Defeating Storm Goretti, with help from GWR and LNER

A Winter Rail Adventure to Bath ... and Back (Just)

We like to have a few days away in January when the grandchildren are back at school and life a church has gone back to normal, and it is a quiet time at hotels so there are bargain offers to consider. As we did last year, we took up the offer from The Royal Hotel in Bath for a couple nights' dinner, bed and breakfast and I duly booked tickets both ways with Cross Country Trains via Birmingham and Bristol. This is further round and slower than via Peterborough and London but cuts out the need to transfer by Underground between stations in London.

The former railway station Bath Green Park >

Before we left we knew that a named storm was approaching the British Isles but it looked like we'd be safe enough. It did not quite work out as planned and the return journey was more of an adventure than I had anticipated. 

Our journey out to Bath was really great. We took a regional Cross Country train from Stamford to Birmingham New Street mid-morning on a Wednesday, intending to have lunch in Birmingham before taking an inter-city Cross Country train on to Bristol Temple Meads. In the event we bought a take-away salad lunch to eat on the second train. This left us with a bit of time in hand, even more than expected because our train to Bristol was ten minutes late coming in - the only train indicated behind time on the departure board at Birmingham New Street. A pity, for it was quite cold that day. We were travelling First Class on this leg of the journey - Standard Class on Cross Country's Voyager trains is best avoided if ticket price allows - and were very comfortable as we watched the sunny landscapes go by. We had tea to go with our picnic lunch and also accepted some snacks, most of which were stored away for later use.

At Bristol Temple Meads we made our way to the next train to Bath, a GWR express for London which was about to leave from another platform, and sat comfortably in Standard Class for this brief, eleven-minute final leg.

After checking in and unpacking, with a cup of tea made in our room (The Royal's in-room tray is pretty good) we set off for a walk across the river and up through Dolemeads towards Bathwick. We were initially disappointed not to be able to go into St Mary's Church where some of Alison's ancestors will have worshipped, but while we were there the parish priest turned up by chance and let us in. It turned out that we had several mutual acquaintances, so it was good to have met him. We returned to the city centre by way of Great Pulteney Street, a dramatic street of large terraced houses whose wonderful townscape is spoiled somewhat by the presence of so many cars. With two wide footways and a carriageway still wide enough for several lanes of vehicles it would be very hard to justify banning parking, though.

Dinner at the hotel was included in our loyalty package and was extremely good. Wine and coffee were not included, but we had them added to our room bill.

Starter and main course

The following morning began our only completely free day. This was a very short break. I had heard about the architectural gem that had been Bath's other railway station, Green Park, closed along with the rest of the Somerset and Dorset line in the 1960s, but I had never seen it. I understood it had become a market place with some shops and catering and community uses, so we strolled along there after breakfast and had a look. It was certainly a grand building and still felt like a railway terminus although there was market space and car parking where the tracks should have been. Not much was happening on a cold, damp Thursday morning in January, but we were glad to have seen Bath Green Park station at last.

We walked back then towards the Roman Baths via some of the shopping streets we knew. It was both surprising and a delight to discover that Jolly's department store, closed since before our last visit, was being refitted and is due to reopen soon under new ownership and management. I have to say that I think it is very brave to buy a department store in 2025 with a view to running it as a department store from 2026. So many other companies are withdrawing from department stores altogether. I look forward to hearing all about how well it does after the investment, and to visiting in due course.

We then moved on to the well-known Pump Room for our morning coffee. The Pump Room is best known for afternoon teas but this was mid-morning and we had had a hotel breakfast; coffee was perfectly sufficient. A piano was played, there were paintings to admire, the coffee was good.

The rain began and the wind grew a little as the signs of Storm Goretti began to creep in. The Isles of Scilly were already being battered and Cornwall was bracing itself, but here it was not too bad. The really bad news from our point of view was the expected heavy snow in Birmingham and the West Midlands, for we were to travel that way the following afternoon. There were weather warnings (including Red in Cornwall) and a complexity of travel warnings. I could not be sure about the problems we might face until the morning when the Live Departures would be published on operators' websites. I was already determined that if it were possible I'd like to leave earlier than planned so as to have time in hand in case of difficulty, but when I contacted Cross Country they never quite answered my question and all they wanted to do was ask me not to travel, tickets will be valid until Monday, they said. This was annoying because I was quite confident that travel via London would be perfectly possible, if a little disrupted by some trains from the West being stuck in Cornwall, and Cross Country just advised me not to travel. I ignored them and thought at least I'd try to get home but earlier than planned; there was not a lot to do in Bath in such weather as Friday morning's anyway.

