It wasn’t all bad

Travellers left stranded by the chaos at rail operator Northern are being offered free travel across the Lake District in heritage trains instead. When the normal Oxenholme-Windermere service was cancelled for a month on 4 June, West Coast Railways offered the use of its 40-year-old carriages and diesel engine; local MP Tim Farron secured the Lakes line’s £5,500-a-day funding from the Department for Transport; and volunteers drew up a timetable. Six trains are now running daily.

The world’s first sanctuary for beluga whales released from captivity is set to open in Iceland. The openwater sanctuary, in a rocky bay on Heimaey island, is being created by the Sea Life Trust, and its first two residents will be brought in from an aquarium in Shanghai next spring. The pair, named Little Grey and Little White, both 12 years old, are currently being put through a “beluga boot camp” to prepare them for their 35-hour journey, as well as for conditions in their new home. The four-metre-long whales are too dependent on humans to survive in the wild, so will likely remain at the sanctuary for the rest of their lives, which could be 40 years.

The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is working again for the first time in 60 years. In 1957, all its instruments were moved out of London because the light pollution, smog and rumbling trains were disrupting their readings. Now, thanks to a fundraising effort, the observatory, founded by Charles II in 1675, has been able to buy a modern telescope that filters out pollution. The Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope, named after a pioneering astronomer who worked there from 1891, is up and running this week.