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yes mossend East to mossend South has been covered in all directions and I did the bit referred to up thread before whifflet was electrified. Admittedly not much before gonna I think I was on one of the last trains to do it on a regular basis before the timetable went a bit wild and woolly firstly due to the works and then they recast too to incorporate electric services over a wider area
it's a long time since I put anything on here, since then a number of stations have fallen and some new bits of track have been covered. new stock has been travelled on, old stock experienced post refurbishment. the reality is however that a lot of my mileage is simply repeats of stuff I've done many times before and not very interesting to write about even if I'd been on here to write about it
of note trackwise the Windermere branch which kept getting missed due to delays cancellations changes of plan and 101 other reasons finally fell on a one-way journey for which I positioned myself using a bus from Penrith, a trip I've been wanting to do for a while.
I also managed to to travel the valley of no hope on a cheap northern advance on an unrefurbished 150, travelling it again a year later in the other direction on a refurbished 150.
One of my most interesting outings was October last year when a long wave a fellow forum member and his girlfriend I flew to Dublin on a Boeing 787 dreamliner, first time in the Republic and and later the same day went by coach across the border to Belfast for a taxi to the ferry terminal and overnight ferry to Liverpool. This worked out cheaper than overnight hotel somewhere or returning straight home with someone horrible like Ryanair
January 2020 saw me fly out with easyJet to Vienna to visit my cousin who lives there. amongst other things whilst out there I covered most of of the subway system, took a a domestic mainline service 2 Linz and back, took a short trip on the Danube, tried out various buses and trams, met the famous singing locomotives hauling some rather comfortable double deck inter-regional stock and and finally found a Siemens built unit that I like in the shape of the new cityjet stock operating on their equivalent of London Overground or crossrail. My first international long-distance Rail journey rounded the trip off as I was lucky enough to be on the inaugural nightjet from Vienna to Brussels complete with band on the platform and various other excitements. I didn't know how I would feel about 14 and 1/2 hours on it but to be fair I slept extremely well and it passed in a flash. Lovely two and a half hour connection in Brussels for Eurostar to London where I encountered another piece of Siemens rolling stock that I don't like and although I don't have the bug to conquer all of Europe by rail as many do I would certainly seriously contemplate using this option again for future trips as I have to say that on my return leg I was so much less stressed with a couple of long train journeys then with the whole airport routine especially for international passengers with additional security and passport checks. I should think this would be even more relevant now in the post lockdown world of social distancing and airport temperature checks and further waiting around and hassle, not something that I'm looking forward to experiencing I must admit
I'd like to thank all forum members and regular trip reporters who have remained friends during my long spell away from the forum. I'm certainly not back in the same way as I was previously and doubt I ever will be, my mental health is not overly stable these days and disappearing again without warning is a de strong possibility. Thank you to those who let me join in on their travels, gatecrash their hotel rooms and generally been as fantastic as you have been. Let's have as much and more of that in future. I value it very highly
Lockdown caused postponement of a number of planned trips including my eventual conquering of what was left of Wales some of which has been rescheduled for the autumn. I have just remembered also that at New year 2019 to 20 did finally make it to Bournemouth but I'm going to have to return there to get down to Poole and some of the other track in that area. getting to Bournemouth in the first place was a mission as I started from dalbeattie southwest Scotland on a bus and then travelled via Dumfries Carlisle and London as well as changing in reading on to cross country to do this trip which took just shy of 12 hours