Cornish Riviera Steam Train Adventure with Friends

A Holiday with Steam Dreams

Last September we took our first holiday with Steam Dreams, to the English Lakes. We had had one day trip with them before, on the Royal Windsor Steam Express. We were so delighted with the Lakes holiday that we wasted no time in booking for this September's Steam Dreams holiday, which was to Cornwall. We opted for St Ives rather than the alternative of St Mawes as the destination because we would have the opportunity to travel from St Ives by train to other places if we wished to do so, and we chose the Carbis Bay Hotel from the options for that destination. Then we just had to wait for the date to come around, a whole year, and keep sending money as Steam Dreams needed it. This year we were able to invite a couple of friends to come along with us which enhanced the experience considerably.

As last year the train left London behind a vintage diesel locomotive, in this case from Paddington station, and our steam locomotive took over en route, this time at Taunton where it had been prepared on the West Somerset Railway. Our steam locomotive was no, 71000 Duke of Gloucester, a unique locomotive that was intended to be standard design for British Railways express passenger locomotives until the modernisation plan resulted in steam being dropped in favour of diesel and electric traction. "The Duke" remained the only member of the class and was awaiting scrap when rescued and painstakingly restored, and improved, by the BR Class 8 Steam Locomotive Trust.

We travelled to London with LNER in good time and stayed with our friends in the Montcalm Chilworth Townhouse hotel (which I can thoroughly recommend if you ever need a hotel in west central London) near Paddington station ready for the early start, handing over our suitcases on platform 1 and boarding the train with just hand luggage. our suitcases would be transported separately and be awaiting us in out hotel rooms when we arrived. The train consisted of a long rake of British Railways Mk 1 first class carriages from the 1950s or 60s, painted in BR crimson and cream livery. The passenger coaches were interspersed with catering vehicles to provide the "Pullman Dining" experience for which we had signed up. There was also an option of First Class which included only light catering and the option of a buffet car or bring-your-own lunch.

For us the day began with peach bellini as the train left Paddington followed by a choice of starter and main courses of breakfast with coffee etc.

At Taunton we were able to walk on the platform and watch the change of locomotive as the Class 50 which had brought us that far was taken to a siding to await our return three days later and The Duke with its support coach backed onto the train. You can watch this, and the whole holiday, in the following video:

After Taunton as the train, now steam-hauled, chuffed its way west and south, morning coffee and pastries or cake were served and then at Exeter we had a two-hour break. We went off for a walk along the river and Duke of Gloucester went off for more water before tackling the notorious hill climbs in Devon, and the tables were set for the main meal. This was billed as dinner with wine (which it was) but time-wise it was not long after the time when lunch might normally be served. Although early, it was enough to sustain us until bed-time, though!

The train stopped briefly at Truro to drop the passengers who had opted for hotels at St Mawes and then took us on to Penzance where road coaches were waiting to take us on to our hotels at St Ives. (There are stations at Carbis Bay and St Ives but they would never take a train of this length and you would also never fit an extra train into the intensive timetable on the St Ives Bay branch!

After winding its way down a narrow, winding hill, our coach delivered us and a couple of dozen other guests to the Carbis Bay Hotel where we were shown to our rooms, with out luggage waiting for us, and what a room we had, a huge bay window overlooking the beach ... and bath within the room! There was also a private shower room en suite. Our friends had the next room with two small balconies and also with a view over the beach. We were all very pleased with the accommodation. No dinner was necessary after the meals on the train and we went for a stroll on the beach in the dark. The Carbis Bay Estate ensured that there was sufficient light to see our way around and yet it was still dark enough to enjoy the autumn night. There were cocktail bars and restaurants open at the back of the beach but we did not need those that night.

