[Vwoolf] Scotland again

Thu Sep 10 07:06:27 EDT 2015

So irritated with plans going wrong this year, “as if it were settled the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which [I] had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was . . . within touch”. 

See email below of 5 July 2014.  I booked 6 weeks in advance to go to Edinburgh yesterday.  Later, I found out that steam trains would run, but not on Wednesdays.  Finally, the whole thing was ruined by the Queen’s suddenly celebrating beating Queen Victoria in length of reign by officially opening the Borders Railway.  See:
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=34efbc61c5dfb4e3&id=34EFBC61C5DFB4E3%212099&Bsrc=Photomail&Bpub=SDX.Photos&sff=1&authkey=!AIec0BEoa6ew4Zs

Our train was late arriving in Edinburgh, but of course there was no 10.54 because of the Queen.  The 11.25 only went to Gorebridge: on time, then even a platform (9E) was listed, then cancelled.  Subsequent trains only went to Gorebridge and not Tweedbank.  In the photos, you can see the backs of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, and the First Minister (in pink).  Bah!

On a happier note, last year was more successful.  See email below of 7 July 2014 and photos:
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=34efbc61c5dfb4e3&id=34EFBC61C5DFB4E3%212056&Bsrc=Photomail&Bpub=SDX.Photos&sff=1&authkey=!AJcYe4j6VjczSC0

Stuart
From: Stuart N. Clarke 
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2014 11:54 AM
To: 'woolf list' 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Scotland again

I cannot resist quoting from “Is this what they call progress?” in the October 2014 “Railway Magazine” (p. 57):

“This ... shows no fewer than 30 tickets, reservations and receipts for a journey for two people from Annan in south-west Scotland, to Camborne in Cornwall. ... The reason for so many is the modern concept of getting a cheaper fare if you split the journey.  We paid £85 return each, with senior railcards compared with a single Annan-Camborne walk-on fare of £131 (return £132).  Several pounds were saved by alighting from the train at Exeter and boarding a later one, arriving in Camborne one hour after we could have done.”

Stuart

From: Stuart N. Clarke 
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:35 AM
To: 'woolf list' 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Scotland again

www.thetrainline.com is just scratching the surface, and anyway they charge a £1 fee when you buy tickets.

Take for example the Oyster card (for journeys within the greater London area for travel on the Underground, buses, trams, Overground and National Rail).  If you register the card online *and* you have a railcard (e.g. a Senior Railcard, giving you one-third off most National Rail journeys), *IF* you link the railcard to the Oyster card, you get extra reductions on some of your Oyster card journeys, even if they are not on National Rail services.  Which journeys?  Even I don’t really know the answer to that, but I know it works, and I suspect they are journeys outside the rush hour.

I expect at this point, some of you may have had to go and lie down, but for those who are still with me and can keep their eyes open I will go on.

I have been to the Isle of Wight a number of times; I am a Life Friend of Dimbola and have even slept in Tennyson’s bedroom, but I have never been up Tennyson’s Down.  I don’t know why that so, but I thought it was about time I did, so I have booked a daytrip on Monday 21 July from London.  First, return rail from Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour for £2.50 (you won’t get that on www.thetrainline.com!): dep. 8.00, arrive 9.37; return 17.45-19.29.  No other trains are allowed.  But at £1 each way (the 50p is the booking fee), it seems unnecessarily tight-fisted(!) not to take out “insurance” – there might be problems with the ferries or I might like to stay longer – so I’ve also bought a second return ticket for £1.50: 19.45-21.27.

Now comes the tricky part. . . .

There are various ways of getting to the Isle of Wight by ferry, but if you’re going for the day you obviously want to go as quickly as possible, and the quickest way is by catamaran from Portsmouth Harbour (the catamaran entrance is actually in the station): 18 min.  But: the quicker the more expensive.  It’s £18.80 return.

