It's a time-of-life thing

Crossing London by train

We seem to go to a lot of celebrations these days. We are well past the friends' weddings and baptism of their children, and fairly well past the weddings of our own children, but still going to baptisms of theirs ... but we're mostly going to significant birthdays and to celebrations of other "milestones". Recently we went to an old friend's 60th birthday celebration in Croydon, taking a weekend away to stay overnight at the Croydon Park Hotel after the party. It happened to be the day of the World Cup quarter final and we checked into our hotel just in time to sit in our room and watch the match before taking the tram to the party!

Although there are now through Thameslink trains to East Croydon from our local East Coast Main Line station at Peterborough, this was in the early days when cancellations were rife and the service very unreliable; further, it is still quicker to get a LNER train to London Kings Cross then cross the road to St Pancras International and take the next train to East Croydon - and a far more comfortable ride, too. When we arrived at St Pancras there was only one train per hour going through to East Croydon, and it had not come from Peterborough! I think they are running properly now but it is probably still quicker to take a fast train and change.

We have Oyster cards so we never have to book beyond London now, using our Oysters for onward travel to Croydon or elsewhere. Transport for London now accepts contacts credit or debit card payments on its trains, trams and buses and if you use the same card all day the daily cap will be applied just as if you are using an Oyster, so on the face of it a visitor is just as well off using an ordinary credit card as going to the trouble of acquiring an Oyster, but for us as Senior Railcard holders, the big advantage is that we can link our railcards to our Oyster cards and receive the railcard discount (one third) off our London travel.

We travelled from our hotel to the party and back using the excellent Croydon tram service, and again for church and lunch with our friends on the Sunday, then travelled back into central London to get our train to Peterborough and home to Stamford.

After several recent trips on which something has not been quite right with our trains on the East Coast Main Line, everything was fine this weekend: trains on time, fully staffed with all the advertised First Class refreshments, clean and fully-functioning toilets. This should not be a remarkable situation, but it had deteriorated so much under Virgin Trains (despite their "awesome" advertising) that is remarkable when things are as they should be.

Another Walk to the Pub ...

Train rides and country walk

Regular readers will be familiar with my occasional outings with my local church, starting with Ely, then York, Oakham (for the Grainstore Brewery) and Spalding. Recently I thought that a trip I had done personally a few years ago would make a good outing to invite others to join in, involving a country walk, rides on both our local main line train and the Nene Valley Railway, and lunch at a country pub.

Half a dozen of us booked, mostly "usual suspects" but also two people new to these "adventures", but on the day a couple of the regulars had to back out for health reasons so in the event only four of us travelled, but we had a great day nonetheless. For me it was rather special, as you will see!

We began as all these parish outings do with a rendezvous at Stamford station. Given the last-minute cancellation it was as well that I had not bought the tickets in advance, but I collected everyone's fares for the whole day's travels and then bought the day return tickets to Peterborough, using the Railcards of the three who had them. We caught the train on time and those who had not joined in the trip before were shown where the former direct line from Stamford (East station) to Wansford used to cross over our line and then where landmarks familiar from the road could be seen from the train, Burghley House being the main one. At Peterborough we made our way, slightly diverted by roadworks, to the Nene Valley Railway station on the other side of the river: in places this is just back streets and car park, but once at the river is a pleasant walk with swans on the river and some interesting railway bridges. Plenty of main line trains were passing overhead as we went to the station, arriving just as a Brush type 2 (class 31) diesel locomotive brought in our train. This was the first time I had ever known this train be on time!

We watched the locomotive, 31 271, being uncoupled and set off to the other end of the train to haul it in the other direction, and I couldn't help noticing the shunter looking at me as he climbed back onto the platform ...

We boarded the train, taking a compartment, for its novelty value, rather than a table in an open coach, and near the buffet counter from which I bought a round of drinks, although my companions would not let me pay for them. We were approached first by a man selling first day covers in aid of a fund to complete a Victorian postman's uniform - the railway operates a travelling post office train and has quite a display of postal equipment - and then by the one selling tickets (well, taking our money and giving us a receipt). The train pauses for about twenty minutes at Wansford before working forward to our destination at Yarwell,  and it was here that another man entered our compartment, the shunter I had seen earlier, who had recognised me as a former neighbour. It had been ten years since we last spoke but as soon as he introduced himself I recognised him, too, and he went to have a word with his friends on the locomotive and I joined them in the cab for the ride through to Yarwell. The locomotive crew were directors of the small company which owns the locomotive: a lot of people who invest and a handful who do the work - both are needed to maintain and operate the small fleet of locomotives they have, all of them class 31s. I have always liked these engines and have three of them on my 60s era model railway.

At Yarwell I said farewell to my new friends and collected my original friends from the train and we walked to Yarwell village, a stroll of about half an hour. It was a lovely day for a walk in the country and we were ready for lunch when arrived at the Angel Inn. They do wonderful chips at the Angel, and some great ales and we enjoyed a splendid pub lunch before setting off back to Yarwell station. We had to stride it out a bit because we did not want to miss our train. Although it was not the last of the day we did not want to spend the rest of our day out waiting for it at the station: the idea was to catch this one to Wansford and spend some time there looking at the items displayed there and having tea at Wansford station. The first of us, striding out in front, arrived on the platform as the locomotive was being uncoupled, the rest of us easily made it onto the train before it was ready to leave. Yarwell station is in a delightful rural spot and if you do not want to walk to the village for lunch there are picnic tables there and you can bring your own lunch or buy it on the train and spend a quiet couple of hours between trains.

