Fort William, Scotland, North East Railtours.

It's been a while since I posted due to life and further adventures in Scotland and as I have been majoring on these parts for some time, some readers will be pleased to know that I will be posting from south of the border from the next blog onwards. If anyone wants to see anything in particular please feel to comment.
North East Railtours (formerly Whitley Bay Horticultural Society) have been running day charter rail tours around the UK for as long as I can remember from railway stations in the North East of England. Charter (or special) trains need to fit in around the timetabled services with the routes and timings having to be painstakingly worked out, particularly on scenic remote lines such as The West Highland Line (shown above). Many of the outpost or picturesque lines are made up of single track and passing places where if a locomotive fails, most of the services on that day suffer passenger delays.
As a background to this post, there have been issues with The West Coast Railway Company (WCRC) that own the railway engines used for these trains. A driver of a WCRC steam train failed to stop at a warning signal in Wootten Bassett, Wiltshire last year and as a result the licence to operate was withdrawn from the company. It was the intention of Network Rail who withdrew the licence, to ensure the safe operation of future outings with a view to renewing it as soon as feasibly possible. As a result, the proposed tour in May 2015 was cancelled at short notice and the renewal of the license earlier in 2016 did not allow enough marketing time to repeat the trip this year. Provisional timings that the operator received for this outing were ridiculously early in the morning and with the lack of uncharted territory generally elsewhere, it was decided to combine their efforts alongside the Scottish Railway Preservation society (SRPS) in fewer outings mainly to English destinations.

As the SRPS already run numerous tours from various starting points in Scotland, it seems unlikely that this day trip will ever run again. This set of photos is a nostalgic look back at the May 2013 event. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great and as a result the image quality suffers too, apologies for that as I have so many great images taken from the train window on previous occasions.

The day began very early in the morning with the sun rising over the Northumbrian coastal town of Alnmouth.

Breakfast is a sterling effort cooked on the train and served in mass catering style near Edinburgh.

On passing Glasgow the train follows the north side of the River Clyde and on reaching Helensburgh, the railway line is known as The West Highland Line.

The stations have a country feel with unique West Highland Line architecture.

The landscape becomes more scenic eventually turning to remote and desolate moorland. It is usually uncommon but always advisable to watch for wildlife such as deer.

On arrival in Fort William, the clouds were very low as seen behind Duncansburgh Mackintosh Parish church.

Even the Crannog fish restaurant at the loch shore couldn't provide the colour to brighten the day !!

I did come across a bizarre sculpture near to the waters edge of Loch Linnhe. To me it looked like a celebration to water skiing but further investigation revealed it was made of old mountain equipment to honour the local mountain festival.

There are not a lot of shops in Fort William but most seem to represent a mix of clothing and tartan tourist stores. This one gives the more interesting variety of the British weather depicting the sale of both Umbrellas and Ice Cream. There wasn't a lot sold of the latter on this day.

Lastly, due to the long train journey, the time allocated at Fort William was about 2 hours giving enough time to walk up and down the main street and visit the favourite shops. The larger woollen mill at the far end of the street is usually a step too far as my dabbling with sign alterations show ...

Corbridge, Northumberland.

The town of Corbridge in the Tyne valley grew from one of the most northerly settlements in the Roman Empire called Corstopitum. Variations of the name were prevalent throughout history with Coria becoming a popular name of the town just to the north of the River Tyne.
It was a place of strategic importance that intersected the north / south Dere street with the east / west Stanegate road as it supplied the troops on Hadrian's Wall.
I'll leave you to decide why it became Corbridge at a later date.

Following the departure of the Roman soldiers in the early 5th century, much of the stone was taken from nearby Hadrian's wall and the Corbridge Roman fort (half a mile to the west) to construct earlier parts of the town.
Village life evolved around St Andrews church, originally built in the 7th century by St Wilfred and his monks.

During the following centuries there were structural and decor changes with influences from the Vikings and The Normans. The church was later upgraded in the 13th century.

One of the lesser photographed stained glass windows portraying the washing of the disciples feet by Jesus.

The Kings Oven was a communal oven on the side of the church used by villagers for the baking of their bread and meat. It's first recorded use was in the Royal Borough of Corbridge in 1310 and it was last used in the 19th century.

