Rare Track Days #3: Doncaster-York Diversions

Over the weekend of January 19th-20th, I set off to do a few interesting bits of track in the north of England, spending Saturday night in Sheffield with my friend Jonathan. The plan had in fact been to head north on the night of Friday 18th, but with six inches of snow falling during the day I thought better of it, and instead headed north on Saturday morning instead, deliberately allowing extra time in case the snow caused problems.

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) between Doncaster and York was shut for engineering works on Saturday, so trains were diverted on a number of lightly-used passenger lines. A large network of railway lines remains in Yorkshire, many of them used principally by freight trains to and from the many coal-fired power stations. This map might help:

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

The normal ECML route between Doncaster and York is marked in yellow, and the two diversionary routes we took are marked in orange and blue respectively.

0911 (actual 0922) Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 0942 (actual 0952)
Headcode: 2Y06, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350257
Distance: 19 miles

While the snowfall had wreaked havoc across the network on Friday night, by Saturday morning the problems were relatively minor. Nonetheless, London Midland's driver problems reared their head again, and my first train to Birmingham was ten minutes late having awaited a driver at Northampton. Even so, I made my connection at New Street without any problems:

1003 Birmingham New St to Sheffield, arr 1117
Headcode: 1S39, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221128
Distance: 77.25 miles

I headed north through Derby to Sheffield. In spite of having travelled this route many times before, the covering of snow made the familiar look new and other-worldly: gone was the normal colour palette of greenery, replaced with a beautiful yet muted spectrum of greys and browns. The snow made for quite a spectacle, particularly as we fringed the eastern edge of the Peak District.

Because of the engineering works, CrossCountry trains were not running via Doncaster, instead running either via Leeds or Pontefract Baghill. While I hadn't done the latter route, I had more important track to do, so I hopped off at Sheffield and wandered down the platform to head to Doncaster:

1141 Sheffield to Doncaster, arr 1214
Headcode: 1W36, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158848
Distance: 19 miles

This Northern Rail train to Scarborough via Hull started out pretty quiet from Sheffield, but rather more people got on at Meadowhall, a major bus and tram interchange to the north-east of Sheffield. We were allowed eight minutes over standard timings to get to Doncaster, with 33 minutes allowed for a journey of just 18 miles; and sure enough, even though we were held outside the station for three minutes, we still arrived in Doncaster five minutes early.

I had arrived in Doncaster with 45 minutes to spare, which I had allowed in case one of the trains had been delayed or cancelled. I found a warm waiting room and read my book. I had no intention of missing my next train, which was the last one of the day to go on this particular route:

1255 Doncaster to York, arr 1327
Headcode: 1N92, operated by Grand Central using Adelante 180105
Distance: 35.5 miles

The section of the ECML between Doncaster and York is a recent addition to the network. Due to subsidence as a result of coal mining on the old ECML through Selby, a new diversion avoiding Selby was built and opened in 1983 to avoid the crippling speed restrictions that would otherwise have been necessary.

The new line branched off the old one at Temple Hirst Junction, and joined the Leeds-York line at Colton Junction. The points at Colton Junction were being renewed, so we branched off the main line at Hambleton, where the new ECML (running north-south) crosses the Leeds-Selby line (running east-west) with connections from north to east - which I did previously - and from south to west.

The south to west connection at Hambleton is rarely used, only being scheduled for use by the 0655 Skipton-King's Cross on Saturdays. Being able to travel on the connection in daylight is thus rather unusual; but on this occasion a few of the Grand Central services - including this one - were diverted over this connection, and then onwards to York via Gascoigne Wood Jn and Sherburn-in-Elmet (see the orange route in the map above).

At Church Fenton, our pair of tracks were joined by another pair of tracks from Leeds, to which we crossed at Colton South Junction. We then passed Colton Junction, where a large body of men were busy removing the old points; it was quite surreal to have overhead wires but no track beneath them!

