There might only have been a gap of six years, but in 2005 neither of us travelled with a laptop, nor did we take advantage of free Wi-Fi on the few trains that offered it. This very blog hadn't started, either. Virgin still ran Cross Country, GNER was providing Anglo-Scottish services along the ECML, the heritage slam-doors were plying their trade along the Lymmington Branch, First Great Western was operating many more Adelantes than today and Class 37s hauled the Caledonian Sleepers north of Edinburgh. Of the few buses we caught, Rapsons was still independent and Southern Vectis hadn't started scrapping cars. Wilts & Dorset had operational Bristol VRs and the 'more' network in Bournemouth was causing a stir. We both had slightly more hair and fewer wrinkles, too.
The forthcoming week-long jaunt involves two overnight sleeper services, the WAG Express, copious amounts of Pendolinos (Pendolina??), some Grand Central, T&W Metro, the Ffestiniog Railway, Settle-Carlisle, Airdrie-Bathgate, the TrawsCambria bus network, the lengthiest train journey in the UK and as many First Class Lounges as we can pack in. There'll also be some slightly less exciting elements that form personal firsts.
A day-by-day account will be uploaded to the blog, accompanied where possible with mobile phone photos. There's also our twitter feed (and Facebook for our friends). Upon completion, we'll provide photos and video of the trip.
In the six years that have passed, we both agree the single biggest leap in technology is the downloadable National Rail Timetable, stored on our laptop. In 2005 a certain book with over 2,000 pages had to be carted around!
1 comment:
If a singular Pendolino is Italian, lots of them might be Pendolini. Or stick to the English plural -s.
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