I uncovered more than I had bargained for. The Age of Steam is alive and well in Britain. And there are over three million enthusiasts who intend to keep it that way! If, like me, you have a nostalgia for steam locomotives and the great age of rail travel, Britain is the place to visit for that great vacation travelling the rails in style. I shall return to this subject in a later article. In the meanwhile click here to wet your appetite!
My original quest however, was for a train departure from Paddington. Paddington Station and the Great Western hotel which abuts onto it is one of the glories of Victorian Gothic architecture. The station itself is reminiscent of the 1851 Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace - all wrought-iron and glass, and much beloved of the late English Poet Lauriate, Sir John Betjeman, who regularly commuted from there to his home in North Cornwall.
Thanks to the Train Chartering Company Ltd., you can journey from Paddington to the eclipse and back on the same day in hassle-free armchair comfort.
You travel the historic railroad line of the old Great Western Railway, opened by Queen Victoria in 1841. The line was laid by the Victorian geniusIsambard Kingdom Brunel, Paddington Station's architect, who also designed every bridge the railroad crossed en route to Cornwall, not to mention three oceangoing passenger steamships, The Great Western, The Great Eastern, and The Great Britain, and a tunnel under the River Thames.
London/ Reading/Taunton/Exeter/Totnes/Plymouth. This is undoubtedly the most scenic rail route in southern England. Your journey takes you in Pullman comfort, as you sip your Buck's Fizz, through the beautiful green rolling Wessex countryside of Wiltshire, down the River Exe to its wildfowl filled estuary at Dawlish, past the Deer Park and castle of the Duke of Devonshire, and then along the spectacular, red-cliffed, shores of England's Riviera coast to the historic port of Plymouth, from where Sir Francis Drake sailed to meet the Spanish Armada, the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World, and Captain James Cook and Charles Darwin sailed on their momentous voyages of discovery.
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