In May LKK spouse and I will be arriving at St Pancras from Trieste via stops in Milan and Paris.
We hope to have a birthday dinner with my sister who will be coming from Kent, and then will be visiting old friends in Acton, Reading, Rugby over the next few weeks.
We haven't decided whether to travel by train or hire a car. It's been decades since I travelled on any trains apart from the London Underground, so some advice would be helpful.
All three of those locations are on fast trains from London (obviously, Acton’s *in* London). Depends where in the location you’re actually going of course, but that feels like a very train-friendly bag of journeys on the face of it.
In May LKK spouse and I will be arriving at St Pancras from Trieste via stops in Milan and Paris.
Perhaps the UK end will be more prosaic, but the first bit sounds like the setup for a Bond film or maybe something by Agatha Christie. Keep us posted with your itinerary; I'll avoid your trains as they sound like a good place for a bystander to get wiped out with a poisoned umbrella.
Rugby is reached from Euston (Avanti or LNW), Reading from Paddington (GWR) or Waterloo (South Western), and also the London Underground Elizabeth Line.
Rugby is reached from Euston (Avanti or LNW), Reading from Paddington (GWR) or Waterloo (South Western), and also the London Underground Elizabeth Line.
Not one for confusing travellers at this point, but the rabbit hole of ‘London termini that *used* to offer direct services to Reading’ can lose you hours…
Rugby is reached from Euston (Avanti or LNW), Reading from Paddington (GWR) or Waterloo (South Western), and also the London Underground Elizabeth Line.
Travelled from London to Cardiff today. Was surprised that we were clearly running on diesel, however the train manager came on the PA to tell us that this was due to a fault with the electronics. The driver did his best but inevitably we were about 10 minutes late on arrival. Better than turfing us all out at Bristol so the train could go to the depot there!
They're all over the place these days - not locomotives but bi-mode mu;tiple units. GWR has the Hotachi version, so do LNER, Lumo, Hull Trains. TransPennine, East Midland (some may still be on order). And that's before considering the FLIRT sets run by Greater Anglia, Transport for Wales (?and others). TfW even have some tri-mode trains, which can run on batteries too, but I'm not sure if they've entered service. AFAIK the only electro-diesel locomotives in service are Direct Rail's class 88s (I pine for the 74s used on the SW mainline in my student days - mind you, there weren't exactly successful!)
They seem to be going to the Bay and Taff Vale lines, for us the Rhymney lines are closer and generally have the very nice Class 231s (and also 150 Sprinters!)
It was based at TTOMY for a while, working the Westerham branch, much to the disgust of the Regular Passengers, although in itself it wasn't a complete failure. It is said that Maunsell would have liked several more...
The erstwhile Barry Tourist Railway had a Sentinel locomotive, which I saw operating in, I think, 2019. An interesting loco: it looked like a small diesel shunter but emitted steam and hissed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sHltCXf95o
The LMS had some, too, as did the Great Southern Railways in Ireland, and there were also a few in Jersey (3 foot 6 inches on the Jersey Railway, and standard gauge on the Jersey Eastern). Many went for export, and I think a broad gauge Spanish example (still working in 1965) may be preserved.
The little locomotives cane in a number of guises, and the LNER, LMS, and GSR all had some. A few LNER examples lasted into BR days, and I think there were quite a few in industrial ownership/use until comparatively recently. Sentinel seem to have got it right, sort of!
There has been a Sentinel three car articulated SMU which was built for Egyptian Railways in the early fifties, and shipped back to the UK for preservation, which was at Quainton Road at one time, but I don't know whether it is still there or what condition it is in.
In May LKK spouse and I will be arriving at St Pancras from Trieste via stops in Milan and Paris.
Perhaps the UK end will be more prosaic, but the first bit sounds like the setup for a Bond film or maybe something by Agatha Christie. Keep us posted with your itinerary; I'll avoid your trains as they sound like a good place for a bystander to get wiped out with a poisoned umbrella.
