Earlier this week, I read this article on the Guardian's "Comment is Free" section about a revolutionary idea: Zopa. The idea is simple: if banks are the middlemen between savers and borrowers, why not cut them out altogether and get savers to lend directly to borrowers?
It's certainly an interesting idea, though not without its flaws: even Zopa itself admits that getting people to lend enough money for long enough that people can take out mortgages is not going to happen any time soon, so the bank as we know it is here to stay, even if it is in for a bit of healthy competition.
This got me thinking about competition on Britain's railways. Ostensibly, the Conservative Party, in privatising the railways in the mid-1990s, thought that the railway services could be made better by allowing competition between more than one private operator, instead of having the government run it all itself.
This idea had revolutionised many other industries, for better or for worse, in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher. Arguably the biggest success has been in telecommunications: privatising British Telecom in 1984 led ultimately to cheaper prices - not only for traditional telephone services, but also for the internet.
Why did privatisation work well in telecommunications? Because there's a level playing field: every company can provide the same level of service using the same basic infrastructure; it's the same wires to your house regardless of who's providing you with internet. This led to genuine competition between companies, driving prices down, which is good for the consumer.
Or is it? Game theory tells us that if each individual tries to choose what's best for themselves, we may all end up worse off. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read about the prisoner's dilemma.) If we're all paying less for our internet, this means there must be less money around to actively improve the network, so there's less investment in the infrastructure.
So while we're all paying less money, we're also paying the price of not having as fast a connection.
In fact, this is so much the case that a couple of months ago it was suggested that people should be taxed £6 a year to fund the improvements that we so badly need.
Imagine a counterfactual for a moment: suppose that BT had not been privatised. We might suppose that bills for internet access would be higher - maybe even £6 higher. But since there would have been no drop in prices, there would have been no drop in investment, so our network would have been able to cope.
In other words, if BT hadn't been privatised, it's quite possible that we'd all be paying £6 a year anyway in higher bills, and none of us would be complaining - at least, we wouldn't be complaining as much as some who say "£6 in tax per year? Outrageous!", etc.
So, is the same thing happening on the railways? I think we must separate the discussion into freight and passenger traffic, since the two are very different.
Railfreight is, in many ways, quite similar to telecommunications. There are several railfreight companies - DB Schenker, Freightliner, Direct Rail Services, FirstGBRf and Advenza - most of whom will be happy to take your goods from point A to point B, at a reasonable price.
The companies can then consult with the regulators and find suitable times to run the trains. Since allocation of the train times is, in theory, on a first-come, first-served basis, it doesn't matter which of the operators take your goods; they'll all get it there in the same time.
In other words, there's a level playing field. Admittedly, you have to book the transit of your goods a little in advance, but you would also have to book lorry drivers in advance.
There are two questions here, then: is it driving prices down, and is the quality of service getting worse? Unfortunately I don't know enough about railfreight to answer those questions directly. However, the percentage of goods moved by rail increased from 8.5% in 1995 (at the time of privatisation) to 11.5% in 2005.
A increase of a third in freight moved by rail doesn't happen for no good reason, and it is, at least in part, down to the free-market competition of privatisation. But it's also down to the investment that happened because of privatisation: because of the upgrades on the West Coast Main Line, there is far more capacity for freight trains than ever before.
So why not adopt the same model for passenger trains? Why not let companies run whatever trains they want, based solely on market forces? The most important reason is that there isn't enough capacity.
Take London to Manchester as a random example: assuming that we want to keep all the other local services, it's pretty much only possible to run three trains an hour between London and Manchester. While it might theoretically be possible to have more than one company operating such services, it would be a logistical nightmare trying to ensure it all worked.
Imagine the following: you need a car to commute to work. Instead of buying one car, you lease three cars at the same price as buying one. The catch is this: if you leave home or office between 0 and 19 minutes past the hour, you must use the VW Golf. If you leave between 20 and 39 minutes past the hour, you must use the Ford Focus. If you leave between 40 and 59 minutes past the hour, you must use the Renault Megane.
Since you have to use the same car to get home as you did to get to the office, you may only leave the office in a given 20-minute window each hour. Even if you normally leave home at 7:30am and the office at 5pm, you'd have to wait till 5:20pm to use the car.
What if you go out with some friends after work? Oh dear, the rules change at 7pm. To leave the office between 7pm and 8pm, you must use the VW Golf; 8pm-9pm is the Ford Focus and 9pm-10pm is the Renault Megane. After 10pm, you may not use the car until 6am. If you break these rules, you pay a heavy fine to the leasing company.
Now, what if one of your cars breaks down? Are you allowed to use another car outside its permitted period? No: because you left home at a particular time, you're stuck with one car all day. You can't get a friend to bring one of the other two cars you have, which are working perfectly, unless you pay a massive fine for using it outside the proper time. And by the time you've got on the phone and paid the fine, the mechanic has come out and fixed your car anyway.
Want to go to the garage on the way home and pick up a pint of milk? Oh my, no. You should have leased a Vauxhall Vectra for that.
Think this all sounds ridiculous? Imagine buying a plane ticket: you're stuck with one company, who only leave at given times, and changing companies at short notice is usually prohibitively expensive.
Fortunately, our railways aren't all that bad - yet. But it does highlight the folly of comparing trains and planes. With airlines, the only major capacity constraints are the airports themselves: planes queue in an orderly fashion to take off and land, and other than that they work, frankly, pretty well. With railways, there are many more capacity bottlenecks: not just stations, but junctions, tunnels, and curves.
Moreover, because trains are so heavy, they take quite a while to stop: a train travelling at 100mph takes more than a mile to come to a complete stand. So trains have to be kept very far apart - so they don't crash into each other - and so you can't fit that many on a given line.
Competition works on telephone lines - and indeed, airlines - because there's enough capacity to go round. With the railways as they are today, there's barely enough capacity for one company, let alone the dozens we currently have.
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Monday, 10 August 2009
In Retrospect: The All-Line Rover Awards
So, having had some time to look back over my travels, there are some things I'd like to praise, and others I'd like to decry. Mainly, however, for those of you not wishing to read the entire blog, this is intended as a summary of everything that I did. First, here's a brief summary of the routes I covered each day:
Day 1: London - Liverpool - Norwich - London
Day 2: London - Newcastle - Edinburgh - Aberdeen - Glasgow
Day 3: Glasgow - (sleeper train) - London - Bristol - Weymouth - London
Day 4: London - Penzance - Exeter - Exmouth
Day 5: Exmouth - Exeter - Salisbury - Cardiff - Crewe - London
Day 6: London - Wrexham - Holyhead - Llandudno Jct - Blaenau Ffestiniog - Porthmadog - Fairbourne
Day 7: Rest day in Fairbourne
Day 8: Fairbourne - Machynlleth - Shrewsbury - Swansea - London
Day 9: London - Gatwick Airport - London - Leicester - Stansted Airport - London
Day 10: London - York (National Railway Museum) - Sheffield - London
Day 11: London - Manchester - Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow
Day 12: Glasgow - Lancaster - Barrow-in-Furness - Carlisle - Glasgow
Day 13: Rest day in Glasgow
Day 14: Glasgow - Fort William - Glasgow
Over the course of 14 days, I spent 4 days, 12 hours and 1 minute on trains. That's over a third of my life on trains, for two weeks. Imagine this: instead of working 9-5 everyday, travel on trains 9-5 every day for two weeks. Many people would regard that as a form of torture: I really enjoyed it.
In that time, I covered no fewer than 5622.75 miles. Given that Land's End to John O'Groats is 840 miles, I really did go up and down the length of the country several times over. The farthest north I got was Aberdeen, the farthest east was Norwich, and the farthest south and west was Penzance.
Had I paid every time for walk-up tickets, I would have paid £1,113.20. I actually paid just £429 for the ticket, plus £38 for the sleeper berth - considerably less than half. The walk-up prices would have been considerably higher if I'd made more early starts; only once did I end up on a peak-time ticket out of London. Nevertheless, the ticket really does represent incredible value, at just 7.6p per mile.
As a final statistic, lest anyone think that British trains are slow, for the whole time I was on trains I averaged 52.1mph - nothing to be sniffed at. As a more ridiculous figure, for the duration of the validity of the ticket, I averaged 16.7mph, even when I wasn't moving!
THE ALL-LINE ROVER AWARDS
First, some more frivolous awards:
Funniest Announcement: Heard at Victoria station on Day 9: "The next train to depart from platform 11 will be the 11:11 Southern service to London Bridge..." - the proliferation of "eleven" made me laugh, anyway.
Worst Announcement: The announcements on the East Midlands Trains service from Sheffield to London on Day 10 were quite overbearing: telling anyone with an advance-purchase ticket for the wrong train that "your ticket is invalid, and you will need to purchase a completely new ticket" was technically correct, but far too threatening. It's little things like that which mean people turn away from using trains.
