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Dec 2, 2020, 1:47 pm

#1

Maglev

Join Date: Sep 2017

Location: Orcas Island, Washington

Programs: Amtrak Guest Rewards Select, Maika'i Card

Posts: 257

Britain by Britrail

I regret that my memory has failed me on many points of this trip. To find out what year it was, I had to look up the Rodney King Riots (1992), because I remember descending from Maui into LA through clouds of smoke. We were on a DC-10, and then flew 767's LAX- JFK and JFK-LHR--business class all the way on standby tickets.

One of the high points of our trip came on our first day in London--when we went to pick up our rail passes, we stumbled on the Queen's opening Parliament. It was quite a procession--the dignitaries all passed in Rolls Royces, followed by Royals in carriages. The Sceptre and the Crown each had their own carriage. We couldn't see the Queen's face, so we asked and found out that she would be returning soon, so we crossed to the other side. We also learned that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was going to be right across the street from our hotel later that afternoon!

We had first class rail passes, and started out by traveling from London to Penzance on their "Pullman" service. We ordered our dinner soon after boarding at Paddington Station, then I believe the meals were loaded aboard in Reading. The food was excellent. We took several local trips, mostly on DMU's. I believe we took one train (another InterCity 125) all the way from Penzance to Scotland, where we took several more trips by DMU. In the Highlands we also rode a scenic train with historic cars (and passed The Royal Scotsman), as well as taking a steam train from Fort William to Mallaig. We rode an InterCity 225 (140 mph max) from Edinburgh to York, and caught the businessman's morning first class service from Shipley to London. The breakfast served included multiple types of artery-clogging meat or animal extract.

By the end of our stay, the Guards had stopped marking off days on our rail passes (although we had carefully budgeted). On our last day, we made a trip to Wales just for the heck of it.