The Government Giveth and the Government Taketh Away: the Mysteries of Rail Franchising

On Wednesday the government announced that the inter-city services on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) will no longer be operated by Virgin Trains; from December 9th, First Group - the largest transport company in Britain, who already run the Great Western, Transpennine Express, Scotrail and Thameslink (FCC) franchises - will take over running the long-distance services between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

Let's clear up what that actually means. Put simply, here's a list of things visible to the public that will happen on December 9th:

1. The Pendolinos and Voyagers run by Virgin Trains will start to be painted in the colours of First group, and the staff of Virgin Trains will start wearing new First uniforms.


2. Er, that's it.

The timetable will remain broadly the same, at least for now; the services will be run with the same trains; the same staff — except for the highest echelons of management — will drive the trains and staff the stations; the tickets will cost the same and be valid on the same trains; and so on.

One confusion is that people think that Virgin Trains owns the Pendolinos and the Voyagers. They don't. They are owned by Angel Trains, one of three rolling stock holding companies (ROSCOs), who lease them to Virgin Trains (at a suitably extortionate rate). Come December, they will simply be leased to First instead.

This enables the franchise renewal process to be relatively smooth: first companies register their interest; then a shortlist of suitable companies is drawn up, and those shortlisted are invited to tender for the franchise. Tendering for the franchise involves drawing up a detailed plan of what trains would be run and what level of service would be provided.

Crucially, it also involves agreeing the level of premium (or subsidy) with the DfT: in other words, how much money the DfT will get from (or pay to) the operator. Long-distance intercity routes are probably the only passenger services that make significant profits. As such, with the West Coast franchise — the Premier Line on the network — it was always going to be about who could pay the DfT the most money.

In that respect, First won hands-down: they have promised to pay the DfT £5.5 billion in premiums over the 13 years and 4 months life of the franchise. That's a lot: it will require passenger revenue to grow by 10% per annum for each of the next 13 years, and some analysts have questioned whether that's possible. It is definitely a very ambitious target; in fairness, though, Virgin weren't outbid by much: they promised to pay £4.8 billion, assuming 8.5% growth per annum.

In theory franchising shouldn't be about it always going to the highest bidder, but pressure from the Treasury inevitably means it is. Once First's plans were deemed achievable by the DfT analysts, it was always going to be First. If they fail to keep up with the payments, First could have all their rail franchises (not just West Coast) taken away from them.

Do I think it was the right decision? My instinct is to say no; but without full details of what Virgin planned to do, it's impossible to make an accurate judgment.

What I do know is this: by removing the West Coast franchise from Virgin Trains, we have lost one of the genuinely recognisable brands on the railway network that isn't simply another bus company running trains, and that in and of itself is a crying shame. Through clever marketing they attracted lots of new business to the railways, not just because of the huge upgrade that the WCML has seen in the last decade.

Virgin Trains came into the market at privatisation promising a whole new experience of riding trains. For better or worse, they have done that: I will miss the futuristic red-and-silver livery, replaced with yet another blue train company. Where they fell down was the trains themselves: they replaced old trains with new ones that were shorter, whose windows are tiny, and whose only significant advantage is a better top speed.

What does First West Coast mean for us?

So what will happen when First West Coast take over from Virgin Trains? Nothing fundamental will change: Birmingham and Manchester will still get three trains an hour to London, and they'll still be as quick as they are now. But there will be some changes:

• Eleven new 6-car electric trains — most probably baby Pendolinos — will be ordered to take over the Birmingham–Scotland services from the diesel Voyagers. This is good news: it will end the insanity of having an entirely electrified route served by diesel trains. (If only some of the route were electrified, I could excuse it, but not this.)


• From 2016, direct services to and from London will be restored to Telford, Shrewsbury, Blackpool and Bolton. Blackpool is not a surprise, but Telford and Shrewsbury are: until a year ago they were served by the open-access operator Wrexham & Shropshire, but there just weren't enough passengers and they went bust. Bolton is even more of a surprise, but as a simple extension of a London–Manchester service it should work reasonably well.


• Anytime fares will be reduced by up to 15% over the first two years of the franchise. This is to counteract the incredible inflation in fares in recent years which has seen an anytime return from Manchester to London climb to £296. While it is good news, it will be largely counteracted by the inflation-based fare rises anyway; I'll return to this later.


• Ticket barriers will be installed at all 21 major stations on the WCML, including London Euston, Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street and Glasgow Central. This is bad news: barriers make sense for commuter stations, where there isn't time to check tickets on the train; but when stations are mainly served by intercity services where people often have lots of luggage it's simply a giant inconvenience.


• The trains will be thoroughly refurbished, and the on-board catering will be revised to include an at-seat service. That means a trolley; whether it's in addition to, or instead of, the shop isn't clear. For this one it has to be watch this space: until details of exactly what's going to happen it's fairly worthless trying to speculate.

Most of that will be complete by 2016. The franchise, however, runs until 2026, so most of the franchise will be spent just raking in the money. That, however, can be done better: fares on the WCML are, frankly, insane. So insane, in fact, that it is possible to lower the fares on some trains, but increase overall revenue.

The off-peak fares are reasonably priced but unreasonably restricted so that you can't arrive in London until after 11:30 and you can't leave London between 15:00 and 18:45. The anytime fares are unrestricted on which train you can get, but insanely expensive: on Coventry to London, an off-peak return is £43.60, but an anytime return is £138. That cliff-edge means that the 18:43 train to Coventry is usually empty (at least north of Milton Keynes), but the 19:03 is rammed.

On every other major intercity line, there are not two but three tiers of fares: anytime, off-peak and super off-peak. Virgin's off-peak fares are, in fact, pretty much in line with every other operator's super off-peak fares. What is needed is a third tier of fares which is, say, 25% more expensive than the current off-peak fare, but which permits arrival into London after 10:00, and only forbids departure between 16:30 and 18:15, say. That would manage the demand, and probably result in a net increase in revenue.

Furthermore, there are currently relatively few advance fares available at peak times: by increasing the incentive for people to book in advance by offering more such fares, they will get more bums on seats in the peak — and, of course, all advance fares go straight to the operator and don't have to be shared out among the other operators on the line. The net effect of both such changes is an increase in revenue but cheaper fares for the passenger.

Does franchising actually make sense?

But this much "yield management" can only go so far, and it is difficult to see how First can deliver the 10% year-on-year growth required to pay the DfT what they've promised. What happens if they default? Fortunately First are spared from the spectre of going bankrupt, but they will lose all their train franchises — not just West Coast — if they fail to keep up with the premium payments.

Is this a realistic possibility? Yes. Twice in three years the East Coast franchise — first under GNER, then under National Express — was handed back to the DfT. The first time was due to the collapse of GNER's parent company, Sea Containers. But the second time was simply because National Express could not meet the steep demands for premiums that they signed up to in the franchise agreement.

That should have triggered a wide-ranging debate about whether franchising actually makes sense as a model, but it didn't. Frankly, the current model of franchising is terrible, and is one of the fundamental reasons our railways are so expensive.

The two extremes of franchising are to specify everything — London buses are franchised out but even the font on the destination blinds is specified by Transport for London — or to give the operator free reign. What we actually have is a horrible compromise where minimum service levels are specified but there's enough play that First can claim to actually be "running" the WCML rather than just operating trains.

Now, I'm not necessarily advocating renationalisation, but more centralised control and specification — such as there is at Transport for London — might be better in the long run. In particular, it would probably avoid some of the passenger confusion that seems to be the main product of this franchise handover: the same trains will run at the same times, but they'll be announced as a "First West Coast" service instead of a "Virgin Trains" service.

How will First West Coast actually perform?

It remains to be seen how First perform. They will doubtless try and improve punctuality: Virgin's punctuality statistics languish stone dead last by the "public performance measure", with just 85.9% of trains arriving within 10 minutes of time in the year ending 31st March 2012.

There will probably be a very subtle shift in emphasis as a result: Virgin cared more about passengers getting a good service, while First care more about their shareholders. When things go wrong, Virgin are relatively happy to just let everything run half an hour late, if it means people get home; First may well cancel more services to try and get the ones that are running back on time.

But many people are already berating First before they've even taken over. People like the Virgin brand: to see them lose the West Coast is indeed a shame and, unless they succeed in bidding for another franchise, they will probably bow out of running trains altogether.

For all that I like Virgin Trains, however, I don't think we can judge First just yet. Their record is a little patchy, but when you're running the Great Western Main Line or the Thameslink route while both are in the process of major upgrades it's always going to be tricky.

I think we should all give First West Coast a chance: I look forward to seeing what innovations they bring to the WCML. Nonetheless, I must bid a fond farewell to Virgin Trains: even if their trains are too short and have tiny windows, they are the fastest in the country (except for the Eurostar), and day in, day out, they have run an incredible service of up to fourteen trains an hour into London.

Rest in peace, Virgin Trains; long live First West Coast (hopefully).

North Country Rover: Summary

Over the course of six days over the Jubilee weekend, Ian and I packed in a lot:

Day 1 (Thursday 31st May): (Milton Keynes / ) Coventry - Birmingham - Leeds - York
Day 2 (Friday 1st June): York - (bus) - Pickering - (NYMR) - Grosmont - (replacement bus) - Whitby - Middlesbrough - (dinner in Great Ayton) - York
Day 3 (Saturday 2nd June): York - Scarborough - Hull - York - Selby - Leeds - Saltaire - Bradford - Ilkley - Leeds - Harrogate - York
Day 4 (Sunday 3rd June): Railfest 2012
Day 5 (Monday 4th June): York - Leeds - Carnforth - Barrow-in-Furness - Ravenglass - R&ER to Dalegarth - Ravenglass - Carlisle - Newcastle - York
Day 6 (Tuesday 5th June): York - Preston - Lancaster - Heysham Port - Morecambe - Leeds - Birmingham - Coventry ( / Northampton)

We racked up a grand total of 1274 miles over six days, of which we spent one day, 8 hours and 55 minutes on trains (and a couple of buses). We got around most of the area covered by the North Country Rover, as this map shows. For the 893 miles we covered on the rover, we paid just £54.15, which works out at just 6p per mile. (In contrast, I spent £39.80 to get to and from York, at 13p a mile - which still isn't too bad, I guess.)

