Continuing my account of my homeward journey from my Scottish holiday, taking things as far as Neptune’s Staircase.
Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my return journey. I covered as far as Glenfinnan Viaduct last time.
EXPLANATION
I took many photos on this journey, which has led me to break it into multiple posts, using either landmarks or stations as appropriate as dividers. This post is still exclusively related to the Arisaig to Glasgow leg of the journey, with Neptune’s Staircase being an arrangement of locks not far from Banavie Station, which is the last station stop before Fort William if travelling east. The journey continued to run smoothly between these points.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are the photographs that relate to this post…
Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with first of a number of posts about the return journey to Norfolk.
Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my Scottish Holiday (May 30th to June 6th). This post starts the story of my journey back to Norfolk.
PREPARATIONS
I started my packing on the Friday night, and rose early on the Saturday morning to complete the job. The journey started with the 10:27 from Arisaig, and I had about 45 minutes to kill at the station, as my parents needed to start their own journey a little bit earlier. The weather was reasonable, so I did not need to make use of the waiting room. I was not quite the only one boarding this train at Arisaig, but finding a seat was not a problem. I was due to be on this train all the way to Glasgow where it terminated, which meant that for a few hours at least I was able to relax and enjoy the scenery.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here the photographs I got up to the Glenfinnan Viaduct, which to remind you is east of Glenfinnan station…
The train arriving bang on time, as per the information conveyed by the screen earlier.The front of the Jacobite Express at GlenfinnanThe famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, viewed and photographed from an eastbound train.
Starting my coverage of the Friday of my Scottish holiday with an account of the voyage to Knoydart.
Welcome to the latest instalment in my account of my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). Today we move on the the Friday, our last full day in Scotland. For this day we decided to visit Knoydart.
GETTING TO KNOYDART
Although Knoydart is part of mainland Scotland it cannot be reached from outside by road. The only ways for a visitor to get there are by boat from Mallaig or by hiking for over 15 miles across very rough terrain. We took the former option, and our voyage was a very enjoyable one.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are my photographs from the voyage to Knoydart…
I was much taken with the statue/ monument that can be seen at the summit of this little headland, and took a number of pictures of ti during the voyage.Approaching Inverie, the only settlement on the Knoydart peninsula
Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with a look at the journey back from Glenfinnan to Arisaig on the Thursday.
Welcome to the latest instalment in my account of my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). This is the final post about the excursion to Glenfinnan.
BACK TO ARISAIG
After finishing in the museum we had a few minutes on the platform before catching the train back to Arisaig. We managed to find seats well placed to capture the best sights of the return journey, and the service ran according to schedule.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are the pictures from the journey back to Arisaig…
An isolated little church somewhere between Glenfinnan and Arisaig (three pictures)This wonderful map greets arrivals at Arisaig station.
Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with a look at the Glenfinnan Station Museum, with plenty of photographs.
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). This is my third post about the Thursday.
A COMPACT MUSEUM
There is a small museum at Glenfinnan station, around the history of the line and the station. For all its small size they have managed to cram a lot of interesting stuff in there. We visited it after the weather intervened sufficiently to prevent as from doing a walk that would have taken in a view of the viaduct. It is well worth a visit.
A look at Glenfinnan Station, as I continue the account of my Scottish holiday.
Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th). I started my coverage of the Thursday with a look at the journey from Arisaig to Glenfinnan. This post picks up where the previous one left off.
A MINOR STATION WITH MAJOR INTEREST
As you will see in the next post in this series Glenfinnan Station is home to a small museum that well repays a visit. It also boasts two old railway carriages, one a sleeper, which you can arrange to stay in for a price, and one a pullman style restaurant carriage in which you can get a splendid meal, as we did. There is also an old oil store, a solar powered snow plough, which saw serious action the winter of 1962-63, an old signal box which you can look at, and a crane. There are also various walks which take in the Glenfinnan Viaduct, though the weather stopped us from doing that. We also overlapped with the westbound Jacobite Express.
Moving on to the Thursday of my Scottish holiday, with an account of a train journey from Arisaig to Glenfinnan.
My account of Scottish holiday (May 30th to June 6th) moves on to the Thursday. This is the first of a number of posts about was originally the only day for which we had nothing planned.