The diversion only lengthened the usual 25-minute journey between Doncaster and York to just under 35 minutes, and it is certainly the shortest diversionary route available. Nonetheless, for some reason not all the trains were using it, so I made sure to get a train that did.

The train itself was just five carriages long, with Grand Central's usual six-car HSTs replaced on this particular run with a Class 180 "Adelante", a rather unloved fleet of 14 diesel multiple units capable of 125mph shared between Grand Central, Hull Trains and First Great Western. Being only five carriages, it was fairly full, and the only seat with a window that I could find was a conveniently placed tip-up seat next to one of the doors; even so, I managed to eat my lunch.

I had half an hour in York to look round - time enough to buy a magazine - before heading back to Doncaster on a rather different diversion:

1400 York to Doncaster, arr 1450
Headcode: 1E13, operated by East Coast using HST 43320+43257
Distance: 34.75 miles

The vast majority of the diversions were not via Hambleton, but instead used a route via Askern and Ferrybridge shown in blue on the above map. The route via Ferrybridge is a standard diversionary route that drivers are trained on, and that seems to have been the limiting factor: even though this diversion took 50 minutes to get from York to Doncaster, there weren't enough drivers who knew the faster route via Hambleton to run that way.

As far as Ferrybridge, we followed the Dearne Valley line, which was once considered the main line between Sheffield and York. However, the fact that it avoids almost all the major settlements of the West Riding - the only major station being Pontefract Baghill - means that almost all services now run either via Leeds or Doncaster.

We left York almost the same way we came in (crossing at Church Fenton, rather than Colton South Jn), as far as Sherburn-in-Elmet. From there we continued straight on to Milford Junction, where we crossed over to the other pair of tracks: rather than going straight on to Castleford, we curved left and headed towards Ferrybridge.

We crawled along past Ferrybridge power station, leaving the Dearne Valley Line at Ferrybridge North Junction, and used the Knottingley Curve to Knottingley West Junction. This short section of track sees no regular passenger services apart from occasional diversions by East Coast, most of which are in the dead of night; to do the curve in daylight is thus fairly unusual.

At Knottingley West Jn, we briefly flirted with the Pontefract Line between Leeds and Goole, for all of a few metres, before immediately turning off again onto the Askern Line. This ten-mile-long line from Knottingley to Shaftholme Jn, on the ECML proper just north of Doncaster, is normally used only by a few Grand Central services between London and Bradford (which I did last April), and otherwise sees relatively little use.

On this occasion it saw a train every hour between London and Edinburgh. This particular train was, in fact, the "Highland Chieftain", the once-a-day service between Inverness and London. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as busy as the previous train, and I got a nice window seat in the rear coach. Of course, being an HST, there was no underfloor engine noise to put up with, which made the journey all the more pleasant.

We arrived at Doncaster - not normally a stop for the "Highland Chieftain" but a stop today to permit a driver change - a few minutes late; I grabbed a chocolate bar and then hopped on my last train of the day, a stopper to Sheffield:

1503 Doncaster to Sheffield, arr 1541
Headcode: 2P73, operated by Northern Rail using Pacer 144006
Distance: 19 miles

It wouldn't be a trip up north without a ride on a Pacer. Fortunately, as trains made from bus parts go, the 144s are a lot better than the other kinds of Pacer, and though I was somewhat lacking in legroom, the stops passed quickly enough.

All in all, a very successful day in which I bagged two pretty rare connections. After 204.5 miles, and only just over four hours on trains, I met up with Jonathan and spent the night in Sheffield, ready for another day of rare track on Sunday...

Rare Track Days #2: The Smethwick Connection

On Sunday 6th January, I took a day trip to Worcester, to cover just 500m of new track: a connection in the Smethwick area, about four miles west of Birmingham city centre, from the Birmingham-Wolverhampton line to the Birmingham-Stourbridge line.

Wait, why is there a connection between two lines out of Birmingham? Isn't there just a junction? Ah, no, you see there's more than one Birmingham - or at least, more than one Birmingham station. The Wolverhampton line runs from New Street, while the Stourbridge line runs from Snow Hill. The connection allows trains to and from Stourbridge to divert to New Street, instead of Snow Hill.

