Train Withdrawal.

Had the weather been brighter, and had I been feeling up to it, we would have been scooting off today to York to have a look around the railway museum, and hopefully catch a sight of my all time favourite steam train, the Flying Scotsman. Because of bad timing i.e returning home from our holiday, we missed the exhibition where the Flying Scotsman was on the turntable resplendent in black ‘wartime’ livery. I suppose we could have set off home earlier, jumped off the train at York, seen the exhibition, and then caught a later train home, but that would have entailed us dragging our suitcase around the railway museum.

We will get there as soon as the weather is more promising, and I feel more up to making the journey. In fact, I am suffering from train withdrawal symptoms so far this year. As some of my readers know, we have usually made at least one steam train journey by now, travelled on many ‘run-arounds' either to Leeds, York, etc, and made many a jaunt or quest out and about.

Sadly, the Green Express Tours are no longer available and we will miss being able to travel on those in the future. Our many day trips with them have included such far away jaunts as Whitehaven, Bath, Exeter, Edinburgh, etc, and we have made many new friends during those escapades. There are other company’s who run steam excursions thankfully, so we will have to look to those in future. Trouble is, they don’t always set off from nearby stations which does tend to complicate matters somewhat.

It has also meant that I haven’t had as much to blog about this year because we haven’t been going on any of our usual exciting train adventures, but  as soon as we are able to do so and all my treatment is completed, we shall be once again travelling on some great railway journeys, I promise. I love travelling by train, whether pulled by the latest 125 or steam, though steam is definitely  my favourite. When you travel on a train pulled by a steam locomotive, you really do feel like royalty, all the people lined up along the track, taking their photos as your train passes by, all trying to catch a glimpse of a bygone age as K and I oblige them and do our royal wave out of the carriage window  smiling as we pass.

It’s such a wonderful feeling, and I urge you all to go on a steam pulled excursion at least once in your lifetime. It’s an experience not to be missed!

TG

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