A LATE ADAPTATION
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the weather that we had been led to believe was going to blight the Thursday actually showed up a day early. The Thursday by contrast was comparatively benign, so we decided to go out after all. We opted to make the train journey from Arisaig to Glenfinnan and back and do some exploring at Glenfinnan. There was a train heading east from Arisaig at 10:27 (the same train that my return journey from holiday would begin on two days later). It is policy at Arisaig that although all doors could safely be opened they only have one set operational, but we were able to board without too much difficulty. There are two stations between Arisaig and Glenfinnan, but Beasdale and Loch Ailort are both request stops, so we might very well have had an unbroken run. We arrived into Glenfinnan just in time to overlap with the westbound Jacobite Express.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here is the gallery:
My first picture from inside the train – the entire steam train planter.
An account of an epic journey from King’s Lynn in eastern England to Arisaig in the far west of Scotland, 14 hours door to door, with three photo galleries.
This is the first post in what will be a series about my annual holiday around the time of my birthday, which this year is in Arisaig, reachable by travelling to the westernmost railway station in mainland Britain. This post looks back at a long day’s travelling.
THE PLANNING
I was faced when I started looking at travel options with a choice between either leaving King’s Lynn on the 4:49AM train which would see me arrive in Arisaig at 5:28PM or a later train which would see me arrive at 11:30PM if all went well. Given that I was being met at Arisaig by my parents this was not really a choice at all and I duly accepted the necessity of a hyper-early start to the start.
THE DAY 1: KING’S LYNN TO GLASGOW
I left my flat just a tick after 4AM to walk to the station to catch my first train. I was there good and early and able to take a seat without fuss. My first change was at Ely, and although I had the longer interchange to make, using the curved subway from platform two to platform one I was never in danger of missing my next connection to Peterborough. At Peterborough I had a bit of a wait (it was full daylight and very sunny by then so this was no hardship). My train for the long northward haul to Edinburgh arrived more or less bang on time, and I found my seat without difficulty, and it was unoccupied, so I did not even have to get someone to move (there are people who ignore reservation signs and take prebooked seats, and I will make them move if they have taken mine). The train progressed smoothly through the east midlands and north east England to the Border Bridge at Berwick (the best way to enter Scotland) and then on to Edinburgh without any hitches, and I had enough time at the interchange to be waiting at the platform for my next connection. The run to Glasgow was also clear (Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city and Edinburgh, though smaller, is the capital, so services between the two are fast and frequent).
PHOTO GALLERY 1: TO GLASGOW
A goods train passing through Peterborough during my wait there. I have imaged models of locomotives named after football clubs at work but this was my first sight of one in the flesh.The first of 28 pictures showing various containers on this freight train (no container is pictured more than once).Yellow (at least in this country) is the colour of engineering trains.passing the base of a volcanic rock on top of which there are buildings, just after leaving Waverley in the direction of Glasgow.
THE JOURNEY 2: GLASGOW TO FORT WILLIAM
The journey from Glasgow to Arisaig, a run of just over five hours, covers some of the most scenic railway in Britain. Between Glasgow and Fort William there is a splendid section travelling across Rannoch Moor, which features Corrour, seven miles from the nearest road among others. This section would be THE highlight of most routes of which it was part, but places second to the route beyond Fort William in this case.
PHOTO GALLERY 2: GLASGOW TO FORT WILLIAM
Crianlarich is a dividing point – some of the train splits of and goes to Oban while the remainder continues to Mallaig. It is pretty much an impossibility for anyone to to get caught out because the on-train staff are very attentive to such matters.Decoration at Upper Tyndrum
THE JOURNEY 3: FORT WILLIAM TO ARISAIG
Unfortunately this, the most scenic section of the entire day, also saw the worst weather, and rain spattered windows are not the best medium through which to take photographs. However barring a minor delay at Glenfinnan, where we had to wait for the outgoing train from Mallaig before we could continue the run was smooth, and the scenery was still splendid. We arrived more or less on schedule at Arisaig, and I was met by parents for the last short part of the journey to our accommodation. In all, from my door in King’s Lynn to that of the cottage we are staying in took almost precisely 14 hours.
PHOTO GALLERY 3: FROM FORT WILLIAM ONWARDS
The final tranche of photos from this epic day…
rain spattered windows reduce its splendour, but I think my three pictures of the glorious Glenfinnan Viaduct are still pretty good.There is something splendidly paradoxical about a snow plough with solar panels attached.This signboard/ map greets those disembarking at Arisaig, an experience I had not previously had.