Well, at first we planned to go from Istanbul to London, a repeat of our 1975 journey on the Orient Express, which at that time was an ordinary passenger train, without even the luxury of a refreshment car for the three-day journey. Agatha Christie conditions were nowhere to be seen. The Eastern Bloc countries required you to exchange an exorbitant amount of money, which couldn't be changed back when you left, so we survived on sandwiches left by kindly passengers until we reached Turin.
However, this time, our travel agent booked us on a cruise from Istanbul to Trieste.
If you can get a copy, there's an interesting book 'Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere' by Jan Morris. James Joyce lived there for a while. There's also a peculiar tram-cum-funicular to the border with Slovenia. I seem to rememder Michael Portillo travellng on it.
If you can get a copy, there's an interesting book 'Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere' by Jan Morris. James Joyce lived there for a while. There's also a peculiar tram-cum-funicular to the border with Slovenia. I seem to rememder Michael Portillo travellng on it.
I’m reading her book on Venice and curious about the book on Trieste. Anything more you can say about it?
Yes. It is part memoir, (he was there when it was occupied by the British army after WWII, part description, part musing on the mingling of cultures and how the town lost its function after WWI as the port for Austria and Slovenia and so became 'nowhere'.
This whole area is fascinating from a historical point of view. We holidayed some years ago in Lovran, a short distance from Opatija, in Croatia. In modern times the area was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire; was assigned to Italy ("Abbazia") after WW1; and became part of Yugoslavia after WW2.
There used to be a tramway from the Matulji, the nearest station to Opatija, through the town and on to Lovran. It closed in 1933; I hunted for relics but found none! Like the Mumbles tramway, it would have been an undoubted tourist asset today.
Jan Morris's book has been criticised as an exercise in nostalgia, it is, but none the worse for that. It is fairly short, but full of snippets of fascinating information. the point is that Trieste is a great melting-pot of cultures and languages (James Joyce). The subtitle could be a crack at Margaret Thatcher's 'Citizens of Nowhere' remark.
Thanks re the Morris book. It sounds interesting though somewhat inclined try to see the place first - I’m fairly certain I’m finding her Venice book much more rewarding for just having been there…
This line was closed under the "Beeching axe" just before Portishead underwent massive growth. Fortunately much of the line was retained for goods use, and so all the track bed is still intact.
Digression: Dr Beeching (as he was then) was an old boy of my grammar school, with his name and academic achievements displayed on the honours board. I think he came to present prizes at one Speech Day before the full horror of his cuts became apparent. His nephew was in my year, and the fathers of several other boys in my year had been in the same year as him.
It was once remarked that the rather nice (IMHO) 1954 station at Portishead (built, of course, by British Railways, as enny fule kno) was, in fact, the only post-war Great Western branch line terminus in captivity.
IIRC, its closure so early was regarded as a surprise at the time.
IIRC, Bristol was one of the recipients in the late 50s (or was it 1960?) of the then-new diesel multiple units, along with regular-interval services, on several lines around the city.
I think DMUs initially gained traffic. Not only were they seen as clean and modern, but the service was often improved. But, sadly, it was not enough in the longer term.
I think that many lines didn't modernise enough. They put on the new DMUs but kept station staff, signallers, etc to run the vestigial goods service. Hence the costs didn't come down all that much, especially if one has to reckon in interest on any loans required to buy the DMUs vs. written-down steam stock.
What was needed was a radical rethink as pioneered by Gerard Fiennes on the Eastern Region: the "basic railway" with simplified track, automatic level crossings, unstaffed halts and Paytrains. It was ugly (and sometimes pushed too far) but it worked, although not everywhere.
On a slightly tangential note, I recall riding on one of the early Metro-Cammell railcars (Triang produced a nice model - my first electric model train!) in the Lancashire/Cumbria area somewhen in the 1980s.
What nice-looking, comfortable trains they were. One or two have been restored (on the Great Central, I think?).
