Defeating Storm Goretti, with help from GWR and LNER

[Mark at mwtrips]

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A Winter Rail Adventure to Bath ... and Back (Just)​

We like to have a few days away in January when the grandchildren are back at school and life a church has gone back to normal, and it is a quiet time at hotels so there are bargain offers to consider. As we did last year, we took up the offer from The Royal Hotel in Bath for a couple nights' dinner, bed and breakfast and I duly booked tickets both ways with Cross Country Trains via Birmingham and Bristol. This is further round and slower than via Peterborough and London but cuts out the need to transfer by Underground between stations in London.

The former railway station Bath Green Park >​

Before we left we knew that a named storm was approaching the British Isles but it looked like we'd be safe enough. It did not quite work out as planned and the return journey was more of an adventure than I had anticipated.

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Our journey out to Bath was really great. We took a regional Cross Country train from Stamford to Birmingham New Street mid-morning on a Wednesday, intending to have lunch in Birmingham before taking an inter-city Cross Country train on to Bristol Temple Meads. In the event we bought a take-away salad lunch to eat on the second train. This left us with a bit of time in hand, even more than expected because our train to Bristol was ten minutes late coming in - the only train indicated behind time on the departure board at Birmingham New Street. A pity, for it was quite cold that day. We were travelling First Class on this leg of the journey - Standard Class on Cross Country's Voyager trains is best avoided if ticket price allows - and were very comfortable as we watched the sunny landscapes go by. We had tea to go with our picnic lunch and also accepted some snacks, most of which were stored away for later use.

At Bristol Temple Meads we made our way to the next train to Bath, a GWR express for London which was about to leave from another platform, and sat comfortably in Standard Class for this brief, eleven-minute final leg.

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After checking in and unpacking, with a cup of tea made in our room (The Royal's in-room tray is pretty good) we set off for a walk across the river and up through Dolemeads towards Bathwick. We were initially disappointed not to be able to go into St Mary's Church where some of Alison's ancestors will have worshipped, but while we were there the parish priest turned up by chance and let us in. It turned out that we had several mutual acquaintances, so it was good to have met him. We returned to the city centre by way of Great Pulteney Street, a dramatic street of large terraced houses whose wonderful townscape is spoiled somewhat by the presence of so many cars. With two wide footways and a carriageway still wide enough for several lanes of vehicles it would be very hard to justify banning parking, though.

Dinner at the hotel was included in our loyalty package and was extremely good. Wine and coffee were not included, but we had them added to our room bill.

Starter and main course​

The following morning began our only completely free day. This was a very short break. I had heard about the architectural gem that had been Bath's other railway station, Green Park, closed along with the rest of the Somerset and Dorset line in the 1960s, but I had never seen it. I understood it had become a market place with some shops and catering and community uses, so we strolled along there after breakfast and had a look. It was certainly a grand building and still felt like a railway terminus although there was market space and car parking where the tracks should have been. Not much was happening on a cold, damp Thursday morning in January, but we were glad to have seen Bath Green Park station at last.​

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We walked back then towards the Roman Baths via some of the shopping streets we knew. It was both surprising and a delight to discover that Jolly's department store, closed since before our last visit, was being refitted and is due to reopen soon under new ownership and management. I have to say that I think it is very brave to buy a department store in 2025 with a view to running it as a department store from 2026. So many other companies are withdrawing from department stores altogether. I look forward to hearing all about how well it does after the investment, and to visiting in due course.

We then moved on to the well-known Pump Room for our morning coffee. The Pump Room is best known for afternoon teas but this was mid-morning and we had had a hotel breakfast; coffee was perfectly sufficient. A piano was played, there were paintings to admire, the coffee was good.

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The rain began and the wind grew a little as the signs of Storm Goretti began to creep in. The Isles of Scilly were already being battered and Cornwall was bracing itself, but here it was not too bad. The really bad news from our point of view was the expected heavy snow in Birmingham and the West Midlands, for we were to travel that way the following afternoon. There were weather warnings (including Red in Cornwall) and a complexity of travel warnings. I could not be sure about the problems we might face until the morning when the Live Departures would be published on operators' websites. I was already determined that if it were possible I'd like to leave earlier than planned so as to have time in hand in case of difficulty, but when I contacted Cross Country they never quite answered my question and all they wanted to do was ask me not to travel, tickets will be valid until Monday, they said. This was annoying because I was quite confident that travel via London would be perfectly possible, if a little disrupted by some trains from the West being stuck in Cornwall, and Cross Country just advised me not to travel. I ignored them and thought at least I'd try to get home but earlier than planned; there was not a lot to do in Bath in such weather as Friday morning's anyway.

