Half Term - Part 2

Revolting lunch

Nik was busy caking on Tuesday, so Tom and I decided to head out and do something train related for the day. I wanted to visit the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, which we still haven't been to, but the steam trains do not link up at all with the trains from Ribblehead, and we would've spent much of the day hanging around Keighley station.

So, a trip to the National Railway Museum in York it was, especially as they are currently having the "Great Gathering" of all six surviving A4s. We drove up to Ribblehead and got the 10:15 train to Leeds. It was absolutely revolting out there - freezing cold and pouring with rain, I did wonder whether it would actually start snowing. Fortunately, the train ("William Wilberforce" - his favorite train on this line) was bang on time, but nearly full, so we had to share a set of four seats with a nice elderly couple who were on their way to London. Tom did a very good job of charming them and being generally entertaining, but most of the train emptied out at Skipton, as is usually the case, and we had most of the coach to ourselves for the rest of the journey. After about 15 minutes at Leeds, we caught a "blue train" up to York, which didn't exactly hurry along, but we got to York at around 12:30.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

We headed straight to the museum upon arrival, but my heart sank when we turned a corner and noticed an absolute sea of people outside the museum waiting to get in. One of the crowd marshals reckoned it would be a wait of about an hour, and suggested that we went somewhere for lunch and tried again later. So, we headed back to the station, where I discovered that despite being a large and busy station, the choices for food are limited and extremely disappointing. In the end, it was either Burger King or Pumpkin Café (which served very little other than Ginsters stuff). Anyway, I had a cheese and ham slice and Tom had sausage roll (both microwaved to about 10,000°C), which we at least managed to eat on the platform so that Tom could watch the trains going past. Luckily, the railway activity managed to distract him from the fact that the food was truly revolting. He managed about half his sausage roll, and I didn't have the heart to make him eat any more of it. Still, some Kettle Chips and a banana helped to cleanse our pallettes.

In any case, the marshal was dead right, and we only had to queue for about 15 minutes (under blue skies) to get in. As soon as we were in the Great Hall, Tom remembered exactly what was where, and made a beeline straight for the model railway that had so enchanted him last time we visited. In keeping with the event, all the trains on the model railway were also expresses pulled by A4s. In all, we made five trips into the model railway, but to be fair, he did wander around all the other exhibits too, and queued patiently for another 15 minutes or so to go into the cab of "Bittern", where he listened patiently and intently to an ex-A4 driver who regaled us with tales of driving those engines back in the day.

Model railway

All six of the locomotives looked absolutely immaculate, as if they'd been built yesterday, and there were predictably large crowds gathered around each one, especially men of a certain age (considerably older than me). We had tea and a bun mid afternoon so that we could rest our tired legs, and then had a wander round the rest of the exhibits, before spending a bit of money in the shop and heading back to York station.

Tom insisted that we take a Voyager, not a blue train, back to Leeds, so I obeyed orders and found us a Penzance-bound train that fitted the bill. After getting ourselves some sandwiches, snacks and drinks for dinner on the train back to Ribblehead, we hung around the station for a bit before getting on our train.

Mallard

We actually started dinner before the train left Leeds, mainly in the hope that he would be able to nod off and have at least a little nap before we arrived in Ribblehead. Fat chance. He was still really excited from all the day's activities, and wouldn't entertain the idea of sleep at all. Having said that, his behaviour was exceptionally good all day, and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I was very proud of him, he's definitely growing up and more able to deal with long days out without getting tired, grumpy and naughty. Roll on the next trip.