Author: Alex Nelson

Alex Nelson’s Places To Go: Bishop Auckland

By on 10th February 2016in Have Your Say

Stationmaster Alex Nelson has been suggesting places to go by train every month for ten years. This month, he’s headed to Bishop Auckland…

Great things are afoot in Bishop Auckland!

Last year I spent an hour with Jonathan Ruffer, the visionary wealth manager and barrister who bought the 13 paintings of Jacob and his Twelve Sons in Auckland Castle from the Church Commissioners, and then bought the Castle to keep them in. The Castle and tearooms have been closed for winter maintenance during January, but are now back open. Throughout the year, they are open every day except Tuesdays, and the admission is £6 for adults, free for under 16s.

Auckland Castle offers guided tours at 11.30 and 14.30 every day (no extra charge), excluding Tuesdays, where you can see the splendid rooms and vistas, as well as the paintings by Francisco de Zurburan (1598-1664). There are other events throughout the year (details on the website), including the popular Bishop Auckland Food Festival, which this year is on 23rd/24th April. A walk in the park costs nothing, although you might get your shoes rather muddy, so take boots. The Deer Shelter is in the care of English Heritage, but there is no charge to walk round it.

Ten trains a day run to Bishop Auckland, which is a branch from the main line at Darlington. So to get there, head for Darlington first. A visit to Bishop Auckland can easily be combined with a free visit to Locomotion, the branch of the National Railway Museum. On arrival at Bishop Auckland, walk up Newgate Street, which is the straight shopping street heading north to the Market Place, and turn right for Auckland Castle where the Bishop of Durham still has an office (although he lives elsewhere in the town).

It takes about 15 minutes to walk to the Castle, which is the focal point of a one-man effort to regenerate a whole town. Even the mediocre old Postchaise and Queen’s Head hotels are being remodelled to create one single mid-market boutique hotel. Already there are 30,000 visitors a year now, compared to 800 when the Bishops were in residence.

Jonathan Ruffer said to me: “I don’t want it to be interesting. I want it to be astonishing.”

This summer, there’s something really astonishing: an epic production on the land to the north of the Castle called KYNREN, the epic story of England, covering 2,000 years on a 7.5 acre stage including a large lake, and 1,000 performers and crew. The scale is truly breathtaking. I saw progress on the site even during my hour with Mr. Ruffer. KYNREN will be performed on 14 occasions over the summer of 2016, starting from Saturday 2nd July until Saturday 17th September. It’s on various Fridays, Saturdays and one Sunday (28th August), and tickets are available now. This is a live action night show that starts as late as 21.30 and finishes 90 minutes later. If you think ‘2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony’, you’ll be thinking along the right lines.

In other news…

Keep the date: Sunday 13th March!

I’m organising a mass visit by train to Teesside Airport station, to ensure it is not the least used station on the National Rail network in 2015/16. The only train of the week leaves Darlington station at 11.05, and you can spend just over an hour at the airport before joining the only train back at 12.35. For one of the weirdest excursions of the year, suitable for children, led by an experienced team… full details soon!

Alex Nelson
Stationmaster

Alex Nelson’s Places To Go: Clacton-On-Sea

By on 16th December 2015in Have Your Say

Stationmaster Alex Nelson has been suggesting places to go by train every month for ten years. This month, he’s headed to Clacton-on-Sea…

 

As we enter the depths of winter, I always like to look back over great experiences in the warmer summer weather.

One day in July, I had 22 hours free in London, and instead of staying in an expensive City hotel, I decided to have a trip out of the capital to visit somewhere I’d never been before. I settled on a train trip from Liverpool Street to Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.

Although I stay in all sorts of places on a regular basis, I have a particular fondness for Premier Inns, and there was one on the front at Clacton for £77. London Premier Inns now often top £200 a night, so imagine my happy surprise!

I arrived by train in the late afternoon, and after a walk on the pier I took a First Essex bus out to Jaywick Sands. Jaywick is the most deprived ward in England, where unemployment and crime are high, but there is a strong sense of community spirit. The houses in Brooklands are named after famous British racing marques, but the quality of the houses is highly variable, all private holiday cottages in various states of repair, which have become permanent residences.

I decided to walk the length of Jaywick along the coast, past the golf course and back into Clacton, and I met various people along the way. I wish I could have shared a beer with some lads in one of the houses behind the flood barrier, but although they were friendly, they didn’t invite me to join them.

Local MP Douglas Carswell (the only UKIP MP in the House of Commons) is campaigning for a coherent plan to improve conditions in the area, primarily through the proposed Jaywick Coastal Community Team. I followed the coastal path past Martello Towers and the Golf Course, and ended up in Clacton centre for a pleasant Mexican meal alongside the award-winning golden sands.

The Pirate Radio Museum near the Pier would have been worth a visit, but sadly it was closed during my visit. It tells the story of Radio Caroline and the other late ’60s pirate radio stations, playing music that the BBC Light, Home and Third programmes declined to play. Many operated from ships anchored off the Essex shore or in abandoned wartime forts off the coast. The pirates led to the foundation of Radio 1 in 1967, and set the scene for commercial broadcasting to compete with the BBC. That was in the heyday of Clacton, when it was a daytrip resort for Londoners, which lasted from the 50s to the 70s. Billy Butlin had a holiday camp in the town from 1936 to 1983, which is now covered by housing, but with a few interesting information boards by the site.

I’m not suggesting that all of you should plan a trip to Clacton this summer. Mine was effectively a trip from London, not the North East. However, you might consider a short trip by train somewhere you’ve have never been before for a micro-break away from home. Some suggestions? How about Knaresborough, Berwick, Saltburn, Whitehaven, Hartlepool and Girvan… just for starters.

