10:30.

Not quite the day I had planned…

Right now I’m departing a wet and dreary Calder Valley for London. I’m later thn expected for a number of reasons.

Last night my laptop threw a strop. The battery (despite being new last year) decided that it wasn’t playing anymore and gave up the ghost, leaving the machine without power as it refused to run off the mains charger without it. Bugger!

Playing around with the benighted thing ate into the time I’d planned to get ready for going away, hence today’s delay.

I’m travelling sans laptop as a new battery won’t arrive until tomorrow, leaving me to blog/run the mobile office off my smartphone – which will restrict the number of pictures I can add.

To add to the fun and games there’s overhead line problems on the London end of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) but that shouldn’t affect services from Manchester..

So, as I’m restricted in what I can do I might as well sit back, relax and enjoy the journey. Dawn was kind enough to drive me to Sowerby Bridge station so I avoided a soaking and Avanti have provided me with 1st Class travel to/from London to attend this afternoons photo competition awards. 

Let’s see how things go…

11:45.

London bound!

My trip across the Pennines was a grey and grim as ever, making me realise just how lucky I was to get out in the sunshine the other day. The stroll between Victoria abd Piccadilly in freezing temperatures was only enlivened by watching a pair of Manchester’s finest nicking and handcuffing two teenage lads!

Now I’m relaxing in coach J of an 11 car Pendolino heading for the capital. There’s only a handful of us in the coach so I have a table bay of to myself.

The food offering was good too. Bangers and mash – just what you need on a miserable winters day like this.

Travelling 1st Class on a Pendolino brings back memories of a different life and a different era.

20 years and more ago I was one of a small pool of freelance photographers the then Virgin Trains (who introduced the Pendolinos) employed on a regular basis. Being London-based I was on hand for some of their most prestigious events involving Sir Richard Branson and many other famous people from the worlds of film, sport and politics. I ended up covering so many jobs and locations that I was given my own 1st Class pass. Of course, in those days Virgin ran both the West Coast and Cross-Country franchises, so I could travel the length and breadth of the Country, from Aberdeen to Penzance!

12:50.

We’ve left Nuneaton, our final stop before London. Passing through the Trent Valley was interesting. The amount of flooded fields and overflowing rivers is a testament to just how much rain we’re having right now. How farmers are going to get crops in this ground is beyond me – unless they’re going to start growing rice.

This line contains so many memories and stories for me, but then I’ve been traversing it for over half a century. Nuneaton reminded me of the time we came here by train for the annual rail press corps Xmas dinner. Arriving by train we were ferried by coach to the test track near Melton Mowbray. As we changed, a screw leapt out of my glasses, which lost an arm as a consequence. We couldn’t find the screw but thankfully someone had a paperclip, which I used to jury-rig a repair!

13:05.

We’re now South of Rugby, a town I have so many memories and stories of. Not least of which is spending much of Xmas day 2005 in full orange PPE trackside, watching the rebuilding of the railway go seriously pear-shaped.

The further South we get the worse the weather seems. We’re in gog and low cloud with rain beating against the side of the train and streaming across the windows.

13:25.

The curse of the WCML strikes again! We’ve just staggered through Milton Keynes on the slow lines. Our Train Manager came on to the PA to let us know this is due to a broken-down train in the Leighton Buzzard area ahead of us. We’re now running 10 down with more delays expected. Good job I don’t have to be at the National Portrait Gallery before 16:00 then! On the positive side – the weather’s brightening up…