Blogs

Gloucester

2006 September 1 (Friday), 180 miles.

I made an earlier start this morning, first (and very brief) stop Newport. Since last passing through Severn Tunnel Junction the Network Rail old yellow DMU which had seemed a permanent fixture had been moved to a siding nearer Newport.

I reached Chepstow fairly early, as planned, but the slightly confused-looking young man waiting on the platform deterred me from getting my camera out. He wore a fleece bearing the legend "Military Separation College" and turned out to be quite a complex and interesting fellow. He said he wanted to join the Royal Marines, ideally the Intelligence Corps, but thought he'd be percieved as being not bright enough. I suggested that his fluent bilingualism, and interest in learning more languages, would be a big advantage over most Brits. The armed forces will be the losers if they can't find him a worthwhile role.

I aborted my planned photoshoot at Lydney because an infestation of chavs had taken root in one of the station shelters, so I spent a little more time at Lydney Junction. One day I must stay long enough to travel to Norchard. From Lydney I took a comfy class 158 to Gloucester.

Plotting a return to Bristol which would conveniently connect with an onward service to Bradford-on-Avon wasn't so easy; there are surprisingly few trains between Gloucester and Bristol, so I went on to Cheltenham only for the connection there to be spoiled by a late-running Vermin Voyager.

The ride to Cheltenham, on an otherwise very lightly-loaded Adelante, was enlivened by a middle-aged woman who was taking twin boys of about three on their first-ever train ride. So excited were they by all that was going on, and the things they could see from the windows, that she was already planning a longer trip for them.

Between Gloucester and Cheltenham the lineside hedgerows were heavy with haws, damsons, sloes, rosehips, elderberries, blackberries and crabapples: what a harvest one could have of railway fruit.

The rest of the day became rather fragmented I revisited Bradford-on-Avon only to find the sun almost perfectly aligned with the straight length of track towards Bath, and the almost immediate arrival of an HST from Newbury.

I returned to Temple Meads on a four-car Vermin Voyager from Newcastle which was, unusually, routed into the lust-long-enough upside bay platform.