Mail Rail

The Post Office Railway was an underground railway for carrying letters and parcels linking sorting offices and railway stations in London. It opened in 1927 and closed in 2003. In 2017 a museum was opened which offered rides along a small part of the complex network of tunnels, and in 2022 I final got round to visiting and riding, an excellent attraction. I don’t seem to have recorded that visit here, probably because the pictures were not very good.

So why am I back here again? Well, on certain evenings after the last rides they offer guided walking tours in the tunnels. Never one to miss the opportunity of an underground stroll in an unusual location I booked. We spent about an hour or so wandering around, with lots of opportunities for a closer look at everything than one gets from the train. Our guide had lots of fascinating information and stories to tell us.

One of the tunnels has been modified with raised track for the maintenance of the new passenger trains. This is the only change that has been permitted underground, as we were told the whole system is listed.

So, highly recommended, and you must come for the “normal” ride and the fine museum as well.

The Musical Museum

Despite its name this is not a museum about musicals, nor a museum about music. What it covers is the reproduction and production of music, from music boxes, through player pianos and gramophones right up to modern synthesisers. I visited for a look round and a fascinating guided tour which included many chances to listen to the instruments. I’ll try and string the pictures in a logical order, so let’s start with music boxes. These go back as far as the 18th Century.

This one uses a disc instead of the more common cylinder.

Swiss watchmakers made them really small, this one is about the size of a box of matches:

Player pianos and related instruments use a punched roll of paper to control the instrument.

Not just pianos, this one has a piano in the back and a violin at the front.

And this one, made in Austria if I recall correctly, has multiple violins. It is currently under repair:

Moving on to various phonographs, they have lots but the only decent picture I got was of this Edison cylinder machine. They even have a working 78rpm jukebox.

Finally, a spectacular collection of synthesisers, where I learned which models were used for which famous records.

(The one with the all-chrome keyboard, impossible to play on stage I should think, was created for marketing purposes only.)

Finally, upstairs they’ve got a real “mighty Wurlitzer” which comes up out of the stage, and we were treated to a demonstration of the various sound effects and then a performance.

Once again I must highly recommend this fascinating museum. I was a little saddened that they didn’t seem to have many visitors on a Sunday morning. If you’ve got any interest in musical reproduction and gadgetry, give them a visit.

The Shard

On a bright sunny day I paid a visit to the viewing gallery on the 69th floor of the tallest building in the UK. Needless to say there were excellent views over London. Here’s a small selection.

They’ve got a bar up there so I was even able to enjoy a (very expensive) beer as well as the sights.

Lord’s

On another sunny day I took a tour of Lord’s Cricket Ground, the home of cricket. We started in the oldest sports museum in the world where the many interesting exhibits include the ashes urn.

On to the pavilion and the famous long room:

View of the ground from the long room:

Upstairs, the England changing room is rather spartan, no lockers, showers and the like. Having sat down while the guide told us various fascinating stories and pointed out details, I was pleased to learn I was sitting in Jonny Bairstow’s chair!

There is a tiny players’ balcony outside the changing room.

From the bottom of one of the stands we could admire the grass and get a view of the pavilion. Needless to say they wouldn’t let us actually step onto the field.

Finally, the media centre.

The writers have an excellent view. We didn’t go upstairs where the TV and most importantly Test Match Special come from. Incidentally, the TMS studio has the only opening window, the BBC insisted on it.

I was surprised to learn that English visitors are rare on the tours here, on my tour everyone else was from abroad, South Africa, India and Australia. For the umpteenth time in this blog entry I’m going to say highly recommended.

Pubs

I couldn’t wander around London without visiting some pubs, here’s a couple of gems, the Bricklayer’s Arms in Putney and the Lamb & Flag, Covent Garden.

Monday 15 April – Space Center Houston

I visited this very popular science museum which has enough exhibits to occupy a whole day.

A highlight of the whole holiday for me was a visit to the Apollo Mission Control which has been restored beautifully. They ran replays on the screens of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the “one small step”, and finally the splashdown.

Another important exhibit is a Saturn V rocket. This one is made of unused parts from the cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions.

