Inter7City – Scotland’s New Old Trains

One of Britain’s most famous railway vehicles, the Class 43 HST power cars and accompanying InterCity 125 sped across the length and breadth of the country for years carrying passengers between the UK’s major cities and along the key routes of the East Coast Mainline, Great Western Mainline, Midland Mainline and others. In recent years the 45-year-old, full length HST sets have been retired from service, replaced by modern units. However, some power cars, and shortened sets, have found a new home on inter-city services north of the border.

Perth

visit Nairn and Elgin along the Firth of Forth coast. Unfortunately, having been met with departure boards showing cancelled, we weren’t able to head east and so, after a rapid replan, jumped onboard an ScotRail class 170 bound for Edinburgh with the plan to jump of in another of Scotland’s seven cities, Perth.

Returning to Inverness

Arriving into Inverness at just gone half past eight onboard the Highland Sleeper, we had a good few hours until we could check into our hotel and so decided to repeat my explorations from my last visit to Inverness and jump onboard the next ScotRail service west along one of the UK’s most beautiful railways, to Kyle of Lochalsh.

EUS – INV Caledonian Sleeper – Classic Room

The last time I travelled onboard the Caledonian Sleeper was in October 2020 in that weird period between lockdowns when the Government were encouraging people to do things but restrictions were still in place and it all felt a bit… well, weird… This journey I was travelling on the same route as my maiden sleeper voyage, from London Euston to the capital of the Highlands, Inverness.

Barrow Hill Roundhouse

ight services via Sheffield and one that avoids the Steel City and now carries only freight via the north-east Derbyshire village of Barrow Hill. That village is also home to a piece of Britain’s railway history, Barrow Hill Roundhouse, the last surviving railway roundhouse in the United Kingdom with an operational turntable.

Exploring the East Coast Mainline – Durham & Darlington

Earlier in November I headed up to Darlington on an LNER service with the intention on nipping up the Bishop Auckland branch and visiting the National Railway Museum’s second site, Locomotion at Shildon. Unfortunately, what I didn’t take into account was forgetting to check the opening hours, finding out on arrival that Locomotion is closed on Monday and Tuesdays. My trip was on a Tuesday…