My afternoon started slightly late with a Pendolino to New Street:

1259 Coventry to Birmingham New St, arr 1324
Headcode: 1G08, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390155
Distance: 19 miles

A journey I've done countless times before was livened up by being on 390155, one of the four newly-built Pendolinos added to the fleet in 2012. Although the train left Coventry nearly ten minutes late, we made up a little time and arrived at New Street just four minutes late, unusually coming into platform 1. I headed over to platform 5, to get my train to Worcester:

1345 Birmingham New St to Worcester Shrub Hill, arr 1436
Headcode: 1V17, operated by London Midland using Turbostar 170631
Distance: 35 miles

Trains heading south from Birmingham towards Cheltenham or Worcester normally head down the Lickey Incline via Bromsgrove - the steepest sustained gradient on the network, with nearly three miles at 1 in 37¾. However, for six consecutive Sundays in January and February, there are engineering works at King's Norton, so my train was diverted via Stourbridge, necessitating use of the Smethwick connection.

Other than engineering works, the connection at Smethwick sees very little use, with only a handful of early morning and late night services running that way for route knowledge.

It wasn't always this way, though.

When the connection was built, it was about as much use as it is today - occasionally useful but not vital to the everyday service. The connection was built in 1867 with the rest of the line from Stourbridge Junction to Snow Hill. Although originally operated by the Stourbridge Railway, they were absorbed into the Great Western Railway in 1870, and the Snow Hill-Stourbridge line quickly became part of the GWR's suburban network in Birmingham, which remained almost wholly separate from the former London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) network.

For a hundred years the connection saw very little use. In the 1960s, however, hell-bent on cost-cutting, BR decided to "rationalise" the network around Birmingham. A decision was made to cut costs by diverting all the GWR services onto LMS tracks and into the newly-rebuilt New Street station. This permitted the closure of the line between Smethwick and Snow Hill, achieved by diverting everything from Stourbridge over the Smethwick connection. Use was also made of a connection from Tyseley into the other end of New Street. This meant Snow Hill station could be closed in 1972.

The plan wasn't entirely successful, however: even in the 1960s there wasn't room to divert all the services into New Street station. The intention had been to also close Moor Street station, which lies at the other end of a 600m tunnel from Snow Hill, but Moor Street was forced to remain open to serve local services to Solihull, Leamington and Stratford.

By the 1980s, New Street was getting too busy, and plans were made to undo the closures. First to reopen was the tunnel between Moor Street and Snow Hill, closed in 1968 but reopened in 1987 along with Snow Hill station. The line from Snow Hill to Smethwick reopened in 1995, in one of BR's last schemes before privatisation, and the pre-1960s order was restored. The Smethwick connection remained in case trains needed to be diverted.

When there are engineering works or problems, being able to divert trains is invaluable - it (often) allows a service to continue running rather than having run buses (though on this occasion only London Midland were diverting, and CrossCountry's Birmingham-Cheltenham services were replaced by buses).

My train was to continue to Hereford after reversing at Worcester Shrub Hill, but I had plans for the evening, and so I headed across the footbridge to head back to Birmingham:

1455 Worcester Shrub Hill to Birmingham New St, arr 1539
Headcode: 1M12, operated by London Midland using Turbostar 172334
Distance: 35 miles

The previous train had been a class 170, well-suited to medium-distance inter-regional services such as Birmingham-Hereford. This, however, was a class 172, built in 2010 to replace the class 150 Sprinters on the Snow Hill suburban services, and are usually seen operating all-stations services, not running non-stop from Droitwich to Birmingham. They also have more seats and more standing room, with fewer tables, to enable the maximum number of commuters to be crushed in.

All this is by way of saying: I picked the wrong train to eat a late lunch on, having to eat lunch off my lap rather than a table. Ah well.

