West Highland lines and err…DLR to Woolwich Arsenal 7-9 April 2009

A strange contrast but all will become clear much later. A combination of the long Easter weekend and me needing to use up leave as I am working my notice meant that I had the perfect opportunity to start mopping up some more of the Scottish lines that I need to complete – now within the next 18 months! This would be a trip of surprises and firsts…

A late night on Tuesday was not a good idea as I had to be on the 5.47 to Glasgow on Wednesday but these things tend to happen that way. So having barely been to bed I went down to the bus stop in Penge High Street in the rain and darkness at around 4am to get the 176 to town. It arrived on time and delivered me to Tottenham Court Road about 45 minutes later. Then all I had to do was walk up the aforementioned road to Euston. Both roads were still quite busy I noticed. At 5am I joined the queue for the only source of coffee at the aberration that is London Euston and gratefully found my seat at the very front of the class 390 Pendolino that would take me far from home.

It was still dark when we headed out of the train shed which I wasn’t expecting. I tried to get some much needed sleep though it’s hard in modern train seats. I wanted to be awake for the section beyond Lancaster as I’ve not travelled that much and as it’s through the fringe of the Lake District it’s worth seeing. In the event I just about remember opening half an eye at Crewe and Preston, hearing Lancaster in my sleep and waking up as we curled into Carlisle. Actually I remember Lichfield as I saw the distinctive three spires of the cathedral distantly. Anyway I keep a look out after Carlisle as we quickly cross the border into Scotland, but unlike on the East Coast there’s no ceremony here. No sign announcing the boundary or mile posts, which is rather disappointing.

Gradually the stations start to get closer together and we drift into the conurbation of Strathclyde. Then we’re across the Clyde and pull into Glasgow Central, four hours and forty minutes after leaving London. I’ve the best part of a couple of hours to kill before the first of my Highland trains leave so I decide to have a go on the Glasgow Underground – the oldest in the world I believe? So I head for Buchanan Street station – which used to be a heavy rail station and is now the Underground stop for Glasgow Queen Street – which is handy as it’s where my train will leave from.

I see why the system is nicknamed the “Clockwork Orange” now. The trains and tunnels are like a scaled-down version of the tube in London, thankfully there are not London-sized crowds of people trying to get on them. I do the full circuit in around 30 minutes. Only one other person in the car is there when I get on and off again, and he’s swigging from a can of Tennants Extra in a brown paper bag. We pass some famous names – Ibrox, Partick, Kelvinside etc, some of which are on Strathclyde’s extensive heavy rail network also. Doing that will possibly be the most complex quest of all when it comes, as it combines city, countryside and seaside, in an area bigger than Greater London but as complex as the Yorkshire area with interconnections and branches everywhere. And they keep opening because the Scottish Parliament is rather more progressive about transport than the British one!

I grab a coffee at Queen Street and wait for the West Highland train. I didn’t realise until today that it’s a combined train for Mallaig and Oban that splits at Crianlarich. As I’m heading to the latter first I have to get into the front two coaches of the four coach 156 Sprinter. It’s fairly well booked out which is hardly surprising as the line has been voted the most scenic in the WORLD recently! Astonishing. I try to resist sleep but I am so tired. I manage to be awake by the time we reach the Highlands proper, but even heading out of the conurbation I spot that we are chugging alongside lochs already. Its unfortunate but the long and winding routes to the Highlands are now no competition for roads – I’m told that there are no more single track A roads left now – whereas the railways are almost entirely single track. So when you travel by rail Scotland feels a lot bigger than it is because it takes you so long to reach some of it! Undoubtedly the railway is the most scenic though as it skirts the lochs and travels through the base of the glens – sometimes you can’t see a road for miles from the train.

We’re first off from Crianlarich after splitting and after enjoying a landscape of snow-capped mountains – a real treat – I am delivered to Oban, a fishing village. I have a couple of hours there in which I get the chance to explore a folly perched up on the hill above the town. It looks like the Coliseum and was designed to house a theatre but was never completed. It gives a great view over the harbour today where you can see the many ferries heading out to the Isles. After a fish supper – with beautiful local haddock – I’m off again to Crianlarich. With a thrill I see a row of stags watching the train go past – it’s a bit more sobering when you remember that they were only introduced for the gentry to go hunting, but still they are an impressive sight.

At Crianlarich I make for the youth hostel – my first stay in one. After doing TA selection and staying in barracks with 30 strangers a youth hostel seems nae problem. Except there’s none of the camaraderie, it’s just six disparate blokes looking for a bed for the night. It doesn’t help that there’s just one light which is off when I get back from the pub at around 11, so I have to undress and find my way to the top bunk in the dark. Oh well, it’s all an experience. I sleep surprisingly well and am up out and out by 8.15. The station has a nice little café where I have a protracted breakfast. It’s just as well I get there early as the place fills up fast with people from the hostel. I watch the first train down to Glasgow that delivers a Scotrail worker and his dog. I presume he’s the driver waiting for the up train to take whichever half doesn’t have one yet on. When the train arrives and splits though, it transpires he is the conductor. And this is where the surprises start.