As an illustration of how good value the rover ticket is, our day 5 trip round the Cumbrian Coast could have been done on a York-Ravenglass return (excluding the R&ER itself), which would have cost £46.75. Compared with £54.15 for the whole weekend, I think we got the value of the ticket!

Every day (perhaps not counting day 1) had something special in it. The trip to Whitby and back on day 2 was perhaps the most enjoyable day, simply because of the sheer variety of the day: a bus, a steam train through the North Yorkshire Moors, a railway line that shouldn't still exist, a wonderful evening with my cousin and my first ever rail-replacement bus. I never thought that my first rail-replacement bus would be enjoyable, let alone give us beautiful views.

In contrast, I guess day 3 was perhaps the least exciting day, because it was "just" a day of going on lots of trains - but it was still remarkably enjoyable to go on so many different trains and so much new track - especially being able to go on electric trains!

But each of the last three days were enjoyable in very different ways. Day 4 at Railfest was so much fun, just for being able to feel like a five-year-old and getting to sit in the driver's seat of numerous trains. Day 5 was an epically long day round the Cumbrian Coast, which yielded hot sunshine and some of the best views of the Irish Sea I've ever seen.

Finally, day 6 involved three bits of "rare track". Going on rare track is somehow more exciting than just going on a line which is served frequently; there's more of a sense of "event", because it's easy to travel over a line that's served ten times every hour, but that bit more difficult when there's just one train a day that can take you over the line in question. It's no good being able to say "I've been on every line... except X, Y and Z, because they're not served very often"; when you're track-bashing the whole country, you have to worry about every single line!

Our travels round the north showed a network seemingly lacking in coherent planning: while some lines get favoured with brand new trains - such as the class 185 Desiros for TPE, and the class 333 electric trains on the Leeds-Bradford/Skipton/Ilkley suburban services - other lines have to make do and mend with some of the oldest and least suitable trains on the network, such as Pacers and some very old Sprinters. The Northern Hub proposals, combined with electrification between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and York, should go some way to addressing these issues.

But that still leaves a number of rural branch lines which seem to struggle on with a poor service owing largely to 1980s cuts on the part of BR, stemming from a lack of available rolling stock. For example, the Middlesbrough-Whitby timetable has barely changed in 25 years, and the lack of an early-morning service from Whitby means that if you want to get from Whitby to London you can't arrive before 13:45 (and if you want to make the last train home, you have to leave again at 14:30!).

This is in part due to the current Northern franchise being let on a "no-growth" basis: simply put, they planned to fund the franchise as if passenger numbers would remain steady. But passenger numbers have increased dramatically over the past few years, with a 25% increase in just the last five years; it is thus little wonder that many of Northern's key commuter trains are crowded to the hilt. (That said, Northern do a great job of sweating the fleet of trains that they do have to the absolute maximum.) I only hope that when the TPE and Northern franchises are re-let in 2014 that they plan for a dramatic increase in capacity that is so desparately needed in places.

Nonetheless, the occasional crowded train did little to diminish the experience, be it a steam train to Whitby (well, almost!), or a branch line in rural Yorkshire, or round the Cumbrian coast, or traversing rarely-used track in Morecambe, or just climbing aboard a train at Railfest. My thanks to Ian for an enjoyable and fascinating weekend on trains.

North Country Rover, Day 6: Rare Track to Morecambe and Back

Simplistically speaking, you could describe our final day travelling around the north of England as follows: we went from York across to Morecambe, had lunch, headed back to Leeds, and then went home. But that would entirely miss the fundamental point of the day: Tuesday was all about "rare track"; that is, railway lines rarely used by passenger trains.

There are many bits of railway line in the country which, for whatever reason, are not served frequently (if at all) by passenger trains. In some cases the line remains open primarily for freight trains - clearly, there wouldn't be much point sending a passenger train via a huge freight yard! Sometimes such lines are simply dead-end branch lines, but some freight-only lines are connected at both ends to other lines and thus occasionally see use for diverting trains. In particular, there are frequently "triangles" of track (where three places are each connected to the other two by rail) on which not all sides of the triangle see a regular service.

For example, take the triangle formed by Birmingham New Street, Aston and Stechford. Passenger trains run between Birmingham and Lichfield via Aston, and between Birmingham and Coventry via Stechford; but very few passenger trains ever use the line between Stechford and Aston, mainly because no-one would want to go that way: people in that area mostly want to get to or from Birmingham New Street, not avoid it altogether!

However, aside from it being used for freight trains (which usually do want to avoid New Street!), such triangles are often useful for diverting passenger trains: in particular, it means that trains from Coventry can go via Stechford and Aston and go into New Street "round the back", as happened last August when I went to Edinburgh.

For various reasons, a fair number of these freight-only lines see regular passenger services just once or twice a day. One reason is that of route knowledge: for a driver to be permitted to drive over a route unsupervised, he must "sign the route", meaning he knows where all the signals are, what the speed limits are, what gradients there are, where the stations, bridges, tunnels, are, and so on. Unlike with driving a car, where you brake on sight, a train driver has to know where and when to brake: if you can see the station, you're not going to stop in time!

But the other main reason for such once-a-day services is pretty insane: running one train a day (or even one train a week, in some cases) over a line means that the line counts as "open", rather than "closed", and thus circumvents the need to go through a formal closure procedure. This kind of "parliamentary train", as it's known, sounds completely insane, until you realise that running one train a day over a line (especially a line that has to be there anyway for freight trains to use) is pretty cheap - usually only costing the driver's and guard's wages and the cost of diesel, sometimes totalling less than £100 - but the closure procedure, often involving public inquiries, can run to millions of pounds.

In some ways it's good that it's hard to close a line, because it prevents operators from deciding on a whim that a given line should lose its service; on the other hand, when some of these lines have had just one train a day for over a decade the line may as well be called "closed".

Anyway, our aim for the day was to go on two rarely-used railway lines near Morecambe, on the west coast just north of Lancaster. (Why, you might ask? Because we hadn't been on them!) After checking out of our hotel at about 8:30, we wandered over to York station, where our train to Preston had already arrived; the guard showed up about 8:50, so we got on and ate our breakfast before it departed:

0911 York to Preston, arr 1132
Headcode: 1B24, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158757
Distance: 88.5 miles; walk-up price: £17.50

This York-Blackpool North service is one of the few major trans-Pennine routes not run by TransPennine Express, probably because it doesn't serve Manchester (TPE's hub of operations). While the route serves more of the West Yorkshire conurbation - passing through Leeds, Bradford and Halifax - it misses Greater Manchester completely, turning right after Hebden Bridge and heading through Burnley, Accrington and Blackburn before meeting the WCML at Preston. Being Northern's only service each hour between York and Leeds, the train starts out as a local train calling all stations between York and Leeds; almost all the others (run by TPE and CrossCountry) run non-stop. West of Leeds, however, the train is one of Northern's few "express" services, missing out a number of the local stations.

Bradford Interchange is a terminus station, and through trains must reverse to continue their journey. This is the legacy of a railway network laid out by individual companies, with little cooperation or coordination, whose failure to join up the two terminus stations in Bradford - just 500m apart as the crow flies - partly contributed to making Leeds, rather than Bradford, the most important city in the West Yorkshire conurbation; although a "Bradford Crossrail" has been proposed as recently as the 1990s, it would require major upheaval both to Bradford's city centre as well as to all the existing train services in West Yorkshire.

In spite of the route between Hebden Bridge and Preston being, for me at least, "new track" - in that I hadn't been on it before - I found myself dozing off, five days of train travel having taken their toll. But I didn't really sleep much; I just missed out on the lovely views of the valleys of the Calder, Darwen and Ribble that thread their way through the West Yorkshire and east Lancashire countryside.

On arriving at Preston, we had planned to get the 11:53 service to Lancaster, which was a Virgin Trains service from Birmingham to Edinburgh; however, Ian realised on the way into Preston that there should be another train - the London-Glasgow service - through beforehand. There was indeed at 11:41 service to Lancaster; the reason it hadn't shown up was because it would have fallen foul of the minimum connection allowance - it only gave us 9 minutes to change trains, when the allowance at Preston is 10. Nonetheless, we happily made it over to platform 4:

1141 Preston to Lancaster, arr 1154
Headcode: 1S48, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390107
Distance: 21 miles; walk-up price: £5.15

This short journey brought an unexpected treat: my first 11-car Pendolino. Virgin Trains - well, more accurately, Angel Trains (one of the rolling stock holding companies) - have procured 106 extra carriages for the Pendolinos, which will lengthen 31 of the existing fleet of 52 Pendolinos from 9-car to 11-car, as well as provide four brand new 11-car Pendolinos. The four new 11-car Pendolinos - numbered 390154-390157 - entered service in April, and over the course of this year, the new carriages are being inserted into the existing Pendolinos when they come up to Manchester for maintenance.

The extra coaches posed a problem for Virgin Trains: how to label them. The existing 9-car Pendolinos have carriages lettered ABCDEGHJK, with ABCDE being standard class and GHJK being first class; they left F free for future lengthening to 10-car, but 11-car was not considered as a possibility back when the Pendolinos first entered service. Faced with the problem of finding two letters to go between E and G, Virgin Trains decided on F and U, with U standing for "unreserved". (No, seriously.) This was preferred to the more obvious solution of just relabelling all the coaches in sequence, as that would have involved completely changing the existing reservation system.

And thus it was that we ended up in coach U of 390107 (formerly 390007; the lengthened Pendolinos are having 100 added to their unit number to distinguish them). The new Pendolino carriages look almost exactly like the old ones, just a bit newer and fresher. They are no more comfortable, and still have the same (i.e. pretty rubbish) level of visibility. Oh well.

On arriving at Lancaster, we grabbed a drink before getting on the train which was half the reason we were in this neck of the woods, for our first bit of rare track:

1228 Lancaster to Heysham Port, arr 1257
Headcode: 2H84, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 150139
Distance: 8.5 miles; walk-up price: £2.40

The Heysham Port branch is unusual in many ways. For one, it is served only once a day, but not as a means of "closure by stealth" or anything sinister; rather, the train service exists to serve the ferry to the Isle of Man, which arrives from Douglas at 12:15 and departs again at 14:15. As such, the train was pretty busy with everyone heading home to the Isle of Man after a long double bank holiday weekend; there were plenty of seats, but nearly everyone needed another seat for their luggage owing to the lack of large luggage racks.

