Fort William – Glasgow Queen Street – Glasgow Central – Wigan North Western – Liverpool Lime Street – Acton Bridge

I woke up quite early, a bit achy from yesterday’s exertions but refreshed after my early night. Breakfast was a lazy affair, my train was the first one out of Fort William, but wasn’t until late morning.

I had time for a look at the waterfront and the site of the fort that gave the place it’s name. I had no idea that the William in question was William of Orange, who had ordered a defensive fort to be built in the 17th Century. There had been an earlier fort, known as the Garrison of Inverlochy. The fort fell into disuse but was then converted into private homes until much of it was destroyed to make way first for the railway and later a road.

There is a pier, but it is not publicly accessible. A shame as I would have liked a closer look a this rather odd object moored against it…

The station was already quite busy when I arrived, as they do not allow platform access until the Mallaig service arrives. It then joins with the two carriages already in the platform for the onward service to Crianlarich where a further two carriages from Oban are added at the front.

By the time we left the train was quite busy and I did wonder if it would be standing room only by the time we got to Glasgow. Fortunately that turned out not to be the case, but it was a close-run thing.

The line climbs steeply out of Fort William to the summit at Corrour. It really is quite a feat of engineering to have created the line at all in such a wilderness, given the tools available 130-odd years ago. While we were travelling I read about the building of this line, which was more an attempt to regenerate this part of the country than anything else. I’m not completely surprised that it never made a profit, given the size of the towns at the end of the line.

That said, it is good to see that both Corrour and Rannoch stations are well used, with plenty of people getting on and off at both. It would be interesting to stop and explore some time, and I really fancy staying in the signal box accommodation at Corrour one day, though it is booked out ages ahead – I checked and as of today nothing is available here this year!

With the train being so busy I wasn’t able to hop around as usual grabbing photos. in this part of the world I’ve been taking advantage of the hopper windows to position the camera so that I’m not taking pictures through glass. Its just about feasible without being silly or dangerous, though some people don’t like it so I don’t even try on busy services. The problem today was that the train was filthy and the autofocus on my camera kept thinking I was taking close ups of the window.

I suppose it is quite interesting, but certainly not what I was looking for. I did manage to get a few pictures, but definitely deleted more than I kept, which is a shame.

I had the option of swapping trains at Dalmuir and taking the stopping service directly to Glasgow Central, but it is a twice an hour service, already with a 20 minute wait so I decided I’d stay on board to Queen Street and walk across the city. The quieter than usual station gave me an opportunity to grab a photo of the magnificent roof.

I had plenty of time to cross to Central, indeed time to stop for a cuppa on the way. Central was also quiet. I again found myself looking upwards. The spans on this roof are really impressive, but in a different way. I presume that the whole roof is a replacement. I must find out.

We departed Glasgow on time, and I had a good view of the river just south of the station. A few moments later my eye was caught by the crowd of people queueing outside the O2 Academy for a show by American singer Clairo. It was still nearly 3 hours hours before the doors were due to open. A brief nostalgic moment, as I used to do this all the time, but I can’t remember when I was last sat in the street outside a concert venue on a Sunday afternoon!

The line south from here follows the M74 almost all the way to the border. It is one of my least favourite parts of Scotland, just a bit dull to my mind.

By the time we were in Cumbria it was too dark to take to take photos, all I was getting was reflections of the inside of the carriage.

At Wigan I changed for a train to Liverpool. I was surprised to see the number of people on the station in the middle of a Sunday evening. However, it was nothing compared to the sight when the train arrived. It was like a rush hour commute. I got a seat but had to keep my bags on my knees and quite a few people were standing. The train had come from Blackpool, so maybe everyone had been there for the day, I really don’t know.

Arriving at Lime Street, the chaos on the platform was even worse. It was no surprise to hear station management being called to the platform a minute or two after I’d got away. I hope there was no trouble.

By contrast, over on Platform 6, there was no-one waiting to get on board the slow train to Birmingham. This was my last train of an all-too-short trip.

Only one other person got off the train at Acton Bridge. I had a 10 minute drive back to Northwich from here. As I got into town it suddenly occurred to me that this relatively insignificant town in mid-Cheshire was bigger and a lot busier than the place I’d spent the last two nights. A search online tells me that the population of Northwich is almost half as big again, even though Fort William is the second largest conurbation in the Highlands, after Inverness, which is twice the size of Northwich.

I’m next expecting to be in Scotland in August, and I’ll be back in Fort William in December, all being well. Missing it already!