MAIN LINE MISCELLANEA

●● ‘The train arriving on Platform 6 is early. What you’re waiting for may never arrive’. That wasn’t the station announcement from Crewe on March 30, but it could have been, given that a Union and EU-flag bedecked Britannia was meant to be celebrating Brexit.

Complete with headboard and ‘Swansea-Sunderland-Bristol’ carriage boards, the ‘Brexit Express’ was a private charter by Jeremy Hosking, a prominent supporter of Britain leaving the EU.

The ‘7MT’ was in charge of the train between Crewe and York the day after we were meant to have left, returning on March 31. Other legs ran diesel-hauled.

●● Parts of the network rarely, if ever, see steam – but on others, having two trips on the same day isn’t as unusual as you might think. At Scarborough on June 15, Tornado is due to arrive from (and leave for) King’s Cross with the ‘Yorkshire Pullman’ using Belmond’s umber and cream beauties. Meanwhile, rather than the East Coast resort being its destination, British India Line is to sally forth with a Railway Touring Company trip which, after set-downs at ‘Ally Pally’ and Finsbury Park, ends up at Ealing Broadway. The return is with diesel.

All that is less than a week before the start of West Coast’s ‘Scarborough Spa Express’ programme on June 20. That runs from Carnforth most Thursdays until early September on alternate routes – one via Skipton and Leeds, the other via Preston and Wakefield.

●● Could the Waverley Route be reopened all the way south to reach Carlisle and/or the eastward link to the East Coast Main Line near Berwick be recreated? Both options are contained in a study into the Borders for Transport Scotland published in March.

●● At the moment, you can still take a long-distance HST ride virtually the length of the country – but with the spread of new Hitachi trains, that’s soon to change.

The ‘Inter-City 125’ is finally to come off top flight long-distance services on the Western in May, more than 42 years since the first arrived. Even the ‘Kings’ only managed 35 years…