The Caledonian Sleeper

First: it’s 25ºC in London, today, 23rd May.  It is about 9ºC in Fort William, a little warmer in the sun

Anyway. The Caledonian Sleeper - the return journey.

It was definitely a treat, because it might have been cheaper to take a bus. But it has some sort of magic. We took a bus to Witham station, 45 minutes, a train to Liverpool Street, 45 minutes, travelled by tube to Euston 15 minutes, had a pricey meal in the station, 45 minutes, and got on the train. It left just after 9pm, and arrived in Fort William 24 a bit over twelve hours later. Breakfast, including some poor coffee and porridge in a paper cup was served at 7am (by choice) and we made ourselves comfortable in the saloon. There were a lot of walkers on board, who got off at various stops along the Highlands part of the route.

The Caledonian Sleeper is, apparently, the longest train in the UK, about 18 carriages, and Euston, Watford, Carlisle and one or two others have platforms that are long enough. At Edinburgh, the train splits in three, one for Aberdeen, one for Inverness, and the other for Fort William.

During the daylight hours, we watched the scenery, I recorded various sounds, took some video, some photographs and had a banana each.

Fort William is not inspiring: but the bus timetable had been altered such that the bus left at 12 and not 1130, and by some stroke of luck the driver’s ‘machine’ had not been updated, and she couldn’t be bothered to issue tickets. It was a free ride. Nice.