The Glacier Express

Well, this was a very plush train. I tried to list the facilities, including more space and foot room [always important for people with bad knees], DVD screen with apposite information and updates [WC availability, map, next station, temperature outside, height reached in metres, time], larger tables for all with personal extensions, drinks holder, table light, drinks attendant with at your table service, waste disposal built-in at the side of the table, air conditioning, panoramic windows, fully carpeted, decorated wooden panelling with appropriate motifs, wi-fi, headphones for descriptive commentary, armrest, headrest with antimacassar, a spotless toilet nearby and probably some more stuff, as well. This was the only train during the whole week away where the very assiduous ticket collector insisted on checking the tour manager’s group ticket as well as each individual half-price Swiss rail pass and all our passports.

The train reversed at Chur and then headed west, winding its way through the Rhine Gorge to Disentis Muster, where a change of locomotive was necessary. The very hilly bits over the Alps here are too steep in some sections for normal trains to keep a grip on the tracks. These rack railways have an extra metal section attached to the middle of the sleepers, which is a ridged or toothed third rail, in effect. Under the locomotive is a cog, which grips the rack as it turns and adds sufficient adhesion to the process to pull the train up the slope. It also helps slow the train down on a steep descent. This happened in various sections on both sides of the summit and you could hear the added [though slight] grinding noise whenever the rack and pinion was in play.

The train climbed to the Oberalp Pass at 2,046 metres above sea level. The watershed here is between the headwaters of the Rhone, which flow west into France and those of the Rhine which flow east and then north into Germany. We wended our way downhill to Andermatt and then onwards to Brig, where we disembarked. We found the ancient Stockalperschloss, which had pleasant gardens to sit in, for those who hadn’t done enough sitting around already. 

  

The Bernina Express

The stock of the Rhaetian Railway is all red. In fact, it’s as red as red can be. Viewed from a distance, as the trains weave through steep ravines, below stands of fir trees and with the odd schloss in the background, the whole panorama looks like a magical world of make-believe. Up close, it really works. The carriages are immaculate, inside and out, helped, no doubt, by the prevalence of clean mountain air and clean electric power.

“Express” is something of a misnomer. There is nothing fast about the Bernina Express. This is through necessity, as the slopes it climbs are steep and the bends it has to take are sharp. As visitors, we are the beneficiaries. We’re not in a hurry. We just want to sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery, and there is certainly a lot of scenery to enjoy. We got the certificate for completing the course but we missed out on the tee shirt.

To help negotiate what was a hostile landscape for the railway builders, the coaches are shorter than their standard gauge equivalents and so too are the impressive, chunky but nevertheless powerful locomotives. A short wheelbase helps on tight curves, yet there was still quite a lot of squealing to be heard on the tightest of the bends from steel on steel.

The windows on the Bernina Express are massive and extend into the arch of the roof. This is obviously for viewing purposes and it works very well in that way. However, when the sun is out it can feel like a bit of a greenhouse, in spite of any attempts at air conditioning, and I did wonder whether in high summer it might feel a bit uncomfortably warm in there.

The line climbs to 2,253 metres above sea level. That’s well over two Scafell Pikes on top of each other. The views were stunning, including snow covered peaks, glaciers and a couple of large reservoirs above the tree line. This plateau marks the divide between the water eventually flowing into the Black Sea, via the Danube, and that flowing Into the Adriatic Sea via the River Po.

The line descends into Italy for its last few kilometres, ending up over the border in Tirano. The RhB terminus here is alongside the Italian railway network’s standard gauge station, where we were also back in graffiti land. We walked between the three gates that marked the boundary of the original city, within which the unspoilt cobbled narrow streets and old houses didn’t quite seem to convey the affluence that we had become used to seeing over the border in Switzerland, picturesque as they were.

Many of the Alpine towns that sit on a flood plain at the foot of steep slopes have glacial meltwater spillways, where the courses of original streams and rivers have been widened, straightened and enclosed by robust walls both to keep the springtime water in, and to move it on as quickly as possible to avoid the flooding that may have been a problem in the past.  

The Albula Line

Swiss railways are a bit special. Switzerland has the densest rail network in Europe. It is very well used by residents and visitors, alike, and is nearly all powered by an overhead electricity supply. Trains are generally very clean - inside and out - and punctual, and they have a good safety record. Three-quarters of the system is standard gauge, as it is in most of mainland Europe and the UK. Swiss Federal Railways is the biggest of 74 different rail operators.

Tiefencastel, our home for 5 days, is on the Rhaetian Railway’s Albula Line. RhB is the largest private operator in the country. It covers all the railways in the canton of Grisons and operates on a gauge of 1 metre. The Albula line runs from Thusis to St Moritz and we covered it entirely over two separate days, firstly visiting Chur and Arosa, followed by St Moritz later in the week.

