Great Western Coffee Shop

Back home yesterday - fourteen days through seven countries, twenty eight trains, 7 hotels. From quiet trains carrying just a handful of people to uncomforably busy ones.  From snow covered mountains to hot meditaranian beaches.  Around two and a helf days actually on trains and a taster of a lot of places, many of which cound be re-visited.  No specific experience reports in this thread - but rather one picture for each day and straight back in last night to full town council meeting - comment coming onto my councillor Facebook page. One picture here from each day, and in order - how many places can you recognise?

Tuesday 5th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_05.jpg)

Wednesday 6th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_06.jpg)

Thursday 7th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_07.jpg)

Friday 8th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_08.jpg)

Saturday 9th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_09.jpg)

Sunday 10th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_10.jpg)

Monday 11th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_11.jpg)

Tuesday 12th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_12.jpg)

Wednesday 13th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_13.jpg)

Thursday 14th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_14.jpg)

Friday 15th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_15.jpg)

Saturday 16th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_16.jpg)

Sunday 17th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_17.jpg)

Monday 18th March 2024
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/t14_18.jpg)

If it's Tuesday...it must be Taunton ???

Two for Tuesday - Platform 2 - Swindon.  Given only that and one other is in the UK, I'd be stumped with the rest.

Tuesday 12th  Taormina?

Yes - though in GWR terms the station would have been called "Taormina Road" - you can see the town itself perched on the top of the hill in the distance.



Yep - the one with the dragon on the side is NOT Ryde  ;D

Glad Sunday 10th with graffiti isn’t the UK either.

Graffiti is an incredibly prevalent disease across many countries these days.  Trains running graffitied and in places we were choosing seats on the train based on being able to see out of the window. And not just the trains.  That picture is Trapani at the extreme of the journey, with modern trains and efficient staff running a skeleton service on smooth tracks through a much wider infrastructure, much of it torn up or abandoned.  Lack of passengers too. 

Incredibly for Sicily, Sunday was the only day of the week I could take a day trip from Palermo to Trapani and back by train with more than a few minutes in Trapani - and I'm probably being unfair with my loading comments it being a Sunday.  It seems to be very much more a local line from Trapani done the south west coast past Masala with an infrequent but useable service during the week, with occasional trains passing over to the north coast where it connects into the Palermo Airport service at a suburban station - change there for the centre of Palermo.

Just wondering if you have tried this one on your travels ?  ;) ;)  (from Sunday's Telegraph)

(https://i.postimg.cc/XYtqqXYP/2024-03-20-11-35-46.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)

2008, so, the '08 financial crisis unfolding at the time (and a product argueably of the proceeds of one of its causes at anchor in the bay***).

We were on a guided holiday based in Vico Equense, a clifftop town round the coast from the city, between Naples and Sorrento (the port for ferries to Capri).

The tour was set up to take advantage of the odd drop of local transport and the tour guide who had... deep knowledge of the area and tales to tell as a result... was very proactive in (a) ensuring that as a group we did experience the train and also that (b) the risk to anyone in the party of first hand experience of the aphorism 'See Naples and die' was kept to a minimum. It quickly emerged that the railway gave her no concerns at all as to safety and security, with not a hint of what happened to work colleagues visiting Naples*.

So, train from Vico Aquense to Pompeii, using two' of a number of well-situated stations. My recollections: electrified line, frequent trains, busy, cheerful and it would be a pity if the 08 crisis put a spanner in this as in much else. Aside from other considerations, given the terrain, if it happens to be going to where you need to be, the line must be able to beat the road traffic hands down.

Visiting Pompeii, Naples, Herculaneum, our tour guide recruited a second guide from the city itself who was also a woman, was around 5 feet 2 and was, er, prepared to be very territorial on our behalf and at one point basically dismantled another (non-neapolitan) guide who'd allowed *their* party to outstay its welcome.

Other trips out were mainly by coach as they tended to involve several destinations sequentially. Also, in the case of Vesuvius and thinking of public transport, the light railway and funicular to the crater rim are both long gone though scant remains of the various evolutions, including what was presumably the cable from the cable lift that replaced it, were to be seen from the summit.

Even confined to the coach, this *did* allow people to admire the enterprise of Italian engineers both road and rail - a newish concrete viaduct just south of Vico Equense being one example that was particularly striking when viewed from the road. I never found out how new and what happened to the previous structure, mind. Below is a photo of the station in Vico Equense, sandwiched between two tunnels.

But then... tunnels. Cumae is among other things the ruins of an ancient greek colony, on the coast to the North of Naples and our guide (originally Faroese) recounted that she tended to make a morning trip there herself in early May to enjoy the light and remind herself that winter had truly passed.

We visited too, and by a road junction turn to the old settlement, what looked to be of all things, the portal of a double track rail tunnel***, which given that we were a year or so into organising Bath's Two Tunnels campaign, I later looked up what it might have been. It's the 'Grotta di Cocceio' built in Roman times, a kilometre long, and connects to the thoroughly ominous Lake Avernus - the tunnel was intact until World War Two in course of which it was wrecked by the Nazis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotta_di_Cocceio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotta_di_Cocceio)

Mark

*Short break in Naples, hired a car at the airport, boxed in and brought to a halt on a Neapolitan dual carriageway, generally roughed up and relieved of luggage and possessions.

** Yacht 'A'.

*** The northern portal of the 'Grotta di Coccaio' is very findable on Google Streetview.

(https://i.postimg.cc/GtnmyDVz/vico-equense-station-autumn-2008.jpg)

A page on the area's abandoned railways, from the site "Naples. Life, death and miracles' - that to its readers provides a remarkable voyage of discovery.


http://www.naplesldm.com/abandontrain.php (http://www.naplesldm.com/abandontrain.php)