The branch is also unusual for its signalling, or rather lack thereof. Trains head north out of Lancaster, travelling nearly two miles north on the WCML, before turning left at Morecambe South Junction and heading to Bare Lane station. The only signalbox is at Bare Lane: Morecambe's two platforms simply function as two separate dead-end tracks from Bare Lane. Only one, however, has access to Heysham, by means of a ground frame: once the train gets to Morecambe, it reverses out of the station, where the driver stops to manually swing the points to the Heysham branch; only then can he head to Heysham.

The current network around Morecambe is the by-product of rationalisation in the 1960s. There was once a triangle junction at Morecambe, so that trains from Lancaster Green Ayre station could go direct to both Morecambe and Heysham Port. This route was the original Little North Western route, which pioneered overhead electrification as early as 1908: trains between Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham ran at the now non-standard voltage of 6.6kV at 25Hz until 1952, when it was converted to 6.6kV at 50Hz and used as a test-bed for the WCML electrification.

But the Little North Western route duplicated the route off the WCML from Lancaster to Morecambe, and it is the latter which survives today, the Little North Western route (along with Lancaster Green Ayre station) having closed in 1966, when trains were diverted via Carnforth. The lack of a direct connection means that Heysham is one of a very small number of stations on the network which can only reach the rest of the network via a reversal. (In fact, I believe it is one of just three which can only access one other station without reversal - points if you can name the other two!)

Heysham Port station itself is fairly run-down; while there are passenger ferries to the Isle of Man, most of the rest of the traffic at the port is container lorries to and from Ireland, with freight services to both Belfast and Dublin. Just one platform remains (number 3, obviously) and the facilities are basic, to say the least; however, the ferry terminal is literally at the end of the platform, so in that respect it's even more convenient than Stranraer ever was.

The journey from Lancaster to Heysham Port - all of 8½ miles - took 29 minutes, and thus averaged less than 18mph; but the train had arrived in Lancaster from Leeds at 12:11 and then sat, as timetabled, in the platform for 17 minutes, meaning that we'd been on the train for 45 minutes by the time it got to Heysham. After stretching our legs on the platform, and since we didn't want to accidentally end up on the Isle of Man, there wasn't much to do but get back on the train:

1315 Heysham Port to Morecambe, arr 1325
Headcode: 2Y57, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 150139
Distance: 4.25 miles; walk-up price: £1.60

The train, which was heading back to Leeds via Lancaster, was busy, but only half as busy as it had been. Only once the train departed Heysham did we realise the purpose of there being not just a driver and a guard but also a ticket conductor on the train: lots of people from the Isle of Man had arrived in Heysham and needed tickets, in some case quite expensive tickets. We reckoned that the commission - we believe the rate is 9% - that Northern receive from ticket sales on board more than makes up the cost of running the train, especially when you get two people turning up and wanting singles to London (£81.20 each!).

We were, unsurprisingly, the only people getting off at Morecambe. The original Morecambe station survived until 1994, when the station was moved 400m eastwards to release land by the seafront for redevelopment: admittedly, the station building looks much nicer today as a Tourist Information Centre as it would if it were still the station building. The current station is rather more basic, with a simple ticket office and a shelter on the platform. With nearly three hours to kill in Morecambe before our next bit of track-bashing - i.e., travelling on a train specifically to travel over a bit of track you haven't been on (also known as "gricing") - we headed first to Morrison's cafe for some lunch.

After lunch, we walked along the seafront, with the pier yielding perhaps the most unusual trainspotting location I've ever tried: three miles away lies Hest Bank, the only point on the WCML which actually meets the west coast, and with a telephoto lens on full zoom I managed to photograph a southbound Voyager (after about ten minutes waiting for a train to go past at all!). We also saw the larger-than-life statue of Eric Morecambe; his real name was in fact Eric Bartholomew but for his stage name he used the name of his home town.

Our last port of call in Morecambe was to the amusement arcade, where Ian went in search of his misspent youth by playing the 2p machines, where you drop 2p coins into a machine that pushes the coins forward, the aim being to drop a coin in so that it pushes other coins off the edge; if you're lucky you get the coins back, but if you're unlucky they go down another chute and are retained by the machine. I can't say I understand gambling at the best of times, but this seemed to be the least interesting form of gambling ever devised. Still, who am I to deprive Ian of his seaside tradition?

Eventually we headed back to Morecambe station for our second bit of rare track:

1619 Morecambe to Leeds, arr 1815
Headcode: 2Y61, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 150214
Distance: 70 miles; walk-up price: £12.60

All but two of the trains from Morecambe run to Lancaster; however, where the Morecambe branch meets the WCML there is a triangle junction, permitting trains to head north from Morecambe to Carnforth without reversing at Lancaster. One of these two trains is the inconveniently timed 0546 Lancaster to Windermere, which runs via Morecambe. The other, however, is much more convenient: the 1619 Morecambe to Leeds took us over the so-called "Bare Lane curve".

Convenient, that is, for track-bashers like us; for the rest of the passengers on the platform, there was a little confusion - the station by this time of day unmanned, and the train display boards conspicuous by their absence - as to where this train was going; we had to explain to a few of the passengers that it goes to Leeds but avoids Lancaster. Why it does so is not clear: it could be a parliamentary service to keep the line "open", or it could be for driver route knowledge, or it could just be to get the stock back to Leeds sooner so it can form a peak train there.

Track-bashing on your own, while something I've done quite often (see my various blogposts on my All-Line Rover in 2009 and my East Midlands Rover in 2011, among many others), always carries a certain amount of shame with it, especially when you're doing something weird like going to the end of a branch line and coming straight back again. But track-bashing with other people makes the whole thing more fun; my day was made when Ian said, and I quote, "I've been waiting years to do this curve!"

And yet it was all over so quickly; after departing Morecambe and calling at Bare Lane, we turned left towards Hest Bank instead of right towards Lancaster, and curved gently towards the West Coast Main Line (for once deserving its name). As we did, we saw a Royal Mail train, a 12-car rake of class 325s, heading northbound on the WCML; we were brought to a stand briefly before following it over the newly-renewed Hest Bank level crossing. For three miles we followed the WCML, before once again turning off at Carnforth to retrace our steps of the previous day over the Little North Western route back to Leeds via Skipton.

By this stage I was thoroughly tired, and dozed for much of the train journey back to Leeds. Once we arrived in Leeds, we bought some sandwiches for dinner and ate in the lovely North Concourse at Leeds station, originally part of Wellington station but merged into the current Leeds City station in 1938. The other station in Leeds, Leeds Central, closed in 1967, but "Leeds City" is still sometimes used to refer to the current station even today. Fed and watered, we headed to platform 11C for our penultimate train, and our third and final bit of rare track:

1911 Leeds to Birmingham New St, arr 2207
Headcode: 1V71, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221122
Distance: 138 miles; walk-up return included in Day 1

Owing to engineering works between Chesterfield and Derby, our CrossCountry train back to Birmingham was to be diverted: instead of taking the direct line from Chesterfield to Derby via Ambergate, the train would instead head via the Erewash Valley, through Alfreton and Langley Mill, to Trent Junctions. From there it would head west through Long Eaton to Derby, where it would reverse and continue on its usual route to Birmingham. The line between Trowell Junction and Trent Junctions is rarely used in passenger service, with just two trains each Saturday for route knowledge purposes - i.e., making sure the drivers know the route so that when they have to be diverted they can be.

However, it wasn't as simple as that. Normally there are two CrossCountry trains an hour between Birmingham and Newcastle: one runs between Plymouth and Edinburgh, calling at Wakefield and Leeds (and missing Doncaster), while the other runs between Reading and Newcastle, calling at Doncaster (but skipping Wakefield and Leeds). Since there was only room for one train an hour through the Erewash Valley, the trains were forced to serve all three of Doncaster, Wakefield and Leeds.

Trying to fit CrossCountry trains into the timetable is difficult enough without having to re-write it just to fit in some engineering works. So rather than come up with a completely new timetable, the timetable planners did rather a lot of fudging, combining times from three different southbound CrossCountry trains to come up with our timetable:

• 1V70 (the 1500 Glasgow-Bristol) would normally call York at 18:45, Leeds at 19:11, Wakefield at 19:23, Sheffield at 19:54, Chesterfield at 20:06 and Derby at 20:29;


• 1M72 (the 1835 Newcastle-Birmingham) would normally call York at 19:34, Doncaster at 19:58, Sheffield at 20:23, pass Chesterfield at 20:34, and call at Derby at 20:54;


• 1V71 (the 1708 Edinburgh-Bristol) would normally call York at 19:44, Leeds at 20:11, Wakefield at 20:23, Sheffield at 20:54, Chesterfield at 21:06 and Derby at 21:29 (i.e., an hour later than 1V70 throughout).

What we did was follow the timings of 1V70 until just south of Wakefield, calling Leeds at 19:11, and Wakefield Westgate at 19:23. We then headed for Doncaster, and picked up the path of 1M72, calling Doncaster at 19:58, Sheffield at 20:23, and Chesterfield at 20:35. From there we were diverted via the Erewash Valley, due to arrive in Derby at 21:13, and then departing at 21:29 to pick up the standard timings of 1V71.

The last fudge needed to make this work was just south of Wakefield: just before South Kirkby junction, where we would have turned off towards Sheffield, we were stopped in Hemsworth loop to allow an East Coast service to overtake us. Loops are commonly used to let passenger trains overtake freight trains, but it is pretty rare to have one passenger train overtake another in this fashion! We were stationary in the loop for just under five minutes - the East Coast service streaking past us before we were even quite stopped! - before proceeding on to Doncaster. If we had run in front of the East Coast service all the way to Doncaster, it's likely that there wouldn't have been a platform free at Doncaster, and it was presumably easier to hold us in Hemsworth loop (as we were timetabled to do).

After calling at Sheffield, we noticed that we were running rather slowly, and an on-time departure from Sheffield turned into a ten-minute late arrival into Chesterfield; once we departed Chesterfield we passed a freight train which we had presumably had to follow from Dore South Junction. This is one of the problems with freight trains: they aren't as fast as passenger trains, so unless you have enough places in which you can hold one, it's going to delay something.

