From a railway carriage crossing “The Silvery Tay”

Our 1500 rail miles Highland Railway Odyssey brought us full circle back to Cheltenham this evening.

Today we travelled home from Dundee via Edinburgh Waverley to Birmingham and on to Cheltenham Spa. Ten highly memorable days in every way.

The trip planning was fraught. Train strikes would have wrecked it. I could not make firm train bookings until I knew we had chosen a strike free window.

With Covid circulating again we hoped it would not scupper this trip. Today’s trains were full of coughing fellow passengers.

Any missed connection would seriously jeopardise the pre-booked accommodation.

Storm Agnes threatened to derail us on our 13th train today. We sat at Penrith for 22 minutes as a fallen branch appeared to paralyse the west coast mainline! A well publicised cancellation on this route on Monday seemed to be repeating itself. But luckily, not so, and after an abundance of caution we made our Birmingham New Street transfer comfortably.

On almost every train journey I am in awe of the civil engineering needed to build these lines in the 19th century. The far north line and the west highland ones are simply awesome. The massive bridges over Forth and Tay speak further volumes for the skill and will of the Victorian railway builders.

Needless to say, today’s HS2 debacle makes me despair.