An invite for a delayed liquid lunch in Looe was waiting for me for Thursday. With it a chance to cover the Looe branch for the first time in quite a few years. My old friend R and I met up at a drizzly Truro station and I took the chance to take a few more photo's of the proposed development at Truro for a freight connection for supermarket traffic.
We caught the FGW 13:23 service for Newton Abbot and had a decent ride to Liskeard and I was reminded of the old childhood game we used to play called "count the cows".
Not the number of cows you see but the different breeds of cows. I have to say I was distracted by sitting opposite a rather elderly "gentleman of the cloth" who was studying some religious text but was falling asleep and was in grave danger of falling off his seat. This gave me far more entertainment than counting cows. Arrival at Liskeard was on time and we walked over to the bay to catch the single carriage train to Looe. The Looe branch gets off to a great start by twisting and turning its way downhill to Coombe Junction for the reversal and the drop down the valley to Looe. We were on the 14:28 service direct (non-stop) to Looe. The train avoided Coombe Junction Halt for the reversal, and this brought to life a woman sitting along side R and myself, who was complaining that she had to ride all the way down to Looe before travelling back up the line to disembark at her stop, the improbably named St. Keyne Wishing Well Halt. "I just don't know why they can't stop the train for me", she complained. The Ticket Inspector came down to us, and the complaints were repeated again, just like a track on a CD on repeat. "It's the rules", the inspector said, "besides it's too dangerous to stop there". Some surprise to me as the Halt is unstaffed and the driver and inspector were the only staff on the train and whether the train stopped at the Halt or not, scheduled or even unscheduled, the danger or lack of it would be exactly the same to me. I pointed out the woman, that she was getting a free ride from the Halt to Looe and back again on FGW and to enjoy the view. She didn't like my point of view and went down the train to repeat her CD track to some other unfortunate day trippers.
The ride down to Looe is really lovely, not in a St.Ives branch sort of way, or even the Falmouth Branch way, as there is a lot of vegetation on both sides of the train, but as you start to approach Looe, the view opens and soon you have a great view of the river and of West Looe as you approach the station.
The drizzle had stopped by the time we arrived and we looked around for a pub open for the afternoon for a late lunch and a couple of pints each. We found a friendly hostelry which defied the odds in Looe by being open after 2:30 in the afternoon, had a decent sea-food lunch and I demolished 2 good pints of Pear Cider to wash it down. R and I had a good chat about times long since past and friends now sadly gone. A further wander around the harbour and to the deserted beach at East Looe, a rant and rave at Cornwall County Council for locking up the public loos because of costs, and wondering why all the businesses where closing at 4:15 for the day and why would anyone want to come to a town that was closed so early mid-summer before a stroll back to the Station back up to Liskeard. By the time we made it back to the station it was really raining and we sheltered with the others waiting for the 17:15.
Arrival back at Liskeard was timely but there was an HST waiting at Platform 2 presuamably the 17:34, with the station indicators announcing it was the service to Gunnislake. The local station announcer telling passengers to indicate to the train staff if they wished to get off at Menheniot, St. Germans or Saltash and to travel in the rear 2 coaches of the train. Obviously something was wrong somewhere as the train was actually the 16:00 ex Penzance to Paddington.
Crossing over the bridge, I could see in the rainy distance the 17:49 waiting on the down main to cross over to the up main, to head for Plymouth. The HST left a few minutes later, and the 17:49 duly crossed into Platform 2 for no-one to board it. It's indicators claiming it was a service to Gunnislake. No doubt the service would reverse at Plymouth at Platform 3. By now, it was really pouring down and somewhat late, the empty "Gunnislake" train left the station.
Our own train back to Truro was being announced as being 11 minutes late, and sure enough the FGW service trundled its weary way into Platform 1, and we took refuge in the nearest carriage.
One of my biggest bugbears is people sitting on an aisle seat preventing other passengers from sitting next to them or making people ask them to move to provide a place to sit. As R and I walked down the carriage I counted 7 people hogging the aisle seats and I made my opinion known to the other passengers, as to how I had paid for a single seat yet others seemed to thing they were entitled to 2 seats for the price of one. However as it turned out, there was a table with 2 seats available at the lower end of the carriage and R and I took them sitting opposite a young lady and an older gentleman. As we sat down, I said to R, that as I get older, I seem to become more and more reactionary. I followed this up by stating that I'd most probably be a fully paid up fascist by the time I die. This got a chuckle from the other passengers. The HST didn't make up any time on it's ride down to Truro and we arrived back in drizzle 15 minutes late and the ticket barriers at the station, open and unmanned, again!
