Day 11 - Visit to Newcastle

The catch of the day was Timothy Taylor's Havercake Ale

We left the hotel quite early in time to catch the 08.35 train from York to Newcastle. It was surprising is that Crosscountry trains run a train ahead of us by 3 minutes all the way to Edinburgh.

Our train came out of the mist at York

As we expected it turned out to be an Azuma

It was cold and misty leaving York and the mist did rise at one point when the sun came through to reveal sheep wallowing in sodden fields. We could barely make out the cathedral the mist had returned as we approached Newcastle.

We purchased an all day ticket on the Tyne and Wear Metro at the Central station and took the Metro train out to Whitley Bay. It was misty over the North Sea but at least we could see the waves crashing on the rocks. This is an interesting line which was originally British Rail but it is now a local line using overhead DC power. Many of the original stations have been retained, that at Whitley Bay being particularly interesting. 

Newcastle

Whitley Bay

Whitley bay

Whitley Bay

Whitley Bay station interior

From Whitley Bay we came back to the central area and the main station where we had an enormous plate of fish and chips and a pint of Black Sheep bitter, both of which were excellent. The bar, just off the station concourse, had obviously been part of the the station construction with some incredibly imaginative and beautiful tile work.

After this we went back to the metro and caught a Metro train via Gateshead and Pelaw through to Sunderland.  Here the Metro trains appear to use the same tracks as the normal rail trains.

We had a quick walk around the town and found a park with a pond containing Mallards, Tufted ducks, Moorhens and seagulls. A man was feeding the large number of pigeons.  He was stopped by a couple of locals in uniform and commenced a big argument. It was shouted in the local accent which I couldn't understand.

Tufted Ducks are a diving duck that winter in the UK

The Metro train back to Central was pretty full.  The trains use a triple and quadruple aspect signal system just like British railways.  

We caught an LNER Azuma train back to York. These trains, although pretty new, did not give a good ride in many places and were heavily crowded.  I noticed that the seats and the windows did not match up so that some window seats did not have a proper view.

At York, this historic mile zero marker has been placed. It was mile zero for some ten railways,

A visit to the Bar near the station produced a pint of Timothy Taylor's Havercake. A little fuller that Landlord but, again, very good.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a single island
Read more

Journey to Zurich Hauptbahnhof, Dolderbahn, Wiedikon and Wallace Fountain

Image
 Tuesday 23 August Paul and I travelled to Zurich on Air Canada via Toronto. The flight from Ottawa was over an hour late - luckily we planned for this with a three hour connection in Toronto. Toronto airport was disgusting. It was overcrowded and there was nowhere for people to stand while waiting to board their flights. Obviously the Toronto airport focusses on relieving passengers of their money. Once aboard the plane things went well. There was plenty of space for carry on and the flight was excellent. It seems that the problem with airline travel is the airports rather than the flights. Our flight landed four minutes ahead of schedule (Wednesday) which was 0800. By 0820 we had cleared passport control and by 0840 we had taken a connecting internal tram and found the tram to downtown. We could have taken the SBB trains but we were in no great hurry and we enjoyed the 35 minute tram ride to close to the hotel. At Gladbrugge we passed two SBB 6/6 locomotives on the main line close by
Read more

Coming Home - Wrap Up - Sunday 15 Setember 2024

Image
This video, by Noel Wyler,  shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal  Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip  
Read more