Today’s hardly been the most exciting day here at Bigland Towers as I’ve spent most of it chained to my desk – despite wall to wall sunshine outside. I’ve needed to clear the decks ready for the next few weeks which is going to see me travelling all around the country but before doing that I needed to get pictures out to clients and rejig some other arrangements as plans have a habit of changing from day to day – through no fault of my own.

The first adventure begins tomorrow when I head off to Crewe to join the rest of the staff, volunteers and participants for the 20th anniversary trip of the Railway Childrens ‘3 Peaks by rail’ odyssey. The trip has already stretched the ingenuity of the team organising the logistics of the event but I won’t explain why until after we leave Crewe. I’ll be blogging throughout Thursday and the other two days of the event when I can, although there’s some places where phone reception and wifi simply don’t exist so I’ll have to fill in the blanks later. Of course you’ll also be able to read all about the event in a future edition of RAIL magazine.

Right now it’s time for me to call it a day as not only do I need to finish packing for the 3 Peaks, I also need to prepare a set of holiday clothes because just as soon as I get back from Scotland I’ll be hot-footing it down to Norfolk the next day to catch up with Dawn and her parents in Norfolk where we have a holiday cottage booked. Thankfully, Dee can take my stuff with her to save me carrying even more kit. The 3 peaks has often caused me some fun as a couple of times I’ve had to hot-foot it to Crewe straight from other (sometimes formal) events. I’ve even had to fly straight back from Germany and travel to Bangor in a following service only to meet up with the train in the early hours of the morning. In contrast, this year I have plenty of time and no other commitments.

I’ll leave you with today’s picture which comes from the series I was taking yesterday. Here’s a pair of Trans-Pennine Express Class 185s from Manchester en-route to Leeds crossing the Uppermill viaduct.

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