Best Noise: The acceleration of the Class 465s, one of the main classes of electric train used on suburban routes south of London: the electric whine as it moves up through the gears is very satisfying.
Busiest Train: If we open this to the Underground, then nothing can ever beat the Northern Line train I took from London Bridge to Bank on the morning of Day 2: it was crammed, Japanese-style. If we don't allow that, and we disregard the many peak-time services between London and New Beckenham that I was on, then the busiest was probably the little two-car train from Glasgow to Fort William: it was the only train outside London on which people were forced to stand.
Emptiest Train: This one's easy: the Stansted Express on Day 9 was incredibly empty. So too was the London-Nottingham HST I was on earlier that day; both had eight carriages when three carriages would still have given us two seats each.
Best Station Café: The Camden Food Co. A hands-down winner on quality, selection, ambience, and price. Simply superb; find them at seven London terminals plus Birmingham New Street.
Best Staff Member: The attendant on the Caledonian Sleeper was very nice and made sure that my first experience of a sleeper train was as relaxing as possible.
Most Disorienting Feeling: Waking up, getting dressed, getting off the train, and walking onto Euston station concourse at 7:40am, in the morning sunshine, before the commuter rush had really started. Sleeper trains are weird. (See Night 2.)
Most Enjoyable Day: Without a doubt this was Day 6, the longest day in terms of time (though not distance). The circuit of North Wales was exhilarating for two reasons: one, the scenery was superb, and two, it had the potential to go disastrously wrong (there were some very tight connections!) but ended up all being fine.
Now, the big awards:
Best Overall Experience: All things considered, the ride on the Settle and Carlisle (on Day 11) was probably the best train journey I've ever made. Great scenery, comfortable seats, excellent visibility, the train went at just the right speed for photography, and the staff were friendly. If there had been a trolley service it would have been perfect.
Worst Overall Experience: Without doubt the Stansted Express (on Day 9) was the worst train I've ever been on. The ride was appalling - I could barely keep my fingers on the right keys on my laptop. The seats were uncomfortable, the tables were too high, the legroom was too generous, and the staff were non-existent. As for the service, it was empty, probably because it's too slow.
Best Station:
1st: London St Pancras - A sight to behold: probably the best station in the world, with a great range of shops, fantastic places to eat (especially the Camden Food Co!), and an eye-opening range of destinations, from Sheffield to Brussels. (See Day 9.)
2nd: Manchester Piccadilly - A 92% satisfaction rating places it first in the country; it's easy to see why, it's a great station, with plenty of good shops and places to eat; it has enough space to move around, but so much that you feel lost. (See Day 11.)
3rd: Salisbury - A great little station, with a great café, and ramps to the subway instead of steps. (See Day 5.)
Commendations also go to London Paddington, Bristol Temple Meads, and Leeds.
Worst Station:
Aberdeen - A grotty, empty station with nowhere to get any decent food; a real shame, since no doubt the station used to be much more important. (See Day 2.)
I also didn't much like Carlisle station: however, its crime is more one of mediocrity and blandness.
Best Train Operating Company:
Joint 1st: Wrexham and Shropshire and Grand Central - Both the open access operators I used were in a class of their own: the staff were friendly and helpful, even on the platforms; the food was hot and fresh, and the trains were comfortable and spacious. (See Day 6 for Wrexham and Shropshire, and Day 10 for Grand Central.)
2nd: South West Trains - Excellent by their understatement: the staff were efficient, there when you needed them but never in the way; the trolley service was good, and the trains were comfortable and punctual. (See Day 3 and Day 5.)
3rd: Northern Rail - I was only on two of their trains, but both were very comfortable, the staff were attentive, though the lack of catering was disappointing. (See Day 11 and Day 12.)
Commendations go to First ScotRail for the Caledonian Sleeper service (though the rest of their services aren't to the same standard), and to Chiltern Railways for an efficient service (with which I was so familiar that I didn't bother to sample this time).
Worst Train Operating Company:
Worst: CrossCountry - Admittedly I was only on two trains, and a lot of their failings are not down to them but the trains they inherited. Nonetheless, the two journeys I made on CrossCountry were among the most uncomfortable journeys I've ever made, the trains are too short, the timetable is convenient for operation but not for the passengers (sorry, "customers"), the staff were conspicuous by their absence, and the catering was pretty poor. (See Day 9 and Day 10.)
2nd Worst: Virgin Trains - If it weren't for the speed of their trains, Virgin Trains would easily be the worst train company I've been on. The trains themselves are quite uncomfortable; the visibility is terrible in all cases; the shop insists on selling magazines instead of decent hot food; in most cases the staff were lazy, and occasionally even rude; and the punctuality is very hit-and-miss. (See days 1, 5, 11 and 12.)
Best Rolling Stock:
1st: Mark 3 Stock - Sometimes the oldest is also the best: these thirty-year old carriages, used in every High-Speed Train, have stood the test of time (until, that is, they've been ruined by refurbishment). They are ubiquitous: see days 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10.
2nd: Sprinters (all classes) - The Sprinters are the workhorse of the regional services, and with just one or two exceptions provide a comfortable way to see the countryside, even if their top speed isn't great. Also ubiquitous: see days 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12 and 14.
Joint 3rd: Mark 4 Stock and Class 222 'Meridian' - The Mark 4 stock dates from 1989, while the Meridians date from 2004; both, however, are refreshingly modern trains which are comfortable and have good visibility. (See Day 2 for the Mark 4 stock, and Day 10 for the Meridians.)
The Desiros, both the diesel ones used by TransPennine Express and the electric ones used by South West Trains, also deserve a commendation.
Worst Rolling Stock:
Joint worst: Class 170 'Turbostar' and Class 175 'Coradia' - Both these recent classes are poor imitations of the Sprinters, and they both have terrible seats, not enough legroom, not enough luggage space, and poor visibility. (See Day 9 for the Turbostar and Day 5 for the Coradia.)
Joint 2nd worst: Class 220 'Voyager' and Class 221 'Super Voyager' - Much, much too short for InterCity journeys, with terrible seats, many with very poor visibility. (See Day 10 for the Voyager and Days 11 and 12 for the Super Voyager.)
If I were to give an award for worst visibility, it would have to go to the Class 390 Pendolinos; they avoid an award for Worst Rolling Stock only by virtue of their superb speed.
Last, but not least, the award for Best Scenery:
3rd: Exeter-Penzance - Brunel's masterpiece: the line runs along the coast and over the mountains of Devon, over the Tamar on the superb Royal Albert Bridge, and snakes its way along the spine of Cornwall to the sea. (See Day 4.)
2nd: North Wales - The lines in North Wales I traversed on Day 6, namely Holyhead-Llandudno Jct-Blaenau Ffestiniog-Porthmadog-Fairbourne are superb, and when put together they come very close to taking first prize.
1st: Glasgow-Fort William - The West Highland Line isn't just the best line in the UK, it's the best railway line in the world. Stunning views from a breathtakingly-engineered line. (See Day 14.)
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
First, let's get the disappointments out of the way. I was disappointed not to have seen more of Scotland - I should have gone north two days earlier than I did, and not worried so much about the weather forecast. Not seeing the Perth-Inverness line was the biggest disappointment; Mallaig and Wick are distant ends of long branch lines, while the line to Kyle of Lochalsh I've already seen (five years ago).
The original plan I had was thrown out the window before I even started: I originally planned to go to Scotland first, but I decided pretty quickly that the weather wasn't up to much. The original Day 10 became Day 1, with one or two changes. The Day 2 trip to Aberdeen that I finished with the sleeper train was in fact planned as Day 1, without the sleeper train, to get me to Scotland.
The exploration of the South West in Days 3, 4 and 5 was pretty different than what I'd planned; I originally intend to head to Penzance on a South West Trains service, and come back by the Night Riviera sleeper train. I'm very glad I changed my mind on that one - to miss the fantastic scenery while in a sleeper train would have been sacrilegious.
The only days that were pretty much as planned were Days 6 and 8 in Wales, because the arrangement to stay the weekend in Fairbourne was by far the hardest thing to change. That's not to say it wasn't a bit tight; ten minutes delay at Holyhead and I would have been stuffed, forced to replan things on the spot.
Days 9 and 10 (Tuesday and Wednesday) were done almost completely ad hoc, since I didn't get the chance to book anywhere for Tuesday night, and the forecast for Wednesday was abysmal. The services I went on were interesting, as was the trip to the National Railway Museum, but there wasn't much in the way of scenery. Fortunately, days 11, 12 and 14 made up for it: the Settle and Carlisle, the Cumbrian Coast Line and the West Highland Line are all really good lines.
