Redruth to Kendal by Stuart Woodman

November 2024

This month we welcome a guest blogpost by Stuart Woodman a chef, environmental  activist and forager living and working in Cornwall.  You can follow him at:

https://www.instagram.com/_stuartwoodman_/

He found himself travelling on one of the worst weather weekends of the year ...

I’ve never found getting up early for a long journey that appealing. Especially in winter. Doubly so if it’s raining.

I was booked on the 06:55 departure, so made sure to set an alarm for 05:30 to give myself ample time to have a cup of tea and breakfast before leaving the house. The 10 minute walk to the station is something I all too often end up rushing, so I felt some comfort in the fact I’d left plenty of time for myself this morning. Less comforting was the wet and windy weather which I’d wrapped up against. There was snow reported elsewhere in the Duchy, but in Redruth it was just heavy drops of rain, blowing obliquely with individual drops illuminated in the downcast light of the streetlamps.

Waiting on Platform 1, I looked across the tracks at the Dracaena palms flailing in the wintery squall, then noticed I could hear the dawn chorus emanating from the dark trees beyond the station car park. I read through the list of stops the train would be calling at on the information screen and was filled with a sense of wonder that the train was destined for Edinburgh and that from this small station in West Cornwall you could travel the length of the country if you wanted to. Today I would be alighting from this particular Cross Country service in Birmingham to change trains, first for Preston, then Oxenholme Lake District and finally to my destination: Kendal in Cumbria.

I was heading up to the Kendal Mountain Festival to do a talk on foraging and had a bag of homemade energy foods that I’d spent the previous days preparing: venison jerky; tablet; Kendal mint cake; energy balls; and fruit leather. Being so early in the morning I hadn’t noticed I’d got a seat reservation and instead grabbed the first seat I could find with a decent spot for my precious cargo. I chose a window seat and settled in to watch the world passing by outside.

By the time the train reached Bodmin Parkway dawn was breaking on a landscape dusted with fresh snow and I was filled with childlike excitement and wonder. The snow had turned to rain by the time the train reached Plymouth and I decided it was time to fill some of the 8 hour journey wrapped up in a good book. I was part way through The Living Mountain  by Nan Shepherd and happily devoured the few chapters I had remaining.

My window seat happened to be on the seaward side of the train and as we passed Dawlish I revelled in the sight of the mud red waves crashing against the sea wall and up onto the windows of the train.

Leaving the confines of the coast, the snow returned once again and we sat at Exeter St David’s for half an hour as a fault in one of the carriages was investigated.

Intermittent delays occurred on past Bristol and the train manager notified us over the intercom that the sea spray hitting the train earlier had caused some short circuits and they were struggling to fix the problems. We were over an hour late and with the problems still unresolved the train, originally bound for Edinburgh, would now be terminating in Birmingham.

Although this was where I was due to disembark the train, I had long since missed my original connection in Birmingham and was entitled to a partial refund on my ticket. Unfortunately, with the mass exodus from the train of all the passengers and slow progress off the train and through the station I narrowly missed the next train connection as well so had to wait another hour for the next leg of the journey.

I eventually boarded another train bound for Edinburgh which was also experiencing problems (this time with the seat reservation system) and settled in with another good book for the next couple of hours.

Upon reaching Preston we were told that we needed to wait there for 15 minutes to wait for a new driver to arrive and by this time my onward connections from Oxenholme were increasingly out of reach. Fortunately, the friends that I was to be staying with offered to collect me from Oxenholme as it is only a few miles from Kendal.

My weekend in Kendal was filled with friends, the outdoors and a well attended and well received talk. Sometimes leaving Cornwall can feel like a bit of a mission, but it often feels full of adventure.

The return journey was enough to put any person off train travel, although with Storm Bert wreaking havoc across the country I expect the roads would have been equally dire.

The first leg of my journey was ok, but upon changing trains at Oxenholme the connection was delayed and a similar story ensued upon arrival at Birmingham. Eventually a train bound for Penzance pulled in to platform 10, but so many people wanted to get on the train due to delays and cancellations elsewhere on the network that the train was full to bursting and I wasn’t able to board, despite having a valid ticket and seat reservation. The train manager informed me that there were no trains running past Exeter anyway and that I’d just have to wait an hour for the next train. I muttered some choice expletives under my breath, but there was little I could do and getting annoyed at the train staff who were clearly struggling and just doing their job wasn’t going to change things. So I resigned myself to another hour’s wait at Birmingham and ended up chatting to a fellow passenger bound for Redruth who also hadn’t been able to board. When the next train eventually came we feared for a similar situation, so when the train pulled in it was a case of just getting on board and getting that bit closer to home. It so happened that the carriage that pulled up in front of us was the first class section and we had no qualms about taking a seat, feeling entirely justified in doing so in light of the delays to our journey.

Upon our approach to Bristol an announcement came over the speakers that the train would be terminating at Temple Meads with rail replacement buses being laid on for onward travel. This turned out not to be the case and staff at the station had no idea about buses and all trains arriving or departing the station were either cancelled or heavily delayed and getting home to Cornwall was looking increasingly difficult. The next announcement was that passengers travelling towards Penzance would have to find either overnight accommodation or a taxi. Along with 2 other passengers bound for Cornwall we managed to book an Uber as the queue for taxis outside the station was ridiculous. Knowing that the train company would have to foot the bill, the price of £300 for a taxi wasn’t something that worried us. We all just wanted to get home. Eventually we did, albeit past midnight. For me, a journey of over 13 hours was mercifully over, but through the Delay Repay Scheme I was able to get almost the entire cost of my journey refunded, so there was something of a silver lining there.

My love of train travel has not been diminished by this journey. I’ve experienced some epic journeys departing from this station - to Berlin and back a couple of Christmases ago, and last year to the Outer Hebrides. When it goes well it is full of more romance and magic than the rigmarole of road and air travel. I just wish that it went well more often and for a price more equivalent to that of going by car or plane....

There is more information about the Kendal Mountain Festival at: https://www.kendalmountainfestival.com/

Many thanks to Stuart for describing his endless journey and for reassuring us that despite it all he is not put off rail travel ... However, am curious as to whether the homemade energy snacks kept his spirits up through it all.