Getting up on Friday, the first thing I did was to check trains home to Stamford from Birmingham to see which ones might be running ... nothing between Birmingham and Stamford. I contacted Cross Country via X and was told that there was no ticket acceptance in place and their advice was still not to travel. That was quite absurd: travel via Birmingham that morning was clearly not likely to be available, but the south-east was completely unaffected and travel via London would not be difficult. I was also fairly sure that by the afternoon, when we had been planning to travel, they could have run if they'd wanted to: they did have a couple of trains to Leicester, but not beyond ... 

After breakfast we checked out and crossed the road to Bath Spa station, several hours ahead of our booked travel time. A GWR express for London was already at the platform, due to depart in two minutes: we had tickets from Bath to Bristol which would suffice to open the barriers and went straight up to the platform and approached the Train Manager standing by the door trying to get the train under way: he urged us to board and we could discuss things on the move! Once we explained our position he just advised us where to sit, did not even asked to see such tickets as we had. He even said advised us to move into the front section of the train when it stopped at Chippenham because a First Class host was available only in the front unit (apparently this service is usually a single nine-coach set and is crewed by one host, but today was two five-coach sets which would need two). We did that and had our morning coffee on our way to London. It was a lovely ride through good weather and not a snowflake in sight. Arriving on time at London Paddington we made our way to the Underground and paid our way to Kings Cross St Pancras. So far, so good. We did have to use a manned ticket gate at Paddington because we did not have a ticket which would open a gate there, but again the person on the gate was very helpful and simply let us through.

A silver lining to this detour was the opportunity to pop into Fortnum & Mason at St Pancras and stock up on their St Pancras Blend tea! Another, quite frankly, was that in the wet and cold weather in Bath and Bristol, it was no bad thing to have left early and be on our way east. At Kings Cross we went straight to the Travel Centre and explained our situation to a kind ticket clerk who asked to see our tickets: I showed him the First Class Advance tickets from Bristol to Birmingham on my smartphone and he informed us that the net train to Peterborough - which was as near to Stamford as we could get by rail - was at 11:47, less than ten minutes' time, and there were seats available in First Class. He printed us a reservation slip and wrote a note on the back explaining that we were rerouted via London and that was that. We walked swiftly to the platform and boarded the York-bound train. Our allocated seats were already taken by a family so we did not disturb them and sat in the next seating bay where two seats were available. It was not yet noon and we were already speeding north! The catering on this service was from the lunch menu and the wine came just on noon, so I cannot be accused of drinking in the morning ... We had comfortably finished our coffee when the train arrived at Peterborough. One final explanation at a barrier and we were out of the station and on our way via the rather lengthy step-free route to Queensgate Bus Station where we boarded the 13:00 Delaine bus to Stamford, free of charge with our Senior Citizens' Concessionary Passes. We were home at 14:00, 2pm. It was actually a quicker journey than the originally-planned route, with better catering and smoother, quieter trains, but we usually avoid going that way because there are more changes of train and the Underground is a bit of a palaver with luggage, but it certainly worked for us on this occasion - when we had only a little luggage, of course. We may reconsider our policy next time we head to Bath or Bristol!

Well, that was quite an adventure! Getting back from trips seems to have been a bit of a trial just recently (see last month's post!), but we have successfully risen to the challenge and in the process have met some really nice, helpful railway staff who could not have done more to help us on our way. It has been very impressive and I hope that when the railways are all united as Great British Railways this will only get better, when "ticket acceptance" will no longer be an issue and the sort of assistance we received at GWR and LNER will be universal across the system. I am sure that for most railway staff getting passengers to their destinations is their instinctive way of working and for some time they have had to do it in spite of the obstructions placed in their way by the splintering of the system at franchising. Onward and upward: we have several journeys already in the planning, some of them charter trains, some escorted tours on regular trains, some of our own devising, some a blend of these - we have to get to the start of the organised tours, after all - and there are more to book as soon as dates are cleared. 