The massive rocket was displayed in the open air for many years and suffered severe corrosion damage until 2000 when they built this shed and did a lot of restoration work. You can see below a piece of corroded metalwork which was replaced. I suppose when you’re designing a single-use disposable rocket, long term weather resistance is not a high priority!

Next, the space shuttle and Boeing 747. The shuttle here is a never flown mockup used for astronaut training, the 747 is the one actually used for test flights and for transporting shuttles between landing and launch sites. (And also for the European goodwill tour when I saw it fly over Altrincham back in 1983.) I could go inside both the shuttle and the jumbo.

Inside the cargo bay:

Finally, a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage reusable rocket which was used for two missions before being retired:

This is one of the landing legs:

Tuesday 16 April

Houston’s 1940 Air Terminal is exactly what it says. A new terminal was built on the other side of the Airport in 1955 after which use of the art deco terminal built in 1940 declined and it was eventually abandoned. Fortunately it was not demolished and has been saved for preservation.

Unfortunately there is only one staircase so fire regulations prevent public access upstairs. I’m sure a visit to the control tower would enhance the visitor experience. Inside the building is an interesting collection of airline memorabilia going back over seventy years, and outside on the apron they have a Lockheed Lodestar, a contemporary of the more well known Douglas DC-3:

In downtown Dallas there were more trams to ride:

Wednesday 17 April

While studying the internet to plan the next leg of my Texan travels I came across the small town of Wharton and its 20th Century Technology Museum. Here I found an amazing collection of all sorts of 20th century technology:

Also in the same building is the Wharton County Historical Museum. Less interesting to me personally but still a very good collection covering the history of the area from the Mexican war onwards. The museums were originally created as the result of the philanthropy of a local oil magnate; one room displays the trophies from a three year round the world hunting trip he went on. Here’s just one wall:

Thursday 18 April

The San Antonio River Walk is a section of the San Antonio river where it passes through the city. Both sides of the river have been converted to walkways, and various flower beds and art installations have been added.

The authorities put a lot of effort into maintaining the river walk, I saw this boat “trawling” for rubbish:

The main reason for tourists to come to San Antonio is, of course, the Alamo:

Quite a bit of construction work was under way here, with parts of the site inaccessible:

Next, the Tower Of The Americas for some good views of the city:

Friday 19 April

The cave system at Natural Bridge Caverns was only discovered in the early 1960s. It soon became a tourist attraction. I went for a tour of beautiful caves and passageways, just a small part of the system:

Here is the natural bridge after which the caverns are named, and below it the entrance to the caves:

Saturday 20 April

The Texas Steam Train Association operate excursion trains along a line north of Austin. They don’t actually have an operational steam engine at the moment, so my ride on the Hill Country Flyer was powered by a relatively modern diesel:

At the far end is the little town of Burnet where the passengers scattered in search of lunch or shopping. I failed to find an open bar but had some traditional Texas barbecue (and a beer) at Warehouse BBQ:

Sunday 21 April

Austin is the state capital of Texas, and the capitol building is well worth a visit. After passing through security you are free to wander around this impressive building, which is still very much in use by the state government.

The Supreme Court of Texas:

The hinges on the door to the supreme court:

The House of Representatives:

Monday 22 April

As my holiday drew to a close it occurred to me that I had seen lots of America’s long freight trains but I hadn’t taken many pictures of them, so I called in to Saginaw Rail Park in Fort Worth to do a bit of train watching. Only two trains passed while I was there, the first one had five locos:

And with that, five weeks of holiday drew to a close. My time in the USA has been very enjoyable, but I think I need a rest now!

Here are some statistics for the 38 day holiday:

• Rail miles: 3,195
• Road miles: 1,128
• Photographs taken: 900
• Bars visited: 56

If you would like to see details of all the bars and breweries I visited in Texas, click here.

Denton

The base for the Texas part of my holiday was the pleasant town of Denton located about 40 miles north of Dallas.

Denton’s oldest house:

Denton has its own rail service, the “A-Train” is a little diesel service that runs 20 miles to connect with Dallas’ light rail.

Monday 08 April

On this momentous day we headed to Carrollton, another small town in the Dallas area, where we joined the eclipse party at Three Nations Brewing.

The weather, a solid grey overcast at one point, cleared and we sat in bright intermittent sunshine as first contact arrived. Was the weather going to be kind?

