Tag Archives: edinburgh

The Last Lap Home

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OK, I need to be honest about this trip; I’ve found it really tough!

I’m thinking that its a mixture of things:
1. I’m out of practice riding motorcycles; with all the upheaval last year I just haven’t had time to get out on any kind of two wheels. Plus with all our things in storage, I couldn’t get at them anyway.
2. I’m carrying a couple of injuries at the moment, nothing serious, but enough to inhibit me a bit and at times make life a bit uncomfortable, plus I’m as a result not as fit as I like to be!
3. The weather. Riding in our Northern latitudes in early Spring is always going to be a bit of a lottery with the weather, plus inevitably it’s going to cold a times. OK, I do wear my heated clothing and it has been quite a bonus on this trip, but after a few hours in the saddle you do still feel the cold in the unheated bits! Rain doesn’t really bother me, except when it makes the roads greasy, as my gear is all very waterproof.
4. I’m getting older. No escaping this, I’m not going to let it stop me, but maybe I need to modify my approach to motorcycle touring in future?

Anyway, we are now home in Caithness, arriving here after a 300 mile push from Lauder in the Scottish Borders last Saturday.

I think that I can describe the day as a symphony in four movements…

Lauder to Edinburgh was delightful on open roads in the early morning crisp sunshine.

Scottish Borders Roads. Smooth, Sweeping, Empty.

Edinburgh ring road to Perth via the Queensferry Crossing was busy, very busy and not over enjoyable.

Queensferry Crossing.

Perth to Inverness on the A9 climbing into the Highlands was a hard section; fantastic scenery as the mountains rose around us, annoying traffic at times and getting colder.

Welcome to The Highlands, snow on the mountains still!

Inverness to Caithness, a feeling of opening freedom, clean air, less traffic, fun roads and the joy of getting near home.

Nearly Home!

The last bit is always something to be wary of, as many accidents befall motorcyclists at the end of long trips just as they are nearing home! A bit of light rain began to fall ten minutes from Dookes H.Q. and was enough to turn the roads quite greasy, so yes, time to be extra cautious!

Caithness Roads, take us home!

The trip is over now and though I’m still physically recovering from it, I’ve had time to process it all a bit.

It’s been strange doing a long trip in my own Country and by that I mean the UK.

In comparison to my many Continental Europe trips I was struck by how busy and crowded our small island is; I didn’t have to stray into any major city centres to notice that!
Everywhere in England people seemed to be always in a massive hurry and yes it was really noticeable how much things change once we got into Scotland.

I saw evidence throughout the journey of crumbling and neglected infrastructure. Roads were deteriorating and pot holes common; bloody dangerous for the unwary motorcyclist too! Even on the arterial Motorways, potholes were not uncommon and many motorway signs were becoming barely legible through weathering and neglect.
The verges of many roads were strewn with litter and obvious fly tipping in lay-bys seemed normal.
Considerate and careful driving was not over common…
In many ways parts of the trip were quite depressing, but then there were the people, people who were friendly, wanted to ask about Harls and just were interested in what we were doing; that was nice and rather up-lifting. More about them in another post I feel.

The scenery was the thing though; at time it’s just breathtakingly beautiful.
From distant glimpses of the Welsh mountains, the wide sweeping Severn Valley, the sturdy Pennines and West Riding of Yorkshire, the high Westmorland Fells, Scottish Borders and finally the Highlands, every region has such lovely natural treasures.
The 868 miles that we covered were worth it for that alone; even though I didn’t grab many pictures, so much variety in such a little island!
Would I want to do the whole trip again? No, I don’t think so, I’ve got a lot of other new places I really want to go and most of them are pretty much on my doorstep.

The view from Dookes H.Q.
The view from home at Dookes H.Q.

Now, I’m starting to build a new garage for Harls and Hettie and when I’ve done that we will be back out on the road, after all I have the whole of Scotland to explore!


Hope to catch you soon.

“This land is my land,
This land is your land,
From Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands,
This land was made for you and me” …with apologies to Woody Guthrie!

Dookes

Caledonian Sleeper Report

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Well, my night on the Caledonian Sleeper is over, time to report on the experience.

As I said in my previous post, internally the train was spotless and my cabin, though a tad compact was very adequate. With two people in it though I feel that you would have to choreograph your moves as it really could be a bit cramped!

We departed Inverness bang on time and effortlessly slipped into the Highland darkness. The train follows the Highland Railway mainline through Aviemore to Perth, Gleneagles and Stirling before taking a left for Edinburgh, where the portions from Fort William and Aberdeen are attached. There were quite few station stops and as a result the ride was a bit jerky! Equally the attachment of extra carriages and a locomotive change at Edinburgh was, unavoidably a bit sleep interrupting!