Do please subscribe to the blog if you are not subscribed already, and take a look at my YouTube channel @Marks_Rail_Adventures, too if you have not seen it yet.

Inter-City Between Lincoln and York ...

 A visit by train to the York Christmas Market

This was one of those trips that took shape as circumstances brought things together and presented an opportunity for a bit of an adventure! In the event it turned out to be more of an adventure than we anticipated - but all the more fun for that.

My wife had meetings in Lincoln on one evening and the morning of the day after the day after that, i.e. with one day in between. We decided to make it into a little break with me accompanying her in a hotel near the meetings and taking a day out together on the day between the meetings. It happened that the York Christmas Market, to which we had never been, was taking place and so I booked train tickets not just to Lincoln and back on the first and last day but from there to York and back on the middle day.

Lincoln

A good Lincolnshire lunch - at Lincoln Cathedral

The adventure began on a Tuesday morning at the beginning of December with a walk down to Stamford railway station from where we took the 09:56 train, on time, to Peterborough. There we changed trains, buying coffee from the Bike Barista on the way, taking the 10:28 East Midlands Railway train from Peterborough to Lincoln. Across to the bus station we just neatly caught a bus up to the cathedral and walked round to the White Hart Hotel, our home for the next two nights. We were too early to check in but were able to leave our luggage with the duty manager and went off to the cathedral café to have lunch which was to be our main meal that day. We can recommend this place: the service is good and the food excellent.

Once checked in to our "cosy" room (i.e. small, but that was fine and was what we booked), it was time for Alison to go off to her first meeting, which would include a light evening meal. I went to the hotel's bar for my own meal. Again, very good.

York

The Wednesday was all ours and was allocated for a day in York. We had Standard Class Off-peak Singles in each direction so we could choose any train after the morning peak and set off down to the station after our hotel breakfast for a local train to Newark Northgate where we would change for York. At Newark we had to cross via the footbridge for the brief wait for our connecting train - the train on which we were booked and had seats reserved for us was running late, though, but as we held open tickets we boarded the one that happened to pull in as we walked onto the platform. There were plenty of seats available in Standard Class and we sat and enjoyed the ride with some coffee from the buffet counter.

In York we walked into the city centre and in spite of the very cold weather enjoyed some time around the shops and the market that we had come to see. There was in particular one Christmas shop that was so popular that there was an organised queue to enter and customers were let in as space allowed. We joined the short queue and spent some time there looking at decorations etc.. We do not need a great deal more in that line - we are mostly selling and giving away things rather than acquiring them - but it is good to have a little update now and again. No, we did not buy this glass nativity - a bit big for us.

In the cold weather there was no shortage of ways to warm up - apart from going into shops, that is - and we called at a stall selling an excellent hot chocolate, alongside their usual mulled wine etc.. One of the excellent things about it was the Bailey's that was used in place of the usual cream ... and the optional cream topping (which we opted for) was at no extra cost. 

We walked back to the station when we were ready and took the next train home and this was where the adventure took an unexpected adventurous turn.  Our next train back to Newark Northgate was expected just a few minutes late, but there had been an incident on the line further south near Stevenage and trains from London were severely disrupted, meaning that there would be no connection to Lincoln until very much later. I consulted the timetables on my iPhone and decided that it would still be best to get the next train south from York but that it would be better to change at Doncaster, the next stop, where an unaffected train would get us back to Lincoln before anything from Newark. It would mean a wait of over an hour at Doncaster, but Doncaster station is in the town centre and we might be able to get dinner there rather than waiting until arriving in Lincoln, meaning that overall we would not be losing any time at all.

Meanwhile we still had a little while to wait until our departure from York, and I noticed that among the listed departures was a charter train on one of the far platforms and I thought it might be interesting to see what it might be. Either the coaches or the locomotive might just be worth seeing ... and it was. We had time to see GWR Castle Class steam locomotive 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe depart with The Christmas White Rose charter train before we returned to the southbound main platform for our LNER Azuma to Doncaster. 