It got darker and darker, and then came the eclipse, to a chorus of gasps and cheers.

Eclipse picture by Howard R Wheeler on Unsplash

Yes, we saw it all, diamond ring, prominences, Venus and Jupiter and finally after what seemed like ages but was actually four minutes, another diamond ring and the sun was back, gradually getting brighter again.

I can’t find the words to describe this amazing experience. Now I understand what all the eclipse chasers I met on the train from Los Angeles were talking about. Egypt 2027 anyone?

Wednesday 10 April

One can’t visit Dallas without seeing the site of the Kennedy assassination. The museum was quite interesting, with lots of stuff about the man himself, the assassination and subsequent events. Possibly due to the Eclipse bringing in lots of visitors, it was ticket holders only today. Fortunately we had booked on the website yesterday.

Visitors can look out from close to the actual window on the sixth floor. If you look carefully in this picture you can see an X painted on the road.

Outside, you can see the grassy knoll. I was a little disappointed to see a stream of Americans dodging the traffic to be photographed laughing and waving, posing on the X.

Time to take the light rail towards home.

Thursday 11 April

The next part of the holiday was an extensive exploration of Texas.

The pleasant town of Palestine, TX has some good looking old houses and an impressive county court building:

Friday 12 April

The Texas State Railroad is a heritage railway that runs excursions for twenty-five miles between Palestine and Rusk. The railway was originally built by the state using prison labour in order to transport iron ore to a smelter also operated by prisoners.

Today’s trip was powered by number 400, a 2-8-0 built by Baldwin and dating from 1917.

They have a number of other locos including this beautiful pair of FP9As:

I had booked for the open-air coach, it was lucky the rain of a couple of days ago had cleared.

Also in the train was this beautiful dome car, I’m guessing it dates from the 1940s:

The far end, at Rusk, is too far from the town for a visit so just a pleasant place for a picnic before rejoining the train. The station here, and the one at Palestine, were constructed for the tourist train operation.

Saturday 13 April

On the move again, towards Houston, I called in at the little railway museum at Rosenberg:

On arrival at Houston I was rather excited to see that the view from my motel room included the tail fin of a space shuttle!

Sunday 14 April

The Galveston Railroad Museum has a very impressive collection and is located in the former Santa Fe station on Galveston Island.

Amongst the indoor exhibits is an amazing collection of railway crockery and glassware, here’s just a small sample:

I took a short ride on the end platform of this caboose hauled by a diesel shunter made in 1958:

Galveston is a town in two parts, first there is Historic Downtown, a tourist trap for passengers from the cruise liners that dock nearby. (There were two there today.) It is full of shops and bars, frustratingly I drove here so no pub crawl.

Then a short tram ride away (It’s a diesel powered modern replica.) is the beach, a proper seaside place in the style of Blackpool. Needless to say, I had fish and chips for lunch here, although in an attempt to stay local I actually had catfish and chips, which was very good.

In between the beach and downtown I saw lots of attractive buildings:

This imposing building with a rather brutal exterior is the Post Office and Courthouse and was built in 1937:

More from Texas in Part Two…

My USA excursion continued in Los Angeles:

Saturday 30 March

The weather was cold and wet this morning as I started just round the corner from my hotel, at the Angels Flight funicular. There didn’t seem to be much of interest at the top, I couldn’t really see any reason for its existence. Perhaps it would be more attractive if the rain stopped!

I dodged the weather with a short trip on the metro and then a long tram ride to Santa Monica.

When I arrived the rain had finished so I took a stroll onto the famous pier which marks the symbolic end of Route 66.

In the cold weather no one was on the beach:

With the weather slightly improving, I headed back to Los Angeles and the place everyone has to visit, Hollywood Boulevard. The stars in the pavement go on for miles (literally) so here’s just one picture of a random sample:

This star will become more relevant later in the holiday:

I noticed the underground station at Hollywood and Vine has a ceiling decorated with film spools:

Sunday 31 March

Another long tram ride saw me in a cold and wet Long Beach, where I quickly headed for the shelter of the Queen Mary. The art deco glory of thus museum/hotel/tourist attraction has been beautifully restored, and I took a fascinating guided tour:

Monday 01 April

On a much sunnier day I headed out to La Brea to visit the tar pits, an interesting museum and park. The pits there now are the result of asphalt extraction a hundred years ago, and are mostly full of dirty oily water with the occasional bubble of gas breaking the surface.