But doing things ad hoc is part of the point of this ticket. The All-Line Rover is the ultimate flexible ticket, and as much as you can plan things there'll always be things that go wrong. Fortunately, while there were a few incidents along the way, none of them completely derailed my plans.
While there were a few points at which I was less than ecstatic, on the whole I loved the experience. The experiences of soaring through Berwick, curling slowly through Devon and Cornwall, climbing slowly over the roof of Wales, and crossing the wilderness of Rannoch Moor are just some of the memories that will last a lifetime.
So too will some of the less tangible memories: such as being crammed into the busiest tube train I've ever seen, the emptiness on the Stansted Express, and the coming-and-going of some of the regional services like Liverpool-Norwich.
Getting off the last train in Glasgow Queen Street, having come 5622 miles, was quite a poignant moment: I'd certainly had the value of the ticket, and I'd enjoyed it all thoroughly, but there was more I felt I could have done, especially in Scotland. But, frankly, I was pretty tired, and I was glad to get home and get a decent rest.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the two weeks on trains: the experiences will stay with me for a long time, and it will undoubtedly shape my future outlook on the railway network.
Will I do it again, someday? You bet.
Day 1: London - Liverpool - Norwich - London
Day 2: London - Newcastle - Edinburgh - Aberdeen - Glasgow
Day 3: Glasgow - (sleeper train) - London - Bristol - Weymouth - London
Day 4: London - Penzance - Exeter - Exmouth
Day 5: Exmouth - Exeter - Salisbury - Cardiff - Crewe - London
Day 6: London - Wrexham - Holyhead - Llandudno Jct - Blaenau Ffestiniog - Porthmadog - Fairbourne
Day 7: Rest day in Fairbourne
Day 8: Fairbourne - Machynlleth - Shrewsbury - Swansea - London
Day 9: London - Gatwick Airport - London - Leicester - Stansted Airport - London
Day 10: London - York (National Railway Museum) - Sheffield - London
Day 11: London - Manchester - Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow
Day 12: Glasgow - Lancaster - Barrow-in-Furness - Carlisle - Glasgow
Day 13: Rest day in Glasgow
Day 14: Glasgow - Fort William - Glasgow
Over the course of 14 days, I spent 4 days, 12 hours and 1 minute on trains. That's over a third of my life on trains, for two weeks. Imagine this: instead of working 9-5 everyday, travel on trains 9-5 every day for two weeks. Many people would regard that as a form of torture: I really enjoyed it.
In that time, I covered no fewer than 5622.75 miles. Given that Land's End to John O'Groats is 840 miles, I really did go up and down the length of the country several times over. The farthest north I got was Aberdeen, the farthest east was Norwich, and the farthest south and west was Penzance.
Had I paid every time for walk-up tickets, I would have paid £1,113.20. I actually paid just £429 for the ticket, plus £38 for the sleeper berth - considerably less than half. The walk-up prices would have been considerably higher if I'd made more early starts; only once did I end up on a peak-time ticket out of London. Nevertheless, the ticket really does represent incredible value, at just 7.6p per mile.
As a final statistic, lest anyone think that British trains are slow, for the whole time I was on trains I averaged 52.1mph - nothing to be sniffed at. As a more ridiculous figure, for the duration of the validity of the ticket, I averaged 16.7mph, even when I wasn't moving!
THE ALL-LINE ROVER AWARDS
First, some more frivolous awards:
Funniest Announcement: Heard at Victoria station on Day 9: "The next train to depart from platform 11 will be the 11:11 Southern service to London Bridge..." - the proliferation of "eleven" made me laugh, anyway.
Worst Announcement: The announcements on the East Midlands Trains service from Sheffield to London on Day 10 were quite overbearing: telling anyone with an advance-purchase ticket for the wrong train that "your ticket is invalid, and you will need to purchase a completely new ticket" was technically correct, but far too threatening. It's little things like that which mean people turn away from using trains.
Best Noise: The acceleration of the Class 465s, one of the main classes of electric train used on suburban routes south of London: the electric whine as it moves up through the gears is very satisfying.
Busiest Train: If we open this to the Underground, then nothing can ever beat the Northern Line train I took from London Bridge to Bank on the morning of Day 2: it was crammed, Japanese-style. If we don't allow that, and we disregard the many peak-time services between London and New Beckenham that I was on, then the busiest was probably the little two-car train from Glasgow to Fort William: it was the only train outside London on which people were forced to stand.
Emptiest Train: This one's easy: the Stansted Express on Day 9 was incredibly empty. So too was the London-Nottingham HST I was on earlier that day; both had eight carriages when three carriages would still have given us two seats each.
Best Station Café: The Camden Food Co. A hands-down winner on quality, selection, ambience, and price. Simply superb; find them at seven London terminals plus Birmingham New Street.
Best Staff Member: The attendant on the Caledonian Sleeper was very nice and made sure that my first experience of a sleeper train was as relaxing as possible.
Most Disorienting Feeling: Waking up, getting dressed, getting off the train, and walking onto Euston station concourse at 7:40am, in the morning sunshine, before the commuter rush had really started. Sleeper trains are weird. (See Night 2.)
Most Enjoyable Day: Without a doubt this was Day 6, the longest day in terms of time (though not distance). The circuit of North Wales was exhilarating for two reasons: one, the scenery was superb, and two, it had the potential to go disastrously wrong (there were some very tight connections!) but ended up all being fine.
Now, the big awards:
Best Overall Experience: All things considered, the ride on the Settle and Carlisle (on Day 11) was probably the best train journey I've ever made. Great scenery, comfortable seats, excellent visibility, the train went at just the right speed for photography, and the staff were friendly. If there had been a trolley service it would have been perfect.
Worst Overall Experience: Without doubt the Stansted Express (on Day 9) was the worst train I've ever been on. The ride was appalling - I could barely keep my fingers on the right keys on my laptop. The seats were uncomfortable, the tables were too high, the legroom was too generous, and the staff were non-existent. As for the service, it was empty, probably because it's too slow.
Best Station:
1st: London St Pancras - A sight to behold: probably the best station in the world, with a great range of shops, fantastic places to eat (especially the Camden Food Co!), and an eye-opening range of destinations, from Sheffield to Brussels. (See Day 9.)
2nd: Manchester Piccadilly - A 92% satisfaction rating places it first in the country; it's easy to see why, it's a great station, with plenty of good shops and places to eat; it has enough space to move around, but so much that you feel lost. (See Day 11.)
3rd: Salisbury - A great little station, with a great café, and ramps to the subway instead of steps. (See Day 5.)
Commendations also go to London Paddington, Bristol Temple Meads, and Leeds.
Worst Station:
Aberdeen - A grotty, empty station with nowhere to get any decent food; a real shame, since no doubt the station used to be much more important. (See Day 2.)
I also didn't much like Carlisle station: however, its crime is more one of mediocrity and blandness.
Best Train Operating Company:
Joint 1st: Wrexham and Shropshire and Grand Central - Both the open access operators I used were in a class of their own: the staff were friendly and helpful, even on the platforms; the food was hot and fresh, and the trains were comfortable and spacious. (See Day 6 for Wrexham and Shropshire, and Day 10 for Grand Central.)
2nd: South West Trains - Excellent by their understatement: the staff were efficient, there when you needed them but never in the way; the trolley service was good, and the trains were comfortable and punctual. (See Day 3 and Day 5.)
3rd: Northern Rail - I was only on two of their trains, but both were very comfortable, the staff were attentive, though the lack of catering was disappointing. (See Day 11 and Day 12.)
Commendations go to First ScotRail for the Caledonian Sleeper service (though the rest of their services aren't to the same standard), and to Chiltern Railways for an efficient service (with which I was so familiar that I didn't bother to sample this time).
Worst Train Operating Company:
Worst: CrossCountry - Admittedly I was only on two trains, and a lot of their failings are not down to them but the trains they inherited. Nonetheless, the two journeys I made on CrossCountry were among the most uncomfortable journeys I've ever made, the trains are too short, the timetable is convenient for operation but not for the passengers (sorry, "customers"), the staff were conspicuous by their absence, and the catering was pretty poor. (See Day 9 and Day 10.)
2nd Worst: Virgin Trains - If it weren't for the speed of their trains, Virgin Trains would easily be the worst train company I've been on. The trains themselves are quite uncomfortable; the visibility is terrible in all cases; the shop insists on selling magazines instead of decent hot food; in most cases the staff were lazy, and occasionally even rude; and the punctuality is very hit-and-miss. (See days 1, 5, 11 and 12.)
Best Rolling Stock:
1st: Mark 3 Stock - Sometimes the oldest is also the best: these thirty-year old carriages, used in every High-Speed Train, have stood the test of time (until, that is, they've been ruined by refurbishment). They are ubiquitous: see days 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10.
