Coventry out and about

Hi all I have had a brilliant week out & about so-far, Tricia. Went to Grantham yesterday. Today I hope to spend some time in Oakham. Most of my journeys start from Nuneaton. I have changed buses in Bedworth at about 9.50am. I do look out for you, when I am sat for a few minutes on the wooden seats outside the bakers. The area of the rover ticket is so vast that there is no way that I can cover it all even in seven days. My son & grandson are going to have the same ticket, the second week of Easter, but they are staying a couple of nights in Lincoln. Providing we have a bit of an aptitude for travelling by rail, it is a fabulous way to get out & about, costing for me £10 per day. How much diesel or petrol can be bought for that? The trains have been mostly on time, clean & comfy, but some very busy. Grantham station. I was waiting for a train to Doncaster after spending a couple of hours in the town. This gent, busy on his laptop was going all of the way to Aberdeen. When the rail people get it right, it is a fabulous way to travel. My last pic for now is my train to Leicester arriving at Nuneaton.

Hi all This was at Derby today.

Very nice Philip although I think the green livery looked better on the sloping smokebox version. (Likewise "City of Coventry").

Hi all At least we have not got a bent spire! Picture taken from carriage window.

Hi all So, if any of you fancy seeing a bit of central England, there are not many better places to do it from than Coventry. My ticket is still valid until the end of Sunday, but after six days of roving I am delighted to be able to hang my railways cap up for a couple of weeks. ps. The same ticket is available just the same from Coventry. My last pic is of my single coach train leaving Bedworth on its way to Coventry. Just a quick calculation, I estimate that I have travelled well over a thousand miles on that ticket. Mostly in comfort, good timekeeping & with good weather for the whole of the week.

A very interesting report Philip,and some excellent photos. Thank you. Adrian

Hi all & thank you Adrian. I have always been a railway nut, a steam nut originally. After a week of rail-roving in the East Midlands, I am still enthusiastic about my memories of train spotting. You won't find me trainspotting nowadays, although the only people that trainspot now are people of my age. It is all history though. Chatting on here now, my mind is going back to sites where I sat watching trains go by, mostly junctions, fifty years past. Most of them gone, but I can still work out where the junctions were as we pass by. There is a published album of railways around our area where the camera man has cought me sat on a bridge parapet at the Ashby Junc' on the Trent valley line, just north of Nuneaton. Crackley Junc was another favorite of mine, just north of Kenilworth. On a good weather Saturday or school holiday, I could sit for hours with my packed piece, as my dad called it, often on my own. So I got used to local train travel from an early age.

The "Dogbox" Living close to the line I see it coming and going all the time, usually empty. There used to a Turbostar on the service, either Central or Midland Mainline. Beautiful they were!

Hi all I am enjoying another week long East Midlands railrover ticket again this week, where I am returning home each evening, but my son & grandson are staying overnight at a couple of places whilst using theirs. Edale for one night then on the east coast for another. It is obvious that we have to like rail travel to be able to enjoy this, which all three of us do, having gained top diplomas in train-spotting. I travelled from Nuneaton to Grantham, then to Newark, Lincoln, Spalding & Sleaford, before returning home from Peterborough in the late afternoon today. I did not leave Nuneaton until ten this morning & back home for five this evening. I am still of the opinion that Coventry is as good as anywhere & more convenient than most locations to tour huge areas of England. That is why I am putting these posts up, not only for those of you that live locally & would like to get about, but for any of our friends who might enjoy staying in Coventry, maybe from overseas, where you are reliant on public transport whilst here. We knock the prices charged on trains sometimes, as I do, but how much would we pay for a double sandwich, hot drink, large packet of crisps & an apple, if you went into a shoppers cafe anywhere or a pub? As the weather was mostly wet today I was content to travel on some of the lines that I have not been over in more than forty years. I was planning on having a bite to eat in Peterborough but arrived early enough to be able to walk straight onto a through train back to Nuneaton. I was so hungry & was delighted to hear the sound of food trolley come around. I had the meal deal for £5 which was as I have described. There was a choice of what I could have in the meal deal. It was all fresh & served by a lovely lady. What more could I want, sat in comfort watching the scenery pass by.

Hi Dutchman. I was once told that the colour of the locos as they left Crewe works after overhaul depended on whether they were to be allocated north or south of Crewe. North were green & south were crimson. How true that was I will never know, as when trainspotting at Rugby 1960ish the colours were not uniform to that.

Hi all The Coventry Telegraph web page is advertising rail-trips entitled Statesman Rail. Some trips are already fully booked, some passing through Coventry. I have included the link for you to see for yourselves. They do not really appeal to me, not just because of the cost either, but then what I have been doing for the last week does not appeal to most people either. There are many ways to travel & see the UK by rail, like I have been doing, but if you enjoy a day package type of thing then the advert might interest you. In my youth, I was a RCTS (Railway Correspondence and Travel Society) member. The last trip that I ever went on was Easter weekend 1963, to Scotland. That was a really good & well organised trip. Since then, I have organised my own trips, like the one this week which has cost me an average of £10 per day plus a bit of food. I know that some of the posts on our site are a bit negative about Coventry & I admit that I get a bit fed-up with all of the building work & changes in Broadgate & so on, but like I have said before, I am always glad to come home & no matter where I have returned from, they have their issues just the same. You might not think this, but Lincolnshire, a very rural county until recently had the highest crime-rate per head of population of anywhere in England. It might still be so too! Coventry is not so bad after-all, hey! Arriving at Coventry Station

Hi all I am sharing this on here following a conversation with a friend yesterday, who is very wary about venturing out as I do. Personal safety is important. My enjoyment of getting out & about when I am on my own, is helped by keeping to time of day paterns. The earlier the better. Unless I walk to the nearby city boundary, my bus pass is not valid until 9.30am, so that is where my pattern starts. Generally, until about 2.30pm, most people who are out & about, have a purpose for being out & are too busy to be a nuisance. It is only as the afternoon drifts on that the people with nothing to do, have woken up & start to come out, in order to break their boredom. Whilst there can & will always be exceptions, crime stats tend to follow this pattern. Today, I left home at 9am, walked to the Ricoh shops where I met up with Pam & friends who were shopping. We agreed to meet later at a pub for lunch. I am continuing to explore the south east section of our city which involved a couple of bus journeys and a lot of walking. After lunch at the Festival pub, I parted company with the motorists, and after walking for an hour in the dry, I then enjoyed a long way round bus journey, arriving back home about 3pm. That is a fairly typical time out venture for me. Six hours exploring away from home & a lovely lunch is quite relaxing & enjoyable. I walked about seven miles in total, some of it quite brisk. I do hope that helps anyone with fears about personal safety.

Hi all Many of you will know that those of us living inside the West Midlands, can use the railways within the West Midlands using our bus pass. Those living outside may be interested in this. The area covered. Bought along with my rail-card, it covers a very extensive area for a day. Yesterday, I could have gone to Shrewsbury, Hereford, Crewe, Northampton & Leamington. I will post some pics of my day out yesterday later. This ticket is not so extensive as the seven day tickets that I have used in the past, but for £14 or £10 for a child it is very good value. I hope to go out again on Tuesday with my grandson. I had a light bite in Stafford, the only thing that Stafford has which is missing in Coventry is the river.

I admire you! Edited by TonyS, 25th Aug 2012 12:00 pm

Hi & thank you Anne It is a good way to get about.