From Chesterfield we went straight on up the Erewash Valley, once the Midland Main Line to Sheffield but now only used by trains between Nottingham and Sheffield, with London-Sheffield trains all running via Derby. Except that because of the engineering works, London-Sheffield trains were running via the Erewash - possibly the only engineering diversion that results in shorterjourney times!

The five-mile section between Trowell Junction and Trent Junctions usually sees just two trains a day at unsociable hours on a Saturday, so being able to see the line in (fading) daylight was unusual. But by now the rain, having held off all day, was starting to come down quite heavily, and as we passed through Toton Yard the sight of lots of old locomotives rusting, their purpose expired, was a little sad to see.

Shortly afterwards, we passed through the maze of junctions at Trent (all confusingly named) and headed west on the line through Long Eaton, arriving in Derby nine minutes late, with our third bit of rare track for the day ticked off (or should I say coloured in?). Thanks to our 16-minute booked stand, we departed just a couple of minutes late, but gradually lost a few minutes on the run to Birmingham, eventually arriving seven minutes late at 22:14.

From New Street there were four more trains of the night to Coventry, but only two which continued to Northampton, where Ian now lives. So I waited to get the train with him, with us sitting in a very quiet New Street station for nearly an hour before getting the second (and last) train to Northampton:

2310 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 2330
Headcode: 1B46, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390024
Distance: 19 miles; walk-up return included in Day 1

Almost all of the trains which call at Northampton on a typical day are run by London Midland; just two are not, run instead by Virgin Trains. Oddly, both are southbound trains, with a early morning peak service to London, and this last southbound service from Birmingham which runs via Northampton so that the mainline via Weedon can be maintained overnight. Ian, having previously used the morning peak train, decided that, for the sake of getting into Northampton ten minutes later, he may as well get a Virgin Trains service for once. I guess when you spend all week commuting on London Midland Desiros, a Pendolino might be regarded as a nice change.

After the familiar 20-minute journey to Coventry, I bade Ian farewell after a thoroughly enjoyable weekend on trains, and after a short taxi ride home (the rain meant I couldn't face walking) I collapsed into bed... But not before colouring in my map to record which new lines we'd been on!

North Country Rover, Day 5: The Cumbrian Coast

After an enjoyable but miserably wet Sunday at Railfest, we had dinner in the Olive Tree, a lovely Italian restaurant in York, before a relaxing evening in the hotel watching the final of The Apprentice. Fortunately, Monday brought much better weather, with blue skies from the off. And just as well, too: we were headed for a 345-mile round-trip all the way around the coast of Cumbria, topped off with a visit to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, a 6¾-mile long narrow-gauge railway right into the heart of the Lake District.

Of course, going round the Cumbrian coast first required crossing the Pennines. The main trans-Pennine crossing between Manchester and Leeds is too far south to be covered by our ticket, so that left us with three options: the "Copy Pit" route between Leeds and Preston via Hebden Bridge and Blackburn; the "Little North Western" route from Leeds to Lancaster via Skipton; and the Tyne Valley line from Newcastle to Carlisle.

This being a Bank Holiday Monday, there were engineering works at Lancaster which ruled out the first option; in fact, it also complicated using the Little North Western route too, with trains unable to run between Lancaster and Carnforth. Fortunately Carnforth is the junction not only for the Little North Western route, but also the Cumbrian coast line to Barrow-in-Furness, so we aimed to change trains there. First, however, we had to get to Leeds:

0740 York to Leeds, arr 0804
Headcode: 1F61, operated by Transpennine Express using Desiro 185106
Distance: 25.5 miles; walk-up price: £7.75

In order to have time to visit the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, we arose at 6:45 - normal to many people (though perhaps not on a bank holiday) but a bit earlier than I'm used to - and headed for an early train to Leeds. For whatever reason the train was timetabled a ten-minute stand at York, and on top of that arrived a few minutes early, so by the time we arrived in the station the train was already there and we were able to jump on and start eating breakfast straight away.

We left York on time, heading south along the four-track section to Church Fenton, running parallel to the slightly-delayed 0735 East Coast service to King's Cross. The HST couldn't match our Desiro's acceleration at first, but once we hit our top speed of 100mph it gradually clawed its way back and just had the edge over us as it peeled away south-eastwards on the ECML once it diverged at Colton Junction.

The rest of the train journey to Leeds was pretty quiet and uneventful, apart from the ticket check: here, the fact that we were using slightly unusual tickets made the guard stop and have to think for a second. Ian's ticket was sensibly printed with "NORTH COUNTRY 4 IN 8 DAY ROVER"; mine, however, had ended up with the abbreviated form "N CNTRY FLECIRVR" (presumably an abbreviation of "flexi rover"), which slightly confused the guard early on a Monday morning, and it took him to see Ian's ticket before he realised it was indeed valid.

On arrival at Leeds we walked over to platform 12C where our train to Carnforth was apparently due to depart. There was, however, no train in platform 12C; the only other train due through platform 12 was the 0815 to Selby, from Manchester Victoria. It duly arrived at 0810, and then the plan became clear: the train had been formed of four coaches (two Sprinters, 150116 and 150215) but two of these (150215) would be dropped off and form our train to Carnforth.

At least, that was the plan. However, one of the two coaches of 150215 was ominously dark, and shortly after the train arrived a fitter in an orange jacket came to try and fix the train; it seemed that one of the two engines had failed. Nonetheless, we asked the guard if this was indeed the train for Carnforth, and he said it was; so we duly boarded. At 0815, the Selby portion departed; after a few minutes of not much happening I poked my head back out the door to have a look.

Just as I did, we heard an announcement come over the tannoy: "This is a platform alteration: the 0819 Northern service to Carnforth will now depart from platform 13A". This was mildly amusing, since it was already 0820! After alerting our fellow passengers, we headed down the other end of the platform to platform 13A, and were greeted with an ominous sight: two Pacers. After a minute or so the driver and guard came over and proceeded to detach the front Pacer, and then - for the second time! - we boarded our train to Carnforth:

0819 Leeds to Carnforth, arr 1003
Headcode: 2H08, operated by Northern Rail using Pacer 144001
Distance: 64 miles; walk-up price: £11.30

We departed just four and a half minutes late - pretty good for a last-minute stock swap! - having found the only decent seats in the carriage, a bay of four facing seats (albeit with no table). For all the complaints people make about Pacers, in this case I preferred it to the 150 that we'd just been turfed off, principally because we'd been able to find seats with both a) a window and b) legroom.

But then, as Pacers go, we had got lucky: we had ended up on a class 144 (144001, to be precise), which was a later batch of Pacers, by which time they had learned from some of their mistakes, and were later refitted with proper train seats. In contrast, the unit that we detached from was 142067, one of the original class 142 Pacers which, I believe, still has its original bus bench seats.

The visibility was welcome, given the beautiful and rather remote scenery we passed through: after climbing up the Airedale Line to Skipton, we continued north-west as if heading towards the Settle and Carlisle line, calling at Hellifield and Long Preston, before turning left at Settle Junction. From here, we travelled along one of the least-used lines in all of England, the route still known as the "Little North Western" (to distinguish it from the London and North Western Railway), down the valley of the Wenning and the Lune to Carnforth, just north of Lancaster.

Unlike the Esk Valley line to Whitby that we went on on Friday, which clearly exists to serve the community of Whitby and the surrounding villages, I can't quite understand the reason for the Little North Western remaining open. Ostensibly, it connects Leeds to Lancaster, but it's not like Lancaster is a huge city; there are no obviously large intermediate communities to serve; and Leeds already has trains to Preston and two different routes to Manchester, which ought to be enough trans-Pennine services to satisfy all the demand there is.

The line is only served by five trains a day in each direction, but still remains double-track throughout - there are long single-track lines with nearly twice as many trains (e.g., the Cambrian line between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth)! However, to save costs, there are no intermediate signals between Settle Junction and Carnforth - making this 24-mile "block section", in which only one train in each direction is permitted at a time, the longest in the country.

Weirder still, it's not even the original route between Leeds and Lancaster: the last ten miles, from Wennington Junction to Lancaster Green Ayre, were closed in 1966, with the remaining services diverted via Carnforth. Indeed, due to the engineering works, today we were terminating at Carnforth; and in spite of our late departure, a booked five-minute stand at Skipton was shortened and we arrived in Carnforth a couple of minutes early, after a long flange-squealing 10mph curve.

Carnforth, about five miles north of Lancaster, was once a major junction station on the WCML, providing connections both across the Little North Western to Leeds, and round the Cumbrian coast to Barrow. In 1971, however, the mainline platforms closed, and today most connections are made at Lancaster or even Preston; these days, even having the opportunity to change trains at Carnforth - the filming location for the film Brief Encounter - is rare. Not that there was much to do - perhaps the most exciting thing was being able to see the "STOP" signs marking the limit of tracks under engineering works at the south end of the platforms.

After a mere 15 minutes, our train onwards to Barrow arrived; with access south from Carnforth blocked, it had been reduced to shuttling back and forth between Barrow and Carnforth, so after 10 minutes wait it tootled off back to Barrow-in-Furness:

1029 Carnforth to Barrow-in-Furness, arr 1117
Headcode: 1T51, operated by Transpennine Express using Desiro 185117
Distance: 28.75 miles; walk-up price: £6.45

The line from Carnforth to Barrow is one of the rare occasions on which travelling by train is often faster than the equivalent road journey, at least between some of the intermediate stations. The railway line hugs the coast, but much of the "coast" is in fact the Morecambe sands and, rather than following the land, the railway is elevated above the sands the Kent and Leven viaducts, both of which have been comprehensively refurbished in the last few years.

The Kent viaduct cuts the distance between Arnside and Grange-over-Sands to about a quarter of the distance by road, and the Leven viaduct halves the distance between Grange-over-Sands and Ulverston. The former's use for local traffic was evident when, on an otherwise quiet train on a Monday morning, half the population of Arnside seemed to have turned up to get the train. They mostly disembarked at Grange-over-Sands, though judging by the announcements they mostly wanted to go to Cark and Cartmel; the guard made repeated, specific announcements to remind us that we weren't stopping at Cark and Cartmel, and would have to change at Grange-over-Sands.

Both viaducts afforded us beautiful views of Morecambe Bay, with the bright, sunny weather meaning the visibility was good enough to see all the way across to Morecambe and Heysham to our left, and all the way up into the mountains of the Lake District to our right. And aside from the brief rush of passengers from Arnside (who didn't really make it into our carriage anyway) the train was nice and quiet, which gave us the space to enjoy the views.

