I was on this land cruise, sat in dining in coach A second coach behind the locos, The morning started ok, with timely coach transfer from hotel to Fort William station, stock even came in early, with an on time departure looking good, the time came and went, then we started to hear rumours of problems up the line with an engineers train at Bridge of Orchy, which had paper work problems, it had rails left on board when it shouldn't have done, which had to be secured and signed off safe to run with, which meant inspector coming from Scunthorpe, and with us being too long to get past we had to wait for line to be cleared, passenger trains were ok, there was talk of splitting the train and running through that way, but it wasn't allowed, which meant in the end we left at 14.48, 6hrs 23 mins late or 383 mins late, the managers and stewards worked hard to get things sorted and look after us, we had breakfast and tea and coffee in the platform, they connected us to shore supply,
so we departed for the south, and straight away the DRS drivers meant business, lots of thrash and hard driving, we gained time to Tulloch but lost time due to waiting passenger train train,this carried on down the West Highland line, so no time really gained, we had dinner on the West Highland line, but plenty of thrash, round Glasgow was as booked and time gained and lost, then we came through Rutherglen and turned towards Glasgow Central and went round Larkfield curve, to take GSW route to Carlisle, with mixed running, got stuck behind freight train, there had been power failure at Motherwell signal centre, which heard resulted in 40 trains stuck and not able to go forward, we were lucky as we were diesel hauled and could go down GSW, so we arrived Carlisle about 7 hours late, where we waited for a 2x86 freight liner, and a Pendolino to go through ahead of us, we then left 23.26 for Preston etc, and this driver meant business, we absolutely stormed to Preston, in only 76 minutes, absolutely thrashed it, would say speeds were 90-100 mph mark, we had mixed running running to Crewe as think went slow line for a bit, we had late supper about 11pm, at Crewe we went Shrewsbury line, with more thrash and good running, i fell asleep around Wolverhampton for a bout 30 mins, woke to find we had stopped at Wolverhampton and Birmingham New street around 3am, then went via St Andrews and Kings Heath line, then Lickey bank, stopped at Worcester Shrub Hill, then Cheltenham, it was now into proper overnight running, the driver thrashed it out of Cheltenham and stormed it to Bristol Parkway, we had last tea and coffee about 4am, the dinning crew did a stellar job with very long hours in trying circumstances, with a smile and banter, so kudos to them, we stopped Bristol Temple Meads about 5am, then Weston Super Mare and Taunton, we arrived 06.26 at Exeter, after very long but for me great day, having had chance to have an overnight thrash with 2x37 which is rare these days, I took train to Tiverton Parkway and then taxi home, all the DRS drivers thrashed the 37's, so lots of noise all night, and special mention to 37 601 and 37 612 for not putting foot wrong and not missing a beat and for being hellfire beasts for over 1000 miles, I'm already looking to do next land cruise.
Pathfinder Tours did a great job all weekend, looked after us well, we had great off train options with some great memories, they have got these trips well oiled and know what they are doing, they organised onward transport for passengers on the way back so no one was left stranded, as most stops were vey early morning, with taxis etc.