Devon and Cornwall, Day 1

It's too easy to think that Britain is a long, thin country, with plenty of north and south but not much east and west, a view that's particularly easy to slip into living in Coventry, pretty much bang in the middle of England. In reality, though, the eastern and western extremities of England are in fact quite far away. In particular, it's pretty much impossible to make a day trip out of going to Devon and Cornwall. So I didn't: I went for a week in June.

A nine-day holiday to Cornwall was divided into two parts. I travelled down on Saturday 1st June, to spend five nights in a quiet country hotel near Bodmin with my parents and my aunt and uncle. They had travelled over from Northern Ireland to visit my other aunt and uncle, who live near Bodmin. For all I've seen of my aunt and uncle in Cornwall, it's as if they're on another island; I really should get down more often.

But from Thursday 6th June, the focus shifted; I headed back over the Tamar to Plymouth, to meet up with the guys and go track-bashing. Once you get west of Exeter, there is but a single main line to Penzance, with no fewer than nine branches, all but one reaching to the coast. Over the course of four days, we went over all but one of those branches; it's not quick, given that you have to go down each branch and come back up again, but the scenery and the locations made for an unforgettable week in the south west.

Saturday 1st June

1125 (actual 1129) Coventry to Reading, arr 1239 (actual 1246)
Headcode: 1O12, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221127*+221122
Distance: 79.75 miles

The first step was to get to Cornwall. This would take five and a half hours. I'd forgotten just how much west there is to this country.

I had two options: I could go via Birmingham, necessitating another change at Plymouth, and condemning me to make more or less the whole journey on CrossCountry; or I could go via Reading, changing just the once, and using First Great Western (FGW) the whole way from Reading to Bodmin. I opted for the latter, mainly because I'm fed up using CrossCountry, not least because their trains are too short; by comparison I don't use FGW very much and looked forward to something a bit different.

So I started with the familiar hour-and-a-half run to Reading. It being CrossCountry it wasn't even a surprise that it was a few minutes late. It was, however, a surprise to have a 10-car train turn up, two 5-car Voyagers having been coupled together. This turned what would otherwise have been quite a busy train into a pleasantly quiet one, with plenty of space for everyone to spread out. I found a seat in the quiet coach on the unreserved half of the train and settled down.

During the journey, though, it became apparent that the longer train was a definite advantage: it ended up being quite busy, and just by having to stop a bit longer at each station we crept later and later. We arrived at the newly-rebuilt Reading station seven minutes late, giving me 45 minutes until my train to Cornwall. I picked up a couple of things in the shops before heading over to platform 8:

1332 Reading to Bodmin Parkway, arr 1703
Headcode: 1C84, operated by First Great Western using HST rake LA16 with 43069+43041
Distance: 216.5 miles

With a three-and-a-half hour journey to Bodmin ahead of me, I took advantage of one of the best features of an FGW HST: first class. While on weekdays the first class carriages may be filled with rich commuters, on weekends they'd just cart about fresh air. So FGW, in common with most long-distance operators, offer cheap upgrades to first class at weekends, which also serves to ease the shortage of capacity in standard class.

With such a long journey ahead, I decided £20 for a Weekend First was worth it for the wide, comfortable seat, with an individual table, an unobstructed window view, and a few snacks thrown in for free. Once the conductor had upgraded my ticket, about half an hour into the journey, I reclined my seat, ate my lunch, and relaxed as the countryside streaked past.

Exeter marked the half-way point by journey time, though we'd covered nearly two thirds of the distance from Reading to Bodmin. East of Exeter, the train was very much an express service, calling at just Taunton and Tiverton, and cruising at 110mph for much of the journey. By contrast, west of Exeter, the train weaved its way through the countryside, first along the sea wall at Dawlish, before climbing over central Devon (south of Dartmoor) to Plymouth, and then weaving its way sinuously through Cornwall.

While the journey west of Exeter thus seemed slower, it was all the more worth it for the views. The countryside of Berkshire, Wiltshire and Somerset is all well and good. But it can't compare to the Dawlish Sea Wall, where the railway between Exeter and Newton Abbot is the sea wall, built on land reclaimed from the sea; nor to the pretty Devon hills, climbed with gradients of 1 in 40, looking towards Dartmoor; nor to the second-to-none Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar, where we cross from Devon into Cornwall; nor to the innumerable viaducts and bridges carrying us through the ups and downs of Cornwall itself.

After three-and-a-half hours I arrived in Bodmin Parkway station, greeted by my dad, who drove me to the hotel. In spite of the first class seat, my back was aching a little from the long journey; no doubt it would have been worse, though, if I'd been forced to endure the same journey in standard class.

A relaxing evening ensued, with dinner in a nearby pub, followed by an early night, ready for a big family reunion on Sunday.