of both Barmouth and the movable part of the bridge are available.
Back at Fairbourne, we get tea to drink, and then look around the bookshop. I ask about NTSC versions of videos, but the ones we’re pointed to are all Video 125, and I have all that they’ve done in NTSC. We’re in plenty of time for the earlier train. When we get on, Hal Drury is already on (one of those who didn’t make today’s trip). He’s been shopping for antiques in Barmouth. The return journey involves a connection at Dyfi Junction, out on the marshes of the Dyfi estuary. The senior conductor makes sure our connecting train isn’t late, so we’re not stranded out there with no protection. In the event, the train we get off has to wait for the connection to clear the single line from Machynlleth.
While we’re partaking of our included dinner, this evening, a massive rainstorm blows in off the Irish Sea. . Bruce arrives to tell us of his extended time on the Talyllyn, and that he’s going back there on Saturday to participate in Photographers’ Day. When we get back to our room, we can see evidence of a big storm, but we would never have guessed that this storm was to drop four inches of rain on the watershed between the Dyfi and Severn valleys—enough to flood the railway east of Machynlleth until about noon on Saturday
We put the bags out, eat breakfast, and walk to the station. Jim Carter has finally given in to his cold, and returns to London to stay with his daughter. This morning’s train is a two-car unit, but has no catering trolley. This may be because it’s a Saturday, but it may also be due to the disruption in services due to the rain and flooding. Before departure, we’re told that we’ll have to take a substitute bus from Machynlleth toe Shrewsbury. Approaching Machynlleth, we can see the high water, and once we get off the train, it is pulled up into the maintenance area, out of the way. Coaches arrive after awhile, and we’re on one of them as a group. Mary Smith opines that the view from the coach is better than it would have been from the train; I disagree, but decide that arguing isn’t worth it. The weather is fine and sunny, by now, but signs of high water are everywhere. We wonder if any/many of the cows and sheep had been drowned by the floods. When we get to Shrewsbury station, we take a restroom break, then head off in our coach for Bridgnorth.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
10-2-99 |
Central Trains |
8:51am |
Aberystwyth-Machynlleth |
DMU Class 156 |
|
|
Note: Central Trains leg from Machynlleth-Shrewsbury replaced by bus, due to flooding |
|||||
|
10-2-99 |
Severn Valley |
1:20pm |
Bridgnorth-Kidderminster |
BR Mark1s |
4P 2-6-4T 80079 |
|
10-2-99 |
Severn Valley |
4:30pm |
Kidderminster-Bridgnorth |
BR Mark1s |
9400 Class 0-6-0PT |
At Bridgnorth, the atmosphere of a 1950s steam-worked railway is palpable. The intermittent rain showers only add to the authenticity. Beyond the far station platform is the railway’s maintenance shop and locomotive yard, facilities that are far larger than would ever have been required on a branch line such as this. Beyond the platform end lies a streamlined cab with the number 60009—A4 ‘Union of South Africa’ is undergoing it’s 10-year rebuild, here. It appears that high water takes about 36 hours to get from the Welsh mountains to this part of the Severn river, so the Severn Valley Railway isn’t going to have any problems, at least today, due to last night’s downpour.
After visiting the bookshop and getting cups of tea, we board the train, which comprises the usual heritage railway BR Mark 1 Open Saloon stock, and set off down the valley. This part of the Severn valley, south of the Ironbridge Gorge (Coalbrookdale) industrial area, is pretty, bucolic, countryside. The railway runs partway up the hillside, first on the west side of the valley, then, after crossing the river on a cast iron arch bridge, on the east side, until the line turns away from the river at Bewdley, and heads for the new terminus at Kidderminster. The train stops at each station along the way, all of which have sidings full of rolling stock and locomotives, some of them just not in use today, others awaiting restoration or perhaps just some level of maintenance. As we approach Kidderminster we see something quite new in the way of rolling stock—the first two Class 175 DMUs undergoing proving trials on the Severn Valley prior to being allowed to run on the main Railtrack network. Also in the station yard is a preserved Western Region ‘Warship’ diesel-hydraulic locomotive.
This is “Beer Weekend” on the Severn Valley Railway, with a large beer tent erected on the station circulating area. Also in this area is the tent of a visiting bookseller, adding a third book outlet to those in the railway and museum bookshops. We patronize all but the beer tent, but do ultimately patronize the railway’s café. Some of our tour members seem to spend the entire time between trains in the latter!
