Seems an apt title for the retrospective on Day 2. Day 2? Is that right?? It almost feels like I’ve been travelling across time zones and I’m jet lagged. Mind you, there used to be many “time zones” in the UK and it was the railway system that brought about a unified time in the country. But that’s another story.
So Day 2 kicked off in Brighton. And that’s pretty much, give or take, a fairly southern part of the country. And the aim was to head due north pretty much as far as I could in a day. I briefly made the most of the room upgrade by standing on the balcony to watch pretty wild waves crashing on to the south coast shores before a quick breakfast and making a quick 15 minute march up to station for the 07:44 Thameslink to London St Pancras. Originally, I had planned to take the 08:16 but decided on erring on the safe side. Plus I was awake again around 06:00 so no worries. Proved to be sensible.
Brighton station has a terminus feel to it and wasn’t particularly busy. At 12 coaches, the Thameslink train was sparsely populated, especially in First Class at the head of the train. The scenery out of Brighton all the way up to the M25 is lovely but it became clear that my decision to leave earlier, rather than later, was wise and the optimism, based on day one, that all trains would be on time, was mis-founded. Signalling problems led to a 20 min late running. I remained relaxed an it was nice to have time to pop in to the First Class LNER lounge at Kings Cross.
The lounge was a couple of steps up from GWR’s lounge at Paddington but still falls short of airline lounges. My 1C experiences on Avanti, GWR and LNER lead me to think that the train companies could up their game here. More on that shortly – but seriously, is there really a need to put up a notice telling 1C passengers not to take items (such as a pack of biscuits or small bottles of water) out of the lounge? I ignored it, irritated by the instruction, and sneaked out a bottle of water.
(now arriving in Carlisle – gosh I remember my rail rovers taking me up here 40 years or so ago…and there’s a few decent locos around!).
Exiting the LNER Kings Cross lounge presented a nice opportunity to view the platforms from an elevated level and reminded me of departure from Eurostar at Gare Du Nord in Paris. See pic on my Instagram account. Awaiting was the impressive Azuma train. First class was packed and fortunately I managed to find a better seat than originally designated. The journey up north is magnificent. Speed and scenery combined means that I didn’t make much headway on the list of things I want to do.
So, on to food. 10:00 departure. Service was lunch, not brunch, and served around 11. Dilemma as I was told there was only 1 food service per journey. At least until crew change at Newcastle!? Anyway, I got the super-sized sausage roll (one sachet of tommy k, so needed to ask for an extra which seemed to be a problem) and overcame the service challenges to arrive in Aberdeen not hungry.
However, the signalling challenges south of London had migrated north and we ran 21 minutes late up to Edinburgh. On board announcements suggested we would make the time up. We didn’t, so I missed the 19 min connection in Aberdeen. Oh well, it only added 40 mins to the journey and gave me the chance for a quick whizz around the granite city. Grey on grey. But I’m told it sparkles when the sun shines.
Third and final train of the day up to Inverness was sadly mostly in the dark and I arrived just after 8:30pm. The tally for the day – 685 miles in 12 hours. I think that categorises itself as an epic trip.
Inverness is the furthest north I have been in this country. It was quiet and small, divided by the exceptionally fast flowing river Ness, over which I had a lovely view from my (again) upgraded room. Thank you Accor All loyalty program. Dumped my bags and headed straight out for another 9pm dinner, a short walk across the bouncy pedestrian bridge, to a fabulous seafood restaurant, surprisingly run by an Cornish man. If I ever opened a restaurant, this is how I would run it.
