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The Flying Scotsman is the iconic and legendary train and we’ve wanted to see it up close for a number of years. At some point, we would love to do a train journey in a carriage pulled by the Flying Scotsman, but for now, we would just have to be content with seeing her.
Didcot Railway Museum has been on our list of places to visit for a while. The Flying Scotsman and Pendennis Castle were heading to the museum for the weekend and Jon managed to book us tickets for the Saturday. It would be a day for the hard-core train spotters and those with an interest such as ourselves. Callum was still at Uni so it was just the two of us for this visit.
The Museum is quite a small site for a railway museum – it’s sandwiched between the train line and roads with absolutely zero room to expand. We arrived about 10am and it was already really busy inside. The queue to ride in one of the carriages pulled by the Flying Scotsman was already forming, but we headed down towards the engine shed to see the trains close up. All the engines were sparkling clean and the wheels were huge – as tall as your average person.
Bang on schedule, The Flying Scotsman was on the move, heading towards the platform to give passengers a ride in her pullman carriages. We positioned ourselves where we could get a good view of her as she passed, but were thwarted when asked to move for our safety due to the steam that she would be releasing!
The whistle sounded and with a massive release of steam (very loud!), The Flying Scotsman was on the move! She wasn’t going far – about 500 metres to the platform but first she needed to pick up her carriages. She passed us, then reversed into the siding. After about half an hour, she reappeared and headed to the platform to pick up her first passengers for the day.
We joined the long queue of people wanting a ride but it was surprising how quickly we reached the front. Around 100 passengers could be taken at any one time and once the first passengers had boarded, we found ourselves at the front with a great view!!
The journey took around 10 mins – she couldn’t go far! When we boarded, we found seats in a first class pullman and sat back to enjoy the ride!
After the short ride, we headed off to explore the rest of the site. A fair bit of rail paraphernalia on display and found a reminder of home.