The pits have been and still are a great source of fossils of the many animals that became trapped in the tar. To give an idea of the quantity of fossils recovered, this wall in the museum displays about 500 wolf skulls. The wolves fed on other trapped animals but occasionally got stuck themselves.

In my continuing search for breweries (See my pub blog here.) I next caught the metro and then a tram to Chinatown, where I particularly liked the Chinese-style station:

Tuesday 02 April

An early start found me back at the beautiful Union Station for another Amtrak train ride, on the Pacific Surfliner to San Diego.

The Santa Fe station at San Diego is also beautiful:

My main target in San Diego was the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier commissioned in 1945 and decommissioned in 1992. In its new role as a museum it welcomes more than a million visitors a year.

I can only show a few of the many aircraft and other exhibits from the massive collection here:

The ship was equipped with all sorts of radio equipment:

Air traffic control:

Pilots briefing room:

Having spent a large amount of time in this really good museum, I moved on to the nearby maritime museum. Unusually, the small exhibits are displayed on one floor of Berkeley, a former San Francisco steam ferry dating from 1898:

Moored around the Berkeley are a collection of historic vessels, all of which you can board and explore.

The museum also provides trips around the bay on this 110 year old pilot boat:

There is lots to see on the trip:

Wednesday 03 April

For my last day in Los Angeles I headed up to the Griffith Observatory, found on Mount Hollywood, a very popular place to view the most famous sign in the world:

There are also good views over Los Angeles from here:

The observatory itself is well worth a visit. Built in the 1930s it is an impressive building and contains lots of interesting exhibits as well as a planetarium. On a sunny Wednesday during school holidays it was very busy.

A brief mention of the rather good cafe here, which had a method of operation I’d not seen before: You serve your own food – I had chilli and rice – and at the till you pay for it by weight.

Next, a rather longer train journey. I left Los Angeles Union Station at 22:00 on the Texas Eagle for a 38 hour, 1,700 mile trip to Fort Worth.

Dawn saw us in Arizona:

A chance to photograph the locos at Tucson, AZ:

Approaching El Paso, TX, we could see “Trump’s fence”:

At El Paso I texted my brother who was meeting me in Fort Worth to say “I must be nearly there because I’m in Texas”. Of course, there was another twenty-four hours of travel to go! The pause here was a chance to view the station building, and watch a very long freight train overtake us – The picture shows two locos in the middle of the train.

Trains at El Paso are met by Juanita the “Burrito Lady” who has been selling her food here for many years. She was even mentioned on the train announcements as we approached. I had a very tasty beef and bean burrito and a bottle of pop for only $5.

The next day we paused at Temple, TX for another photo opportunity, note that we had a different loco and some different carriages after shunting at San Antonio. They have a small collection of historic trains here:

My holiday continues in Texas …

There now follows a series of blog entries documenting my trip to the USA. If you want to read about the bars and breweries I visited, they are to be found my Pub Blog at https://merseypub.blogspot.com/2024/03/san-francisco.html

I started my time in San Francisco with a surprise in the hotel lift where I found an Earthquake button:

I’m not sure whether this would light up to tell me there’s an earthquake, or I was supposed to press it if I felt the earth move!

A quick survey outside showed some of the types of transport available here:

More of those later.

Friday 22 March

My first excursion started at the Ferry Terminal, hard to photograph with all the street furniture:

… From where a ferry took me across the Bay, under the Bay Bridge to a stop called Alameda Seaplane:

This was a navy seaplane base in the past, but there are no seaplanes here now. I came to visit the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, now a museum:

Launched in 1943, USS Hornet was involved in the Japanese, Korean and Vietnam wars, and played a role in the Apollo missions, recovering the Apollo 11 and 12 astronauts after splashdown.

