11:45.

All good things come to an end and that’s what’s happened today with our Dorset holiday. It’s been a fabulous couple of weeks despite the mixed weather. So much so that I’ve not blogged as often as I’d planned as I’ve been too busy exploring and spending time with the family. Fromm my perspective it’s been a great opportunity to revisit some places and discover new ones due as I’ve not had to rely on public transport for a change. That said, public transport (well, buses anyway) seem to be very good down here. I wish I could say the same about the trains but their punctuality and reliability has been poor.

Right now I’m on a train heading to Waterloo as I’m making my own way back whilst the family go by car. Much as I’d have liked to have travelled together all my extra kit (and me) would have made Dawn’s Honda Civic rather ‘cosy’ and I preferred to let her folks have more room. There is a bonus for me – I can work on the train and edit pictures en-route.

The whole family have come away with some very positive impressions of Dorset. People have been very friendly and helpful, plus, the towns and villages are noticeably cleaner and better kept than back in West Yorkshire. As I walked to Wareham station this morning I passed several community volunteers litter picking On the downside, it’s much more expensive in Dorset, but money isn’t everything. Oh, they still love fish and chips in Dorset! Whilst many ‘chippies’ in Yorkshire have closed in recent years, they proliferate down here. When I first moved to West Yorkshire in 2010 Sowerby Bridge boasted 5 chip shops, now there’s just one left. Conversely (as I mentioned in a previous blog) it’s harder to find decent fishmongers down here than it is in land-locked West Yorkshire. Go figure!

Whilst the standard of living down in Dorset is good (you should see how many expensive yachts and floating gin-palaces are moored up around the harbours of Poole and Weymouth) there’s still issues. The railways suffere from vandalism (see my journey here) and antisocial behaviour. Unlike Northern, SWR have a recorded announcement about how violence towards staff won’t be tolerated, which is rather depressing.

12:00.

We’ve reached Bournemouth, where the 5-car Class 444 I’m travelling on has coupled to the rear of another classmate in order to form a 10 car service to Waterloo. The opposite happens with trains heading to Weymouth, which split here. Of all the old railway regions, this splitting/joining of trains en-route is still an everyday occurrence on the old ‘Southern’ whereas it’s a rarity on most other regions.

14:15.

I’ve eschewed the delights of crossing the capital to take a slightly more roundabout way home. Having changed at Southampton Central I’m now on a Cross-Country service to Manchester via Reading and Birmingham. I’ll take me longer than the ‘direct’ route via London but it allows me to travel on routes I don’t frequent as much, such as the one I’m traversing now, which is the line from Basingstoke to Reading. This service consists of a pair of four-car Class 220s and there’s been no problem in finding a seat. A lot were reserved from Southampton but never occupied. I had toyed with the idea of stopping off at Eastleigh en-route but as that railway town was being rained on as I approached I decided to keep going. Besides, the others are already way up the country, having recently passed the Brackley HS2 construction site in Northamptonshire!

One thing I’ve noticed on these railway travels are the amounts of cuttings and embankments Network Rail has installed remote monitoring sensors on in order to detect and predict movements. Most of these structures were built 150 or more years ago, in the days when soil engineering was unheard of. Now, with age and the advent of climate change they’re increasingly at risk.

14:50.

We’ve left Oxford, en-route to Banbury after a pootle at less than high-speed along the Great Western Main Line to Didcot. Seeing the half-completed electrification scheme along the line to Oxford made me think. It would be an easy win for the new Government to show its environmental credentials by finishing this project that was cancelled by ‘failing Grayling’, the Tory Transport Minister of the time. Much of piling work was done and the plans still exist, it wouldn’t take much to dust them off. Then we could get rid of the ridiculous situation where electric trains run from Paddington to Didcot, where passengers transfer to a DMU shuttle to get the last few miles to Oxford.

15:45.

Having arrived at (and departed) Coventry we’re on our way to Birmingham, and this is where Intercity trains on this busy local corridor fall down. Due to a lack of capacity services like this become rammed with people moving between to two conurbations. We become a local train between the two, which isn’t ideal for either set of passengers, although you can see why locals prefer the faster train between the two.

16:45.

Interestingly, the majority of people who boarded my coach in Coventry (Afro-Caribbean families on a day out) were travelling to Wolverhampton, not Birmingham. Having left Wolves the train’s pretty empty! This part of the trip raises my hackles because until the disastrous premiership of Rishi Sunak, I was looking forward to this route and these cramped Voyagers being replaced by a new high-speed railway (HS2). Now, a 90 minute journey between tow of our biggest cities is baked in for decades – unless the new Labour Government has the bravery and the common-sense to resurrect the project.

17:25.

I’m on the final approach to Manchester from Stockport and Manchester is living up to its reputation for rain. It’s grim up North! Now for the walk from Picc to Vic..

Meanwhile, the others are already back in West Yorkshire and half way from the M1 to Huddersfield…

22:15.

Home again! I got back to Sowerby Bridge just before 19:00. Dawn was waiting to pick me up from the station after depositing her folks at their home in Huddersfield. Now it’s time to relax after the long journey – we can finish unpacking tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a small selection of pictures from the past couple of days.

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