velovoice: Rail to Trail (#ScotTour Day 1)

Thursday 3 July 2014

Rail to Trail (#ScotTour Day 1)

"Rail-to-trail" is a term used in the USA for a program to transform disused railway lines to shared use paths for cycling and walking. The UK doesn’t have a formal national plan for that but it does happen on a site-to-site basis, where there’s enough local passion and commitment to secure funding and see the work through.

But here I’m not talking about disused railways being converted. Instead, this is a story of using the railways as a means to reach the trails you want to ride. “Let the train take the strain”, as the saying here goes.

Thanks to Virgin Trains (London to Glasgow) and Scot Rail (Glasgow to Mallaig), we were able to get to the starting point for our Scot Tour in just one day. These trains were faster and more direct – and much less exhausting – than travelling by car. We knew this from all the “train assists” we’ve done for day rides and are convinced this is the way to go for longer trips as well.

Of course, timetables and connections across several different Train Operating Companies meant we had to leave home at stupid o’clock. The alarm went off at 2.45am!

Waiting for our first train, the 04:09 from Luton Airport Parkway.

I've been up and down the West Coast Main Line a number of times and always enjoy the scenery, including the man-made features, especially when it's something as lovely, functional and durable as a Victorian viaduct.

At Glasgow, we had to change from Glasgow Central station to Glasgow Queen Street. I've done this before with no problem but this time I came out of the station and turned left, thinking we were facing north

when in fact we were facing west. So I told Adam to take a right into Hope Street and just keep going - "it'll be signposted for Queen St station". A few blocks later, I thought something didn't feel right so said "turn right again" and was then bemused to find ourselves going up and down the rollercoaster hills of Sauchiehall Street -- too far to the north. If we kept going, we'd shoot right past the station to its north. Which we did. And then right again. And then -- you guessed it -- right again. We were going in circles. Finally at some point I realised we were heading south towards the River Clyde and I shouted "next left" and we got lucky: a block later and we were at the entrance to the station. Phew!

I'll go into more detail in a separate post about how my Enigma bicycle felt to ride all loaded up, but this stop/start circular tour of downtown Glasgow was an eye opener: pulling away from lights going uphill with all the weight at the back, while trying to clip in.... hmmm, not easy.

Once safely arrived at Glasgow Queen Street with plenty of time before our train, we ensconced ourselves in the waiting room around the outside of the station and had a "picnic" lunch -- the first of many. After a little while, we were joined by an older gentleman who, after some minutes of studiously 'not intruding' (as the natives of this island tend to do) said "Excuse me.... could you tell me how you find travelling on the trains with our bikes? And do you have to always make a bike reservation?" Well, Adam's your expert (actually one of 3-4 such 'nerds' amongst The Fridays) and was pleased to give him a number of helpful tips. Turns out the gentleman lives in Carlisle but has for many years 'escaped' to the Highlands with his mountain bike on many weekends. Now that he's retired, he likes going for longer spells and now gets senior rates and has discovered that going by train is much cheaper than going by car. He was a bit nervous about trying the whole "bike on the train" thing out, in case he got his ticket wrong or otherwise had a stressful time, but I think after that conversation, he felt much more confident about giving it go.

We then set off to board our train. The platform staff were very helpful. A Scot Rail employee had spotted us in the waiting room and she kindly escorted us to the ticket barriers, where she handed us over to a male colleague who walked us to the train to show us where the bikes needed to go.

This is the bike compartment on the Glasgow-Fort William service. We were seated at the end of the very end carriage, with the bikes at the front end of the carriage in front of ours -- so nearly two whole carriages away. When the train went around a bend to the right, we could see right down the length of our carriage, through the concertina-like passage into the next carriage and down its length... and so could see that our bikes were still there.

I was so absorbed in all this "bike friendly" service as we loaded -- and it being only the second time we had needed to load two bikes and four panniers and one rucksack onto a train and we hadn't quite got the routine down to a fine art yet -- somehow I managed to set one of my water bottles (my favourite one, of course) down on the floor -- next to my panniers, I thought -- and then forget all about it, pick up the panniers and walk off. And thus I lost it, and cut my water-carrying capacity by 50%.

Once we had set off, though, the loss was forgotten. This train service from Glasgow Queen Street to Fort William is basically a rural commuter service. The train is small but had everything needed for a three-hour journey and the scenery is so stunning, how could you do anything but enjoy yourself?

Trolley time

We followed the banks of the Clyde for a while.

Then we began climbing. For the rest of the route, the railway runs above the roads in most cases, providing panoramic views over valleys and hills… and avoiding junctions and traffic. Not that these were much of a problem, the further we went!

Once into the hills, we were in serious rhododendron territory. Banks and banks of them, taller than the train, bordering the line on both sides. Amazing. And this was just a taster for the astounding profusion of flowers we would find all over the West Coast and on the Isle of Skye.

The train ran alongside several lochs and then left them behind, climbing all the while as the landscape changed.... more open and just the little bit wilder as the miles trundled along. (Oh and the rails are individual strips of track with expansion joints -- not welded -- which had a lovely diddly-dee-diddly-dah rhythm.)

The first of many logging sites... and our first glimpse of snow.

And then we were up on wild, boggy Rannoch Moor.

The train stops at Rannoch station for 10 minutes -- a welcome opportunity to stretch your legs and take a few photos (it is all rather charming and disconcertingly remote) -- though for some passengers, it was more about the 'fag break' than the scenery.

Had I mentioned how beautifully kept all the stations are? Here are a few others.

Dumbarton Central (we would become better acquainted
with this one on the return journey!)

Bridge of Orchy

Roy Bridge (lovely Victorian brick tunnel where the
train passes under the road)

Flowerbeds at Roy Bridge station

Up on Rannoch Moor, I spotted two red deer stags out on the moor but didn’t get to my camera in time to get their picture.

We came to the head of Loch Treig and curved to follow its eastern shore.

The hills rising on each side are green but bare of large vegetation.

All the while, though, the train is descending the valley and when we reach the dam at the loch's foot, suddenly we are back amongst the trees.

The journey goes quite quickly then and before we know it, we are straining for glimpses of Ben Nevis as we approach Fort William. In vain, it turns out. (Again! I've yet to see its top.)

In Fort William, we had a wait of 15-20 minutes while the service dropped some passengers, then dropped a couple of carriages, gained some new passengers, and then we were off up the Great Western Way, on our way to the coast.

We passed over the the Glenfinnan Viaduct, famous from the Harry Potter films. The train driver stopped the train exactly in the middle of the bridge for about five minutes, so that passengers could get a good look... and a few photos.

The portion of the bridge in front of the train. (C) Adam Bell.

The bridge behind the train. (C) Adam Bell.

I let Adam photograph the bridge, while I wondered at how small the Highlander Monument looks from this vintage point. On my last visit to Loch Shiel, my sister and I were in a car. We stopped and climbed the monument... and looked up the valley at the viaduct.