A whimsical exercise inspired by a fairly newly constructed path in King’s Lynn, assessing how the real roundel might be brought here.
This is an exercise in purest whimsy, provoked by a recently constructed set of paths in Hardings Pits near King’s Lynn that I have dubbed ‘Roundel Path’ for their collective resemblance to London Underground’s classic symbol. Here is a photograph:
Roundel Path – I hope this photo, taken this morning illustrates the reason I have so named it.
Before moving in to the main body of this post I re-emphasise that this a purely whimsical exercise, and not even I would actually recommend the adoption of these schemes.
TWO POSSIBLE METHODS
These suggestions are listed from most to least fanciful with even the least fanciful still fairly so.
Over a decade ago I did a personal survey of the Piccadilly line, which among other things recommended a northwards extension from Cockfosters to Welwyn Garden City. Welwyn Garden City is a station that trains from London to King’s Lynn pass but do not stop at en route. Extending all the way to Lynn would require a lot of adjustments at every station that the line would stop at – ideal platform heights are very different for surface and tube stocks which is why I consider this possibility even more unrealistic than the other.
The slightly less ridiculous possibility makes use of the fact that the older subsurface London Underground lines are built to standard railway specifications and would at least not require any platform adaptations. It would require one completely new section of track, from King’s Cross St Pancras (Circle, Hammersmith&City and Metropolitan line shared platforms) to Finsbury Park or some point further north, with an intermediate station at Highbury& Islington, giving some useful connections, joining the existing tracks as soon as it is practical for it to come to the surface. That leaves one further question…
WHICH OF LINE SHOULD RUN THE NEW ROUTE?
There are three possibilities:
The Metropolitan line once extended over 50 miles out into the countryside, and is still much more like a mainline railway than other lines. The disadvantage of the Metropolitan getting this route is that from Baker Street onward trains would heading northwest, having come from basically due north (with a tiny fraction of east).
The Hammersmith and City line, which could abandon the Farringdon to Barking part of its route, all of which is served by other lines.
The Wimbledon-Edgware Road section of the District line could add the stations as far as King’s Cross to its existing route and take over the new route.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I state once again that the foregoing has been a piece of whimsy, not anything serious, before applying my usual sign off…
A new bird sighting for me, tentatively identified as a grey wagtail.This cormorant has evidently developed a taste for this particular tree canopy – I have seen it up there before.Roundel Path
An account of my return journey from Cornwall to Norfolk, with a photo gallery.
This is my final post about my Christmas in Cornwall, and details the return journey.
A JOURNEY OF MANY PARTS
I was travelling on a Sunday, something I normally try to avoid because it can be problematic. I was booked on the 14:15 from Plymouth, and had various subsequent connections to make. We left Fort Picklecombe at 12:45, and arrived at Plymouth station a little over an hour after that. As I was booked in coach A I had to get to the far end of the platform to be able to get to my booked seat. The train ran a little bit late, but not enough to disarrange my subsequent plans (incidentally GWR have already paid compensation for the problems with my outbound journey). Because I was right at the front of the train I would have had to walk the entire length of the platform at Paddington to get to the bridge that gives access to the Hammersmith and City line platforms, which was never a practical proposition. I therefore went through the ticket gates onto the concourse at my end of the platform, and boarded a circle line train at the Praed Street platforms, changing trains at Edgware Road as required. At King’s Cross I found my way to my next train, a non-stop service to Royston from where I would catch a replacement bus to Cambridge North and then board a train for the last stage of the journey to King’s Lynn. Everything on this stage of the journey went smoothly, and I arrived into King’s Lynn station exactly on schedule at 20:48. It remained only to walk home, a journey of about 20 minutes, and then unpack.
PHOTOGRAPHS
It was of course dark for much of the time I was travelling, but not for the really scenic part of the journey before Exeter, though I was on the wrong side of the train to get the full benefit of that.
The first two pictures in this gallery were taken through the car window on the journey to Plymouth.Then there were some pictures taken at Plymouth.Pictures taken in transit from Plynouth start here.On the Praed Street platforms.At Edgware RoadPart of the sign indication the Metropolitan line platforms at Baker Street.This picture should have featured a roundel as well as this, but someone walked right in front of the roundel while I was taking it/Railway 200 stuff at King’s CrossThe route map on the train to Royston.
aspiblog 