2nd: Sprinters (all classes) - The Sprinters are the workhorse of the regional services, and with just one or two exceptions provide a comfortable way to see the countryside, even if their top speed isn't great. Also ubiquitous: see days 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12 and 14.
Joint 3rd: Mark 4 Stock and Class 222 'Meridian' - The Mark 4 stock dates from 1989, while the Meridians date from 2004; both, however, are refreshingly modern trains which are comfortable and have good visibility. (See Day 2 for the Mark 4 stock, and Day 10 for the Meridians.)
The Desiros, both the diesel ones used by TransPennine Express and the electric ones used by South West Trains, also deserve a commendation.
Worst Rolling Stock:
Joint worst: Class 170 'Turbostar' and Class 175 'Coradia' - Both these recent classes are poor imitations of the Sprinters, and they both have terrible seats, not enough legroom, not enough luggage space, and poor visibility. (See Day 9 for the Turbostar and Day 5 for the Coradia.)
Joint 2nd worst: Class 220 'Voyager' and Class 221 'Super Voyager' - Much, much too short for InterCity journeys, with terrible seats, many with very poor visibility. (See Day 10 for the Voyager and Days 11 and 12 for the Super Voyager.)
If I were to give an award for worst visibility, it would have to go to the Class 390 Pendolinos; they avoid an award for Worst Rolling Stock only by virtue of their superb speed.
Last, but not least, the award for Best Scenery:
3rd: Exeter-Penzance - Brunel's masterpiece: the line runs along the coast and over the mountains of Devon, over the Tamar on the superb Royal Albert Bridge, and snakes its way along the spine of Cornwall to the sea. (See Day 4.)
2nd: North Wales - The lines in North Wales I traversed on Day 6, namely Holyhead-Llandudno Jct-Blaenau Ffestiniog-Porthmadog-Fairbourne are superb, and when put together they come very close to taking first prize.
1st: Glasgow-Fort William - The West Highland Line isn't just the best line in the UK, it's the best railway line in the world. Stunning views from a breathtakingly-engineered line. (See Day 14.)
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
First, let's get the disappointments out of the way. I was disappointed not to have seen more of Scotland - I should have gone north two days earlier than I did, and not worried so much about the weather forecast. Not seeing the Perth-Inverness line was the biggest disappointment; Mallaig and Wick are distant ends of long branch lines, while the line to Kyle of Lochalsh I've already seen (five years ago).
The original plan I had was thrown out the window before I even started: I originally planned to go to Scotland first, but I decided pretty quickly that the weather wasn't up to much. The original Day 10 became Day 1, with one or two changes. The Day 2 trip to Aberdeen that I finished with the sleeper train was in fact planned as Day 1, without the sleeper train, to get me to Scotland.
The exploration of the South West in Days 3, 4 and 5 was pretty different than what I'd planned; I originally intend to head to Penzance on a South West Trains service, and come back by the Night Riviera sleeper train. I'm very glad I changed my mind on that one - to miss the fantastic scenery while in a sleeper train would have been sacrilegious.
The only days that were pretty much as planned were Days 6 and 8 in Wales, because the arrangement to stay the weekend in Fairbourne was by far the hardest thing to change. That's not to say it wasn't a bit tight; ten minutes delay at Holyhead and I would have been stuffed, forced to replan things on the spot.
Days 9 and 10 (Tuesday and Wednesday) were done almost completely ad hoc, since I didn't get the chance to book anywhere for Tuesday night, and the forecast for Wednesday was abysmal. The services I went on were interesting, as was the trip to the National Railway Museum, but there wasn't much in the way of scenery. Fortunately, days 11, 12 and 14 made up for it: the Settle and Carlisle, the Cumbrian Coast Line and the West Highland Line are all really good lines.
But doing things ad hoc is part of the point of this ticket. The All-Line Rover is the ultimate flexible ticket, and as much as you can plan things there'll always be things that go wrong. Fortunately, while there were a few incidents along the way, none of them completely derailed my plans.
While there were a few points at which I was less than ecstatic, on the whole I loved the experience. The experiences of soaring through Berwick, curling slowly through Devon and Cornwall, climbing slowly over the roof of Wales, and crossing the wilderness of Rannoch Moor are just some of the memories that will last a lifetime.
So too will some of the less tangible memories: such as being crammed into the busiest tube train I've ever seen, the emptiness on the Stansted Express, and the coming-and-going of some of the regional services like Liverpool-Norwich.
Getting off the last train in Glasgow Queen Street, having come 5622 miles, was quite a poignant moment: I'd certainly had the value of the ticket, and I'd enjoyed it all thoroughly, but there was more I felt I could have done, especially in Scotland. But, frankly, I was pretty tired, and I was glad to get home and get a decent rest.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the two weeks on trains: the experiences will stay with me for a long time, and it will undoubtedly shape my future outlook on the railway network.
Will I do it again, someday? You bet.
All-Line Rover, Day 14
At last we come to the story of the final day of my travels on the railways of Great Britain. My apologies once again for the length of time it's taken me to get round to writing this.
As I've already explained, I spent the weekend in Glasgow celebrating my cousin's 30th birthday. The party on Saturday night was fun, but being with family I left pretty early, mainly because my family were the only people I knew there. (I'm sure my parents would consider 11:30pm quite late, but that's life.)
On Sunday (2nd August), then, my mum went off with my aunt and uncle to see Pollok House near Glasgow, a National Trust property with some very nice gardens. My dad and I, however, had our sights on a much bigger prize: the West Highland Line.
Disappointingly, the Sunday timetable precludes the possibility of doing a day trip from Glasgow to Mallaig and back, since the first train doesn't leave Glasgow until 12:20pm. So we contented ourselves with the - admittedly superb - run to Fort William and back.
1220 Glasgow Queen St to Fort William, arr 1608
Distance: 122.75 miles; walk-up day return £15.65
(Headcode 1Y43, operated by First ScotRail using Sprinter 156467)
and
1731 Fort William to Glasgow Queen St, arr 2114
Distance: 122.75 miles; walk-up day return price listed above
(Headcode 1Y46, operated by First ScotRail using Sprinter 156456)
Scenery: 10/10 - What can I say? Not just the best railway-line scenery in the UK; I doubt it can be beaten anywhere in the world.
Punctuality: 7/10 and 8/10 respectively - A few minor delays due to the line being single-track, and also waiting for trains to join at Crianlarich, but otherwise very respectable for a single-track line.
Speed: 9/10 - Creditably fast for a line in the middle of nowhere (even if we didn't exceed 60mph).
Comfort: 8/10 - I expected to be much more tired after this journey, but the seats were comfortable, and the windows large enough to take many photographs.
Staff: 7/10 - Just the one ticket inspection in each direction; a good trolley service, even if it only passed up the train once; but the train was very busy and the staff were visibly flustered.
Being stuck in a Class 156 Sprinter for 3 hours, 45 minutes at a time was not something my dad and I were looking forward to. However, the seats were surprisingly comfortable, the legroom was good, and the visibility was better. I emerged from 7½ hours of sitting on trains feeling much less stiff than I had on many previous days, which was impressive.
The train from Glasgow was composed of three two-car units coupled together. We were to split into two portions at Crianlarich, half heading for Oban and half for Fort William. The sensible thing would have been to send four carriages to Fort William and two to Oban. But this is the British railway network: sense is a rarity. So, of course, four carriages went to Oban, leaving just two carriages to Fort William. On a sunny Sunday afternoon.
About three-quarters of the seats were reserved, and by the time we got there all the other window seats were taken. Fortunately, about ten minutes into the journey, someone pointed out that a number of the reservations hadn't been taken up, so we found two window seats that had been reserved but weren't being used.
The train was reasonably busy until Crianlarich, where a large party of about thirty foreign tourists boarded the train (having booked a large block of seats, fortunately!), meaning the train was full and standing from Crianlarich.
I walked briefly down to the Oban portion to use the toilet, and it was less than half-full before Crianlarich, with not that many getting on. So we had four cars going where two would have done, and two cars going where four would have made things much less unpleasant. Utter stupidity on the part of ScotRail.
Fortunately, the journey on the way back was rather quieter, and we got two more window seats on the opposite side of the line. Again, though, it was two cars from Fort William and four cars from Oban which joined at Crianlarich. (Unfortunately the platforms can't cope with anything longer than six cars, so the obvious solution of using eight-car trains with four going to each is not possible.)
Given the line was single-track, I didn't expect the punctuality to be perfect. On the way to Fort William, we were delayed by about five minutes at Ardlui waiting to pass the train in the other direction (and swap crews with them), though we made a little of this back up and arrived in Fort William just three minutes late.