Doncaster

The 16:34 train we were to catch was the one on which we had reserved seats, but because of the disruption passengers expecting to board another train would also be travelling on ours, so we made sure we were ready to board and take our seats - after a day on our feet we did not want to have to stand, and I did have my walking stick with me  which always helps in these circumstances. People recognise a walking stick but not everyone is familiar with the sunflower lanyard. Talking to other passengers on the way to Doncaster revealed that Doncaster would be a good place to change trains with an hour to spare because in the Frenchgate Shopping Centre adjacent to the railway station there was a pub that did meals, ideal for eating (and keeping warm) while awaiting our connecting train to Lincoln. (There is also a pub on the platform, where I have had a pint once before, but it does not offer food, unfortunately.) I'm afraid I cannot recommend the food at the pub in the Frenchgate Centre, although the beer was good, but it did fulfil the need at the time.

Lincoln

We returned to Doncaster station and found our train, the 18:47 to Peterborough via Lincoln. I had hoped to ride this route some time but not in these circumstances, particularly not in the dark which meant that we could have been on almost any route in the country and it would have looked much the same! We crossed the River Trent and called at Gainsborough Lea Road then headed south to Lincoln, stopping just once more at Saxilby. The train was a warm and comfortable East Midlands Railway local unit, the sort we are now seeing all over Lincolnshire and a huge improvement over the aged single-car units we used to have. At Lincoln we took the next bus up the hill and walked back to our hotel. The walk along Bailgate was a great end to the day's adventures with the Christmas decorations and general Advent busyness. This city has a great feel to it these days.

Well, we thought that was an end to the day's adventures, but more was to come in the middle of the night ...

Our room at the White Hart was great. The shower en-suite was good, too, but it let us down when the door jammed with my wife inside at some time in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately I was woken by her attempts to open the door, which was not locked but refused to respond to the turning of the door handle. After a trip to reception in my nightwear and two visits by the night porter the door finally opened as it should have done without any really effective input from either me or him - just as he was at the point of thinking he'd have to resort to breaking the door down. We did not close it fully after that! So there was a bit of a sleep shortage that night and we were duly compensated most satisfactorily when we checked out after breakfast the next day.

After the business meeting on the Thursday morning which was the initial reason for staying in Lincoln, we made our way down the hill with our luggage to the railway station and had our lunch at the Costa Coffee café at the station while we awaited our train, the 13:24 LNER departure for London which took us to Peterborough. We had initially thought we might leave later than this, so we did not have seats reserved on this departure, but there is never any difficulty finding seats at this time on trains from Lincoln. At Peterborough as usual we changed trains for Stamford and home. Another great trip. We could have done without the disruption on the railway but for us on this occasion it was OK: we coped well and still enjoyed the trip; for others with business to do or families to get home to it could have been dreadful. We could certainly have done without the disobedient shower room door ... but it gives us something to talk about! We shall not be put off using the same hotel on future trips.

Mark's Rail Adventures on YouTube

Not so much an influencer ...

I have just carried out a bit of a refurb of my YouTube channel, to be found at https://www.youtube.com/@Marks_Rail_Adventures, and if you do not already subscribe you may like to take a look and see if you'd like to subscribe. While I tend to log almost all my adventures (as well as some fairly ordinary train trips) on this weblog, I am gradually putting video of some of the more interesting adventures on YouTube because there are some where I think video is a more appropriate medium. It does take a while to gather the material and edit the video, especially for trips I was not intending to publish this way, but I shall get them posted as frequently as I am able.

What I have found really odd it the huge range in popularity between my existing video postings: one I would not think particularly inspiring has had thousands of views, but ones I thought quite good have gone nowhere!

As on this weblog, I welcome comments and questions. I'd love to make this all a social enterprise, so do feel free to post questions and comments on the channel. While I hesitate to describe myself as an "influencer" - that carries connotations - I did found this blog as an attempt to influence people to try and to enjoy rail travel as I do - and just maybe the YouTube channel can do the same!