Still, the views made up for the lack of tables: as one of the guards commented, "we're going the pretty way to Birmingham". The Lickey Incline, while steep, isn't particularly scenic. However, the line through Stourbridge and Kidderminster is really rather pretty, with views across to the hills of the Wyre Forest.

From Worcester to Stourbridge, we follow the old Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway route, opened in 1852 as the GWR's first mainline to Wolverhampton. But the section beyond Stourbridge is no more; the line through Dudley remains in situ, rusting away, waiting for someone to decide its fate, leaving Dudley as the largest town in the country without a railway station to call its own.

On getting to Stourbridge Junction, we slowed right down to 15mph and squealed our way round the curve onto the Stourbridge Railway. Most of the trains on this line are all-stations suburban trains, and so it was particularly nice to be non-stop on the next section through Old Hill: the Stourbridge Railway also had to get up the Lickey Hills, but did so a little more gradually, with just over a mile of 1 in 51, which we took at a brisk pace.

We stopped briefly at Smethwick to let a train go past in the other direction before turning right and going over the Smethwick connection once more. All of a sudden we emerged from the short tunnel on the connection to see overhead wires again; the Snow Hill lines are not wired, but the Wolverhampton line is, and we joined it at Galton Junction to follow it for just under four miles back to New Street.

1550 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 1611
Headcode: 1B48, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390008
Distance: 19 miles

I joined another fairly quiet Pendolino for the familiar run back to Coventry, to cap off an enjoyable afternoon in which I covered 108 miles for a very reasonable £7.15 day return.

The Smethwick connection may not be the longest or the most interesting bit of rare track out there, but it's one I'd been waiting patiently to do for quite a few years; it also reminds us that every line tells a story.

Rare Track Days #1: Avoiding Wolverhampton

New year's resolution: write more, shorter blogposts.

I've been on many trains over the last few months, but no big multi-day excursions like I usually blog about. Instead I've been on lots of little day trips, most of them to cover a short section of "rare track".

Most of the British railway network is used day in, day out. But there are a few bits of track that aren't used much, or are only used by freight trains. I'm trying to travel on the whole British railway network, so when one of these rarely-used bits of track is called upon for diverting trains, I jump at the chance.

So, here begins a new series of reports about the many little trips I do.

On New Year's Day, I traversed a line which avoids Wolverhampton; it was probably the weirdest day's train travel I've ever done.

Cynics might think that that avoiding Wolverhampton is a good thing; but it's a big enough city that everything stops, and skirting round the edge rather than going through the station is mostly pointless these days. That opinion, however, was not shared by the builders of the Grand Junction Railway, one of the pioneer railway companies of the 1830s who set out to join the country together by rail, by linking the London and Birmingham Railway to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; they saw fit to completely avoid Wolverhampton, giving it only a station at Wednesfield Heath, nearly a mile north-east of the current Wolverhampton station.

The Grand Junction and the L&B shared a station in Birmingham at Curzon Street, a little way east of New Street; only the frontage survives, but you can see it on your right on your way into New Street from the east, just before the tunnels. Their original route from Birmingham through Aston, Perry Barr, Bescot, and Wednesfield Heath survives, but has been supplanted for through traffic by the main line heading west from New Street through Soho, Smethwick, Tipton and Wolverhampton proper.

The original route through Bescot is still used by trains to and from Walsall, but the last three miles through Wednesfield Heath - between Portobello Junction and Bushbury Junction - do not see many regular passenger services, with only some of the London-Glasgow sleeper trains using it (but only on a Sunday night!).

Except on New Year's Day, when engineering works shut the WCML between Rugby and Stafford, and the only option was to divert London-Manchester and Liverpool trains via the original Grand Junction route. Well, that was the plan, anyway...

1151 Coventry to Milton Keynes Central, arr 1219
Headcode: 1B38, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390121
Distance: 44.25 miles

The astute among you will recognise that, from Coventry, Milton Keynes is the other direction to Wolverhampton. Unfortunately, while the trains were being diverted via Wednesfield Heath, they weren't stopping between Milton Keynes and Stafford. So in order to go on a bit of track near Wolverhampton, I had to go to Milton Keynes, in order to go back through Coventry to Stafford, and then repeat on the way home. So off I headed to Milton Keynes, where I had a half-hour wait to change trains.

