July 2018 – RailwayWorld.net

Summer Saturday at Yeovil Pen Mill

Weymouth remains a great magnet for day trippers and holidaymakers, so on the first Saturday proper of the summer holidays, and with the added bonus of seafood festival, there was bumper traffic to the resort from Yeovil Pen Mill on 14 July 2018.

In less than 90 minutes during the mid-morning there are four services to the resort from Pen Mill, including the highly popular 09.50 SWR service from Basingstoke where three coaches of its five-car formation continue to Corfe Castle on the Swanage Railway (described in my earlier blog post). Here 158886 + 159014 (rear) depart for Weymouth and Corfe Castle. Continue reading “Summer Saturday at Yeovil Pen Mill”

Favourite photo-spots: St. Erth

Cornwall remains a delightful and photogenic outpost of mechanical signalling, so after my earlier features on Par/St Blazey and Lostwithiel, it is time to pay a visit to Britain’s most south-westerly railway junction, St Erth, which lies 56 miles on from the Royal Duchy’s first semaphore signals at Liskeard, and 299½ miles from Paddington.

St. Erth must rank as one of the county’s most unspoiled locations, with semaphore signalling being the perfect complement to the charming GWR junction station, complete with independently-run station buffet and a place where even the original footbridge was saved from replacement by a new structure after a fervent local campaign. Continue reading “Favourite photo-spots: St. Erth”

On the trail of the Atlantic Coast Express

Today it would unquestionably be regarded as one of the UK’s most scenic rail journeys, but sadly the six miles of railway line from Wadebridge to Padstow was lost to the network in January 1967. Now the only way now of travelling these final miles of the famous Atlantic Coast Express (the ACE) are on foot, or by bike, along what has now become part of the hugely popular Camel Trail.

Taking a delightful and leisurely two-hour stroll, it is not difficult to imagine those final nine minutes aboard the ACE as it neared the end of its 259¾ mile journey from London Waterloo (11.00) and had seen portions of the train detached along the way for Exmouth, Sidmouth, Bude, Plymouth, Ifracombe and Torrington, before the remaining three coaches finally reached the Padstow buffer stops at 5.21pm. Continue reading “On the trail of the Atlantic Coast Express”

Lunch on the Line – GWR-style

Friday lunchtime on 29 June 2018 and the end of a scorching week in the sunny South West. Standing on platform 5 at Exeter St. David’s and waiting for the slightly delayed arrival of the 13.02 “Cornishman” to London Paddington, an announcement that the train is one coach short (a shortage of coaches, we are told!) and that the service is already “full and standing” is hardly the news any weary traveller wants to hear.

Faced with the prospect of standing in a crowded vestibule for two hours, I did what any astute reader of the GWR timetable would sensibly do – I went to the rather exclusive restaurant car (17 covers) and managed to secure a wonderful – and now extremely rare opportunity – to remind myself why eating on the move was always such a pleasure. Continue reading “Lunch on the Line – GWR-style”