Both trains we ride on have reasonable motive power for a country branch line—tank engines from the early days of British Railways, albeit one of them is to a GWR pre-nationalization design. The return train is also largely composed of ex-BR Mark 1 stock.
After our coach ride back to Shrewsbury, we have our “farewell” dinner at the hotel. Bruce arrives from the Talyllyn, and describes his adventures of the day. He and a friend will be going to the Severn Valley tomorrow. He and I exchange e-mail addresses.
We set out the luggage and eat breakfast. Since there’s plenty of time before our train departs, I elect to walk to the station across the centre of Shrewsbury, while Chris takes the coach with the group. Before 9am on a Sunday morning, the old center of town is as peaceful and quiet as anywhere I’ve been in quite a while. Then, clocks strike 9 and a couple sitting under the market cross turn on their radio for the morning news. At least it isn’t rock music! There are many half-timbered buildings, most of them original and authentic, and a number of picturesque churches. The castle is by the station, but there’s not much to see or photograph. There are, however, things to see around the station itself, such as the original signalboxes, one of which appears still to be in use. I get around to the station front as the coach arrives. There’s still time to take photographs from the station platform before we depart.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
10-3-99 |
Central Trains |
10am |
Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton |
DMU Class 158 |
|
|
10-3-99 |
Virgin Cross Country |
11:20am |
Wolverhampton-Manchester (Picc.) |
Mark 3s |
Class 47 |
The train south(east) to Wolverhampton is our last DMU ride of the trip. The closer we get to Wolverhampton, the more the train is filled with supporters of the Wolverhampton (“Wolves”) football (soccer) team, which is evidently playing the Sunday game-of-the-week at its home ground, today. Along the way, we pass through the “new town” of Telford. At the Motive Power Depot (Oxley) just before the junction with the Stafford Line, there is a preserved “Deltic” diesel locomotive, waiting its next mainline outing.
At Wolverhampton, where we use the old LNWR/LMS ‘high-level’ station that is now on the electrified main line, Lee Drury leaves the group to head to London on her own. The rest of us board a diesel locomotive-hauled cross-country train, nominally bound from Penzance to Edinburgh via Manchester. Before we leave, its destination has been cut back to Carlisle due to something (flooding?) closing the route north of there. The run north through Stafford, Crewe, and Stockport to Manchester (Piccadilly) is uneventful. We see a large number of freight locomotives in English, Welsh, and Scottish paint at Crewe South yard and motive power depot.
On arrival at Manchester, we transfer by coach to the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, located on the site (and incorporating the buildings) of the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s first station. In addition to a beautifully-realized recreation of the booking hall of that station in the 1830s, there are exhibits of the history of large electric motors, and a few steam engines including a narrow-gauge Beyer-Garratt 2-6-6-2, built at Vulcan Works and latterly repatriated from South Africa. Prior to touring the museum, we eat lunch here.
After the museum tour, Chris and I leave our tour group to head for the East Lancashire railway on our own. George seems delighted when I tell him where we are going. He suggests that Bob Levin might want to go with us, but Bob feels he can’t leave his wife, Cheryl, for that long.
We walk the short distance, and climb the large number of stairs (the lift isn’t working) to the G-Mex station of the Manchester Metrolink light railway. The ticket machines require change that we don’t have, so Chris gets the necessary change from the G-Mex parking attendant. (G-Mex itself is an exhibition hall located in the trainshed of the old Manchester Central station, with its large quarter-circular overall roof.)