My daily journey to and from school on the "Bedpan" line was on Class 127 DMUs. Quite comfortable and - unlike other units - they had hydraulic transmission so there were no jerky gear changes!
I remember, c.1990, travelling from Norwich to Ipswich non-stop in an early-model DMU, substituting for a loco-hauled train which had failed. The driver just "put his foot down" and ran! These units had a maximum speed of 70mph but we were doing a good bit more. The riding was terrible and I was actually quite frightened.
Some may recall the powerful and rugged DEMUs introduced on the London - Tunbridge Wells - Hastings line in the late 50s. They lasted well - right up to electrification in 1986 - and I sometimes caught one from Cannon Street a few years before that.
They were comfortable enough, despite the narrow bodies, but did tend to jiggle about about at speed, especially coming out of Polhill tunnel. I still managed a kip, though, but was inevitably woken up by the sharp brake application as we approached the curve leading into Our Station...
I believe one has been preserved in working order (albeit 4 cars instead of the proper 6), and is sometimes let out to stretch its wheels.
AFAIK, they were the first real main-line diesel units on British Railways, designed for longish-distance express services. My Old Dad took me to Our Station to see (and hear!) them when they were first introduced - they were incredibly noisy beasts, especially if two 6-car units were coupled together.
AFAIK, they were the first real main-line diesel units on British Railways, designed for longish-distance express services.
I'd dispute that. Not only were some of the pre-war Great Western units designed for services such as Cardiff-Birmingham (twin-car with buffet, possibility of adding in an extra coach), but there were the 79xxx units, again built at Swindon, for the Edinburgh-Glasgow expresses; these too sometimes worked Birmingham-South Wales services and came out about three years before the Hastings units.
I often saw the Hastings units but never rode in one. However, when I was at University in Southampton I sometimes took the slow route home, "over the Alps" to Alton. This used the rather similar Hampshire units. Coming down the bank from Medstead they seemed to be going very fast, but that was only because the track there had short 45-foot rails! I quite liked them but, even in 1971, they felt old-fashioned inside.
The GNR in Ireland used DMUs on its express Dublin-Belfast service from 1950/51 - but that's not British Railways!
Yes, you're quite right about the Great Northern of Ireland - a wonderfully forward-thinking enterprise, killed by politics - and I'd forgotten about earlier BR and GWR units.
The only diesels we saw in Our Town, prior to the Hastings DEMUs, were the yard shunters (350hp and 204hp examples).
Pretty well all Southern EMUs and DMUs were conservative in design. The 2HAPs which replaced the steam push-pull units from Our Town to County Town weren't much different in layout from the pre-grouping coaches...though they were cleaner and quicker.
I am old enough to remember the Trans=Pennine DMUs being introduced. They were so posh inside that my grandmother anxiously enquired whether we were in first class. We weren't, we were in second, but there were curtains.
As I recall, these were on Liverpool-Hull. The Newcastle-Liverpool remained as corridor coaches, but now hauled by what later became class 40 diesels.
I travelled on a Trans-Pennine unit just once, between Huddersfield and Manchester, and also remember them as being very comfortable. Their front end was similar to the Glasgow "Blue Trains" (which I also liked, far superior to anything in London when they were introduced).
I don't like our Class 800 Hitachi bimodes - but they do have pull-down window blinds.
In the 1950s BR introduced some Southern Region-type EMUs on the Tyneside services. The locals, used to the open-plan LNER units, were not amused and felt that this was a retrograde step.
Our first DMU's were the Cravens on the King's Cross locals from Hitchin. The ride was terrible - this was before the stunning discovery that suspension dampers were a Good Idea - but the view forward from the front seats made up for everything. It was a whole new railway.
Shortly after that I became acquainted with the Metro-Cam DMUs on the Perth-Blair Atholl locals and it was the same thing - a lively ride but the most beautiful train journey I had ever been on. The service was convenient, well-used, and soon cancelled.
