Barrow in Furness model railway exhibition is usually held over the Easter weekend. When living "up north" this was only an hour away and something to do on Easter Sunday. Now living considerably further away this is a full day expedition. Plans from previous years had been hampered by West Coast Modernisation work where low speed bus services on the M6 replace nice shiney red beardie rail trains. The consiquence of this is that in order to get home you had to leave Barrow before you had arrived. This was considered to be somewhat difficult if not impossible.

 

A check was made of the timetable and it appeared in 2009 to be possible again to travel by train on a Bank Holiday weekend on the West Coast, National Rail was telling me it was possible as well.

 

There was also a secondry event taking place on the same day the annual Class 37 hauled Pathfinder Tours trip to Scotland would be passing through the area at the same time and was scheduled to change engines at Preston from Class 67 to 2 x Class 37. We could see the engines at Warrington and wait to see the 37s pass through Lancaster then continue to Barrow for the exhibition.

 

The Plan:

 

 

 

Typical Welsh weather again it was raining but got brighter. Beacuse of the lack of traffic on a Bank Holiday arrived at Abergavenny earlier than planned just as the previous Manchester train was due to arrive.

 

Sit on the cold station for half an hour, join the nice warm train to Crewe....... Hmmm tough choice... joined the nice warm train to Crewe and see what connections were available heading North. If it was not possible to get North we sould always leave the train at Shrewsbury and join our scheduled train and go back to plan A.

 

Timetable checked and there was a connection to Warrington. On arrival at Crewe Virgin were once again late so 2 minute cross platform connection and a much earlier arrival than planned in Preston. The revised plan is we can go to Something Tasty (5 min walk from the station) they offer a very unhealty fresh cooked breakfast baton, wait for the 37s to arrive for the railtour get some photos head to Lancaster get more photos then off to see the toy trains.

37670+37406 arrive at Preston 10/04/09

 

It is at this point I have to admit some rather poor planning on my part. Forgot to go to the cash machine on Thursday so we are very low on funds down to small change. The plan had been to go the cash machine at Chester or Crewe on the revised plan, but the quick change at Crewe had prevented this and we had insufficient funds to purchase the Breakfast Baton mentioned earlier. This meant a visit to the cash machine in the Fishergate Centre in Preston was required.

 

Went to withdraw the cash but it is not very useful when you realise after the third time of inputting your PIN into the previously stupid machine, that was not releasing funds, was in fact correct and your PIN was XXXX not YYYY that you have been putting into the keypad, just as it swallows your card never to be returned. Doh.

 

Only one thing I can do draw funds on my Credit Card, hang the expense of the charge as there is a Breakfast Baton which has my name on it.

 

Back to the station and stand there in front of the small crowd that has arrived to see the arrival of 37670 and 37406 to work the Railtour. Get some longing looks at the fresh cooked smelly Breakfast Baton.

 

37s arrive and 37406 looks decidedly unwell and this turns out to be it's last every working as it only makes it about 40 miles before shutting down and being consigned back to the scrap line it came from.

 

Exhibition at Barrow is small but perfectly formed and had a chat to some friends I have not seen for some time.

153331 on the 17:43 Barrow - Lancaster 10/04/09

 

Returning home the 17:43 from Barrow is the most curious of trains. It is a single carriage and runs from Barrow to Lancaster virtually non-stop, you wouldn't want to stop at any stations to pick up any passengers!

 

It was not the busiest of trains with less than 10 passengers on the whole train. The remainder of the trip was uneventful with an arrival back on time.