After the short journey back through the tunnel and under the A1 we left the train at Wansford station and spent some time looking at what was there: a visit to a model railway set out in a carriage parked in a bay platform; a walk among the locomotives being repaired and restored, to the shed beyond where more restoration work was being undertaken; tea in the station café. During our time here the train came through once more on its way back to Yarwell, and then later we boarded for our ride back to Peterborough city centre. This time my shunter friend had arranged for me to ride in the locomotive cab all the way to Peterborough and I had a good chance to get to know more about the operation to keep the class 31s running. Judging by the condition of the steam locomotives at Wansford, the hiring-in of this diesel would seem to have been necessary to keep the railway going this summer - and with the hot, dry weather that has been consistent for some weeks now, diesel turned out to have been a good choice, because lineside fires would have been difficult to avoid with steam traction, and many preserved lines have resorted to diesel only this year.

Once back in Peterborough we took the walk back to the main-line station and it was just a short wait for our Cross Country train back to Stamford and home.

If you live near Stamford, Oakham or Peterborough and are interested in joining me on some of these day trips, please see the "Come with me!" Page.

My, How You've Changed!

Local craft ale. My drink at dinner in
Nottingham city centre

We had an invitation to a celebration of an old university friend's 40th anniversary of his licensing as a Reader (a lay preacher and assistant minister) in the Church of England recently. It was in Nottingham where he and my wife were good friends at that time, and neither of us had been back there since her graduation other than to the university itself, but that is not in the city centre.

The celebration, a church service followed by a buffet lunch, was on a Saturday, starting at 11:00 and we decided to make a two-day "adventure" of it by travelling there on the Friday and staying overnight, exploring a bit and possibly doing something on the Friday evening if we found the right sort of thing.

For just one night we did not need much luggage and I did not bother with a wheeled suitcase, simply putting everything into my small overnight bag (that's probably why it's called that!) including my MacBook so that I could catch up with some photographic filing on the way. Nottingham is not far from our home in Stamford and there was not much to be gained from either First Class travel or Advance Tickets, so we booked off-peak Standard Class returns via a change of train at Leicester each way and I booked a city centre Mercure hotel (for which I collect Club Accor loyalty points towards future free hotel stays). Again this was a cheap room because for one night we really did not need much space.

George's Great British Fish and Chips

So off we went about midday on the Friday, having done several mundane market-day jobs at home before we left. Our shopping included a takeaway salad lunch to eat during the journey - the change of trains at Leicester provided an ideal opportunity to eat, followed by coffee bought from the Pumpkin café next to the waiting room.

Arriving in Nottingham we recalled that not long ago there had been a major fire which marred the recently refurbished station. A good tidy-up job had been done and if we had not known about the fire we'd never have been able to tell from looking at the station. Nottingham station is interesting in having the city's main tram line passing right over it and providing an excellent interchange with the railway below, but although I had chosen a hotel on the tram route we were in no hurry and decided to walk to out hotel.

"Just an ice-cream" for pudding ...

Our walk took us through the Broad Marsh Shopping Centre, which from my memory was never very special but now frankly is a dump. To be fair it is undergoing substantial rebuilding, but that looks long overdue. Having go into the place, through a building site and along half-closed roads, we then struggled to find the way out that we needed: such a pity because once we did find the outside world we were in charming city-centre streets which were really very attractive. A further short walk brought us to the pleasant street corner where our hotel was located and we checked in.

Mercure had given us a room upgrade, which was very nice, but unfortunately our air-conditioning was not working. That was one of several things that went wrong, actually, and the handyman was not able to fix it but lent us a very effective fan which did a reasonable job. We were given a free drink at the bar by way of compensation and when we checked out the next day we were given a discount on the room rate as well, the best they could do, really, so I will still be able to leave a good Trip Advisor review!

Having unpacked we set off for a walk around the city and decided that the only activity we needed that night was a good dinner, so we went back and changed, enjoyed our free drink in the bar and set off to a restaurant we had picked out on our walk, George's Great British Kitchen, one of the few independent restaurants we had seen. Apparently it began life as a fish and chip restaurant and still trades on that history but has a much wider, British, menu now. We both had haddock and chips but with different craft beers, and the most amazing ice-cream that came complete with a huge candy-floss! The photographs illustrating this article are all of this meal. The whole city seems to have weathered the recession better than most towns, and the tram system and city centre in general all feel very much better than I remember from visiting decades ago. When my wife and our friends were students here it was all very different: like most places the streets were full of traffic but now are very quiet and pleasant spaces.

Off to bed, and a decent night's sleep in spite of the choice between "hot" and "noisy" (we chose mostly hot with a touch of noisy), and in the morning we walked off to All Saints' church for our friend's celebration. Again, the tram route goes that way but we chose to walk. We had checked out and so had our luggage, but it was not much luggage for a one-night stay in warm weather. We met other friends as we approached the church and had a good time, especially those who had been at university together but also those of us on the fringe who just happened to be married to one of them, and after lunch five of us travelled back together, catching the tram straight back to the station for the next southbound train. We sorted out how to buy tram tickets and had just bought our five when a tram turned up. The ride through to the railway station was very smooth and pleasant: trams are such a civilised way to move through a city. We then followed the signs to the railway platforms and found seats on the London train that was already there, well ahead of its departure time: time enough to buy a round of coffee at Pumpkin (enough to earn a free one on my loyalty card next time I travelled!). The other three were all going on to London to their homes in Surrey but we changed at Leicester again for the train home to Stamford. Not such a long wait this time and we were soon on our way. Two of our friends from Surrey had travelled to Nottingham that morning and must have spent more of the day travelling than anything else, but at least when travelling by train it is possible to relax and enjoy the trip, and they had company on the way back.

I did take my camera with me intending to take photographs of Nottingham trams, but somehow the opportunity never seemed to arise, so perhaps I shall return one day.