Much later I was subjected to the noisy Swindon cross-country units between Aberdeen and Inverness, with their astonishingly uncomfortable high-backed seats. That wasn't the worst, though. That summer at the Inverness diesel depot it was agreed that I was the only one small and skinny enough (at that time...) to get underneath to remove the bolts below the floor and above the gearbox to get the confounded thing out. Everything was black, greasy, muddy and the cause of much pleasure to the fitters when I crawled back out with a handful of bolts. I took a long bath that night.
Our first DMU's were the Cravens on the King's Cross locals from Hitchin. The ride was terrible - this was before the stunning discovery that suspension dampers were a Good Idea - but the view forward from the front seats made up for everything. It was a whole new railway.
They weren't really suitable for intensive suburban service. Allegedly they were intended for the M&GN but that closed before they arrived. Other Kings Cross suburban services were run with Baby Deltics or Brush type 2s and old-fashioned (but BR-built) non-corridor compartment stock.
I'm extremely not an expert on DMUs but I remember being startled to find one in 1950s BR green livery waiting for me at Bangor station in 1993-94. As far as I could tell, it was a genuine period DMU, not just a paint job. The only other detail I recall now is vertical exhaust pipes up the end of the power car.
In June 1994 set 101.685 was painted in a version of the early green livery for working the Conway Valley line. https://www.railcar.co.uk/images/18641. The unit got nicknamed "Daisy" after the character in the "Thomas the Tank Engine" books.
Comments
We hope to have a birthday dinner with my sister who will be coming from Kent, and then will be visiting old friends in Acton, Reading, Rugby over the next few weeks.
We haven't decided whether to travel by train or hire a car. It's been decades since I travelled on any trains apart from the London Underground, so some advice would be helpful.
Perhaps the UK end will be more prosaic, but the first bit sounds like the setup for a Bond film or maybe something by Agatha Christie. Keep us posted with your itinerary; I'll avoid your trains as they sound like a good place for a bystander to get wiped out with a poisoned umbrella.
Not one for confusing travellers at this point, but the rabbit hole of ‘London termini that *used* to offer direct services to Reading’ can lose you hours…
Mornington Crescent!
I'll get me coat...
...and the 74s were derived (IIRC) from the horrid 71s, which displaced Steam on the Golden Arrow.
Huh.
However: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_398
Well, I did say well-developed...and the Croydon trams don't exactly hang about, even on the street track...
Those new 398s look smart - will they be running in your part of Cardiff?
The nearest thing The Town Of My Youth ever got to a Sprinter was the Southern Railway's experimental Sentinel steam railcar:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bb/b3/cf/bbb3cf5d2837d4f67fbbfff1348ba9cd.jpg
It was based at TTOMY for a while, working the Westerham branch, much to the disgust of the Regular Passengers, although in itself it wasn't a complete failure. It is said that Maunsell would have liked several more...
The erstwhile Barry Tourist Railway had a Sentinel locomotive, which I saw operating in, I think, 2019. An interesting loco: it looked like a small diesel shunter but emitted steam and hissed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sHltCXf95o
The little locomotives cane in a number of guises, and the LNER, LMS, and GSR all had some. A few LNER examples lasted into BR days, and I think there were quite a few in industrial ownership/use until comparatively recently. Sentinel seem to have got it right, sort of!
Well, at first we planned to go from Istanbul to London, a repeat of our 1975 journey on the Orient Express, which at that time was an ordinary passenger train, without even the luxury of a refreshment car for the three-day journey. Agatha Christie conditions were nowhere to be seen. The Eastern Bloc countries required you to exchange an exorbitant amount of money, which couldn't be changed back when you left, so we survived on sandwiches left by kindly passengers until we reached Turin.
However, this time, our travel agent booked us on a cruise from Istanbul to Trieste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv4ikglDx68
https://www.intrieste.com/2024/12/17/green-light-for-trieste-opicina-tram-to-resume-operations/
I’m reading her book on Venice and curious about the book on Trieste. Anything more you can say about it?
