Category: Glasgow

Day 2 – a trip to Scotland

My day began at Crewe and I was booked on the 9.09am service from Crewe to Edinburgh. Whilst waiting on platform 11 I saw that the rails had been made in Workington. A sad testament to a lost industry for the town. In days gone by, Workington was a world leader in the rail production. I am told the rails in Workington can be found all over the world. In the photo below, you should be able to make out the Workington stamp.

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Workington in Crewe.

The journey to Edinburgh was largely uneventful apart from one thing: I was able to chat via facebook, to my brother who is in Kathmandu!. He was on a trekking holiday to Everest Base camp, sadly he did not get there as he got some kind of viral infection, and one cannot be ill at over 6000m. Still it passed some time.

On arrival in Edinburgh, I wanted to get to Glasgow Queen Street. I had to book a ticket, but nearly all the ticket machines were not working. Eventually I got a ticket and took the 13.00 to Queen St on the new 385 electric trains, they are fast if a little bumpy at times. Below is a photo of my train from Edinburgh.

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Class 385 at Edinburgh

The journey back to Crewe involved the 14.40 to Preston, then the 17.17 from Preston to Crewe. The latter was quite full even in first class. At Wigan we went to a different platform, overtook the train I had left at Preston and went on the slow line to Warrington. Not too sure what was going on. Anyway, another good train on the trains.

 

An eventful day off

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My train from Carlisle to Glasgow arrives

Today, I had booked a train journey from Workington to Glasgow. It partly to do something different for my day off and partly to try out e ticketing – I had downloaded the tickets to my mobile phone via the Virgin Trains app.

Having arrived in Glasgow and the weather being sunny and warm, I decided to eat al fresco. However that was soon scuppered as the play I chose was very busy, I was told that it would be a 10 minute wait before my order could be take. I went elsewhere.

Later, on arriving back at Glasgow Central, I saw my train back to Carlisle was delayed, then cancelled – trouble around Lancaster I gather. I had to wait for the delayed 1600 to Carlisle. There was a massive queue for this – two train loads trying to get on. Eventually, it was decided that the train was too full, so the barriers went up. I had another wait, this time for the delayed 16.40. Not only did I get on this, but, to my surprise, I got a seat!. Once onboard, the journey back was uneventful.