The timetables said we had only five minutes to change trains at Barrow for the train continuing round the coast to Ravenglass, but we arrived a couple of minutes early and had ample time to traverse the underpass and join our fourth train before lunch:

1122 Barrow-in-Furness to Ravenglass for Eskdale, arr 1206
Headcode: 2C47, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 156448
Distance: 29.25 miles; walk-up price: £5.00

Unlike the section east of Barrow, the line north from Barrow hugs the coastline and follows it up one side of a small estuary and down the other to Millom. We pass through many tiny little stations seemingly in the middle of nowhere, which survive thanks to being little more than platforms with bus shelters, with many being request stops. For that reason, the conductor asked which stop we were getting off at (because our tickets don't have am explicit destination); Ravenglass is not, however, a request stop, so I still have yet to actually alight or board at a request stop...

After 40 minutes, we arrived in Ravenglass and headed under the mainline across to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, a line Ian had wanted to go on for years but had never had the chance. Originally built in 1875 as a 3-foot gauge line to carry iron ore, it was converted to 15-inch gauge in 1915, and while it carried granite for a while, it was reborn as a preserved railway in 1960, and ever since it has carried passengers up and down Eskdale, with open-air coaches providing some of the best views available in this remote western corner of the Lake District.

We bought our tickets - our rover ticket gaining us a 10% discount on the normal fare - and went to board the 12:30 service up the seven miles to Dalegarth. When the train arrived, the steam locomotive was taken off the front of the train and ran onto the turntable, from which it was sent back through one of the other platforms. Meanwhile, our diesel locomotive was attached, and once a second train arrived and cleared the single line, we were off:

1230 Ravenglass for Eskdale to Dalegarth for Boot, arr 1310
Operated by the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway using diesel locomotive "Douglas Ferreira"
Distance: 6.75 miles; walk-up return: £12.60

The train was busy, so we opted for a quiet covered carriage rather than going in the full open air ones. The carriages were quite small - only two people could comfortably sit next to each other, though we weren't too pressed for height - but the doors remained open, so I was able to lean out and take many photographs of the train, and of the beautiful views. The journey up to Dalegarth, which involves gradients of up to 1 in 49, took about 40 minutes.

Once at the top, we had lunch in the station cafe, appropriately eating Cumberland sausage, egg and chips. After lunch, we took a short walk to the tiny village of Boot, just a quarter of a mile from Dalegarth station, before heading back to the station to get on a train back to Ravenglass. Our train duly arrived at 14:15, and the locomotive was turned on the turntable before reattaching to the front of our train; but we had to wait a little before another train arrived and we departed ten minutes late:

1430 (actual 1440) Dalegarth for Boot to Ravenglass for Eskdale, arr 1510 (actual 1525)
Operated by the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway using steam locomotive "Northern Rock"
Distance: 6.75 miles; walk-up return included above

Actually, the delay mattered very little in the end: it just gave us more time to enjoy the beautiful views, made all the better by being able to enjoy them from an open carriage. The line threads through woodland, but occasionally opens out for gorgeous views of the mountains in the Lake District, as well as tantalising us with brief glimpses of the sea once we got close to Ravenglass. All in all, a beautiful little railway line; if ever you're in the area, make a point of going on it - you won't regret it.

Once back in Ravenglass, we headed over the footbridge to get back on the big trains:

1539 Ravenglass for Eskdale to Carlisle, arr 1721
Headcode: 2C41, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinters 153317+153363
Distance: 56 miles; walk-up price: £8.05

The journey from Ravenglass to Carlisle is hardly fast, with the train averaging less than 33mph as it trundles all the way round the coast as far as Wigton, before turning inland for the last run to Carlisle. But on this clear day the line provided views out across the Irish Sea better than I can ever recall seeing before (at least from Britain): the Isle of Man was clear and visible, and once we got further north we could see almost the whole length of Galloway in southern Scotland. Combined with the warm sun shining upon our faces, this nearly constituted the perfect train trip.

In spite of being an entirely rural line with few population centres, the future of the line is secure thanks to an unlikely source: Sellafield. Simply put, the safest and easiest way of moving nuclear waste from power plants around the country to the reprocessing facility at Sellafield is by rail; the waste is carried in special nuclear "flasks", which have been extensively crash tested, hauled by pairs of locomotives to ensure that breakdowns do not pose a security risk by requiring the train to stop.

After calling at Workington, we looked out for any traces of the short-lived station at Workington North, which was built in a week in November 2009 following the floods in Cumbria that saw the only road bridge over the River Derwent washed away, taking the life of PC Bill Barker. The station permitted residents on the north side of the Derwent to get to and from the town centre over the (intact) rail bridge, with a shuttle between Workington and Maryport carrying huge numbers of passengers.

However, once the road bridge reopened, the station - only ever intended as temporary and built out of scaffolding - was closed after it became clear that it wasn't being used much, if at all; as a result of its temporary construction, all that remains on site is the flat land next to the railway that acted as both construction site and car park.

Our train had been a few minutes late throughout its journey: we left Ravenglass six minutes late, though by the time we left Workington we were only four minutes late. We gradually lost a little time, however, and were eight minutes late leaving Wigton; the by now traditional padding meant we were 3½ minutes late arriving into Carlisle (or 1½, if you read the public timetable), giving us just enough time to make our (unofficial) connection:

1728 Carlisle to Newcastle Central, arr 1912 (actual 1924)
Headcode: 2N48, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 156443
Distance: 61.75 miles; walk-up price: £9.50

I say that the connection was unofficial because the minimum connection allowance at Carlisle is 8 minutes, so journey planners will not give you an itinerary that involves a connection less than that. Our connection was 7 minutes, but provided you know your way around the station - or at least have a vague idea - that was more than enough time, and we made the train to Newcastle with a few minutes to spare.

The Tyne Valley Line between Carlisle and Newcastle provides one of the few east-west connections between Leeds and the Scottish central belt, but apart from a few through trains from Glasgow to Newcastle via Dumfries the line is mostly of local and connectional use, with little through traffic. Scenic as the line is, and in spite of not having been on it before, I started to nod off after a long day on trains.

For reasons that we couldn't ascertain, the train was allowed five minutes extra than usual to get to Hexham; we didn't seem to need it, and we stood in the station for six minutes waiting to leave. The next stop gave us an inkling as to why the allowances had been inserted: at Corbridge, the train turned from mostly empty to full and standing, it taking two minutes to get all the passengers on; they seem to have been returning from the Northumberland County Show at Tynedale Park.

The train, now full and rather cramped, plodded along about four minutes late for two more stops as far as Stocksfield; just as we pulled into Stocksfield we heard an ominous announcement over the tannoy: "will the conductor please contact the driver", most likely meaning that something had broken and the driver needed the conductor to help in sorting it out. We sat in Stocksfield station for six minutes, while the driver talked on his mobile phone, presumably to line control to obtain permission to proceed.

Eventually, ten minutes late, we proceeded, but not quite as fast as we had been, and through the various station stops we gradually slipped to fifteen minutes late. On arriving in Newcastle, the train was met by a fitter; we had been sat in the middle of the carriage next to the window, and were thus pretty much last off the train. As we got off, I asked the driver, who had been standing at the door waiting to get on, what was the reason for the delay: I must have looked like the kind of person who knows things about trains, because his answer was simply "AWS fault". I thanked him and Ian and I headed for dinner.

For those unaware of what AWS is: AWS stands for "automatic warning system", a simple system designed to give the driver some limited advance warning of the signal ahead. Approximately 200 yards in rear of each signal stands a yellow box known as an AWS magnet: this contains two magnets, one permanent magnet and one electromagnet, designed to communicate to the driver whether the next signal is green or not.

When the signal ahead is green, the electromagnet turns on and cancels out the magnet, so that the driver receives a "ding" to say that the line is clear ahead. When the signal is yellow or red, the electromagnet is turned off and the permanent magnet activates a buzzer when the train passes over it, which must be cancelled by the driver within six seconds or a full brake application is made automatically. Because the "ding" requires the current to be on to run the electromagnet, the system is fail-safe.

The presence of AWS has prevented or greatly reduced countless incidents since its introduction in 1956; it was introduced after the Harrow and Wealdstone crash in 1952 that claimed 112 lives, but it took until the Southall crash in 1997, where a train with defective AWS was driven past a red signal, before the presence of AWS became mandatory for full-speed running. As a result, the fault with the AWS on our train required permission from control to proceed, and then only at caution, requiring us to proceed rather slowly to Newcastle.

Once in Newcastle, we headed in search of food, eventually settling on Nando's in The Gate. After dinner, we wandered down to the Tyne Bridge (a road bridge), and looked down on the multitude of bridges high and low crossing the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead. To our east was the Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian-only bridge, while the Tyne Bridge on which we stood carries the A167, a busy road that just north of the river turns into the Newcastle Central Motorway.

To the west we could see five bridges: first the Swing Bridge, designed to open to let boats through; then the High Level Bridge, a double-deck road and rail bridge, which once carried the ECML proper but now carries the line to Sunderland and Middlesbrough; then the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, built in 1981 to carry the Tyne and Wear Metro; then the King Edward VII Bridge, which replaced the High Level Bridge for the purposes of carrying the ECML by avoiding reversal of trains at Newcastle; and finally the Redheugh Bridge carrying the A189 road. All in all, quite a sight.

After wandering back to Newcastle Central station, we grabbed some food both for the ride home and for breakfast in the morning, before boarding our train back to York:

2115 Newcastle Central to York, arr 2217
Headcode: 1Y53, operated by East Coast using Mark 4 set + 91126
Distance: 80 miles; walk-up price: £15.70

Going on the ECML is a rare treat for me: unlike the WCML, where the long-distance trains are the preserve of Pendolinos, the ECML still runs locomotive-hauled trains, with class 91 electric locomotives providing the power. In this case, the locomotive was on the rear of the train, being controlled from the DVT (driving van trailer) at the other end. So satisfying is the noise made by class 91s that we waited for a minute or two after disembarking at York especially to hear the noise of a 91 starting up: it goes from being silent to making more noise than you might think an electric locomotive should in no time at all.