Well, I found a website that listed 19 (or perhaps 29) ways of getting to the Isle of Wight cheaply, but none quite fitted my requirements, so I hit on a wizard wheeze.  In certain circumstances, you can buy combined rail and ferry tickets.  For example, you can buy a ticket from Glasgow Central to Rothesay.  Rothesay doesn’t have a railway station (it’s on the Isle of Bute) – cf. “To the Lighthouse”, where “Lily Briscoe had her bag carried up to the house late one evening in September.  Mr. Carmichael came by the same train” (there never was a train line on Skye).  But you hardly save anything.  However, I have booked a return rail ticket from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde St Johns Road station on the IoW (which *does* have a short rail line, using old London Underground trains of all things), and with my Senior Rail card reduction of one-third it costs only £12.80 – thus saving £6!

And of course the buses on the IoW are free for residents in England who are over 60 (I’m simplifying here, of course).

How does the saying go?  Something about money poor, time rich.

Stuart

From: Mark Hussey 
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2014 1:47 PM
To: 'Stuart N. Clarke' ; 'woolf list' 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Scotland again

Thanks for confirming, Stuart, that it isn’t just me!  Travel by train in the UK now does seem to require at least an advanced degree in physics.  But trainline.com is handy!

From: vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Stuart N. Clarke
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2014 6:58 AM
To: woolf list
Subject: [Vwoolf] Scotland again

I feel sorry for tourists to the UK who attempt to use the railways, for I know they will be ripped off.  I’m sure that most people on this list will have at least one postgraduate degree, but you will need to apply considerable transferable skills to master the pricing structures.

I thought I would make a daytrip in the autumn next year to Abbotsford (http://www.scottsabbotsford.com/visit/), when the Borders Railway line (né Waverley line) reopens from Edinburgh.

“It is 50 years since Dr Richard Beeching's report on British Railways which led to hundreds of stations and 650 miles of railway line being closed in Scotland. The axing of the 98-mile Waverley Route from Edinburgh to Carlisle was the worst of all the Beeching cuts, according to author and railway expert David Spaven. The closure left the Scottish Borders as the only region of Britain without a train service and Hawick, 56 miles from Edinburgh and 42 miles from Carlisle, as the largest town farthest from a railway station.”

The terminus at Tweedbank will be only a 20 min. walk from Abbotsford.

http://www.bordersrailway.co.uk

In any case, it is in a sense *my* railway line:

STATIONS

Eskbank: close to Bonnyrigg (cousin lives there) & Lasswade (mother born there)

Newtongrange: cousin lives there

Gorebridge: maternal grandmother born there

Of course, it should never have been closed by Beeching, and should continue to Carlisle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverley_Line

Although VW wrote 

“Then there was Scott—he went bankrupt, and left, together with a few magnificent novels, one house, Abbotsford, which is perhaps the ugliest in the whole Empire” (“Middlebrow”, [Oct. 1932]), there is no evidence that she ever visited Abbotsford.  She came close in June 1938, visiting Scott’s grave in Dryburgh Abbey, but surely she would have mentioned it if she had actually visited Abbotsford?  (Similarly, I went on a driving holiday years ago and just missed visiting it – well, you can’t do everything.)

I thought that we’d have lunch in the restaurant. Unfortunately, I won’t want to eat a lot of the food:

http://www.scottsabbotsford.com/eat

It’s the sort of muck that I call “International British” – plenty of cream and cheese, and a tendency to mix sweet with savoury – so it’ll probably be just a sandwich.

Of course, I’ll take “Gas at Abbotsford” with me.

So: car to Preston; with luck free parking near the station, but probably £10 in the station car park; hopefully, £2.50 – yes £2.50 – return by train on the 7.53 to Edinburgh; arriving 10.23; return to Tweedbank (perhaps £13.10 return, less one-third with my Senior Rail Card: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/borders-railway), probably leaving at 10.54, arriving at Tweedbank c. 55 min. later; returning from Edinburgh on the 18.52; arriving Preston 21.17.

Stuart

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