Colin Churcher 2020

Today we travelled back from London, England to Ottawa. The journey took longer than it should because Air Canada does not yet have any trans-Atlantic flights from Ottawa. We were forced to go through Toronto thus putting about four hours on to the trip, even before the flight from Toronto was heavily delayed.   It was a great trip. Its was a short trip but Paul and I managed to work out an excellent schedule which went according to plan. Our first success was the arrival at Frankfurt. Our plane was due in at 0725 and our train to Koln was due to leave at 0809. The plane was a few minutes late but we made it through passport control and a busy airport with one minute to spare. https://www.flickr.com/photos/colinchurcher/albums/72177720303860988 We had a great visit to see the Wuppertal monorail https://www.flickr.com/photos/colinchurcher/albums/72177720303854444   We have visited Miniatur Wunderland many times and knew what to expect. I think it exceeded our expectations:...

The Circle Line trains have a great deal of capacity, seen here in the morning. Coming back in the afternoon the trains were very, very full indeed. We left Paddington in good time and travelled by the Circle Line to Victoria where we caught a train to Borough Green and Wrotham. This was through pretty familiar territory - Bromley South, Bickley, St. Mary Cray and Eynsford. Linda and Frances met our on time train at Borough Green and we walked to Amy and George's home. Our train was on time at Borough Green Frances and Linda were a great welcoming committee We had coffee with Amy and George and handed over the family bible which was dated 1863. Paul hands over the bible to Amy Amy and George have just put up their Christmas tree We all went to lunch at the Malt Shovel in Eynsford which I remember visiting for the occasional lunch while excavating the Lullingstone Roman Villa in the summers of 1959 and 1960. Beckie (from Sidcup), Amy's sister, joined us for lunch. The Malt Shove...

 Staying in Paddington we took a quick walk across the station to take a look at the Grand Union Canal, which is located some way above the railway. The area is quite interesting and the basin is called Little Venice. Below the Directors' Box The GWR Directors' Box Paddington Paddington Platform One A magnificent pollarded tree From there we took the Underground to Kings Cross and walked to the Post Office Museum which has the Post Office Railway. The ride under the streets of London is interesting. The train is like a gigantic model railway on the two foot gauge. It is now battery operated. From there we made our way through Kings Cross and St. Pancras to the Skinners' Arms where I met up with Mike Fulford, Colin Bishop, John Palmer. Peter Gregory and Charles Smith. Paul Churcher also kindly joined us. Sadly our numbers are getting smaller. It was good to talk about our lives and present problems and successes. Not sure what this tank was doing outside Kings Cross station....

Near the Shambles T oday was a travel day from York to London. We went to out into York early to take a final walk around. The weather was slightly better and the sidewalks seem to have dried. York in the early morning before the crowds arrived is very pleasant. The range of old and interesting buildings is quite extraordinary. I west back to the railway museum to quickly buy a book about Dickens' experiences with railways. Minster Minster We checked out of the hotel about 10:30 and made our way to the station in order to catch the 12:02 LNER train to London. We had thought this would be one of the LNER Azuma trains, but it turned out to be a service originating at York with an older class 91 locomotive in push mode. The advantage was we be able to board the train 20 minutes before departure and enjoyed the first class service. We had window seats and the spacing of the seats in relation to the windows was correct. Our locomotive was a class 91 at the back of the train While walkin...