There used to be a tramway from the Matulji, the nearest station to Opatija, through the town and on to Lovran. It closed in 1933; I hunted for relics but found none! Like the Mumbles tramway, it would have been an undoubted tourist asset today.
This line was closed under the "Beeching axe" just before Portishead underwent massive growth. Fortunately much of the line was retained for goods use, and so all the track bed is still intact.
Digression: Dr Beeching (as he was then) was an old boy of my grammar school, with his name and academic achievements displayed on the honours board. I think he came to present prizes at one Speech Day before the full horror of his cuts became apparent. His nephew was in my year, and the fathers of several other boys in my year had been in the same year as him.
IIRC, its closure so early was regarded as a surprise at the time.
Bristol is having something of a railway renaissance at the moment - the new stations at Ashley Down and Portway P&R, Henbury coming soon, now this.
Perhaps early promise was not fulfilled?
What was needed was a radical rethink as pioneered by Gerard Fiennes on the Eastern Region: the "basic railway" with simplified track, automatic level crossings, unstaffed halts and Paytrains. It was ugly (and sometimes pushed too far) but it worked, although not everywhere.
See: http://www.pendragonpublishing.co.uk/html/september__2024.html and the following issue.
What nice-looking, comfortable trains they were. One or two have been restored (on the Great Central, I think?).
I remember, c.1990, travelling from Norwich to Ipswich non-stop in an early-model DMU, substituting for a loco-hauled train which had failed. The driver just "put his foot down" and ran! These units had a maximum speed of 70mph but we were doing a good bit more. The riding was terrible and I was actually quite frightened.
They were comfortable enough, despite the narrow bodies, but did tend to jiggle about about at speed, especially coming out of Polhill tunnel. I still managed a kip, though, but was inevitably woken up by the sharp brake application as we approached the curve leading into Our Station...
I believe one has been preserved in working order (albeit 4 cars instead of the proper 6), and is sometimes let out to stretch its wheels.
AFAIK, they were the first real main-line diesel units on British Railways, designed for longish-distance express services. My Old Dad took me to Our Station to see (and hear!) them when they were first introduced - they were incredibly noisy beasts, especially if two 6-car units were coupled together.
I often saw the Hastings units but never rode in one. However, when I was at University in Southampton I sometimes took the slow route home, "over the Alps" to Alton. This used the rather similar Hampshire units. Coming down the bank from Medstead they seemed to be going very fast, but that was only because the track there had short 45-foot rails! I quite liked them but, even in 1971, they felt old-fashioned inside.
The GNR in Ireland used DMUs on its express Dublin-Belfast service from 1950/51 - but that's not British Railways!
The only diesels we saw in Our Town, prior to the Hastings DEMUs, were the yard shunters (350hp and 204hp examples).
Pretty well all Southern EMUs and DMUs were conservative in design. The 2HAPs which replaced the steam push-pull units from Our Town to County Town weren't much different in layout from the pre-grouping coaches...though they were cleaner and quicker.
As I recall, these were on Liverpool-Hull. The Newcastle-Liverpool remained as corridor coaches, but now hauled by what later became class 40 diesels.
I don't like our Class 800 Hitachi bimodes - but they do have pull-down window blinds.
In the 1950s BR introduced some Southern Region-type EMUs on the Tyneside services. The locals, used to the open-plan LNER units, were not amused and felt that this was a retrograde step.
Shortly after that I became acquainted with the Metro-Cam DMUs on the Perth-Blair Atholl locals and it was the same thing - a lively ride but the most beautiful train journey I had ever been on. The service was convenient, well-used, and soon cancelled.
Much later I was subjected to the noisy Swindon cross-country units between Aberdeen and Inverness, with their astonishingly uncomfortable high-backed seats. That wasn't the worst, though. That summer at the Inverness diesel depot it was agreed that I was the only one small and skinny enough (at that time...) to get underneath to remove the bolts below the floor and above the gearbox to get the confounded thing out. Everything was black, greasy, muddy and the cause of much pleasure to the fitters when I crawled back out with a handful of bolts. I took a long bath that night.