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.
What did you do on Sunday!?
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