Here’s just a selection of the interesting exhibits:

This is a quarantine caravan in which the Apollo astronauts spent weeks of isolation, accompanied by a doctor. A caravan was used so that it could be moved from the ship to a NASA location while the quarantine continued:

Saturday 23 March

Today, a trip to Sacramento. This started with a ride on the BART (San Francisco’s underground) to Richmond:

And then on Amtrak’s California Zephyr for just a short part of its long journey all the way to Chicago. Here it is after arrival at Sacramento:

I was here to visit the California State Railroad Museum:

I took a short ride on their “excursion train”, a set of carriages dating from the 1920s hauled by a small diesel from 1939, for a pleasant trundle along the river:

I headed back to the imposing station for a local train back to San Francisco:

Sunday 24 March

A slight panic on Saturday evening when I was making plans for later in the week and learned that the heritage tram service was to be suspended for roadworks. Luckily it was not too late so I began today with a ride. Line F is a normal part of the public transport system, used by commuters and tourists alike, but it is operated exclusively by these beautiful heritage streetcars. I have always had a special fondness for these “PCC” trams which date from the 1930s, 40s and 50s, so the chance to ride on them is always good, especially on a “normal” public service.

Next, a more modern tram on the N Line carried me to the Caltrain station where I could observe operations before riding a diesel hauled service to Mountain View.

The line from here to San Jose which I first travelled on way back in 1981 is in the process of electrification. I saw a diesel shunter (switcher to Americans) moving one of the new units:

Today’s objective was the Computer History Museum. A few pictures can’t do justice to this brilliant museum:

This IBM 1401 from 1959 is in full working order and is demonstrated regularly, although sadly not on the day I visited:

Having returned to San Francisco I took a picture of one of the driverless taxis that run around the city. It’s really odd to see a car driving with no one in the front, I was disappointed not to be able to arrange a ride in one:

Monday 25 March

I started at Pier 39 for a quick visit to the famous (so the sign says) sea lions which have taken up residence there:

There are a few obvious tourist attractions in San Francisco that everyone has to visit and today was the day for me so I headed to Pier 33 to board a ferry to Alcatraz:

Once on the island one is able to wander around the various fascinating buildings and exhibits:

Once back on the mainland a short bus ride took me to the Golden Gate Bridge, the next of the must-do attractions. I walked nearly half way across and then gave up because it was very windy:

Here’s a sample of the support cables:

Tuesday 26 March

Today, Muir Woods. This national park is a redwood forest just twelve miles from San Francisco. A very popular destination for locals and tourists, you have to book in advance if you want to visit. I enjoyed a chance to wander amongst the enormous trees. It’s very hard to convey the size in a photograph, but I’ll try:

On to the pleasant waterside town of Sausalito for a ferry back to San Francisco:

Wednesday 27 March

Firstly, a little shopping trip found me in an industrial area where I came across this car park full of Waymo driverless cars:

Next I took a trip to Oakland Airport to check out the unusual cable-powered extension to the BART network. This fascinating line has rubber tyred cars which grip and release the cable in order to pass over junctions. They also stop at the midpoint of the line to switch to a different cable.

Back in San Francisco, time for a ride on a somewhat older cable-powered transit system, the iconic cable cars:

There is a small museum at the winding house from where all the cables are driven.

Wandering in search of cask ale (See my pub blog here for details.) I passed through the Haight area where there some attractive old houses:

Thursday 28 March

Hiller Aviation Museum is located a few miles south of San Francisco and is well worth a visit:

I was very pleased to have the chance to sit in the captain’s seat of a 747:

I climbed up to Twin Peaks for great views of the city:

The hill lines up exactly with Market Street which you can see along all the way to the Ferry Terminal:

This is the other one of the twins. I decided it was too much effort to climb both:

For my final bit of tourism in San Francisco I went to Civic Centre, where there is a collection of imposing buildings including City Hall, The Supreme Court of California, and the Federal Building.

Friday 29 March

Time to leave San Francisco and head south on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight which had already been travelling for twenty-four hours all the way from Seattle when I boarded it with another twelve hours to go, to Los Angeles.

Here it is at San Luis Obispo:

The holiday continues in Los Angeles…

A couple of years ago I visited Battersea Power Station, with the objective of riding on the new part of the Northern Line. Having done that I was somewhat disappointed to find I couldn’t go in the actual power station, because they hadn’t finished the redevelopment.