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Getting up on Friday, the first thing I did was to check trains home to Stamford from Birmingham to see which ones might be running ... nothing between Birmingham and Stamford. I contacted Cross Country via X and was told that there was no ticket acceptance in place and their advice was still not to travel. That was quite absurd: travel via Birmingham that morning was clearly not likely to be available, but the south-east was completely unaffected and travel via London would not be difficult. I was also fairly sure that by the afternoon, when we had been planning to travel, they could have run if they'd wanted to: they did have a couple of trains to Leicester, but not beyond ...

After breakfast we checked out and crossed the road to Bath Spa station, several hours ahead of our booked travel time. A GWR express for London was already at the platform, due to depart in two minutes: we had tickets from Bath to Bristol which would suffice to open the barriers and went straight up to the platform and approached the Train Manager standing by the door trying to get the train under way: he urged us to board and we could discuss things on the move! Once we explained our position he just advised us where to sit, did not even asked to see such tickets as we had. He even said advised us to move into the front section of the train when it stopped at Chippenham because a First Class host was available only in the front unit (apparently this service is usually a single nine-coach set and is crewed by one host, but today was two five-coach sets which would need two). We did that and had our morning coffee on our way to London. It was a lovely ride through good weather and not a snowflake in sight. Arriving on time at London Paddington we made our way to the Underground and paid our way to Kings Cross St Pancras. So far, so good. We did have to use a manned ticket gate at Paddington because we did not have a ticket which would open a gate there, but again the person on the gate was very helpful and simply let us through.

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A silver lining to this detour was the opportunity to pop into Fortnum & Mason at St Pancras and stock up on their St Pancras Blend tea! Another, quite frankly, was that in the wet and cold weather in Bath and Bristol, it was no bad thing to have left early and be on our way east. At Kings Cross we went straight to the Travel Centre and explained our situation to a kind ticket clerk who asked to see our tickets: I showed him the First Class Advance tickets from Bristol to Birmingham on my smartphone and he informed us that the net train to Peterborough - which was as near to Stamford as we could get by rail - was at 11:47, less than ten minutes' time, and there were seats available in First Class. He printed us a reservation slip and wrote a note on the back explaining that we were rerouted via London and that was that. We walked swiftly to the platform and boarded the York-bound train. Our allocated seats were already taken by a family so we did not disturb them and sat in the next seating bay where two seats were available. It was not yet noon and we were already speeding north! The catering on this service was from the lunch menu and the wine came just on noon, so I cannot be accused of drinking in the morning ... We had comfortably finished our coffee when the train arrived at Peterborough. One final explanation at a barrier and we were out of the station and on our way via the rather lengthy step-free route to Queensgate Bus Station where we boarded the 13:00 Delaine bus to Stamford, free of charge with our Senior Citizens' Concessionary Passes. We were home at 14:00, 2pm. It was actually a quicker journey than the originally-planned route, with better catering and smoother, quieter trains, but we usually avoid going that way because there are more changes of train and the Underground is a bit of a palaver with luggage, but it certainly worked for us on this occasion - when we had only a little luggage, of course. We may reconsider our policy next time we head to Bath or Bristol!

Well, that was quite an adventure! Getting back from trips seems to have been a bit of a trial just recently (see last month's post!), but we have successfully risen to the challenge and in the process have met some really nice, helpful railway staff who could not have done more to help us on our way. It has been very impressive and I hope that when the railways are all united as Great British Railways this will only get better, when "ticket acceptance" will no longer be an issue and the sort of assistance we received at GWR and LNER will be universal across the system. I am sure that for most railway staff getting passengers to their destinations is their instinctive way of working and for some time they have had to do it in spite of the obstructions placed in their way by the splintering of the system at franchising. Onward and upward: we have several journeys already in the planning, some of them charter trains, some escorted tours on regular trains, some of our own devising, some a blend of these - we have to get to the start of the organised tours, after all - and there are more to book as soon as dates are cleared.

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