The Mark 5 carriages rode well, very well in fact on the higher speed sections of line, particularly the West Coast Mainline South of Carstairs all the way to London Euston. On the Highland Mainline though they suffered with a lot of bogie noise and vibration. It does strike me these days that rolling stock design engineers seem to be able to manufacture vehicles that only do one thing well, but are incapable of coping with a variety of conditions…just a thought.

Inverness. Waiting departure.

The bad news was that due to signalling track circuit failures in the Partick area, our train was delayed by 95 minutes waiting for the Fort William portion; not a major issue for me for my onward journey, but I’m sure that some people might have been annoyed. On the plus side though, Caledonian Sleepers give a very generous refund for this inconvenience so I’m really not complaining and you can’t blame the train operator for the infrastructure owner’s shortcomings!

A point I made in my previous post about top speeds was quite pertinent and noticeable with our delay. By using a combination of stopwatch and GPS, I was able to see that we travelled along at a steady 87mph, the top speed of the locomotive. Now allowing that the Caledonian Sleeper is timed at 80mph, the maximum possible recovery of lost time in running can only be less than 10% with a 7mph excess over timing; I guess thats the price you pay for using a class 92 locomotive that was originally designed for freight work.

Journey’s end at Euston.

A light breakfast of coffee, fruit juice and a sausage bap was served to me in my cabin and was very enjoyable.

Yes arrival at Euston was late, but on the plus side avoided the infamous London “rush hour!”

Would I do it again?
You bet I would!

Catch you soon,
Dookes

The Caledonian Sleeper

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A railway sleeper service has run between Scotland and England since February 1873. Sleeping cars were initially introduced on the East Coast Route via Edinburgh and York, with the rival West Coast catching up in October of the same year. The status quo remained pretty much the same until 1988 when services were withdrawn on the East Coast and trains consolidated on the West Coast.

Following the privatisation of rail operations in the UK during the 1990’s, like all other passenger trains the Anglo – Scottish sleepers passed into private hands.

It was not a stunning success!

True, new Mark 5 rolling stock was procured to run the trains, though it’s introduction was somewhat troubled and painful. The first run of the new carriages arrived at it’s destination hours late and received great derision from the media! Then there was a period of poor and deteriorating industrial relations that did little aid reliability nor reputation.

Finally in October 2022, the Scottish Government, possibly out of despair, announced that the franchise, then run by Serco, would be terminated and the operation taken over by Scottish Rail Holdings, a Government Owned Department from June 2023. Since then the service has stabilised and is beginning to rebuild it’s reputation.

The Mark 5 carriages are still a bit of a mixed bag and it is fair to say that they give the maintenance engineers headaches at time, but overall are settling into reliable performers.

Two trains are operated on six days each week. The “Highland Sleeper” is made up of three trains that depart from Inverness, Fort William and Aberdeen, then combine at Edinburgh and travel onward to London Euston as a 16 coach train. A “Lowland Sleeper” train has two portions serving Glasgow and Edinburgh, also to London.

The trains normally operate at a maximum speed of 80 mph (130 km/h), but are authorised to travel at 100 mph (160 km/h) where line speeds permit and if the train has been significantly delayed. Though as the locomotives used are not permitted to run any faster than 90mph, I find this to be a tad perplexing! It’s the old railway operator in me!

North of Edinburgh the trains are all hauled by diesel locomotives and South from there by electric traction.

My Inverness portion of the train tonight consists of six sleeper coaches, one seated carriage and one “club car” (lounge car).  Up front we have two Class 73/9 Electro-Diesel locomotives, 73. 970 and 73 967, old friends from my days on the Southern Region, though unlike me, they has been through a complete rebuild and now boast a 1600hp V8 engine each, which is an improvement over it’s original 650hp one. So 3200hp for a load of 305tonnes should do the job!


I’ll check out the electric loco when we get to Euston, I’m not getting out of bed at Edinburgh just to see it!


My berth, a solo Club cabin, is well appointed with an ensuite toilet and shower adjacent to the bedroom. In the past, the old Mark 1 sleeping cars had lovely wide windows that you could open and enjoy the mountain air as the train traversed the Highland railways; sadly now that facility has gone, but the air conditioning is much nicer than the old draughty sleeping cars!

Cosy, clean and comfortable, all I need.

I enjoyed a relaxing hour in the Caledonian Sleeper Lounge at Inverness with complementary refreshments before wandering over to the platform and getting comfy in my cabin.
I’m really looking forward to this trip, it must be nearly 30 years since I was on a sleeping train…

Catch you in the morning!

Dookes