A couple of weeks ago I took an impromptu trip to the West Midlands to have a ‘railday’ and try out some new trains. West Midlands Trains (WMT) began introducing the class 196 to services between Birmingham New Street and Shrewsbury back in October, and they now operate the majority of services on the route.
Back in December we took a trip to South Wales to visit some friends and attend a concert and, with little driving required whilst we were down there, decided to travel there and back by train. Whilst not as long as some journeys I’ve taken onboard IETs, these would certainly fall in the top few and so we treated ourselves to first class to complete the journey in comfort.
For episode 10 of Exploring the East Coast, it was time to head south from Peterborough once again to tick off the final six stations on the southern section of the East Coast Mainline (ECML). Not only were these the last six stations to do in the southern section, they were in fact the last six stations south of Morpeth, meaning episode 11 onwards would mean some trips based out of Newcastle.
Due to a bit of a backlog with posts, I’m writing this blog a couple of months after the event and in fact just a day before I undertake part of the journey in reverse. By the time you read this, I’ll have undertaken another Eurostar trip (read about that soon), but for now let’s focus on my journey from Amsterdam to London in Eurostar’s ‘Standard’ seats.
Having spent some time travelling on and reviewing the Dutch rail network, I had the rest of the day to explore some more of The Netherlands and so started heading towards another of the country’s major cities, Rotterdam. However, before making it to Rotterdam, there was one more town I wanted to visit. Gouda.
Whilst the majority of Intercity services operated by Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) operate on the conventional Dutch railway network, some services between Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, Rotterdam, Breda and Belgium operate across the ‘HSL Zuid’ under the sub brand of ‘Intercity Direct’.
Flights & Times 