Having spent most of the train from Newcastle writing my blog, I finished an entry off before we retired for our last night in York, satisfied with a wonderful day in Cumbria, and ready for a day of "rare track" as we headed home.

North Country Rover, Day 4: Railfest 2012

Sunday was a grey, dreary day in York, where the rain seeped imperceptibly through one's clothes, and any sensible man would have stayed inside and watched the Jubilee Pageant on television. But Ian and I are not to be stopped by a little water: we were going to Railfest 2012, a giant exhibition of old steam locomotives, diesel engines and modern electric trains all set in the grounds of the National Railway Museum. Such an event is not held often - the last was eight years ago - and as it only lasts a week we wouldn't have another chance. And anyway, we'd already paid in advance.

The United Kingdom has a rich engineering heritage, especially when it comes to trains, but too often this is overlooked and cast to one side, with the seemingly more important task of keeping the infrastructure running taking precedence over celebrating that it exists at all. Sometimes we are all too willing to complain about trains being six minutes late, and too quick to ignore the fact that it's quite amazing that we can make a vehicle comfortable enough for passengers to travel in that's capable of hurtling along the rails at 125mph.

From Stephenson's Rocket of 1830 running on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first inter-city railway in the world, to the high-tech super-fast Pendolinos and Javelins of our modern railway network, Britain has never been far from the cutting edge of railway technology. Indeed, we still hold the world speed records for steam and diesel trains (though I might argue that that's because we didn't move on with everyone else and kept trying to beat the world at yesterday's technology). Where better to showcase this excellence than at the National Railway Museum?

I wasn't quite sure what to expect at Railfest. I knew there would be many visiting exhibits, including 60163 Tornado, the first steam locomotive built in the UK for forty years, and 91110, the electric locomotive which held the British rail speed record of 162mph (at least prior to the opening of HS1), and many other steam locomotives and modern trains alike.

But I wasn't sure who would be there: part of me was worried it would be overrun by trainspotters - perhaps a little rich coming from me, but I know that we aren't always the most fun people to hang out with - and that, rather than celebrating Britain's railway engineering excellence, I'd end up arguing about the precise colour of paint a locomotive is painted in. The event was trailed in the media as an event for all the family, but I worried about how true that would actually be.

Regardless of what we thought it was going to be like, we knew it would be busy, so we'd bought our tickets online in advance. Unfortunately the rain on Sunday somewhat dampened demand: the elaborate queueing arrangements went unneeded, and we were issued with our wristbands - permitting us unlimited access to the Railfest area for the day - in no time at all. We immediately found ourselves in a huge site dotted with trains old and new, with the unmistakable smell of steam engines thick in the air.

We were spoilt for choice for what to look at first. We chose the first thing that caught our eyes: 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, an LNER A4 Pacific locomotive which holds the post-war steam speed record of 112mph, which was preserved and normally resides at the NYMR we visited on Friday. It looked beautiful in newly-polished BR Blue, and in spite of the persistent rain sat resplendent next to 60163 Tornado.

What I hadn't quite appreciated was the level of access we'd have to the exhibits: they were not just static exhibits, they were living machines, running in "light steam" (enough to make the whistle work and keep the engine crew warm!) which you could, in many cases, climb aboard and talk to volunteers about how they work and how they came to be preserved. After a short queue, we got to climb aboard the footplate of Gresley and behold the machine in all its glory. It was quite a feeling to stand on the footplate of a steam train; I had to resist the urge to squeal with excitement.

Unfortunately we couldn't climb aboard Tornado just yet - that would have to wait until later - so we went next door to the two HST power cars. The original prototype HST power car number 41001, complete with matching Mark 3 coach (still in service with FGW but specially repainted), stood next to 43159, one of FGW's power cars that was recently reengined to give it another few decades of life. Both were open to go and not just look around but sit in: forgive me if I sound like I'm five years old, but I got to sit in the driver's seat of an HST!

The differences were stark: most notably, the prototype just had one driver's seat, but the unions kicked up stink about the safety of one-man operation and the production fleet of HSTs was built with two seats in the driving cab, one for the driver and one for the "secondman," who was presumably there to provide an extra vigilant pair of eyes but whose purpose was clearly deemed unnecessary by their abolition in the 1990s.

After looking hopefully at Tornado but seeing no-one present to enable us to step onto the footplate, we wandered over to the "Red Zone", at the far edge of the site. Here there were a large variety of modern locomotives on display, interspersed with a few old ones too. Virgin Trains had sent along one of their Thunderbird locomotives, 57008, as well as their two redundant power cars which now make up Voyager number 221144 (the two centre cars having been "borrowed" to lengthen two other trains from four to five carriages); we got to look around both and sit in the cabs of each.

One common theme that played out across most of the driving cabs we got the chance to visit was the lack of visibility: even the Voyager, with its modern cab, has a relatively small windscreen; perhaps this is to keep the driver's attention focussed on the "road" ahead. But when compared to the visibility afforded to steam train drivers, Voyager drivers win hands-down; steam train drivers get very little forward visibility at all, at least without sticking their heads out the window.

There were a number of other locomotives around which, at least today, were on static display - including a class 92 locomotive owned by GB Railfreight and a class 37 locomotive owned by DRS - as well as a number of specialist vehicles used by Network Rail, including an MPV (multiple-purpose vehicle) used for, among other things, water-jetting or sanding the track to ensure adhesion during leaf-fall season, and a snowblower. Both are often heard of and without them our network would often come to a complete standstill; seeing them in the flesh, however, was pretty unusual.

After a good look round, we headed for our first train ride of the day. Oh yes, some of the trains were not just on show but running in service. We got on a train on the 15-inch gauge line, with Synolda from the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway on one end and Hawk from the Kirklees Light Railway on the other. The ride took less than a minute - there wasn't much space for 15-inch track on site - but was fun enough nonetheless.

We then headed towards the Southeastern high-speed unit number 395019, better known as a "Javelin" thanks to the Olympic shuttle service they will run this summer during the Olympic Games. While I'd been a passenger in one, I hadn't seen the driving cab of one before: this was particularly interesting, since the Javelins have to work not just on conventional lines but also on HS1, the high-speed link from London through east Kent to the Channel Tunnel where the systems are more akin to the French railways than the British.

Our final stop before lunch was to the Brighton Belle. Fifteen plush carriages were built to run three very special "Pullman" dining services between Victoria and Brighton in the 1930s; eventually they were replaced by standard passenger trains, but many of the carriages live on, some as restaurants and bars, but others remain largely intact, and the hope of the "Bringing Back the Brighton Belle" group is to restore one of the three five-carriage sets to service by 2013.

One of the cars already under restoration, car 88 (a motored third class carriage), was on display to look around and sit in, and once on board we got talking to one of the preservationists about the project, which involves almost complete structural rebuilding of the train. It's a monumental task which involves taking bogies (basically the wheel axles) from another old train (but one not nearly as old) and chopping them to fit, among many other things like trying to get the electrics to work again. We wished them well and head off for lunch.

After a nice meal in the NRM cafe, we headed into the NRM proper for a look round the indoor exhibits (not part of Railfest) to give the rain the chance to ease off. We took a look round the Search Engine, the NRM's library of books historic and modern about all things related to railways, as well as The Works, where all the eclectic railway-related stuff that doesn't quite fit into place in a display cabinet is shown off, including everything from discarded station name-boards to old signals.

Also included in The Works is a real-time feed from the signal box at York, showing the computer screens signallers use to regulate and control the service. The screens are a little unintelligible to a newcomer, but they look almost exactly like SimSig, a computer game (well, simulation) that accurately replicates the environment in a modern signalbox and lets you try and run the railway from the comfort of your own home. It's harder than you might think, and has kept me amused for hours on end for over six years now.

The only weird thing about seeing the live feed in York was that I had to keep reminding myself that it was real, and not the simulation I usually play with at home: I noticed a train to Harrogate just leaving the station and pointed it out to Ian, whereupon he pointed to the window and said "yes, there it goes!", and it roared past and left me slightly disorientated.

We then took a look round the rest of the Great Hall, including the model railway layout; the Japanese bullet train; various steam locomotives such as 92220 Evening Star, the last mainline steam locomotive built by British Rail; 26020, one of the 1500V DC electric locomotives built for the now-closed Woodhead route between Manchester and Sheffield; and a replica of Stephenson's Rocket, the first ever railway locomotive which hauled passengers between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830.

After a good look round, we headed back outside to queue for the best train ride of the day: two carriages hauled in one direction by D6700, the first ever class 37 diesel locomotive built in the early 1960s as the beginning of BR's modernisation plan to eliminate steam from the network, and in the other direction by 3717 City of Truro, the first steam locomotive ever to top 100mph. Although the ride was fairly short - a few minutes in each direction to the end of the yard and back - it was satisfying to feel and hear two historic locomotives running under their own power and hauling us even on this short journey.

We headed over to look at an LNER observation coach - a carriage specially designed with windows on three sides, to give maximum visibility to the rear of the train - before moving on to the highlight of my day: standing on the footplate of Tornado. Although it had been closed earlier, it was now open and while we had to queue for a few minutes, the privilege of standing on the footplate of Tornado, and talking to the operators about how it's maintained and operated, was not something I'll soon forget.

Tornado is the realisation of a dream had some 20 years ago, that a steam locomotive could be built from scratch and brought into service on the mainline. None of the original 49 LNER Class A1 locomotives were preserved, and so in 1991 a group of volunteers set about building one from scratch from the original designs, updated to comply with modern safety standards. In 2008, after a total cost of some £3 million, their perseverance was rewarded when the locomotive first moved under its own power. It now regularly hauls charter trains up and down the country, at up to 75mph, and I look forward to being hauled by Tornado on the mainline some day.

Our visit to Tornado over, we moved on to the Yellow Zone, where there were two true record-breakers, nose to nose. On one side, 4468 Mallard, the LNER Class A4 Pacific locomotive which still holds the world record for a steam train, set at 126mph on 3rd July 1938. On the other, 91110 Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which had been thusly named the previous day with an RAF flypast, one of East Coast's class 91 electric locomotives that holds the British speed record (excluding HS1) of 162mph, recorded on 17th September 1989. Both were on static display, but even to be in the presence of such incredible machines, and to touch them, was quite something.