We started off at Chur, where, very politely and in English, “All passengers are kindly requested to leave the train”. Old town Chur and the cathedral were impressive, and so, too, was the fresh food department of the Migros supermarket close to the station. We were also intrigued by the leather man of Chur. He seemed to be spending his day walking up and down the main pedestrianised drag in a top hat [presumably mole skin], wearing black leather from head to toe and carrying a black leather bag.

             

Arosa was high up and colder, not surprisingly for a ski station. Round the back of the settlement, they’d developed their squirrel walk, where there were feeding stations for the black squirrels, a melanistic variation of the red squirrel. They were present in considerable numbers to take advantage of the hand-outs of nuts, seeds and grains. Nutcrackers, handsome Alpine birds, had also cottoned on to the freebie food bonanza, and I went from never having seen one before to clocking about fifty within half an hour.

The Albula line is largely single-track with passing places and it appears to be working just about to capacity, as they also manage to find paths for freight trains, often headed by two electric locomotives together, as they negotiate the tight curves and steep gradients that characterise the route. At Bergun, there is a splendid railway museum that explains the formidable challenges that faced the railway builders in such a harsh mountain environment. The resolute nature of the people fits in with their determination to develop their infrastructure and maintain their independence from foreign interference, a characteristic which still shows through today. 

One of the engineering highlights on this section is the Landwasser Viaduct, where the train suddenly emerges from a tunnel mouth that is a vertical cliff face and is then straight onto a six-arch bridge above a 65-metre-deep gorge. No wonder it is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

St Moritz is probably the best known of the upmarket mountain resorts that would also include Davos and Klosters. It’s very pretty, with its lake sparkling in bright sunshine and sitting in an amphitheatre of surrounding mountain tops. It was so nice that a bat had decided that it was far too attractive to leave until dusk, so it had come out to get stuck into an aperitif of some daytime flies at the end of the lake. . At the lakeside there was also a procession of clearly fashionable thirty somethings dressed in very smart running gear and doing their warm up and stretching routines prior to a jog round the water’s edge. What a lovely place to take your daily exercise.

The renowned posh shops were empty of potential customers, which was no surprise – not because the stuff was ridiculously expensive, but because they are mainly figurehead stores for high-end retailers, who can then add St Moritz to London, Paris and New York to all their stationery and advertising. Having said that, the popular traditional patisserie was brilliant. The raspberry tart was delicious and just within our budget.   

A Great Rail Journey

Travelling backwards on Eurostar was obviously not the best of starts, but there is a big difference between the English section and the French one in terms of visible landscape. On the now not so new bit from St Pancras to Folkestone, you spend quite a lot of time staring out at concrete, then at vertical sound reducing barriers erected for the benefit of the railway’s neighbours, or else deep in cuttings probably designed with the same purpose in mind - to keep the line from view. It’s really only when you get to France that the countryside opens out consistently before your eyes.

We’d spent the previous evening wandering between two contrasting urban zones either side of King’s Cross; the one to the north of the station which is brand spanking new and inhabited by a tribe of smartly attired young people, who can afford a glass of wine at a trendy bistro at £20 a go, and the rather less glamorous Pentonville and King’s Cross Roads to the south near our hotel, where every step was an exercise in trash avoidance - and worse. Chris asked the girl sweeping up outside her shop front the morning after if she has to do that every day before she opens up, but apparently it is usually just weekends.

Extreme contrasts are not solely a British problem. Within minutes of being warned about pickpocketing in the French capital city, one of our number had sadly been added to those statistics during the short walk between the grand facades of Paris Gare du Nord and Gare de L’ Est. 

Strasbourg felt similar. The station is entombed in glass and resembles some sort of giant, primitive organism. There was impressive old town, touristy Strasbourg, with its mighty-high cathedral - a vertical stone rocket aiming skywards, and the station approaches, where, instead of enjoying the nightlife that was presumably on offer elsewhere, the local youths were mostly mooching around in close-knit groups without any obvious stuff to do. Suddenly the area was full of ambulances, fire and rescue vehicles and armed police. Passers-by stood around waiting for the action to unfold but nothing happened so, like us, they all just drifted off.

The onward journey to Tiefencastel in Switzerland was in 3 connecting parts, which meant that we arrived there around teatime. You just couldn’t help but notice by then that Switzerland is clean – in fact, it’s extremely clean. They don’t seem to do rubbish-strewn streets, over-full bins or graffiti, which was actually very refreshing. It just somehow all felt very well-ordered, affluent and relaxed. People were courteous and helpful. Motorists were suddenly slowing down to allow us to cross the road and not just at the crossings. I started wondering why everywhere can’t be like Switzerland, and that was even before we had reached any of the seriously dramatic scenery or started to talk about the trains.   