Alex Nelson’s Places To Go: Darlington

By on 18th November 2015in Have Your Say, In & Around, Lifestyle, Places To Go, What's New?

Stationmaster Alex Nelson has been suggesting places to go by train every month for ten years. This month, he’s headed to Darlington…

 

 

Over the past few decades, County Durham has been getting smaller. First of all, the county lost Gateshead, South Tyneside, Sunderland, Stockton and Hartlepool in 1974, followed by Darlington when it became a unitary authority in 1997.

With its population of over 100,000, Darlington is a town famous for many reasons, not least for the world’s first locomotive hauled railway service (from Stockton to Darlington) founded by Edward Pease and his business associates.

The company initially provided only the track, which was hired out to whoever wished to run a train, hauled either by horses or by steam. The transition to standard railway management was a gradual one, spurred on by frequent disputes between drivers over right of way, and by the dangers of the higher speeds of steam locomotives.

The town does have its own railway museum, but it’s been several years since I’ve visited, as opening hours are much reduced. This isn’t at the main Darlington station, sometimes known as Bank Top, but at the original station at North Road, a 20 minute walk north of the town. It’s the first stop on the branch to Bishop Auckland, which runs infrequently, but stops alongside the museum and the shed where the iconic new steam locomotive 60163 Tornado was built in 2008.

North Road Station Museum is known as the Head of Steam, and is open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-3.30pm. There is an admission charge of £4.95, with reductions for concessions and children. The big problem it faces, however, is that despite being a very interesting museum and incorporating the fascinating Ken Hoole Study Centre, it is dwarfed by the National Railway Museum off-shoot at Shildon, just up the line, which is much larger and benefits from free admission.

The Shildon museum is where people tend to gravitate, but on a day trip to Darlington, it’s well worth a visit to the original.

 

The town centre contains many interesting alleyways (or vennels), particularly between the High Street and Skinnergate, which runs parallel to the west, away from the railway station. There are many independent shops and specialist cafes on these vennels.

My wife and I enjoy many of the shows at the Darlington Civic Theatre, which is a more intimate performance space than the likes of the Sunderland Empire or Theatre Royal in Newcastle. The theatre is also close to the railway station for a ride home afterwards, but requires careful planning of train times if you’re to avoid a long wait after the show.

Darlington is also an excellent place to change trains, having a flat floor plan with no bridges or subways between platforms. Watch the indicators, though! Whilst southbound trains routinely leave from Platform 1, northbound from Platform 4, and locals to Middlesbrough/Saltburn from Platform 2/3, these are prone to swap around from time to time.

I learned this the hard way when I foolishly directed a lady on her way to Whitby (via Middlesbrough) to wait with me on Platform 1 whilst her train gently slid out of Platform 4… and it was her last connection. I wrote an apology in the Whitby Gazette and it won Letter of the Week, but the memory still fills me with dread.

On the railway, I’m supposed to know what I’m doing…

Alex Nelson

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Alex Nelson’s Places To Go: Bradford

By on 27th October 2015in Have Your Say, Lifestyle, Local Biz, Places To Go, Uncategorised, What's New?

Stationmaster Alex Nelson has been suggesting places to go by train every month for ten years. This month, he’s headed to Bradford…

Chester-le-Track has been promoting Bradford as a fascinating city to visit since 1999. It’s a large (population 528,155), vibrant City in West Yorkshire, reached from the north-east via Leeds on the TransPennine route.

As it happens, Bradford was chosen by Northern Rail for its annual “thank you” event for stakeholders, which I was unable to attend this year. That offered a visit to the Bradford Industrial Museum, lunch in the Abundant Life Centre, and a visit either to the National Media Museum or the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Lister Park.

The National Media Museum is a favourite of mine (formerly known as the National Museum of Film, Television and Photography, until the internet came along and threatened an even longer title). They wisely decided to go for National Media Museum, where I saw an excellent Robert Zemeckis film a few weeks ago called The Walk, about the tightrope walker who walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 7th August 1974. It’s on general release now, but looked its best in 3D on a giant IMAX screen.

Bradford rose to prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the “wool capital of the world”. The area’s access to a supply of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of Bradford’s manufacturing base, which – as textile manufacture grew – led to an explosion in population, and was a stimulus to civic investment. Bradford has much listed Victorian architecture, including the grand Italianate City Hall.

A major London company ran a textiles conference in Bradford during mid-October, bringing students into Bradford from many colleges and universities. Chester-le-Track was pleased to provide rail tickets for the participants, which was done by getting each institution to ring us with their ticket orders, and the transactions were all billed to the London company’s credit card. Not only did they get the best fares, but it saved all the invoices flying around from the various colleges.

We’re equipped to handle travel to large conferences and events by rail, so just ask us what we can do.

 

There are two good hotels to use for an overnight stay, next to Bradford’s two rail stations. The Interchange station has the Victoria hotel opposite, while the Midland Hotel is close to the other station at Bradford Forster Square. Both stations have direct services to London, with an electric service from Bradford Forster Square (more trains are available from Leeds), and a diesel service from Bradford Interchange four times a day. Trains from Leeds, with connections from the north-east, run into both stations frequently.

As stationmaster, I spend some of my time travelling around the network, frequently accompanied by our apprentices. I also speak to clubs and societies about rail ticketing, most recently at Marton near Middlesbrough, and at Alnwick. I have a particularly good knowledge of London, which is important since 70% of our tickets on the National Rail network are issued to, from, or via London.

I can speak on several railway subjects (including history, time, my adventures in Bradford, and most particularly railway fares), and if you would like to speak to an association of any sort, you are welcome to email me.

Alex Nelson

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