The fortified rectangular Vicar's Pele tower with one room to each story was built within the perimeter wall of the church yard in 1318. This was used as an early vicarage. (seen above to the right)

It was a built as a stronghold to protect against the invading Scots raids which began from 1296. The building is three storeys high, has a parapet walk on the top level and was later abandoned, remaining ruined until 1910. After this point in time the Duke of Northumberland restored and re-roofed the tower.

The ground floor is a barrel vaulted chamber with a drawbar tunnel entrance which on this occasion of visiting was open for the sale of antiques. In all my years of visiting Corbridge, this was the first time I saw inside the interior of the tower.

As a variation on a theme, my mother always used to tell me that it's good to have some red in a photo !!

The market square is adjacent to the entrance of the churchyard with a lane that runs alongside Vicar's Pele Tower ...

The Pant in the market place was a drinking fountain erected by Hugh Percy Duke of Northumberland in 1815 building on previous supplies dating back to the 13th century. The fountain was discontinued in 1973.

Over the years Corbridge has developed a range of shops with character and individuality that attract tourists throughout the year.

In more recent years the town has initiated a Christmas shopping night where all the traders enter the festive spirit by decorating the shop windows. These come alive at night to enhance the event and the season.

The Corbridge Cookshop (parent company JF Walton and son) is one of the modern day attractions for the visitor who loves the finer kitchen utensils. It also has an extensive range of household hardware and garden accessories around surprising corners.

                             The festive goodwill is also extended to the market place

         ....  and main street which are transformed in preparation for the shopping night.

On the outskirts of Corbridge on the modern Stanegate road (aka The A69), visitors can enjoy the pleaures of picking a variety of fruit including Strawberries, Raspberries and Gooseberries at Brockbushes...  http://www.brocksbushes.co.uk
This farm has taken off in recent years with more luxury food produce and has gained recognition throughout the area.

This year I visited the Christmas market for the first time and was particularly impressed by the quality of the traders' goods.

Lastly there were also some imaginative and well thought out stalls ...

 ... that showed the meaning of Christmas with the "Three Wee Kings" ...

      Wishing you all a Happy Christmas.

A Boxing day walk, Hedgehope Hill, Northumberland

The Cheviot

Christmas was a bit unusual for me this year as I had planned to go away at New Year with a walking friend. The only way I could barter for holiday with my job was to offer to work a difficult shift around Christmas which ended up being late afternoon and evening on Christmas day. Another friend and his wife are always discussing and bantering about doing a walk with a group of friends but we can never agree on a distance or location. I was concerned about taking him away from his wife on Boxing day but she was pleased that he had a companion for this kind of walk. The extremes of this set depicts why I haven't done a walk with this particular group of friends in nearly three years.

The weather forecast for the day was essentially extreme cold, sun, no wind, high level snow and on the basis of no wind at low altitude (acceptable at high levels in relative terms), I grasped the photo opportunity with both hands.

My friend was probably more concerned about getting his car safely to and from the starting point as the single track road in the valley has two very steep hills that could possibly have been icy but with a bit of caution we made it.

Hedgehope hill (2343ft / 714m) was the target of the day which in normal conditions would be quite simple.

My previous experiences of hill walking in snow was a long time ago with my walking mentor on Ben Lomond in Scotland and his inexperience in that environment frightened me into staying with the 3 seasons.

I did have memories of that trip in that the more difficult legwork was comparable although there were a few 6 inch prints to follow at times !

Hedgehope Hill Summit at last

Considering the possibilities for an onward route ... another time obviously !

It was great to get in behind the cairn for some shelter away from the cold for a lunch break, however 20 minutes was long enough as my inexperience told me that I should have eaten with my gloves on !

Does anyone recognise this view 30 minutes earlier? ... definitely time to keep moving !

Getting to grips with a walking pole that wouldn't extend ... no, it's not an ice axe !

Time to head back to some ...errr .... colour  and reflect on the experiences of the day.

Some wisdom I invented from the start of the day although a little unfounded ...

" You always know it's a bad idea to do a high level mountain walk when ...

it's a challenge to open the frozen front door" ! :-)