Rail Mini Marathon Day 3

Thursday 9th
Again I woke up a couple of times, including once during the splitting up of the train at Waverley. We must have taken an interesting route between Edinburgh and Glasgow as I woke up in time to see us pass through Springburn station before regaining the normal West Highland route at Cowlairs. The weather was a bit better than yesterday and there was plenty of scenery.

After breakfast in my cabin I adjourned to the lounge car, now magically the carriage next to mine, to get a better all round view. Taking advantage of the drop windows in these older coaches I got a few photos of Loch Treig and the Monnessie Gorges as the train ran down towards Fort William. 

As we arrived at FW The Great Marquess was waiting to to take the Jacobite tourist train out to Mallaig. It was raining a bit but I did manage to get a few shots. 

The first class coach is called Alexandra. Despite the rain the High Street was awash in buskers. The Tourist Office had an internet cafe so I indulged in 20 minutes worth to update my progress and then went lunch shopping in Tesco. I also treated myself to an Ian Rankin paperback from a charity shop as "The Ghost" had not lasted as long as I had expected. There was quite a crowd shivering on the platform and i was glad that I had a reserved seat. Once again the train was four coaches pretty well filled, although the lady in the seat opposite me decided to move once we were under way so I got the chance to stretch my legs out. I didn't think that I smelled that bad - today was a clean t shirt day. The return to Glasgow was rather uneventful and on time allowing me to catch the 15.45 Edinburgh via Linlithgow.
 
I have wanted to do the Fort William sleeper trip for a long time and thoroughly enjoyed it.  If I have done my sums right I travelled just over 1400 miles on Network Rail. It is not easy to work out how far I travelled on the Overground, Underground and Tram Link  but it was probably another 200 miles. Perhaps next time I will look at Inverness to London. And a full Docklands Light Railway itinerary.