Wednesday 16 April 2014

Epilogue: When All Is Said And Done


I know some of you come here just for the stats, not for my lovingly crafted prose, so here it is: the final tally.

Number of stations visited: 19
Total miles travelled by rail: 310
Total miles walked: 19

Best station (architecturally): Hellifield
Best station (facilities): Skipton
Best station (location): Dent

Worst station (architecturally): Long Preston
Worst station (facilities): Giggleswick
Worst station (location): Clapham

Place I will need to visit again because it's just so goshdarned lovely: Skipton
Places I wouldn't mind returning to someday: Settle, Clapham, Kirkby Stephen, Ribblehead
Place I'd only return to as part of some kind of hostage situation: Wennington

Best Pub: The New Inn, Clapham
Best Pub for Train Nerds: The Station Inn, Ribblehead
Best Pub for feeling uncomfortable and out of place: The Black Horse, Hellifield

Best cafe: The Mulberry Bush, Kirkby Stephen
Best place to commute with the mystic earth Mother: Long Meg and Her Daughters
Best Member of Staff: the Northern Rail guard who chatted about his need for a pub on his hols

Facts learnt during this trip:

  • Station signs are apparently a commodity in short supply
  • The Forest of Bowland is not actually a forest
  • There are few more pleasing experiences than drinking a cup of tea on a station platform with no-one else around for miles
  • Victorian engineers were very clever, but not very interested in the passenger experience
  • You can name a whole series of blogposts after Abba songs and only one person will notice
  • The Settle & Carlisle is astonishingly beautiful but there are too many people using it, thank you very much
  • Zumba is massive in village halls
  • For all its tourists, the Settle & Carlisle really could do with a few more station tea rooms
  • Wind chimes are an evil that must be destroyed
  • Drink driving really isn't that much of a fuss in the countryside
  • Ancient man really knew how to build a stone circle
  • Northern can run decent trains with trolleys if it really wants to
  • Map Bibs are the new Ugg boots
  • This country has more history than it knows what to do with
  • Marks and Spencer ready meals make everything better.  Also bacon sandwiches
  • Mock-Tudor really is horrible
The Journey in Full:







Useful Links

2 comments:

Fnarf said...

"Friends of the Seattle & Carlisle Line"

Now, THAT's a rail journey. About 5,000 miles as the crow flies, and most of that over water.

(Longtime reader in Seattle here, excited to be finally able to visit exciting Carlisle without getting into an airplane).

Fnarf said...

"Friends of Settle Being Added to the Autocorrect Dictionary" needs to get on the ball.