On the way back, we were a few minutes late getting away from Fort William, but made it up easily and arrived in Crianlarich seven minutes early. However, the portion from Oban which was joining us was a little bit late, so we left three minutes late, but made most of it back and we arrived in Glasgow just one minute down.
But none of what I've said mattered. Not a jot. Because the West Highland Line, known in Scots Gaelic as "Rathad Iarainn nan Eilean" (literally "the Iron Road to the Isles"), is the greatest railway journey in the world.
It's not just me saying this: the readers of the travel magazine Wanderlust voted the West Highland Line as the best railway journey in the world; it even beat the iconic Trans-Siberian Railway.
The entire line is simply spectacular, and I'm going to run out of superlatives.
The line starts life as a suburban railway line along the north side of the Clyde; but at Helensburgh, we lurch to the right, leaving the commuter lines, and start climbing up the hill. We cling to the hillside, high above Gare Loch, with great views down to the water below. A brief cutting takes us from Gare Loch to Loch Long, which is much narrower, like a Norwegian fjord.
A short isthmus connecting Arrochar to Tarbert (with just the one station half-way between them) takes us from Loch Long to the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. Here is where the train starts to come into its own: the road along Loch Lomond traverses its western edge at the level of the water, but the railway line runs much higher up the hillside, giving you a spectacular view down to the loch.
At Ardlui, we leave Loch Lomond and start climbing up Glen Falloch to one of the great crossroads of the Highlands: Crianlarich. This tiny village of fewer than 200 people is one of the few mountain passes to the western Highlands. It is the crossroads of the A82, the great road north from Glasgow to Fort William and Inverness, and the A85, which runs east-west from Perth to Oban.
It is also a junction of railway lines, though not as major as it once was. Originally, there were two railway lines, one from Glasgow to Fort William, and the other from Stirling and Callander to Oban, much like the roads. The line to Callander was closed by a landslide in 1964, so Crianlarich is now a simple fork where trains from Glasgow choose to head to Oban or Fort William. (Or, in the case of our train, divide in two portions, one for each.)
Crianlarich marks, roughly speaking, the half-way point on our journey to Fort William. But while the scenery up to now has given us some great views of lochs, the views to come are even better.
Our next stop is Tyndrum - probably the smallest place in the world to boast two railway stations, owing to the necessity of having one at the bottom of the hill on the line to Oban, and one at the top of the hill on the line to Fort William - before we climb a valley up to Bridge of Orchy.
On the way up the valley, the economy of the railway builders works greatly in our favour. In order to save building a long viaduct over a small river, they turned the railway up the valley on one side, crossed the river a mile further up on a short viaduct, and brought the railway down the viaduct again. The whole effect is known as a "horseshoe curve", and it gives us some spectacular views of the valley and the surrounding mountains.
At Bridge of Orchy, we begin to climb on to one of the great wildernesses of Europe: Rannoch Moor. It was a gigantic feat of engineering to build a railway line over the vast, bleak, treeless bog of Rannoch Moor: the line is built on a bed of tree roots and brushwood which, essentially, floats on the peat. The line was completed in 1894, after seven years of construction.
Here we part company with the A82, which we have followed since Loch Lomond: its path is to the west, down Glen Coe to the coast at Ballachulish, before turning north for Fort William. The railway turns north-east, and takes a completely different route to Fort William, curving slowly round to the west and approaching Fort William from the north. The road passes to the west of Ben Nevis, along the coast; the railway line passes instead round the east and north of Britain's highest mountain.
The line of the road, apart from a steep climb out of Bridge of Orchy, is certainly the easier one: we are now climbing to a summit of 1350ft. The railway line is now all alone, apart from the odd farm track: there is no other means of transportation for miles around.
However, it can be explained once again by the builders' lack of money: while the route down Glen Coe would have been easier, it would have required a bridge over Loch Leven at Ballachulish. It was cheaper to plough through the unspoilt wilderness and climb to the roof of Rannoch Moor.
Once again, their thrift is our reward: the views over the unspoilt Rannoch Moor are second to none.
We climb steeply up the valley of Tulla, up to Rannoch station. Here we meet a road, but it comes not from the west, but from the east, from Pitlochry; the only way from Rannoch station to Fort William or Oban is by railway line, unless you want to drive for hours on end. From here, you can see down the long valley to the east that drains Loch Rannoch not into the Atlantic but the North Sea, with the pointy top of Schiehallion easily visible in the distance:
Ever so gradually, we snake our way up the hillsides to the 1350ft-high summit at Corrour, probably the remotest station in all of Britain. At least Rannoch had road access, even if it is 36 miles along a B-road to Pitlochry. Corrour has *none*. The only way in or out of Corrour is by train, or perhaps by Land Rover. There are literally no roads for at least ten miles.
Corrour is one of the greatest places to stay if you're hill-walking: there are at least seven Munros (hills over 3000ft) within easy reach, and there are basically no other ways to get at them. Britain's most remote hostel, on the shores of Loch Ossian, is one of a very small number of places to stay in the area.
Having crested the summit, we weave our way down slightly, before emerging high above the shores of Loch Treig. This beautiful loch was totally unknown before the railway line was built: we descend for five miles, gradually getting closer to the level of the water. This shot was taken from near the top:
After Tulloch station, we return to the road; but this time it is the A86 from Aviemore down to Fort William that we follow. We turn west, and head down Glen Spean, passing the stunning Monessie Gorge, before sweeping low round the north of Ben Nevis and, after a couple more stations, into Fort William.
It was a pity that the Sunday timetable did not permit us to get to Mallaig and back, since the section from Fort William to Mallaig is just as spectacular again, with the famous viaduct at Glenfinnan (featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). But, frankly, the section of railway over Rannoch Moor is so spectacular that any disappointment disappeared very quickly.
We spent some time looking around Fort William; by now, the high cloud had dissipated somewhat and the sun was beginning to shine all the brighter. After a little over an hour in Fort William, we boarded our return train back to Glasgow. The ride over Rannoch Moor was all the more spectacular for the sunshine.
Photography along the line was quite difficult: much of the line is surrounded by trees. Most of the return journey was spent with me looking forwards, trying to see the next opening in the trees, and when I did I would shout "clear!" to my dad, at which point he (looking backwards) would fire off as many photographs as he could before the trees closed in again.
This was particularly frustrating along the shores of Loch Lomond, where the views were superb but all too fleeting. Between us we took over 600 photographs on the day; unfortunately the majority have trees in just the wrong places. (I dread to think what it would have cost in developing if we had been using film - thankfully we were using digital!)
I can safely say that is, without doubt, the best railway line I've ever been on. And I look forward to travelling on it again.
The whole day was both the shortest in distance, and the cheapest (not counting the days on which I did nothing!), though since we averaged 33mph it was certainly not the shortest in time:
Total time on trains: 7 hours, 31 minutes.
Distance travelled: 245.5 miles.
Walk-up price: £15.65.
I'll write one more post, with the final tally of statistics, as well as making some awards, looking back at the whole two weeks, in the near future. Watch this space!
As I've already explained, I spent the weekend in Glasgow celebrating my cousin's 30th birthday. The party on Saturday night was fun, but being with family I left pretty early, mainly because my family were the only people I knew there. (I'm sure my parents would consider 11:30pm quite late, but that's life.)
On Sunday (2nd August), then, my mum went off with my aunt and uncle to see Pollok House near Glasgow, a National Trust property with some very nice gardens. My dad and I, however, had our sights on a much bigger prize: the West Highland Line.
Disappointingly, the Sunday timetable precludes the possibility of doing a day trip from Glasgow to Mallaig and back, since the first train doesn't leave Glasgow until 12:20pm. So we contented ourselves with the - admittedly superb - run to Fort William and back.
1220 Glasgow Queen St to Fort William, arr 1608
Distance: 122.75 miles; walk-up day return £15.65
(Headcode 1Y43, operated by First ScotRail using Sprinter 156467)
and
1731 Fort William to Glasgow Queen St, arr 2114
Distance: 122.75 miles; walk-up day return price listed above
(Headcode 1Y46, operated by First ScotRail using Sprinter 156456)
Scenery: 10/10 - What can I say? Not just the best railway-line scenery in the UK; I doubt it can be beaten anywhere in the world.
Punctuality: 7/10 and 8/10 respectively - A few minor delays due to the line being single-track, and also waiting for trains to join at Crianlarich, but otherwise very respectable for a single-track line.
Speed: 9/10 - Creditably fast for a line in the middle of nowhere (even if we didn't exceed 60mph).
Comfort: 8/10 - I expected to be much more tired after this journey, but the seats were comfortable, and the windows large enough to take many photographs.