We rounded out the day with a couple more train rides, one pulled by Courage, a diesel locomotive built by Hunslet with just 20hp, and the other by Ffestiniog Railway locomotive Palmerston, on a specially installed length of 2ft gauge track. In between times, we spent a long while wandering around the marketplace, where a number of stalls were selling railway books old and new: I found some gems, including a book of gradient profiles and some old maps, while Ian bought an old timetable from 1993 (the first to include Manchester Airport).

All in all, we were surprised at just how much Railfest had to offer: it was fascinating not just for enthusiasts like Ian and I, but also to families with kids able to brag about how they sat in the driver's seat of a train, and to the general public interested in learning about the history of our railway network. Indeed, I suspect we could have spent even longer wandering around but tiredness and the rain got the better of us - admittedly after nearly seven hours at one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to.

To all who helped organise Railfest - the staff at Network Rail and the train operating companies for giving up their time and equipment, the magazines like Rail and Steam Railway who spearheaded the whole event, and the staff at the National Railway Museum who made it all happen - thank you for one of the most enjoyable days of "playing on trains" I've had in years.

Railfest runs until Sunday 10th June, at the NRM next to York station; if you can, go before it closes - you won't regret it.

North Country Rover, Day 3: Yorkshire East and West

On Saturday we undertook to go on as many of the lines in East and West Yorkshire that we hadn't been on before as possible. We started with a circular tour of East Yorkshire, by heading for Scarborough:

0941 York to Scarborough, arr 1030
Headcode: 1E63, operated by Transpennine Express using Desiro 185127
Distance: 42 miles; walk-up price: £9.75

It being a relatively nice Saturday in June (by which I mean it wasn't raining), the world and his wife seemed to have decided to go to the seaside. As such, our three-car train from York to Scarborough was pretty full, with Ian and I being lucky to get seats at all, and a number of people standing (at least to Malton).

However, most of the people on the train had got off at York; those going to Scarborough had mostly come from York (like us) or changed trains there. In fact, so many people were trying to get off and on at once that it might have been easier to have a separate train from York to Scarborough and force people to change, rather than running through services all the way from Liverpool.

Indeed, that may well happen soon: plans are afoot to electrify the north trans-Pennine route from Liverpool to York. Electric trans-Pennine services will run from Liverpool and Manchester to at least Newcastle and York; whether they will also serve Hull and Middlesbrough is yet to be decided, but the branch to Scarborough will probably remain unelectrified (at least for the time being) and so services will probably be reduced to a shuttle between York and Scarborough.

Even if it were, such a shuttle would be well-used: the line itself is a nice run, skirting the southern edges of the North Yorkshire Moors, and the principal destination - Scarborough - is still a prime tourist spot for beach-goers, seaside-lovers and arcade-game addicts alike. Unfortunately we only had an hour or so to spend there, but we had enough time to at least wander down to the beach and take a quick look around. We got one of the "cliff lift" tramways back up the hill and avoid the steep walk, before grabbing some lunch to eat later and heading back up to the train station for our next train to Hull:

1128 Scarborough to Hull, arr 1254
Headcode: 1J27, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158908
Distance: 53.75 miles; walk-up price: £9.25

The line joining Scarborough to Hull - the only line contained entirely in East Yorkshire - is sometimes named the "Yorkshire Coast line". We couldn't quite see why: we caught a brief glimpse of the coast just north of Bridlington but otherwise the line was just far enough inland to put the coast out of sight, which is odd given that most of the places it links are coastal resorts, at least for the northern half of the line.

The train arrived at Scarborough as a two-car class 158 coupled to a one-car class 153, but the 153 was detached and left at Scarborough, presumably to strengthen a later train. Our two-car Sprinter seemed fine until Seamer, at which point the world and his wife had got off the next Scarborough train to head to Bridlington instead, forcing the guard to make an announcement that he wanted to see "bums, not bags, on seats"; however even then the train wasn't completely full.

A level crossing problem delayed us for for five minutes at Hunmanby, but thanks to various tricks of timetable planning we made up the deficit and arrived a couple of minutes early into Hull Paragon station. Paragon was once a huge station boasting 14 platforms; today its main shed holds only seven platforms, with one of the old platforms having been converted into a very long bus station (with 32 stands). With the addition of the bus station, however, came a full refurbishment and the whole station basks in the light from the roof.

Having had a quick look around, we headed for our third train of the day, this time back to York:

1312 Hull to York, arr 1427
Headcode: 2R98, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158850
Distance: 52 miles; walk-up price: £12.95

While we tucked into our sandwiches, our train headed west out of Hull under the Humber Bridge towards Selby. Selby used to lie on the ECML proper until 1983, when subsidence from abandoned coalfields meant that the route via Selby could no longer be maintained without severe speed restrictions. Instead Selby now lies primarily on the east-west Leeds-Hull line, with two different routes now permitting trains to join the ECML heading north towards York.

On this train we took the route via Sherburn-in-Elmet, a lightly used station which sees occasional trains between York and Selby and two trains a day between Sheffield and York via Pontefract Baghill. On arrival at York, we got off the train, went to the toilet, walked up and down the platform a bit, and then got back on the very same train:

1447 York to Selby, arr 1506
Headcode: 2R11, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158850
Distance: 17.75 miles; walk-up price: £4.35

Our train was going back to Hull by the other route: rather than going all the way via Sherburn-in-Elmet, this time the train uses the short connecting line at Hambleton Junction, where the Leeds-Selby line crosses the 1983 ECML diversion, and for the sake of completeness we decided to do both routes. Unfortunately we got held up slightly at Hambleton by a delayed eastbound TPE service to Hull, meaning we had to follow it into Selby, turning a tight five-minute connection to our westbound TPE to Leeds into a one-minute dash across the footbridge:

1511 Selby to Leeds, arr 1536
Headcode: 1K19, operated by Transpennine Express using Turbostar 170106+170104
Distance: 20.75 miles; walk-up price: £5.30

We made it. TPE's class 185 Desiros are too heavy for the line to Hull, so the services to and from Hull are still operated by class 170 Turbostars, which are only two carriages long. If you're unlucky and get one which is just two carriages it can be pretty full, but today we had two joined together and the four carriages were remarkably quiet, at least for the half-hour journey to Leeds.

Once in Leeds, our focus turned from East Yorkshire to West Yorkshire, specifically the network of lines between Leeds, Bradford, Shipley, Ilkley and Skipton which were electrified in 1994/95 as an add-on to the recently completed ECML electrification. We started by getting a Skipton train as far as Saltaire:

1556 Leeds to Saltaire, arr 1610
Headcode: 2H52, operated by Northern Rail using EMU 333011
Distance: 11.5 miles; walk-up price: £2.10

Saltaire is the first station north of Shipley, which is one of only two triangular stations in the country, in that it has platforms on all three sides of a triangle of railway lines (pub quiz question: name the other one!). We decided to go round all three sides of the triangle in full, thus passing through Shipley three times. The first was on the "main line" (which is the least curved of the three sides of the triangle, but still on a bit of a bend) to Skipton. After crossing the bridge at Saltaire, we headed back in the other direction, for the second side of the triangle:

1624 Saltaire to Bradford Forster Square, arr 1638
Headcode: 2S45, operated by Northern Rail using EMU 333004
Distance: 3.5 miles; walk-up price: £1.15

The Skipton-Bradford services use platform 5 at Shipley in both directions, thus making this side of the triangle the only one with only one platform and not two. So close to Shipley is Saltaire that the signal protecting the junction at the west end of Shipley - and telling the drivers which way they are going - is at the end of the platform at Saltaire! The run to Bradford's Forster Square station - one of two termini facing in opposite directions (the other being Interchange) that the Midland Railway planned to connect but never did - was short and uneventful; when our train arrived in Bradford we stayed on it to head back for the third side of the Shipley triangle:

1644 Bradford Forster Square to Ilkley, arr 1717
Headcode: 2D70, operated by Northern Rail using EMU 333004
Distance: 13.5 miles; walk-up price: £2.20

The final side of the Shipley triangle connects Bradford to Leeds. Immediately south of the triangle at Shipley, however, is a much larger triangle (a couple of miles wide rather than a few hundred yards wide) with the line to Ilkley; we'd already traversed the mainline to Skipton earlier, so this train got us the Shipley-Ilkley side of the triangle.

The line to Ilkley, generally known as the Wharfedale Line, is entirely within the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire. However, while its towns are suburban dormitory towns for Leeds and Bradford, they lie nestled in the southern tip of the Yorkshire Dales, and seem like the perfect place to commute from. After a quick walk from Ilkley station to Tesco to buy a drink and use the facilities, we headed back to Leeds to traverse the final side of the Ilkley triangle:

1740 Ilkley to Leeds, arr 1809
Headcode: 2V51, operated by Northern Rail using EMU 333014
Distance: 16.25 miles; walk-up price: £2.80

All four of our suburban trips on the West Yorkshire Electrics were provided by Class 333 electric multiple units built by Siemens in 2001. Unlike the cast-off Class 308 slam-door trains which were used as a stopgap after electrification in 1994, the class 333 units are modern, comfortable, and quick; admittedly they are somewhat spartan inside, but for the typical short commuter journeys they provide they are ideal. A pity that the same could not be said for our next train:

1829 Leeds to Harrogate, arr 1903
Headcode: 2C56, operated by Northern Rail using Pacers 142016+144007
Distance: 18.25 miles; walk-up price: £4.90

We headed north to Harrogate on the dreaded Pacer, the illegitimate love-child of British Rail and British Leyland buses which saved costs in the 1980s but fail to be comfortable, capacious or crashworthy in today's modern railway. The Leeds-Harrogate-York line is an obvious candidate for electrification - if it could be tacked on to a big project such as the trans-Pennine electrification it would probably cost very little - but currently remains unwired and often served by Pacers.

Harrogate itself, by complete contrast to the trains serving it, is a beautiful spa town which, in spite of its proximity to large cities like Leeds and York, manages to have facilities beyond its 70,000 population would appear to deserve, including, for example, a Wagamama in which we had dinner. With plenty of time before the last train back to York, we wandered around the town's parks before heading back to the station:

2105 Harrogate to York, arr 2148
Headcode: 2C66, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinters 150224+150103
Distance: 20.5 miles; walk-up price: £5.00

Mercifully, our final train home to York was not a Pacer but rather a pair of Sprinters; admittedly they had less legroom (being in 2+3 seating rather than 2+2) but they didn't jar us to pieces going over every joint in the track. After grabbing some breakfast for the morning, we headed to our hotel ready for a change of pace on Sunday: exploring Railfest 2012 at the National Railway Museum.

