FROM LAKES TO LIVERPOOL

Bed in mirrors at the Leverhulme Hotel

Northern Rail's dirty windows

The Ravenglass to Eskdale Railway

The cosy bar at the Bower House Inn, Eskdale

The Bower House turns out to be the most perfect stop over point. Low ceiling, creaking floorboards, plumbing that gurgles. Eminently more to my taste than a soulless chain hotel. The bar has a roaring log fire, a mixture of walkers and people from the big Windscale nuclear power station just down the road. There’s a splendid menu and the food turns out to be excellent in both taste and presentation.
Dave Jenner picks me up and gives me a splendid behind the scenes tour of the railway (www.ravenglass-railway.co.uk). The museum gives a splendid introduction to the line’s origins, as an iron-ore railway. Beckfoot granite, which was extracted until 1952 is especially hard and it is said that Waterloo Bridge in London was built from the stone. Trevor in the signal box shows me the low-tech way of graph and tracing paper that control up to 150 train movements a day. I am fascinated by the engine shed, where the steam locomotives are ‘plumbed-in’ to pipes, which extract all the smoke and fumes while they are sitting there, gently cooking.
But of course the highlight is the seven mile trip through some splendid Lakeland countryside to Dalegarth in the foothills of Scafell Pike, England’s tallest mountain.
There is a large group of Japanese schoolchildren who are visiting from a school in south west Scotland where they are staying for six weeks. They are busily entertaining themselves by having an apple-polishing competition, amid much amusement.
I am hugely impressed that the current timetable of seven round-trips a day will be maintained until the end of October. Coaches pile into the car park from as far away as Scotland and Somerset and one coach operator even has their own special train.
Dalegarth has a splendid cafeteria with some splendid home baking. I can certainly vouch for the chocolate cake!
On the return journey, my special treat of a ride on the footplate of ‘Northern Rock’ is almost ruined by a sudden downpour. But, at the first passing loop, I move up to the front of the train after the rain stops and the sun comes out.
Unlike many preserved railways, the steam locomotives on the ‘Rattie’, as the line is affectionately known, are driven not by volunteers, but by full-time staff. Steve is a former baker from Merseyside and, although he says he is ‘not a puffer-nutter’, he is about to spend a few days on the Bure Valley Railway driving their trains.
There’s quite a link between the three main 15 inch gauge railways, with locomotives regularly being loaned out. Staggeringly it costs around £2000 to transport a loco from Cumbria to Norfolk.
It’s my first ever trip to the Lake District and as unlike my preconception of the area. ‘That’s because you only know about Windermere and places like that,’ I am told. ‘Blackpool with a puddle’.
Certainly I am charmed by this part of the country and by a little railway which nobody wanted in 1960 and which now attracts 125,000 visitors an annum.
I head to the mainline station for the train to Barrow. One of the reasons for the huge cost of maintaining the line is, I am told, the 28 manned level crossings between Whitehaven and Cumbria.
The views from the train, of the fells on the left and the sea on the right are splendid, if somewhat marred by Northern Rail’s filthy windows. At Barrow, I connect to the very comfortable (and clean) First TransPennine Express service to Preston. The views, as we head round Morecambe Bay, continue to be splendid. The mudflats of Grange-over-Sands, the station and folly at Ulverston and much more.
I join a virgin Pendolino tilting train for the short hop from Preston to Wigan, just enough time to have a cup of tea and download emails. Northern takes me to Liverpool Lime Street, where I pick up one of Merseyrail’s frequent services towards Chester to reach my final destination of Bebington.
I am spending the night in the Leverhulme Hotel (www.leverhulmehotel.co.uk), housed in the former cottage hospital of Port Sunlight village. Port Sunlight was built by industrialist, Lord Lever, to house his employees and I’ll be exploring it in the morning.
My luxuriously appointed room (£175 per night, not including breakfast, which is £25 more) is a classic case of an architect having loads of clever ideas, without actually thinking of the practicalities. All the lights are controlled by a credit-card shaped remote control which needs a degree course to operate it correctly. Of course it always seems to get lost under papers. If you want a ceiling light, you have to have nine. There’s no decent reading light at the desk, which entails one of the bedside ones being pressed into action. Electrical sockets are not where they are needed, the worst example being the shaver socket in the bathroom which is about four feet from the sink. Barmy. The room is impossibly hot caused, the receptionist tells me, by the lights.
There’s also a secret staircase, partially obscured by a very wobbly and heavy folding mirror, which protrudes into the room. I think it’s positively dangerous.
The bed is luxurious, though, although I am not at all keen on the mirrored ceiling above.
I leave the window wide open to try and cool the place down and go to bed.