Our occasional series of reader photo travelogues continues, with best friends Barry Gill and Richard White braving a seven-day All-Line Rover two years in a row. All words and pictures by the authors.
IN 2014 Barry asked me: “Do you have any plans for your 50th next year?” I replied: “Apart from playing golf at St Andrews, no.” Then he said: “Do you fancy doing an All-Liner. And as I’ll be 50 in 2016, do another one and treat ourselves by going 1st Class?” My reply: “Oh yes!”
We dusted off the rail atlas, logged onto Realtime Trains and started to plan our journey. We both agreed from the onset that as well as covering as many lines that we hadn’t done, we would try and get in as many loco-hauled trains as possible, as they were becoming a thing of the past on the rail network.
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When planning, it became evident that a lot of the lines we would be travelling over in the first year would be in DMUs/EMUs which had no 1st Class. That made our decision to go Standard Class easy and would plan 1st Class for the following year.
The first year (July 2015) a lot of the trains were DMUs (Classes 142, 150 ,153, 156) and we found that these were busy and there was no guarantee of a seat. In comparison, in the second year (June 2016), when we went 1st Class (Mk.3/Mk.4 stock) we had a seat on every train, with the added bonus of free at-seat service and also the use of the 1st Class lounges on station platforms.
The loco-hauled trains were mainly Class 37s and 68s, with Mk.2 stock, which brought back some great memories on the trips to Dundee, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Barrow. Would we do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat.
ROVER 1: 2015 (Standard Class)
- Day 1: Newcastle–Newcastle via Dundee and Glasgow
- Day 2: Newcastle–York via Barrow and Leeds
- Day 3: York–Norwich via Cleethorpes and Skegness
- Day 4: Norwich–London via Harwich and Clacton–Penzance [o/n]
- Day 5: Penzance–Cornish branches–Dawlish
- Day 6: Dawlish–Eastleigh via Barnstaple and Weymouth
- Day 7: Eastleigh–Newcastle via London, Birmingham, Hull and Scarborough.
