Up and down to York

Every year, my motorbike club has a final event of the year called the 'Birthday Bash', which commemorates and celebrates the founding of the club over 30 years ago. It's a chance to meet up with old (and new) friends, visit a part of the country you might not otherwise visit, go on a bike run with a different mix of people, and generally enjoy some good food, drink and company.

This year's event was in York, which meant quite a trek for me - I keep my bike in Brighton rather than West London, as I got fed up of it getting knocked over in the streets by ignorant motorrists here. (But that's for another blog).

Unfortunately for me, the week-end in question just happened to be unseasonably cold, with a grim forecast, so I decided to break the journey: a round trip of 600 miles on my own over three days in the cold and wet did not seem to so appealing (not that I'm a fair weather biker - more a case of making things a bit easier - after all, it's supposed to be fun!).

So I decided to break my journey at Peterborough, which is roughly half way on the route, and stayed with the very jolly people at the Sibson Inn on the Great North Road. It's a lovely old converted farmhouse, with many of the rooms arranged around a courtyard in former outbuildings. The food is excellent too - dinner was really good, and it's nice to have a cooked breakfast made to order rather than serve yourself from a hotplate.

Before setting off the next day, I headed to the lovely little village of Castor for a look at its famous church of St Kyneburgha. This is well worth a short detour if you are ever in the area, for its astonishing array of Norman carvings and the 15th century painted angels (over 60 of them) which adorn its roof.

And then to York, staying at the hostel at York Racecourse; this provides very decent budget accommodation for groups, with good traditional cooking; everyone was impressed by the evening meal of steak pie (or veggie lasagne) with plenty of fresh vegetables. It certainly lived up to the image of generous northern hospitality!

York itself, of course, needs no introduction, whether you like history, railways, churches or all three. The downer was that it was packed, with a particular emphasis, it seemed, on large organised tour groups. Still, both the National Railway Museum and York Minster live up to expectation - though, oddly, the former is free and you now have to pay to get into the latter!

The run back started with a quick visit to the legendary Squire's Cafe (well, legendary in biking circles): this former pub, taken over as a milk bar in the 1960s, is a biking mecca: literally thousands of bikes a week visit during the summer months. It was a great opportunity to say farewell to our friends before heading off back to the four corners of the UK.

And I even got home without getting wet!

All aboard!

Last Saturday I escaped the horribly close weather we are having in London, and headed north to Loughborough for a day out. Now, most people will only know Loughborough from its University, famous for engineering and sport. But this otherwise unremarkable Midlands town has another thing going for it: the Great Central Railway.

The Great Central is generally regarded as one of the best of the UK's heritage steam railways. It is unique in preserving a former section of a main line, and having double track running, enabling it to recreate the great age of steam-hauled expresses. (Other preserved lines tend to be former branch lines).

Its history goes back to the mid-19th Century, and the vision of Edward Watkin. He envisaged a railway running from Manchester and Sheffield, via a new high speed main line, through London to Dover and then under the Channel Tunnel and thence to France. The line would be built to the larger European loading gauge, enabling the wider, longer and taller Continental carriages to run through directly to the North of England. And all this in the 1860s!

Watkin was Chairman of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, the South Eastern Railway (connecting London with Dover), and also the Metropolitan Railway, so he was ideally placed to make the vision happen. A brand new line was built to link these various companies, from Sheffield down to the end of the Metropolitan line in London. The 'London extension', as it was called, was the last 19th century main line built into London, and opened through to Marylebone Station in 1899. It was renamed the 'Great Central Railway,' and quickly became famous for its fast and comfortable expresses.

Alas, the Channel Tunnel vision had to wait nearly another century before becoming reality, thanks to cost, engineering and security concerns. The Great Central was in many ways a successful line, although the company was never able to pay a dividend. But being a latecomer, and traversing the territory of more established companies, was to be its downfall: it became a victim of the 1966 cuts in British Railways, and was the only complete main line to be closed - ironically, the most modern and the only one built to the European loading gauge!

In 1969 some enthusiasts got together to reopen part of the line, and after a lot of hard work the trains started running again in 1973. The railway now runs from Loughborough to the northern outskirts of Leicester. It has a large collection of steam locomotives, from every pre-1947 company, as well as British Railway standard designs, and a wide range of preserved diesel trains and railcars. This varied collection is a delight for the enthusiast, and really helps to recreate the feel of railway in the early 1960s.

The stations are delightful: Loughborough recreates a large, busy town station of the early 1960s, Quorn & Woodhouse recreates the railway in wartime of the 1940s, and Rothley, the Edwardian period. Quorn & Woodhouse and Rothley are both excellent examples of the Great Central's standard design of small stations with a single island platform.

The line is double track from Loughborough to Rothley, allowing a real taste of how a main line railway would have felt in the 1960s. It runs through rolling countryside and passes on two viaducts over part of the lovely Swithland Reservoir (something of a hidden gem itself). All stations have some form of refreshment facilities, and there is a souvenir shop and bookshop at Loughborough.

Apart from the trains, additional attractions include the locomotive shed and workshops at Loughborough and the Ellis tearoom and miniature railway at Rothley. Also at Rothley are the workshops of the Railway Vehicle Preservation group, who aim to preserve rolling stock such as carriages (vital work, of course, but lacking the glamour of locomotive preservation). Their pride is two sets of Travelling Post Offices, and they organise week-ends demonstrating the old automatic mail drop-off and pick-up system, made famous by the 1950s film 'The Night Mail'.

The current southern terminus is Leicester North, just south of the site of the former Belgrave & Birstall station. There are plans to extend both further south into Leicester, and northwards to join up with a section of line still extant towards Ruddington and the outskirts of Nottingham. At present there is a gap of over 300m between the two sections, with an embankment and several bridges missing.

As you would expect, the line is extraordinarily popular with 'children of all ages'. They run a number of special 'themed' days, some suitable for the die-hard enthusiast, (eg Travelling Post Office demonstration) and others orientated more towards children (eg Thomas the Tank Engine days and Santa Specials).

As it is a full working railway, children must be appropriately supervised, and the locomotive shed is messy underfoot - stout footwear would be a good idea, and it is not really suitable for small children. Full details of access and parking can be found on the Line's website.

For further details, see their website at: www.gcrailway.co.uk