So, finding myself in London again I retraced my steps on the tube.

Battersea Power Station is one of the largest brick buildings in the world. This art deco wonder was build in two parts. The A station between 1929 and 1935, and the B station between 1937 and 1941 but not finally finished until 1955. It was decommissioned in 1983 and left to decay despite its listed status, until redevelopment work on what was by then a ruin started in 2013.

But wait! What’s this popping out of the north west chimney?

Yes. They’ve installed a lift so naturally I had to have a ride on what is called Lift 109.

After rising to roof height in a normal lift we boarded a glass cabin for a ride up the chimney.

It’s an unusual lift, in that it has a glass roof, and there is no mechanism above the cabin, the usual cables and wheels above a normal lift are missing. Once at the top there are, of course, plenty of wonderful views.

Back down below, they have made an excellent job of retaining the art deco features of the turbine halls whilst adding umpteen shopping opportunities.

Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

The Branch Line Society organised a walking tour of various railway locations in Liverpool and Birkenhead, some of which are not normally accessible. We started at Bank Hall where a small diesel shunter dating from 1945 is all that remains to symbolise the extensive dock railways in the area.

Our next item of interest was the frontage of Exchange Station:

Then, on the former North Western Hotel, located at the front of Lime Street station and now the Radisson Red Hotel:

Here we had arranged to have a look at the original features inside.

A rather unusual view of the end of Lime Street’s train shed. The “hut” contains the clock mechanism:

Next, on to a fascinating visit to the former Liverpool Central station site, still used by Network Rail as a depot and offices. This shot is from the far end of the site looking back towards the former platforms:

Here is the location of the turntable:

This tunnel mouth was where the trains departed and arrived:

Peering through the mesh we could see Merseyrail’s Northern Line below, the train on the left is on the reversing siding and on the right is a service from Hunts Cross approaching Liverpool Central:

We departed the site via a “secret staircase” and suddenly found ourselves emerging through these doors into the modern station:

Next, on to James Street station where we arrived in time to photograph a rare diesel train on the underground:

We explored the rarely used third platform here:

… and then climbed up the Water Street ramp exit which avoids the lifts. It used to only be open during rush hours but now operates all day. We headed under the river to Hamilton Square, starting with a visit to the tower:

Climbing the tower we got an unusual view of the station entrance:

The space upstairs is no longer used for anything except for some ventilation equipment, and we could only safely climb a little way, the upper floors being derelict.

Next, we descended back to rail level and then headed through a secret locked door to a feature I didn’t know existed. Hamilton Square has a ramped access passage just like the one at James Street, but the Shore Road Subway is not open to the public and is only used for maintenance and emergency access.

It emerges on Shore Road next to the Cheshire Line Committee’s goods building, now offices.

My thanks go to Adam, our organiser, who had clearly put a lot of effort in to arranging a fascinating day. Thanks are also due to the helpful people at Network Rail, Merseyrail and Radisson Red.

In Terrassa is an excellent Science and Technology Museum which has a wonderful collection of exhibits. Here’s just a small sample.

The computer section was especially interesting to me, and they’ve got an amazing collection.

Gosh, an Intel MDS. I developed software on one of these back in the late ’80s:

The museum is housed in an old textile mill which has the most amazing roof.

Wednesday:

Time for a long scenic train ride. We took this ordinary suburban train out of Barcelona.

After a three hour ride through the Barcelona suburbs and eventually up into the mountains we arrived in France at La Tour de Carol. This interesting station, formerly a border post, has three different types of train: Le Train Jeune is a metre gauge line over the mountains from Perpignan, there is a standard gauge French Railways line from Toulouse, and our broad gauge route from Spain.

Last time I was here I arrived on the metre gauge, intending to travel on to Toulouse and beyond, but due to a strike I had to take a bus, so it looks like I will have to come here for a third time to do the standard gauge!

You can see the long station building, mostly closed up now that there are no border formalities.

Returning to Spain, we stopped off at Ribes de Freser where there is a rack railway for a scenic ride up to the ski resort of Núria.

Thursday:

At Capellades is a fascinating museum of paper-making which was a significant industry in this area due mainly to the characteristics of the local water supply.

These hammers are used to “beat to a pulp” the raw materials. Very noisy in operation.