1251 Milton Keynes Central to Stafford, arr 1416
Headcode: 1F17, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390137
Distance: 91.25 miles

The train from Milton Keynes to Stafford is probably the weirdest train journey I've ever made in my life. As I said, we were booked to run non-stop from Milton Keynes to Stafford. On the mainline via Nuneaton and Lichfield, this would be perfectly normal. But we weren't on the mainline, we were diverted to run non-stop through Coventry, alongside platform 3.

Running non-stop through a station you normally get off or on at is really weird. Admittedly we were following a stopping train, so we only went through Coventry at 40mph, but it was still seriously weird.

From Coventry the plan was that we'd to go along the mainline to Birmingham as far as Stechford, use another little-used bit of track from there to Aston, and then join the old Grand Junction main line through to Stafford. In fact, we were to use exactly the three dashed lines on this map:

Bad news: unfortunately, there was a track circuit failure near Bescot, and so we were unable to run via Wednesfield Heath. (Boo! That was the whole point of going on the train!) Fortunately, a check of Real Time Trains suggested that trains in the other direction were able to run normally, so I crossed my fingers that coming back we'd go through Wednesfield Heath.

Good news: being unable to run via Bescot left us with just one option: go via Birmingham New Street. Since we weren't booked to call, we proceeded through without stopping.

Yes, we went through Birmingham New Street station without stopping. (At the full permitted speed... of 10mph.) That was so weird it was slightly disorienting. I still can't quite get my head around having the line

Bham New St pf 6   13/47½ (!)

recorded in my logbook (where the / means that we passed without stopping). We continued to also run non-stop through Wolverhampton; surprisingly, we arrived at Stafford exactly on time, the diversion through New Street not having cost us any time.

I trotted over to platform 1, and waited for my train back:

1448 Stafford to Milton Keynes Central, arr 1615
Headcode: 1A40, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390006
Distance: 89.5 miles

I joined the train and sat for the next fifteen minutes with my fingers crossed, hoping desperately that we'd turn left at Bushbury Junction and not go back through Wolverhampton. We duly slowed down on approach to Bushbury Junction, consistent with turning left... and we did!

I'd honestly been waiting years to do the three miles of track between Bushbury Junction and Portobello Junction, so finally succeeding had me very nearly singing the Hallelujah Chorus to myself. You see, when they rebuilt the West Coast Main Line a few years ago, and upgraded the line between Rugby and Stafford from two to four tracks, they used the Wednesfield Heath line to divert trains every single weekend for four years. And I missed my chance. So to finally get the chance was super!

Once we joined the mainline at Stechford, instead of crawling along, we were afforded a short burst of a clear run, and accelerated up to 100mph - a speed we kept even through Birmingham International, but approaching Coventry we caught up to a stopping train and slowed down again.

Normally a train non-stopping Coventry towards Rugby would use platform 2; but the Nuneaton shuttle happened to be departing from platform 2, and rather than delay us, the signaller decided to send us across, through platform 3, and back over. So in one day I passed through Coventry platform 3 without stopping... twice!

We duly arrived at Milton Keynes, and I crossed the platform for the next train home:

1628 Milton Keynes Central to Coventry, arr 1733
Headcode: 2Y34, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350267*+350233
Distance: 46.25 miles

It happened that I'd just missed the fast Virgin Trains service, so the best option was to sit on the stopper via Northampton instead. An hour later, I found myself back at Coventry station for the fourth time that day - though only the second time that I'd stopped there...

So, in summary, I spent nearly four and a half hours on trains, travelled over 270 miles, and spent £38.05, just to go on a short bit of track outside Wolverhampton. Was it worth it? Yes, not just for the track; going non-stop through Birmingham New Street is not an experience I'd ever expect to repeat.

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.