Staff: 7/10 - Just the one ticket inspection in each direction; a good trolley service, even if it only passed up the train once; but the train was very busy and the staff were visibly flustered.
Being stuck in a Class 156 Sprinter for 3 hours, 45 minutes at a time was not something my dad and I were looking forward to. However, the seats were surprisingly comfortable, the legroom was good, and the visibility was better. I emerged from 7½ hours of sitting on trains feeling much less stiff than I had on many previous days, which was impressive.
The train from Glasgow was composed of three two-car units coupled together. We were to split into two portions at Crianlarich, half heading for Oban and half for Fort William. The sensible thing would have been to send four carriages to Fort William and two to Oban. But this is the British railway network: sense is a rarity. So, of course, four carriages went to Oban, leaving just two carriages to Fort William. On a sunny Sunday afternoon.
About three-quarters of the seats were reserved, and by the time we got there all the other window seats were taken. Fortunately, about ten minutes into the journey, someone pointed out that a number of the reservations hadn't been taken up, so we found two window seats that had been reserved but weren't being used.
The train was reasonably busy until Crianlarich, where a large party of about thirty foreign tourists boarded the train (having booked a large block of seats, fortunately!), meaning the train was full and standing from Crianlarich.
I walked briefly down to the Oban portion to use the toilet, and it was less than half-full before Crianlarich, with not that many getting on. So we had four cars going where two would have done, and two cars going where four would have made things much less unpleasant. Utter stupidity on the part of ScotRail.
Fortunately, the journey on the way back was rather quieter, and we got two more window seats on the opposite side of the line. Again, though, it was two cars from Fort William and four cars from Oban which joined at Crianlarich. (Unfortunately the platforms can't cope with anything longer than six cars, so the obvious solution of using eight-car trains with four going to each is not possible.)
Given the line was single-track, I didn't expect the punctuality to be perfect. On the way to Fort William, we were delayed by about five minutes at Ardlui waiting to pass the train in the other direction (and swap crews with them), though we made a little of this back up and arrived in Fort William just three minutes late.
On the way back, we were a few minutes late getting away from Fort William, but made it up easily and arrived in Crianlarich seven minutes early. However, the portion from Oban which was joining us was a little bit late, so we left three minutes late, but made most of it back and we arrived in Glasgow just one minute down.
But none of what I've said mattered. Not a jot. Because the West Highland Line, known in Scots Gaelic as "Rathad Iarainn nan Eilean" (literally "the Iron Road to the Isles"), is the greatest railway journey in the world.
It's not just me saying this: the readers of the travel magazine Wanderlust voted the West Highland Line as the best railway journey in the world; it even beat the iconic Trans-Siberian Railway.
The entire line is simply spectacular, and I'm going to run out of superlatives.
The line starts life as a suburban railway line along the north side of the Clyde; but at Helensburgh, we lurch to the right, leaving the commuter lines, and start climbing up the hill. We cling to the hillside, high above Gare Loch, with great views down to the water below. A brief cutting takes us from Gare Loch to Loch Long, which is much narrower, like a Norwegian fjord.
A short isthmus connecting Arrochar to Tarbert (with just the one station half-way between them) takes us from Loch Long to the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. Here is where the train starts to come into its own: the road along Loch Lomond traverses its western edge at the level of the water, but the railway line runs much higher up the hillside, giving you a spectacular view down to the loch.
At Ardlui, we leave Loch Lomond and start climbing up Glen Falloch to one of the great crossroads of the Highlands: Crianlarich. This tiny village of fewer than 200 people is one of the few mountain passes to the western Highlands. It is the crossroads of the A82, the great road north from Glasgow to Fort William and Inverness, and the A85, which runs east-west from Perth to Oban.
It is also a junction of railway lines, though not as major as it once was. Originally, there were two railway lines, one from Glasgow to Fort William, and the other from Stirling and Callander to Oban, much like the roads. The line to Callander was closed by a landslide in 1964, so Crianlarich is now a simple fork where trains from Glasgow choose to head to Oban or Fort William. (Or, in the case of our train, divide in two portions, one for each.)
Crianlarich marks, roughly speaking, the half-way point on our journey to Fort William. But while the scenery up to now has given us some great views of lochs, the views to come are even better.
Our next stop is Tyndrum - probably the smallest place in the world to boast two railway stations, owing to the necessity of having one at the bottom of the hill on the line to Oban, and one at the top of the hill on the line to Fort William - before we climb a valley up to Bridge of Orchy.
On the way up the valley, the economy of the railway builders works greatly in our favour. In order to save building a long viaduct over a small river, they turned the railway up the valley on one side, crossed the river a mile further up on a short viaduct, and brought the railway down the viaduct again. The whole effect is known as a "horseshoe curve", and it gives us some spectacular views of the valley and the surrounding mountains.
At Bridge of Orchy, we begin to climb on to one of the great wildernesses of Europe: Rannoch Moor. It was a gigantic feat of engineering to build a railway line over the vast, bleak, treeless bog of Rannoch Moor: the line is built on a bed of tree roots and brushwood which, essentially, floats on the peat. The line was completed in 1894, after seven years of construction.
Here we part company with the A82, which we have followed since Loch Lomond: its path is to the west, down Glen Coe to the coast at Ballachulish, before turning north for Fort William. The railway turns north-east, and takes a completely different route to Fort William, curving slowly round to the west and approaching Fort William from the north. The road passes to the west of Ben Nevis, along the coast; the railway line passes instead round the east and north of Britain's highest mountain.
The line of the road, apart from a steep climb out of Bridge of Orchy, is certainly the easier one: we are now climbing to a summit of 1350ft. The railway line is now all alone, apart from the odd farm track: there is no other means of transportation for miles around.
However, it can be explained once again by the builders' lack of money: while the route down Glen Coe would have been easier, it would have required a bridge over Loch Leven at Ballachulish. It was cheaper to plough through the unspoilt wilderness and climb to the roof of Rannoch Moor.
Once again, their thrift is our reward: the views over the unspoilt Rannoch Moor are second to none.
We climb steeply up the valley of Tulla, up to Rannoch station. Here we meet a road, but it comes not from the west, but from the east, from Pitlochry; the only way from Rannoch station to Fort William or Oban is by railway line, unless you want to drive for hours on end. From here, you can see down the long valley to the east that drains Loch Rannoch not into the Atlantic but the North Sea, with the pointy top of Schiehallion easily visible in the distance:
Ever so gradually, we snake our way up the hillsides to the 1350ft-high summit at Corrour, probably the remotest station in all of Britain. At least Rannoch had road access, even if it is 36 miles along a B-road to Pitlochry. Corrour has *none*. The only way in or out of Corrour is by train, or perhaps by Land Rover. There are literally no roads for at least ten miles.
Corrour is one of the greatest places to stay if you're hill-walking: there are at least seven Munros (hills over 3000ft) within easy reach, and there are basically no other ways to get at them. Britain's most remote hostel, on the shores of Loch Ossian, is one of a very small number of places to stay in the area.
Having crested the summit, we weave our way down slightly, before emerging high above the shores of Loch Treig. This beautiful loch was totally unknown before the railway line was built: we descend for five miles, gradually getting closer to the level of the water. This shot was taken from near the top:
After Tulloch station, we return to the road; but this time it is the A86 from Aviemore down to Fort William that we follow. We turn west, and head down Glen Spean, passing the stunning Monessie Gorge, before sweeping low round the north of Ben Nevis and, after a couple more stations, into Fort William.
It was a pity that the Sunday timetable did not permit us to get to Mallaig and back, since the section from Fort William to Mallaig is just as spectacular again, with the famous viaduct at Glenfinnan (featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). But, frankly, the section of railway over Rannoch Moor is so spectacular that any disappointment disappeared very quickly.
We spent some time looking around Fort William; by now, the high cloud had dissipated somewhat and the sun was beginning to shine all the brighter. After a little over an hour in Fort William, we boarded our return train back to Glasgow. The ride over Rannoch Moor was all the more spectacular for the sunshine.
Photography along the line was quite difficult: much of the line is surrounded by trees. Most of the return journey was spent with me looking forwards, trying to see the next opening in the trees, and when I did I would shout "clear!" to my dad, at which point he (looking backwards) would fire off as many photographs as he could before the trees closed in again.
This was particularly frustrating along the shores of Loch Lomond, where the views were superb but all too fleeting. Between us we took over 600 photographs on the day; unfortunately the majority have trees in just the wrong places. (I dread to think what it would have cost in developing if we had been using film - thankfully we were using digital!)
I can safely say that is, without doubt, the best railway line I've ever been on. And I look forward to travelling on it again.
The whole day was both the shortest in distance, and the cheapest (not counting the days on which I did nothing!), though since we averaged 33mph it was certainly not the shortest in time:
Total time on trains: 7 hours, 31 minutes.
