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Working as a railway journalist involves attending all kinds of events. But it was perhaps one of my more eccentric decisions to volunteer to take part in a Rail Delivery Group event marking the longest day of the year on 21 June.
This involved doing the full 774-mile journey on CrossCountry’s 08.20 Aberdeen to Penzance service, the longest through journey possible on the network. The irony, of course, was that CrossCountry had originally proposed changing this service when it recast its timetable, but it survived largely due to protests from the Scottish Government about cutting a key morning southbound service from Aberdeen.
RDG’s aim was to showcase the benefits of rail travel, and it had organised a web stream showing a cab view of the journey (although this did face some technical difficulties). On board with us were Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe, who achieved fame last year for their ‘All the Stations’ venture, visiting every station across the network. Observant YouTubers may have noticed a cameo appearance from yours truly in one of Geoff’s videos following the recent trip to Germany to see the new Siemens Class 717 for the Moorgate suburban services.
Arriving at Aberdeen fresh from the…
