Ah, the good old days of railway travel.

Passengers should please refrain
from passing water whilst the train
is standing in the station here at Crewe.
For railway workers underneath
will get it in their hair and teeth
and they don’t like it any more than you.

It’s a real relief to be back on the Nene after the excitement of Salters Lode and the slog though the Middle Level Weed Farm. It’s a nice, wide, slow moving river, and the plant life has the decency to stay close to the edges. There are charming old mills and riverside houses.

We spent the morning cruising up the to moorings near Wansford Railway Station. The Nene Valley Railway was operating today, sadly not with a steam engine, but at least with a vintage diesel…

…and classic coaches…

… coaches with long lost amenities like corridors…

… and legroom.

Of course there was a full bar. It is always opening time on a train.

At the end of the line the engine had to be uncoupled by one of the engineers crawling down on the tracks.

Back at the station again we looked at the other exhibits. I had always thought the mail coaches would just contain mail bags, but no.

There is a full postal sorting office there, so that while mail is moving from one part of the country to another it can also be sorted by city and town to speed the delivery process later.

There’s a railway center and nature reserve at the Peterborough end of the line, but we did not go in it, so I have no idea what this is or where it came from.

The whole country has gone very quiet. Something to do with a football game. Are we the only people within two hundred miles who are not in front of a television set?