   

To the SVR, once more

It was quiet and wet at the SVR on Sunday. They will be hoping for better weather for their forthcoming steam gala weekend. For the second day running, I had been disappointed by the extent of the refreshments available on the day at a heritage line. Many people visiting the SVR will be making a whole day of it and will be requiring sustenance throughout. It was bad news, therefore to read a few days before our visit that the kitchen at Bridgnorth station café would not be serving hot food, even though they were opening at 9.30. It would have been no advantage for us to go to Kidderminster, instead, because their station café didn’t open until 12.00, so well after the first train of the day had left at 10.15.

As we were travelling from Merseyside, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and Oxfordshire to meet up at Bridgnorth in Shropshire, it would have been nice to start off with something fairly substantial to eat. In the town and a short walk away, I found that Greggs, Costa, Maisie’s and the Castle Tearoom were all open and serving breakfast within the market square alone. Fast forward to dinner time at Kidderminster, and we were very pleasantly surprised by Sunday lunch on the station. The café here is linked to the adjacent pub, the King and Castle, which also belongs to the SVR, and they’ve really got their act together. The food quality was excellent, it was good value for money and the service was first class. Off we went, steam-hauled to Highley in the rain. We thought we might squeeze in a cup of tea and a piece of cake in the splendid first floor café that overlooks the running line but the doors were locked by 3.00 and we had to settle for the drinks machine in the shop, though the attendant kindly took pity on us and gave us a free cuppa. Perhaps we looked a bit bedraggled by then.

Let’s be clear. We can work around these things. Victuals are not the be-all and end-all for us. Reaffirming life-long friendships, exchanging news since our previous get-together and enjoying the ambience created by the heritage railway that reminds us so strongly of our youth and our shared affection for steam traction, are all more important than stuffing our faces all day, believe it or not.

I also understand the pressures for the heritage railways that exist in this area. Franchising out responsibility for refreshments is difficult. The railways do not run anything like every day. There just isn’t the potential custom. They rely on imaginative schemes to lure visitors in, especially out of the holiday season and usually at weekends. The patchy nature of the typical calendar for running trains makes viability for allied businesses, which are therefore effectively part-time by necessity from the very start, really difficult.

As a volunteer with a heritage railway, myself, I know just how important this aspect of people power is to their continued survival, and how critical it is to renew volunteer labour by attracting more youngsters wherever possible. Without this willing labour pool, cafes can just not offer the service the railway would surely wish for, namely a full range of possibilities at all the available venues, whenever trains are running. The SVR remains a convenient, centrally located Midland venue, set in its wonderfully scenic valley - a significant tourist attraction for the area, with financial spin-offs for many surrounding businesses.

The crowds will return from next Thursday for four hectic days of activity, and no doubt all the ancillary providers will do a roaring trade and good luck to them. Fingers crossed, though, that when we get back there next, as we surely will do, but on a purposely quieter day as befits our advancing years, as we don’t particularly want to jostle for seats on a crowded train, or have to queue for lunch. Hopefully, some more bright-eyed young folk who live locally can be prised away from their online alternatives to find that the SVR provides a sociable and worthwhile way to spend a Sunday, whilst making an important contribution to the overall visitor experience in a place that we all hold dear.

         

The Nene Valley Railway

If you have to go to the passport office in Peterborough at short notice, popping in to the NVR on the way back home seemed like a good idea. We rolled up at 2.00 in the hope of a late lunch, but the kitchen at the café had stopped serving minutes before we sat down, leaving very little choice from a restricted menu. The last time we were there, we had been very impressed with the café and the wide range of food on offer, but things have obviously changed and the formerly detailed chalk boards on the wall advertising what was available were scrubbed clean.

The NVR were celebrating Railway 200 over the weekend with the LNWR coal tank No. 1054 visiting from the K&WVR and ex-GWR Large Prairie No. 4144 on loan from Didcot. The ex-LT diesel shunter was offering footplate rides for a fiver between the station at Wansford and the entrance to the sheds.

Fledborough viaduct

The viaduct is a very substantial survivor of the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, which later became part of the Great Central Railway. The early optimism of the LD&ECR was ill-founded, as it never reached either Lancashire or the east coast. Its route was limited to the stretch between Chesterfield and Lincoln, though it was built as a double-track main line.

Fledborough viaduct was constructed in 1897 and is 890 yards long. It consists of 59 brick arches across the River Trent flood plain and 4 steel girder bridges above the river, itself. After closure in 1964, the track was removed and it eventually became part of a Sustrans national cycle route.

It can be viewed today from Fledborough, but only at a distance, and more clearly from the east side of the river to the south of the structure. It can be accessed between the villages of North and South Clifton by walkers and cyclists from a path connecting the viaduct approach to the minor road.