When I get on I hear another Scotrail employee explaining to the couple behind me that our train is being driven by the youngest driver Scotrail has ever employed – she is 24 – and the first female driver on the West Highland line. The conductor with the dog jokes that I’ll have to put up with this talk all the way to Mallaig. I tell him it’s actually interesting to me as I start driver training with Southern next month. At this I’m invited into the back cab to have a quick look around, given a cup of tea etc etc. It’s great to be given a sneak preview of the controls and have the token exchange system explained to me – not that I will be using that in the busy south! We chat all the way to Mallaig about stuff. It transpires that he is an ex-army, motorbike riding rail enthusiast, so we have a bit to talk about. Later he gives me a lift back to Fort William. An amazing surprise. It was great to meet someone so generous and unassuming – it just wouldn’t happen down south. He was from Liverpool and absolutely loved living up there. Though I’m not certain I could live in such a place myself I understand his affection for the place.

I’ve a couple of hours in Fort William so I have a walk around, go up into the lower reaches of the hills that surround the place, and find a really nice pub, famous for its ales. I enjoy a couple of pints there and head for the station (rather annoyingly now cut off from the town by a busy road), getting a haggis and chips en route. I want to finish it before getting on the train so manage to burn my mouth on the haggis, which I suppose is as good a Caledonian experience as any to go home with.

At this point the sleeper is two sleeper cars, a buffet car and a luggage van, hauled by a class 67 diesel. Two similar trains leave Aberdeen and Inverness each night, all three meeting at Edinburgh where they are shunted into a different order and then hauled by a single class 90 electric back to London via the Carstairs line. I am shown to my cabin – I’ve got it to myself which means I can spread my stuff around, but I wouldn’t have been that bothered about sharing. I take the top bunk and read for a bit until we set off, then go to the lounge car for some tea. I don’t like the ordering arrangements – there is no hatch, you wait for the staff to come to you. The whole system seems designed to stop you dwelling because there is no easy way of placing more than one order!

Like the Penzance sleeper, this is very much a last train for locals as well as for long distance travellers, as it stops almost everywhere back to Glasgow, sometimes on request. This is good as it gives the line a fourth train and allows a slightly longer day at Fort William if needed. So it takes ages to get to Edinburgh. By ten I’m drifting off anyway so I return to my cabin and read for a bit, drifting off to sleep. I get into bed and don’t wake again until we stop at Edinburgh. I hear the shunter talking to the driver and remember I’ll be heading into this world soon, a strange thought. Amazingly the jolting of the train being shunted does not really disturb my sleep and the next time I wake and look out we’re at Preston – about four in the morning. The first time I went on a sleeper it was hard to sleep properly but it’s amazing how quickly you adapt. The motion of the train is very conducive to dozing off, as anyone who has slept through their stop can tell you.

I wake at Stafford briefly then return to sleep. At seven the alarm goes off and I get up and get ready. Breakfast comes about fifteen minutes later; it’s a strange mixture – a mini muffin, a small croissant and an odd muesli and gluey yoghurt combination plus coffee and shortbread. Not the most balanced meal I’ve had but my diet is shite at the moment anyway. I see a sign on a building telling me that we are near Rugby but I don’t know if we’ve passed the station yet. Either way it appears that there has been a huge delay as even after the West Coast refurb, trains can’t get from Rugby to London in the half hour left. We come to a halt. The train doesn’t move for ages and no others pass us. Bearing in mind that this is the busiest of the UK’s main lines, this means that something is seriously awry. I look out of the window and all the signals are at red. There are no announcements as usual so I check my Blackberry. There’s enough charge to find out that there has been a fatality at Wolverton and Euston is closed with nothing moving. I think of the driver for obvious reasons and hope that they don’t terminate us early and put us on buses.

About two hours pass, I’m grateful for the cabin as I can relax on the bunk and read. In fact this is the most relaxation I’ve had for ages I realise. I’m quite enjoying it! We eventually get going and I hang out of the windows to read the signals, we go very slowly past some single ambers, then I recognise a junction indicator, we get a green and we’re off at full speed until London.

It’s nearly three hours late and I don’t really feel like going home yet, having had plenty of rest. I decide to do some more bashing and head for Marylebone to do the new Aylesbury Parkway station – a bit of reopened line! However there are buses on part of the route so I forget that and decide to do the DLR extension to Woolwich Arsenal instead. It’s the only bit of London’s transport that I’ve not travelled on. It opened to George V Dock a couple of years ago but I knew it would be going through to Woolwich a couple of years later so I held off – travelling through the Docklands is not THAT exciting(!) What is interesting is that it took over the North London Line from Canning Town to North Woolwich and then continued south of the river to Woolwich proper. So there is another first for this trip – travelling under the newest Thames tunnel! There is more to come in London in terms of lines to travel – the DLR is taking over the North London Line from Canning Town to Stratford and beyond to the International Station where it will meet the SE Trains High Speed services to St Pancras. A start is being made on Crossrail. But first there will be the East London Line, close to my own home, which will see trains running from Croydon and Crystal Palace through to Highbury and Islington via a re-opened line between Broad Street and Dalston.

Home is reached at around 4.30pm. It feels like a long time since I’ve been there.

Lines covered this trip:

Glasgow Queen Street-Singer-Oban
Oban-Crianlarich-Mallaig
Glasgow Underground