After a good night's sleep and a good (but not too huge!) breakfast we investigated the hotel's spa pool. Amusingly we had to walk through the restaurant in our swimwear and bathrobes to reach the pool: the hotel is adamant that it is a spa hotel and you should expect to find people dressed like that anywhere, but we didn't see anyone else that morning! It was a lovely pool. I am not a huge swimming enthusiast and do it mainly for the exercise but I did enjoy swimming there, in warm water in the open air with a view over the Bristol Channel. The planting around the pool area gave it a Mediterranean air: we really did feel that we were on the Cornish Riviera. And in September 2026 it was almost warm enough, too. 

After our swim we met our friends in the lobby and set off together to walk to St Ives along the coast path. It looked easy on the map but our map did not show contours ... it was a bit hilly in places but we were in no hurry. The only business we really had in St Ives was to buy and consume a Cornish ice-cream!

The weather warmed up and by the time we walked around the harbour at St Ives it was hot and sunny, and with the number of people around you would think it was high summer rather than the start of autumn. We located the ice-cream shop where we had bought a rather special ice-cream several years before and ordered the same: vanilla double-cream ices cream with clotted cream on top and a chocolate flake - although we had cones they came with a recyclable spoon. We left the shop carefully, guarding our purchases with a hand over them, having had the experience of theft by seagull the last time we were there. This time we all managed to eat our own ice-creams.

We wandered across the isthmus which separates the harbour from the Atlantic-facing Porthmeor Beach and paid a quick visit to the Tate St Ives Gallery. I had visited this gallery before, and the rest of the party was not interested enough in the art for it to be worth the time and money for another visit, but everyone was interested in seeing the wonderful building, and we were able to go to the top floor café and enjoy a beer looking out over the beach where there were many people enjoying swimming and surfing. We then took a walk down through the town, bought some gifts and began to make our back to Carbis Bay, then men by train (we do like a ride on a train) and the ladies on foot. The St Ives Bay Branch is often rated as one of the most scenic lines in Britain, even though it is so short, and in has a half-hourly service in each direction throughout the day. The station platform at St Ives was very busy and the four-coach high-density diesel train was pretty full when we boarded. It is amazing to think that this line was once proposed for closure, and it is dreadful to contemplate how the town would have coped if all of these people had tried to drive in by car: a large park is provided at St Erth station so that car-borne visitors can leave their cars there and take the train into the town.

Our train took just a couple of minutes to return us to Carbis Bay station from where we had a downhill walk to the hotel and rejoined our wives then went and prepared for our hotel dinner, included in the Pullman Dining package.

The following day we decided to visit Truro, just to see the city and to sample the other Cornish food item, a Cornish pasty. OK, a city may not be the best place to try this rural speciality, but with only two days there was a limit to how many places we could visit. I did play with the idea of going on to Falmouth as well but we decided to stick to one place and take life a bit easier: it was supposed to be a relaxing holiday, and we did have a good room in a good hotel, so there was no need to spend all of our time packing in as much exploring as possible. We fully intend to return some time anyway.

We took a train from Carbis Bay station after breakfast and swimming and changed trains at St Erth for a local stopping train  to Truro. St Earth station has had a new footbridge installed with lifts since we last visited, giving step-free access to all platforms. It has also become the park & ride station for St Ives in place of the station at Leland Saltings, and this keeps in business the half-hourly shuttle service on the St Ives Bay Branch line.

It is a few minutes' walk from the station to the city centre at Truro and we were ready for coffee at the cathedral café when we arrived. We then went for a stroll to explore city' little streets and then started looking for that pasty ... all the pubs you might imagine would serve such a thing were far too high-end for that: quite indistinguishable from the posh nosh at city centre pubs in any other city, We were not looking for haute cuisine, just traditional pub grub. Desperate, we finished up at the Cornish Pasty Shop which we could have visited in any other decent town including at home in Stamford! The pasty was good, though, but beer had to wait until later because this was a tea or soft drink place.

We ensured that we then walked back to the station via a pub with local ales.

