[image credit Nicolas Valentin]
Reading The Times on Saturday is always a journey for me. I use it as an opportunity to read stuff I just wouldn’t normally read and I always find something to keep me entertained and educated. Today was a piece on rail travel in the UK which has a reputation for being spectacularly bad and with good reason. We’re the home of excuses that would make a secondary school teacher on a Monday morning blanch. Wrong type of leaves on the line is the most famous of these.
Lord Adonis bears no resemblance to his Greek namesake but he is in fact the Rail Minister of this fine country. Until today I didn’t even know we had a rail minister but fair play to the chap, he’s been on a week long tour of the UK rail system covering 2,000 miles on some 40 trains spread over 70 hours. Poor chap.
Further kudos in his direction though as he’s not taking the usual MP/celeb approach of being cosseted along the way by an entourage who would provide him with a wholly non-realistic view of the world by ensuring all lines were brushed of leaves and staff showed up to man the trains. He’s flying solo with the aim to get a real world view and despite being joined on the way by local rail staff, MP’s & journalists that should be nicely balanced out by his travelling alongside the common man and woman.
It sounds like he’s had a pretty interesting trip which you can read on his the Rail trip blog on The Times website but today’s article had one particular point that caught my eye – the ministers entire trip is being undertaken courtesy of the All Line Rail Rover ticket. Ever heard of that? No, me either. It turns out this £375 ticket gets you unlimited travel on most National Rail services at any time for 7 consecutive days. There are a few obvious routes it doesn’t include but I can’t image most people would consider the Heathrow Express that interesting anyway. It’s full of old bags.
However it does include Ffestiniog Railway which I can tell you from my childhood experience is a real treat. And tonnes of other places…to be honest you could just spend the £375 and have 7 amazing days in the Lake District and Scotland. That’s what I’ll be doing either this year or early next year.
To whet you appetite, have a look at Scotland in 50 stunning photographs
I’m glad I read The Times today and I’m glad in Adonis we have a minister who seems to genuinely care about his portfolio.
Just had a look at the 50 stunning photographs simply wow I knew Scotland was a lovely country but that encourages me to really consider going. Not sure if its best to go by car, train or plane.
The best travel secret in the UK by far is the post buses of wester ross, personal service, fantastic roads and destinations beautiful beyond compare. I defy anyone to go to Applecross and not be overwhelmed.. yet they are dead from this friday because despite the fact that the post office were given their subsidy they asked for they decided it still wasn't worth it.
shameful
Alasdair I saw the item about the post buses on breakfast news last week and I too thought it was a great shame that the Post Office had decided to stop this service. I cannot think of a more interesting way of getting from one remote part of country to another, with your own personnel travel guide in the form of the local post man, who would know many a secret!!!