Distance travelled: 245.5 miles.
Walk-up price: £15.65.
I'll write one more post, with the final tally of statistics, as well as making some awards, looking back at the whole two weeks, in the near future. Watch this space!
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
All-Line Rover, Days 12 and 13
Firstly, my apologies to everyone reading for taking so long to get round to writing. I spent the weekend in Glasgow celebrating my cousin's 30th birthday, and between that and having a comfortable bed to sleep in I didn't get much written over the weekend. Now that I'm home I no longer have such excuses, so here we go.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Day 12, otherwise known as last Friday. I had two plans: either to go to Mallaig and back on the West Highland Line, or to go south and go round the Cumbrian coast line. (Note Cumbrian, not Cambrian; the latter is in Wales, and I went on it on days 6 and 8; the former is between Lancaster and Carlisle.)
For once, the forecast was accurate. The rain had come in from the west, and the highlands of Scotland in bad weather are - as I found out on Day 2 - depressing. So I headed for the Cumbrian coast instead.
0940 Glasgow Central to Lancaster, arr 1137
Distance: 171.25 miles, walk-up price: £16.30
(Headcode 1M10, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390029)
Scenery: 6/10 - A nice ride over Shap summit, but the visibility on the train was so poor that I couldn't see much of it.
Punctuality: 9/10 - A minute or two late into Lancaster, otherwise fine.
Speed: 9/10 - Incredibly fast, especially given all those curves; pity it's almost too fast to see the scenery.
Comfort: 3/10 - The quiet coach was anything but quiet, the seats weren't great and didn't match the windows particularly well, and there aren't nearly enough plug sockets.
Staff: 6/10 - At least this time there was a ticket check, and the shop staff were friendly enough.
Another day, another Virgin Pendolino. Today, however, the route was not the boring part of the West Coast Main Line; it was the spectacular through the Lake District over Shap summit.
Anyone who's ever driven to Scotland on the M6 will have been over Shap summit; that section of the M6 is certainly my favourite bit of motorway, though probably not my favourite bit of road (that honour would have to go to the Bealach na Bà in Scotland).
I was therefore expecting the railway to deliver; last time I was over this stretch it was a very nice ride. But here the lack of visibility in the Pendolinos finally reared its ugly head: there simply isn't enough glass to be able to see everything.
Of course, at the speeds we were going - we averaged an impressive 88mph - you had to concentrate to see anything at all, and I found that eleven days of train travel had taken their toll; I managed to doze off before lunch. A task made much more difficult thanks to people sitting in the quiet coach using their mobile phones. It's clearly marked, it's announced after every station and on the platform, passengers have no excuse for talking on their phones in the quiet zone.
We arrived in Lancaster after just two hours - really rather impressive for a 171-mile journey. I had expected Lancaster to be rather bigger, but it's really quite a small station; the café on the station platform, however, provided me with a nice bacon sandwich.
1214 Lancaster to Barrow-in-Furness, arr 1310
Distance: 34.75 miles, walk-up price: £7.35
(Headcode 1C52, operated by First Transpennine Express using Desiro 185137)
Scenery: 8/10 - The brooding dark clouds over the sands of Morecambe Bay made for quite a view.
Punctuality: 6/10 - Five minutes late, due to the preceeding train at Lancaster (the 1020 Birmingham to Edinburgh) being delayed for unknown reasons.
Speed: 3/10 - On a double-track line to a reasonably substantial town we ought to be able to do a lot better than 37mph average (and this wasn't even a stopping train!)
Comfort: 7/10 - As before, pretty reasonable seats, good visibility and space.
Staff: 5/10 - A rather uninterested ticket-checker, who barely glanced at anyone's ticket.
The Cumbrian coast line is divided into two parts: Lancaster to Barrow-in-Furness, and Barrow-in-Furness to Carlisle. The first part is served by trains from Manchester Airport, and for most of its journey could be regarded as a "Regional Express" service.
Between Lancaster and Barrow, however, the description of this train as "express" would be laughable: the line is very slow, with my journey - which didn't even stop at all the stations - averaging just 37mph. I think a town of 60,000 people deserves better, especially if (heaven forbid!) people wish to commute to Preston, Manchester and Liverpool by train.
But, as a tourist, I don't mind: the views out over the huge sands of Morecambe Bay were easier to appreciate thanks to the lack of speed. The views were made all the more memorable by the incredible mass of dark, high cloud brooding in the sky: it gave it a quite different feel than it might have had on a sunny day.
An unknown delay to the previous train on the platform at Lancaster, the 1020 Birmingham to Edinburgh, meant that our train had to wait to arrive at Lancaster; by the time it did, we were five minutes late, time we never really made up. A disappointing delay, but on this occasion it can't be pinned on Transpennine Express; I don't even know that it can be pinned on Virgin Trains.
I arrived in Barrow-in-Furness and made my way straight to my train for the second part of the Cumbrian coast line:
1331 Barrow-in-Furness to Carlisle, arr 1558
Distance 85.25 miles, walk-up price: £10.15
(Headcode 2C37, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 156454)
Scenery: 7/10 - Some very nice rugged coastline on the edge of the Lake District.
Punctuality: 10/10 - On time at every station, and five minutes early into Carlisle. Well done, Northern Rail.
Speed: 5/10 - Pretty slow, but this time it's slightly more understandable; there's no great need for speed on this line.
Comfort: 7/10 - Decent seats and visibility, and I even got a seat with a table for my laptop.
Staff: 7/10 - Two comprehensive ticket checks, both pretty thorough; no trolley service, which is disappointing but understandable.
The line from Barrow to Carlisle is an altogether more rural affair: we are back in the land of request stops. It seems like a pretty sleepy backwater of a line, something I've been used to in Wales and in Scotland, but which in England is rather more surprising.
I appreciate that the lack of speed and the lack of a trolley service are both because this service is lucky to still be operating, and costs have to be cut somewhere. However, at least the line itself isn't in danger of closure: it serves Sellafield nuclear power plant, and a large amount of freight travels to and from Sellafield by rail.
I was impressed, however, at the punctuality: Northern Rail have got the skill of request stops down to a fine art. In order not to waste too much time, you have to decide pretty quickly whether or not you actually need to stop; Northern Rail were noticeably quicker than FGW or ATW in deciding to speed up again. This meant we were on time - neither early nor late - at every station, until we arrived in Carlisle about five minutes early. (Just shows you how much padding there is.)
The view of the coastline was certainly nice, but by this stage I was struggling to stay awake at all, and I was playing games on my laptop just to stop myself falling fast asleep. I decided to cut the day short: I had planned to proceed from Carlisle over the Tyne Valley to Newcastle and back to Glasgow via Berwick and Edinburgh, which would certainly have been a nice run, but I was simply too tired.
I decided to head straight for Glasgow, since then I could collapse into my hotel room and then enjoy a meal with my parents and my cousin, instead of having to eat Burger King again.
1603 Carlisle to Glasgow Central, arr 1720
Distance: 102.25 miles, walk-up price: £12.20
(Headcode 1S65, operated by Virgin Trains using a Class 221 Super Voyager)
Scenery: 6/10 - A nice run over Beattock summit, but this time in windswept rain.
Punctuality: 7/10 - A bit baffling this one: we left Carlisle five minutes late, and managed to arrive in Glasgow two minutes early.
Speed: 8/10 - Impressive, but - seemingly unnecessarily - timetabled at five minutes longer than the same journey yesterday.
Comfort: 3/10 - See below.
Staff: 4/10 - No ticket check, and the shop was (literally) melting, though it did remain open until Glasgow again.
You remember everything nice I said about SuperVoyagers on Day 11? How I was surprised at how much nicer they were than Voyagers? I take it all back. This was a horrible journey.
The previous day's service was a mid-afternoon train on a Thursday. This, however, was the 1320 from Birmingham to Glasgow. On a Friday. Everyone going north for the weekend was there. It was full.
What's worse, the air conditioning was broken. Most of the train was really pretty cold, except the coach with the shop. The shop coach was incredibly hot. Indeed, it had been so since leaving Birmingham. As a result, all the chocolate had melted.
And to add insult to injury, one of the toilets was out of service. Clearly this was par for the course, since I mentioned this to the shop assistant, and she responded "Only one?"
While enduring the hot and cold, I saw the reason I'd headed south: rain. The rain started at around Lockerbie and turned to an incessant heavy drizzle by the time we reached Glasgow; it made for quite a different view over Beattock from the previous day's journey.
By this stage, I was actually sick of trains. Tired and hungry, I disembarked at Glasgow Central with ideas of things to do over the weekend, but no firm plans. Friday's statistics were as follows:
Total time on trains: 6 hours, 37 minutes.
Distance travelled: 393.5 miles.