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Stock |
Loco |
|
10-3-99 |
Metrolink |
~3pm |
GMex-Bury |
Light rail |
|
|
10-3-99 |
East Lancashire |
4:50pm |
Bury-Rawtenstall |
Mk1s |
Class 45 ‘3rd Carabinier |
|
10-3-99 |
East Lancashire |
5:30pm |
Rawtenstall-Bury |
Mk1s |
Class 45 ‘3rd Carabinier |
|
10-3-99 |
Metrolink |
~5:45pm |
Bury-Piccadilly |
Light rail |
|
Light rail trains here are not much different from those in Los Angeles—even the ticket machines are very similar. We get on a train going into the Manchester city centre, where we change at Piccadilly Gardens onto a train heading north to Bury. This trains runs on city streets to Manchester Victoria, where it takes over the tracks once used by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway’s third-rail electrified services to Bury. (The route has been completely rebuilt with overhead electric catenary, of course.) At Bury, we walk the quarter mile from Bury Interchange to Bury (Bolton Street), which the L&YR used to us for its Manchester trains, but which now is the operating headquarters of the East Lancashire Railway heritage line. We’ve hurried to get here for the advertised 4pm train, but this is “Thomas the Tank Engine” weekend, so the timetable is quite different, with many more trains, one of which has just left. So we have time for some tea, and some photos of a Black Five 4-6-0 and a “Peak” class preserved diesel (which will be hauling the train we will take, using the stock the Black Five had just brought back from its own round trip to Rawtenstall). The whole area does a good job of recreating the ambience of late-period LMS and/or early BR secondary main line stations. The effect is quite different from the Severn Valley (or the NYMR, for that matter).
On the train north from Bury, we travel in an early Mark1 compartment carriage. People riding, and getting on the train at intermediate stations, seem to be heading north to Rawtenstall to get their cars and head for home. We, on the other hand, return to Bury on the same train we came up on, but in a different carriage. We pass trains headed by another Black Five and something else I’ve since forgotten. At Rawtenstall, there’s a preserved modernization-plan DMU doing short trips just a few hundred yards down the line. (At Bury, there had been a diesel shunter doing “Thomas” duty in a similar manner, with a couple of carriages.) At Rawtenstall, the line is quite far up into the edge of the Pennines—quite a difference from greater Manchester. All along the route from Manchester to Rawtenstall there are numerous examples of the adaptive use of 19th-century textile (cotton) mills.
We take the light rail back into Manchester, all the way into the Piccadilly station undercroft, and walk to the Thistle hotel where we will be staying, and where our luggage has been for several hours now.
At the hotel, we run into Bob Levin, who asks how we enjoyed “Thomas the Tank Engine” at the East Lancashire Railway. The “Thomas” aspects hadn’t affected our enjoyment, but Bob seems to think it would have limited his photographic selection. For dinner, we walk over to the chippie at Piccadilly station and get takeout fish and chips, which we take back to our hotel room and eat while watching the NFL on television (on Rupert Murdoch’s satellite channel—surprisingly, the source of the games is not limited to those being shown on Murdoch’s Fox network in the US). We see Phil Howard in the reception area; he expresses surprise at our choice of food and its source.
At breakfast this morning, we see Bob Milligan, who still isn’t feeling well. After breakfast, we walk over to the Ian Allan bookshop, next to the chippie, for our final book purchase of the trip (and our largest single purchase). In the street outside the hotel, George is hailing a taxi to take Aunt Georgia to the airport. He doesn’t see us, so we don’t stop to say goodbye. We walk back to the hotel, check out, and take a taxi back to Piccadilly station with the luggage (which we now have to handle by ourselves, again), where we wait in the first class lounge for it to be time to board our train.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
10-4-99 |
Virgin West Coast |
10:30am |
Manchester-Euston |
Mark3s |
Class 87 |
We have chosen to take the train going through the Potteries (Stoke-on-Trent and the five towns) from Stockport to Colwich (although there may not have been any other option in mid-morning), because that’s completely new country, even for me. Once again, this is full-fare first-class (Virgin West Coast version), with included tea, coffee, and cold sandwiches for lunch. Along the way to London, we see canal (narrow) boats in profusion at various places where the canals are within sight of the railway.
At Euston, the “taxis” sign points down a flight of stairs, so I go over and ask the Virgin Customer Service Representative for a “luggage-friendly” way to get a taxi. She points me down a ramp to a street on the west side of the station, where there are, indeed, taxis available. We take the taxi to the Quality Inn, Hyde Park, which is about a quarter mile west of Paddington station, along Praed Street until it changes its name to Sussex Gardens. Hyde Park itself is a couple of hundred yards to the south, but that point on Hyde Park proves to be about three-quarters of the way west across the park (halfway between the north end of the Serpentine and the grounds of Kensington Palace). Our room at the hotel must be the last one they had, since it smells musty (which improves after we open the windows wide), and the windows open on to an air shaft that is being used for air extraction during the reconstruction of another part of the building, above us.