North Country Rover, Day 2: Whitby and the NYMR

On Friday, we went for a day trip to the seaside fishing town of Whitby. Getting from York to Whitby is actually annoyingly difficult: since 1967 the shortest rail route involves going all the way up to Middlesbrough before heading east on the Esk Valley line. This is such a roundabout route that Transdev's Yorkshire Coastliner bus service, running direct between York and Whitby, takes a lot of the business by being faster than the trains.

Before 1967, however, there was a much more direct line via Malton and Pickering which rose over the North Yorkshire Moors to get to Whitby. This line was bought out privately almost as soon as it had closed in 1967, and by 1973 the section from Pickering to Grosmont - where it joins the Esk Valley line from Middlesbrough to Whitby - reopened as the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR), one of the very first privately-owned heritage railways. It remains open today as one of the most popular such lines in the country, where volunteers try to recreate the environment of years gone by, with lovingly-restored steam engines hauling preserved rolling stock.

This still leaves a six-mile gap between Pickering and Rillington Junction, on the York-Scarborough line just outside Malton. Rather than fuss about getting a train from York to Malton and changing to a bus to Pickering, we decided to get one of the Yorkshire Coastliner buses direct from York to Pickering:

0942 York, Blossom St to Pickering, Eastgate Sq, arr 1058
Service #840, operated by Transdev using Yorkshire Coastliner bus 423
Distance: approx 26 miles; walk-up price: £8.00

The Yorkshire Coastliner bus - a modern, comfortable double-decker which even had headrests (not something I'm used to on my commute to and from campus!) - forms a half-hourly service between Leeds, York and Malton, with extensions every hour or two to various coastal towns such as Bridlington, Scarborough and Whitby; ours happened to be terminating at Thornton-le-dale, just east of Pickering.

It took just over an hour and a quarter to cover the 26 miles from York to Pickering, the route mainly following the A64 to Malton, before going through Malton town centre and heading out the A169 towards Pickering. The route started out fairly level, across the plain of the River Ouse, before gradually becoming more undulating as we got closer to the Moors, with the road rising and falling with the numerous valleys.

Before we could get too used to the nice scenery, we arrived in Pickering and, after buying a drink, walked over to Pickering station on the NYMR. Pickering station is one of very few heritage stations to have an overall roof: the original trainshed, dating from 1845, survived the closure of the line in the 1960s, and the whole station has been made to look as much as possible like an LNER station would have done in the 1930s.

We duly went to buy our tickets to Whitby, only to be told that Network Rail were doing some engineering works on the run-round loop at Whitby - that is, the extra bit of track that allows them to take the engine off the front, run it "round" the train, and put it back on the front. The NYMR had considered top-and-tailing the train - putting one engine on each end to remove the need to run round at Whitby - but unfortunately one engine had failed, and so they were unable to run through to Whitby.

Instead, they could only take us by steam train to Grosmont, where the NYMR meets the Esk Valley Line, and then we would be conveyed onwards by a coach. We asked about service trains, but the trains are so infrequent that if we'd waited at Grosmont for a service train we'd have ended up only having 15 minutes in Whitby. Having no other sensible option, we agreed to take the steam train to Grosmont, and get on the replacement bus.

We had arrived in Pickering with 45 minutes to wait for the train, so we took the opportunity to look round the station. On the wall is an original North Eastern Railway map, painted on tiles and mounted on the wall for all to see just how many lines closed during the 1960s: Malton, far from being a simple one-platform halt on the York-Scarborough line, was once the site of two triangular junctions, one for the line to Pickering and Whitby (now run by the NYMR) and one for the line to Driffield.

At 11:40, our train arrived from Grosmont, hauled by BR Standard Class 4 Tank engine no. 80072, originally built in 1953 but made redundant after just 12 years of service, mostly on the London, Tilbury and Southend line running commuter trains - it being a tank engine (i.e. it doesn't have a separate tender to carry the water) limited it to short commuter runs. It was preserved and now usually resides at the Llangollen Railway, and is currently on loan to the NYMR. After the engine ran round the train and was watered, we boarded for the run to Grosmont:

1200 Pickering to Grosmont, arr 1305
Headcode: 1T12, operated by North Yorkshire Moors Railway using BR 4MT 80072 + 6 mark 1 coaches
Distance: 18 miles; walk-up price: £15.00

Our steam engine hauled six Mark 1 coaches for the hour-long journey to Grosmont, winding for nearly twenty miles through the wonderful North Yorkshire Moors. Heading north, we climbed gradually for twelve miles, winding between the hills through Levisham up to Goathland summit at an average gradient of about 1 in 100, through some beautiful countryside enriched by the sound and smell of our steam engine.

From the summit the line descends rapidly to the Esk Valley at Grosmont, the last three miles at an impressive 1 in 49 - on departing from Goathland station we didn't have to gun the engine at all; all it took was a release of the brakes and we were down the hill in no time. Ascending the gradient would have been quite an experience, but that will have to wait for another occasion when I can head south rather than north; if this journey did nothing else it made me want to come back and see the wonderful North Yorkshire Moors again.

And hopefully that next time can include a trip by steam train all the way through to Whitby. Instead, owing to the problems with the run-round loop, we were transferred by bus from Grosmont to Whitby:

1310 Grosmont to Whitby, arr 1335
Rail replacement bus operated on behalf of North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Distance: approx 7 miles; walk-up price included above

Somehow, in seven years of travelling on British trains, I've always avoided the dreaded rail replacement bus, mainly by planning my travels to avoid the need for such things. Unfortunately that streak came to an end on Friday and I ended up on my first ever rail replacement bus. Admittedly, however, it wasn't exactly arduous, or even annoying in the slightest: it was one of the nicest bus rides I've ever been on.

To get from Grosmont to Whitby, the bus had to climb up a very narrow road with gradients of 33% - much more than a train could handle, but the bus was clearly used to it and handled the gradients with ease - before descending down Blue Bank, a mile-long descent at 20% on the A169. We then climbed back up the other side of the valley before descending down again to the coast at Whitby.

Whitby is not your typical English coastal resort: in fact, it's much more like a traditional fishing village than a seaside town. Nonetheless, it is a significant tourist destination and a lovely place to look around for a few hours. On the recommendation of a mutual friend we went to the Magpie Cafe for a huge fish and chips, which was really good but too big for my stomach to handle (I should have gone for the small, not the regular...).

After lunch we took a walk up the 199 steps to St Mary's Church and Whitby Abbey, set upon a clifftop hill to the east of the River Esk, overlooking the whole town. The views of Whitby were quite impressive: the town is nestled on the hills that make up the Esk valley, but you can also see round the headland to them bay to the north, which had a pretty array of changing huts which stood out on the beach.

After a couple of hours wandering around, we headed back to catch our first proper train of the day to Middlesbrough:

1600 Whitby to Middlesbrough, arr 1730
Headcode: 2D43, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 156469
Distance: 35 miles; walk-up price: £3.50

The Esk Valley line between Middlesbrough and Whitby feels like it should not exist. It is the longest, most rural branch line in England, and most lines like it did not survive the Beeching Axe in the 1960s. Somehow this line did, partially because it runs through an area very poorly served by road: indeed, the whole line's timetable revolves around getting schoolchildren to school in Whitby in the morning, and getting them home in the afternoon. We happened to end up on the homeward train this Friday afternoon, and it was pretty busy, at least at first.

Unfortunately, a combination of factors - the necessity of the school trains, the single-track nature of the line, and a severe lack of available rolling stock - preclude the line from fulfilling its full potential. In particular, having the school train to Whitby prevents there being a commuter train to Middlesbrough to arrive before 9am, with the first arrival from Whitby into Middlesbrough being after 10:15.

This is partly because there is only enough rolling stock for one two-carriage train to shuttle back and forth between Middlesbrough and Whitby, and with a journey time of an hour and a half each way this means there can only be one train every three or four hours, which amounts to just four or five trains a day. These problems are nothing new, however: the line's timetable has remained more or less unchanged since at least the early 1990s.

The line itself, for all the foibles of its service, is one of the most beautiful and undiscovered lines in all of England. From Whitby the line climbs gradually through the Esk Valley, winding through remote countryside, interrupted by a string of small towns like Grosmont. Gradually the greenery thins out and we climb atop the North Yorkshire Moors and head to the remote station of Battersby.

Battersby station was originally a junction: the line from Whitby continued west to join the Northallerton-Stockton line at Picton Junction, with a branch continuing north towards Nunthorpe and Middlesbrough. The former line towards Picton Junction no longer remains, so trains now reverse at Battersby to head towards Middlesbrough. From here the line descends gradually through the Teesside suburbs into Middlesbrough.

On arriving at Middlesbrough, we met up with my cousin Catherine and her husband Martyn, who now live in Great Ayton just outside Middlesbrough. We saw round their lovely house - much of which is thanks to Martyn's hard work at DIY - before retiring to the Royal Oak, their local pub, for an enjoyable dinner. It was really good to see them again, even if having hitherto separate worlds of family and friends suddenly collide did occasionally make my head hurt...

After a short taxi ride back to Middlesbrough station, we headed home to York:

2050 Middlesbrough to York, arr 2143
Headcode: 1P67, operated by Transpennine Express using Desiro 185124
Distance: 50.75 miles; walk-up price: £7.75

Middlesbrough is one of four destinations at the east end of the north trans-Pennine route - the others being Hull, Scarborough and Newcastle - which combine to give an every-15-minutes service between Manchester and Leeds run by TPE, who revolutionised the service by introducing a new fleet of three-carriage class 185 Desiro units built by Siemens in 2006. They have, however, been something of a victim of their own success, and crowding at peak times can be quite severe.

This, however, was not peak time in any sense, and we had half a carriage to ourselves for the quiet hour-long run through the Vale of York. After passing through Tees Yard and the heavy industry on Teesside, we joined the line from Sunderland and the Durham coast down towards Northallerton, where we join the ECML for the last 30 miles to York. On arriving back at the hotel, we settled down for the night, ready for a busy day of eleven trains on Saturday touring around almost all of East and West Yorkshire.