Walk-up price: £46.00.
I decided eventually to take another day off on Saturday (Day 13), since I simply needed the rest, and given that my cousin's party started at 7pm there wasn't much I could do in the Scottish highlands and still get back in time.
Sunday, however, was a different story altogether.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Day 12, otherwise known as last Friday. I had two plans: either to go to Mallaig and back on the West Highland Line, or to go south and go round the Cumbrian coast line. (Note Cumbrian, not Cambrian; the latter is in Wales, and I went on it on days 6 and 8; the former is between Lancaster and Carlisle.)
For once, the forecast was accurate. The rain had come in from the west, and the highlands of Scotland in bad weather are - as I found out on Day 2 - depressing. So I headed for the Cumbrian coast instead.
0940 Glasgow Central to Lancaster, arr 1137
Distance: 171.25 miles, walk-up price: £16.30
(Headcode 1M10, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390029)
Scenery: 6/10 - A nice ride over Shap summit, but the visibility on the train was so poor that I couldn't see much of it.
Punctuality: 9/10 - A minute or two late into Lancaster, otherwise fine.
Speed: 9/10 - Incredibly fast, especially given all those curves; pity it's almost too fast to see the scenery.
Comfort: 3/10 - The quiet coach was anything but quiet, the seats weren't great and didn't match the windows particularly well, and there aren't nearly enough plug sockets.
Staff: 6/10 - At least this time there was a ticket check, and the shop staff were friendly enough.
Another day, another Virgin Pendolino. Today, however, the route was not the boring part of the West Coast Main Line; it was the spectacular through the Lake District over Shap summit.
Anyone who's ever driven to Scotland on the M6 will have been over Shap summit; that section of the M6 is certainly my favourite bit of motorway, though probably not my favourite bit of road (that honour would have to go to the Bealach na Bà in Scotland).
I was therefore expecting the railway to deliver; last time I was over this stretch it was a very nice ride. But here the lack of visibility in the Pendolinos finally reared its ugly head: there simply isn't enough glass to be able to see everything.
Of course, at the speeds we were going - we averaged an impressive 88mph - you had to concentrate to see anything at all, and I found that eleven days of train travel had taken their toll; I managed to doze off before lunch. A task made much more difficult thanks to people sitting in the quiet coach using their mobile phones. It's clearly marked, it's announced after every station and on the platform, passengers have no excuse for talking on their phones in the quiet zone.
We arrived in Lancaster after just two hours - really rather impressive for a 171-mile journey. I had expected Lancaster to be rather bigger, but it's really quite a small station; the café on the station platform, however, provided me with a nice bacon sandwich.
1214 Lancaster to Barrow-in-Furness, arr 1310
Distance: 34.75 miles, walk-up price: £7.35
(Headcode 1C52, operated by First Transpennine Express using Desiro 185137)
Scenery: 8/10 - The brooding dark clouds over the sands of Morecambe Bay made for quite a view.
Punctuality: 6/10 - Five minutes late, due to the preceeding train at Lancaster (the 1020 Birmingham to Edinburgh) being delayed for unknown reasons.
Speed: 3/10 - On a double-track line to a reasonably substantial town we ought to be able to do a lot better than 37mph average (and this wasn't even a stopping train!)
Comfort: 7/10 - As before, pretty reasonable seats, good visibility and space.
Staff: 5/10 - A rather uninterested ticket-checker, who barely glanced at anyone's ticket.
The Cumbrian coast line is divided into two parts: Lancaster to Barrow-in-Furness, and Barrow-in-Furness to Carlisle. The first part is served by trains from Manchester Airport, and for most of its journey could be regarded as a "Regional Express" service.
Between Lancaster and Barrow, however, the description of this train as "express" would be laughable: the line is very slow, with my journey - which didn't even stop at all the stations - averaging just 37mph. I think a town of 60,000 people deserves better, especially if (heaven forbid!) people wish to commute to Preston, Manchester and Liverpool by train.
But, as a tourist, I don't mind: the views out over the huge sands of Morecambe Bay were easier to appreciate thanks to the lack of speed. The views were made all the more memorable by the incredible mass of dark, high cloud brooding in the sky: it gave it a quite different feel than it might have had on a sunny day.
An unknown delay to the previous train on the platform at Lancaster, the 1020 Birmingham to Edinburgh, meant that our train had to wait to arrive at Lancaster; by the time it did, we were five minutes late, time we never really made up. A disappointing delay, but on this occasion it can't be pinned on Transpennine Express; I don't even know that it can be pinned on Virgin Trains.
I arrived in Barrow-in-Furness and made my way straight to my train for the second part of the Cumbrian coast line:
1331 Barrow-in-Furness to Carlisle, arr 1558
Distance 85.25 miles, walk-up price: £10.15
(Headcode 2C37, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 156454)
Scenery: 7/10 - Some very nice rugged coastline on the edge of the Lake District.
Punctuality: 10/10 - On time at every station, and five minutes early into Carlisle. Well done, Northern Rail.
Speed: 5/10 - Pretty slow, but this time it's slightly more understandable; there's no great need for speed on this line.
Comfort: 7/10 - Decent seats and visibility, and I even got a seat with a table for my laptop.
Staff: 7/10 - Two comprehensive ticket checks, both pretty thorough; no trolley service, which is disappointing but understandable.
The line from Barrow to Carlisle is an altogether more rural affair: we are back in the land of request stops. It seems like a pretty sleepy backwater of a line, something I've been used to in Wales and in Scotland, but which in England is rather more surprising.
I appreciate that the lack of speed and the lack of a trolley service are both because this service is lucky to still be operating, and costs have to be cut somewhere. However, at least the line itself isn't in danger of closure: it serves Sellafield nuclear power plant, and a large amount of freight travels to and from Sellafield by rail.
I was impressed, however, at the punctuality: Northern Rail have got the skill of request stops down to a fine art. In order not to waste too much time, you have to decide pretty quickly whether or not you actually need to stop; Northern Rail were noticeably quicker than FGW or ATW in deciding to speed up again. This meant we were on time - neither early nor late - at every station, until we arrived in Carlisle about five minutes early. (Just shows you how much padding there is.)
The view of the coastline was certainly nice, but by this stage I was struggling to stay awake at all, and I was playing games on my laptop just to stop myself falling fast asleep. I decided to cut the day short: I had planned to proceed from Carlisle over the Tyne Valley to Newcastle and back to Glasgow via Berwick and Edinburgh, which would certainly have been a nice run, but I was simply too tired.
I decided to head straight for Glasgow, since then I could collapse into my hotel room and then enjoy a meal with my parents and my cousin, instead of having to eat Burger King again.
1603 Carlisle to Glasgow Central, arr 1720
Distance: 102.25 miles, walk-up price: £12.20
(Headcode 1S65, operated by Virgin Trains using a Class 221 Super Voyager)
Scenery: 6/10 - A nice run over Beattock summit, but this time in windswept rain.
Punctuality: 7/10 - A bit baffling this one: we left Carlisle five minutes late, and managed to arrive in Glasgow two minutes early.
Speed: 8/10 - Impressive, but - seemingly unnecessarily - timetabled at five minutes longer than the same journey yesterday.
Comfort: 3/10 - See below.
Staff: 4/10 - No ticket check, and the shop was (literally) melting, though it did remain open until Glasgow again.
You remember everything nice I said about SuperVoyagers on Day 11? How I was surprised at how much nicer they were than Voyagers? I take it all back. This was a horrible journey.
The previous day's service was a mid-afternoon train on a Thursday. This, however, was the 1320 from Birmingham to Glasgow. On a Friday. Everyone going north for the weekend was there. It was full.
What's worse, the air conditioning was broken. Most of the train was really pretty cold, except the coach with the shop. The shop coach was incredibly hot. Indeed, it had been so since leaving Birmingham. As a result, all the chocolate had melted.
And to add insult to injury, one of the toilets was out of service. Clearly this was par for the course, since I mentioned this to the shop assistant, and she responded "Only one?"
While enduring the hot and cold, I saw the reason I'd headed south: rain. The rain started at around Lockerbie and turned to an incessant heavy drizzle by the time we reached Glasgow; it made for quite a different view over Beattock from the previous day's journey.
By this stage, I was actually sick of trains. Tired and hungry, I disembarked at Glasgow Central with ideas of things to do over the weekend, but no firm plans. Friday's statistics were as follows:
Total time on trains: 6 hours, 37 minutes.
Distance travelled: 393.5 miles.
Walk-up price: £46.00.
I decided eventually to take another day off on Saturday (Day 13), since I simply needed the rest, and given that my cousin's party started at 7pm there wasn't much I could do in the Scottish highlands and still get back in time.
Sunday, however, was a different story altogether.
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