IWD 2021 – 5 Historic First’s

The International Women’s Day (IWD) organisation describes as “Celebrating women's achievements and increasing visibility, while calling out inequality, is key.” Given the fact that this year IWD falls on a Monday and the day I publish my blog posts, I’ve decided to do a post on five women that, through their firsts, changed the face of travel and transport for the better. Covering both the railways and aviation, these five women were true pioneers, and whilst you may have heard of some, a couple are lesser known but deserve to have their achievements shared.

My Railway Bucket List

Inspired by a combination of Calm sleep stories and a similar post by Charlotte (@girlsonrails98) on twitter, I’ve decided to do a post covering my bucket list of railway journeys, ranging from West Country sleepers to one of the most remote railways in the world. I’ve divided these up into four sections covering Great Britain, Europe, the USA and the Rest of the World but they are definitely not definitive lists, as I’m sure there are some amazing journeys I’ve missed.

PBO – KGX LNER – Standard (Lockdown LNER)

As some of my readers will know I am a key worker and so, despite various tiers and lockdowns, I am continuing to commute from Peterborough to London to do my bit to keep the capital moving despite Coronavirus. These commutes a few days a week have been a way for me to get a small ‘fix’ of train travel, and I thought I’d write this post to give you an idea of what travelling on trains during lockdown is like. I’m not going to use my normal rating scale for this journey, given the unique circumstances.

5 Places to Visit – South America

Continuing my series of ‘5 places I’d like to visit’, this instalment covers 5 places in South America, including the surrounding islands. There’s no real order of preference to these destinations and so I’ve listed them south to north.

PMH – WAT South Western Railway – Standard

I hadn’t actually been planning on reviewing my journey back to London from Portsmouth, however the discovery of a class 444 waiting for me and improved customer service compared to my trip down was enough to differentiate it from the southbound journey (read about that here) and make it worth a short review.

Island Line – Farewell to the Class 483s

The Island line, the one small remaining part of the Isle of Wight’s once extensive network 55.5 miles of railways, is just 8.5 miles in length and has a total of 8 stations spread across its length, mostly centred on the north-eastern and eastern conurbations of Ryde and Sandown & Shanklin.