The North East Again - More Trains

I’m thinking of starting a campaign, PAH! - Pacers Aren’t Heritage! Today was the second one I’ve travelled on this trip, this time on the Weardale Railway. I do understand their reasons for using them, and in this case their heritage DMU is only a single unit so with it being a bank holiday they’ll have wanted the longer two car train, but they’re not great and I believe they could well reduce passenger numbers. 

Most people visit heritage railways for nostalgia, even the older diesels can evoke memories but I’m afraid Pacers were hated from when they were launched. There’s only one reason I’d visit the Weardale again, the delightful old fashioned tea room! It’s nothing fancy but the service is excellent and my lunch, a slice of Weardale Potato Cake, which is actually a bacon and potato pie, was delicious; the coffee came with a proper ginger nut biscuit as well, not one of those fancy Biscoff ones. 😀 As a bonus, the family who were in had come well prepared with felt pens and colouring in books for the kids who were having fun quietly. 

After lunch I indulged in a bit of nostalgia, crossing the watershed between Weardale and Teesdale to Middleton. I stopped for a while to visit the community bookshop, I didn’t buy anything this time but I’ve picked up a railway book or two there in the past. I also had a look round the Kirkcarrion Gallery, a relatively new artists’ collective, as I’m in the process of changing out some of the pictures at home. 

The gallery is in what used to be Bob Raine’s TV shop, back in the 60’s he had three holiday caravans in the back courtyard, one of which we hired twice for a couple of my earliest holidays. I didn’t buy anything in the end, there were a couple of pictures I could have lived with but they didn’t really grab my attention. 

From Middleton I wandered back to the hotel, I might have called in at Barnard Castle but my back had had enough walking for the day (all of a couple of hundred yards) and it wouldn’t have been worth offloading the scooter. 

Looking at the weather forecast for later in the week I might move plans around a bit - rain all day on Wednesday isn’t ideal for a prolonged trundle round Sunderland but would be OK if I go to Newcastle as that will mainly be indoors. 

A quick note on photos in the blog, I don’t edit these in any way, they’re straight off the camera, better versions may appear elsewhere later. 

As a further aside it’s taken three days for my accent to change back to confused North East (a combination of being born in Sunderland and spending three years at Newcastle Uni!)