The train to Carlisle

Newcastle is my nearest city. We live about 15 kms away from it, further up the Great North Road and East Coast Main Line yet have always thought of the Toon as our home. It is the most northerly city in England (54°58′26″N 1°36′47″W) but only just, being only a couple of minutes north of Carlisle (54°53′41″N 02°56′11″W). I have spent my whole life living on the eastern side of this island, Edinburgh, Galashiels, Newcastle, with Oxford (51°45′7″N 1°15′28″W) being the furthest west. Is that still east, perhaps it is more central? You can’t get much further from the sea in England than Oxford.

But east is east while west is west and nothing highlights this more than the split in the railways across the country. I can get from my home town to Edinburgh, a distance of just under 100 miles, in 1 hour and 10 minutes. In the other direction, I can get to York, again just less than 100 miles, in 1 hour and 19 minutes. Carlisle, on the other hand, is 69 miles away but cannot be reached by train in less than 2 hours.

Going up and down this sceptered isle is one thing yet going across it is quite another. You would think that the railways around the country would be the same yet this is not true. The engines running up the West Coast Main Line are very different from those on the east. This is for a number of historical and practical reasons,  including the different companies, varying gradients and curvature of the track.

You get engines in the west that you never see in the east and this is the real reason that I made the trip across the land last week. I had a day to kill, the weather was not so good and, being a long-outed trainspotter, it felt like a good idea. It was. The long and slow train ride gave me ample time to look out at the beautiful scenery of the South Tyne Valley, as well as catching up on my reading (another one of my obsessions). 

Carlisle station is impressive, though as is the case with much of the railway infrastructure, a little dilapidated. I sat in it for a couple of hours watching the trains passing through, mostly Avanti West Coast although some Scotrail and a few freight engines. A coffee and a pie helped pass the time. It was a pleasurable and worthwhile trip.

I also learned that delays are as endemic to the west coast as the east. Perhaps there is more in common with the two sides of the country than I thought.