Back at the station we were in time to catch a train before the one we had planned to get. This was an inter-city train from London to Penzance and we had no reservations for it because they were on the next train, but we managed to find a table for four in Standard Class with no difficulty and enjoyed our ride back to St Erth and the change there for Carbis Bay. It was a lovely warm, sunny day and quite pleasant waiting for the  St Ives shuttle train to take us home. Apart from the new footbridge, St Erth is still a typical old GWR station, complete with lower-quadrant semaphore signalling controlled from a local mechanical signal box. There are not many of these left now on main lines, and this is definitely a main line, taking fast expresses to and from London!

After another good dinner at the Carbis Bay Hotel it was time to start packing our bags ready for the return trip to London in the morning. Our cases would be placed outside our room before breakfast, ready to be loaded into the van to return to London by road while we made or leisurely way back. Toothbrushes, medication and other necessities were packed in our backpacks to ensure they were available.

After the hotel breakfast our road coach took us to Penzance station where we awaited our train of crimson-and-cream Mk1 saloons and Duke of Gloucester for the return trip. There was excitement on the platform when the plume of smoke was seen in the distance and once the service train to London had departed Duke of Gloucester reversed the train into the platform, assisted by a vintage diesel leading the train in.

Boarding the train we had the same reserved seats in the same coach as on the way out, and were attended by the same staff. It was good to be back on board and we looked forward to the Tastes of Cornwall menu which would be served course by course all the way from Truro (where those who'd been staying at St Mawes would be joining the train) almost to London.

Coffee and pastries came first, mid-morning, of course.

Outside the window there was excitement as the train approached the Royal Albert Bridge to leave Cornwall and pass into Devon, and then we stopped at Plymouth to take on water in preparation for the steep (by railway standards) hill our locomotive was to face.

Back on the train it was soon time for the aperitif and nibbles, followed by soup before another water stop at Newton Abbott. Whereas at Plymouth there was water available from standpipes at the platform (presumably because trains sometimes terminate there and water is needed for the washing and toilet facilities on board), at Newton Abott a road tanker stood beside the line and a hose was passed through the fence to the train - a bit makeshift but it did the job nicely.

Again we raced along the Devon coast on the approach to Exeter while eating our meal. There was an amazing array of photographers along this stretch and I have since seen video on YouTube showing the train from above the sea, so although I did not spot a drone at the time, there must have been one out there!

At Taunton Duke of Gloucester left us and our Class 50 diesel returned to take us on to London - no fuss this time and we were not even at the platform so we could not get out and take pictures, but the job was done and the journey continued.

Some time was lost somewhere (two water stops?)  and by Reading it was clear that we would be quite late getting into London, but this really did not bother us. It was a great ride in so many ways, and we were staying overnight in Paddington anyway. We collected our luggage which had preceded us by road (an ancient on the motorway meant that it had been a close-run thing!) and made our way back to  the Montcalm Chilworth Townhouse hotel where we discovered that both couples had been unexpectedly upgraded to Club rooms, with more space and same goodies that we had had on the way out. The four of us gathered in our room with our little bottles of Prosecco and had a final drink together to celebrate a great trip to Cornwall. 

The following day we had lunch together with our west London family and then parted company with our friends to make our respective journeys home to Stamford and Chichester. It all started well, but some issue or other had arisen on Thameslink which meant our expected train was "delayed" at St Pancras, so we scooted over to Kings Cross and boarded a Great Northern train instead (later but faster) only to discover later that our Thameslink was not very delayed but was delayed enough to run non-stop to Peterborough instead of its usual stopping pattern and therefore had overtaken us ... The line through to Stamford has engineering work in progress (it was Saturday) and so there were no trains. Rather than pay a rail fare and travel on a replacement bus, we popped over to the bus station at Peterborough and travelled back to Stamford on a service bus using our pensioners' passes. All very neat, if not fast.

We do have other Steam Dreams trips planned which I'll be posting in due course, as well as a couple of Great Rail Journeys tours. Meanwhile do take a look at this trip on my YouTube channel, and subscribe to that if you'd like to follow all the trips I post there. Comments are welcome here or on YouTube. Who knows, one day we may meet on a train somewhere: do say, "Hello" if you see me!