I’ve never seen anyone actually making paper by hand before.

The museum also covers the history of printing.

We headed to the town of Igualada for lunch and unexpectedly found a preserved gas engine which had powered a textile mill here until 1955.

In Martorell where we were staying is the mediaeval Devil’s Bridge. Sadly it was destroyed during the civil war (As was the transporter bridge in Bilbao) and this is a 1965 reconstruction.

Friday:

At Vilanova there is an excellent railway museum.

Most of the railways in central Barcelona have been hidden underground over the years, but the Estació de França remains as an impressive terminus.

And so a great holiday draws to a close, it’s time to fly home.

Friday:

A holiday in Spain started in Bilbao. The stations in the centre of town look good. Here’s the inside of the broad gauge station and the outside of the metre gauge station next door.

We headed north to the oldest transporter bridge in the world.

The walkway across the top provides fine views.

Next, on to the Maritime Museum. Here are a few of the outside exhibits, I didn’t take many pictures of the interesting stuff inside this museum which is hidden underneath a roundabout.

A little further up-river is the world famous Guggenheim Museum. Me go in an art gallery? Never!

A funicular took us up for views of the city.

Descending back to river level we entered the old town where I admired this Art Deco market hall, said to be the largest indoor food market in the world. It was built in 1929 on the site of a mediaeval market.

Next to the market is the church of San Anton.

Saturday:

The Euskotren Museum at Azpeitia has a very good collection of exhibits.

Hang on! Isn’t that a familiar shape? Yes, it’s a London trolleybus.

The museum offers steam train rides for a few miles down the valley, we were hauled by this tiny steam engine named “Zugastieta” which had to work hard on the gradients. It was built by Sharp, Stewart & Co of Glasgow, as long ago as 1888.

Sunday:

In the centre of Lleida is the Old Cathedral on a heavily fortified hill. (I was pleased to discover there’s a lift to save me climbing up.)

Good views of the city from the top, in the first one here you can see the arched roof of the station which, very unusually, is arched lengthways along the platforms.

Next, a scenic train ride up into the Pyrenees on the line to La Pobla de Segur.

Monday:

If it’s Monday it must be Montserrat. We ascended on the rack railway.

At the top is a tourist trap, I mean monastery, with a number of impressive buildings and views. There were large crowds of tourists, to give an idea of the size of the operation, we ate in one of the restaurants which I noticed advertised seating for 450 people.

Descent was by the Aeri De Montserrat cable car.

On to Barcelona, and you can’t come here without seeing how they’re getting on with the Sagrada Familia. Have they finished it yet? No, but by coincidence, four of the towers – representing Matthew, John, Mark and Luke – were completed over the last few days, marking an important step in the construction process.

At Placa d’Espanya are some interesting buildings. Is that a bull-ring?

Continued in Part 2.

Opened in 1911 as the new headquarters of Royal Liver Assurance, this was one of the first buildings in the world to use reinforced concrete. It is one of the famous “Three Graces” on Liverpool’s waterfront, the other two being the Cunard Building and the Port Of Liverpool Building.

A concert at the pier head, surrounded by ugly fencing, meant that I was unable to get a good shot of the famous three buildings today.

In 2011, the Royal Liver merged with Royal London, and the building ceased to be its headquarters. It was sold in 2017 and became offices for a number of tenants. At last, in 2019 I believe, a visitor attraction was opened in the west tower and today, having checked the weather forecast I finally got round to visiting. The fascinating tour includes views from the tenth and fifteenth floors:

The clock, with three faces on the western tower and one on the eastern, was made by Gent of Leicester:

The Liver Birds, Bella and Bertie, have become the symbol of the city, although the use of a bird dates back to centuries before these two were designed by sculptor Carl Bartels.

Here’s a view of Bella from an unusual angle:

The tour concluded with a visit to the boardroom on the ninth floor:

All in all, a very enjoyable and interesting tour with a friendly and informative guide. Highly recommended!

If you’re planning a visit, note that the boardroom is still used as a conference room and so is only available for certain tours; make sure you choose the correct option when booking. I was surprised how quiet this attraction is; I checked the forecast in the morning and then went on line at 11:30 and was able to book a tour for the same afternoon.