After making and drinking some tea in the room, we set of to walk to Oxford Street. As might be expected from the hotel’s location, Marble Arch is further away than I had expected, and the record shop I’m looking for is quite a way beyond that (between the Bond Street Underground Station and Bond Street itself—if I had known that in advance, we would have taken the Central Line from Lancaster Gate, right by the hotel). We find some of the CDs I’m looking for, then set off to walk through the area between Oxford Street and Marylebone Road. Somewhere in there, we find a cooking-utensil shop where Chris buys a replacement for her hand-operated Mouli grater. We take a look at the possibility of riding out on the Metropolitan Line from Baker Street station, but the price for what I have in mind is more than the cash we have in hand, so we opt not to take the ride. We walk back to the hotel along Marylebone Road and Praed Street, checking on the way to see if Virgin Airlines (or Continental) is among those that will check-in luggage before boarding Heathrow Express (it isn’t, but in the event that didn’t matter). For dinner we eat at what, in retrospect, was a rather expensive Indian restaurant (where the food was very good), just down the street from the hotel.
The air extractor for the construction zone in the hotel wakes us up at 7am, long before I had wanted to be up on this very long day (with its eight-hour time shift). We get up and have breakfast, then take a long walk in Hyde Park. We’ve got plenty of time, and it’s a lovely sunny day, so we walk through most of the park (except the Marble Arch area we covered the day before), going to the area on front of Kensington Palace, the Albert Memorial (which has been completely refurbished and regilded since last we saw it), and then circumnavigating the Serpentine. Chris wonders aloud about the number of ambulances we’ve seen, and sirens we’ve heard, but no particular cause is evident to us yet. As we walk, I think about how enjoyable this is, and that I’m not ready to ‘let go’ just yet. My first visit to Hyde Park had been fifty years earlier, when the family walked there from Paddington (straight down Eastbourne Terrace) as a way to pass the time until the next train to Exeter, at Easter, 1949. Back then, no road in the park formed part of the local traffic circulating system, and Marble Arch was located within the park itself, rather than within a large roundabout, as it is at present.
Eventually, we return to the hotel, collect the luggage, check out, and take a taxi to Paddington, where I’m intending to take photos at the outer end of the platforms for awhile before taking the Heathrow Express to the airport. When we get to Paddington, we notice that the information screens all show every train as canceled. So, I walk over to the Heathrow Express information and ticket booth, where I’m informed that Heathrow Express has been canceled due to what proves to be the Ladbroke Grove crash. I ask about alternative routes to Heathrow, expecting that Heathrow Express will have made some arrangement so that they can honor our existing tickets. Not so! Not only are we on our own for getting to Heathrow (they don’t even tell me that trains are actually running to the airport from Ealing Broadway), but they won’t refund the money for the prepaid tickets, telling me we have to get refunds from our travel agent in the US. I think all of this is very bad form on Heathrow Express’ part—I suppose they haven’t planned for an accident that completely closes the line!
So, I have to go find an automated teller machine (the ones in the station are broken, it seems), so that we can pay to take a taxi our to Heathrow (since I don’t want to navigate the Piccadilly line with the luggage—had I know that District Line service to Ealing Broadway would have got me to operating Heathrow Express, we would have gone that way at much lower cost). Then we get a taxi out to the airport. Finally, from the taxi driver, we learn what has actually happened (and, incidentally, why we had seen and heard all those ambulances and emergency vehicles). Because I have no idea how long the taxi ride would take, we left immediately, and in fact arrive at Heathrow Terminal 3 at least half an hour earlier than I had planned. When we check in the luggage, we discover that our flight will be two hours late, so that we have more than four hours to kill until departure time. We have lunch (using Virgin’s vouchers, provided to us because of the flight delay), change back the cash we don’t anticipate using, go through the passport control and security check to the departure lounge, and wait (having tea and coffee at intervals). Our 3pm flight actually departs at 5pm (9am, Pacific Time). It is uneventful (except that the mapping software for the individual entertainment screen doesn't work, this time), and eleven hours later (after 8pm, PDT) we’re landing in Los Angeles. Immigration and customs are easily dealt with, as is the taxi ride home.
Are we glad to be home? Well, I’m happy to see the cats and the birds, but other than that, I don’t know. I still don’t, at the time of this writing.
[1] A 45 minute refreshment stop at Abergynolwyn is included in the timing of the return trip. Abergynolwyn is the next station to Nant Gwernol, and was the terminus of the line for most of its existence.