PRESTON. Travelling With Bert For Company.

The nicely tiled and a bit slippy ramp down from the station’s main entrance. Much concerned staring at arrival/departure screens. The station is well kept, with the elegance of its time but a bit of a wind tunnel.

I dropped on a weekend in Morecambe which fitted in perfectly with my plans to visit the Ulverston Dickensian Weekend, the Dickfest. All was well then along came Bert. Yes that Bert, Bert The Storm.

My plans had been straight up to Ulverston then head back down into Morecambe, check in and have the rest of the weekend devoted to doing an awful lot of nothing and taking my time over it.

Platform 4, this train was making plans to head south, to the relative safety of Manchester Airport.

To save the hassle of driving I chose the train, sadly Bert had rampaged through the rail network north of Preston like a spoiled child wrecking his toy train set. It was a flurry of delays and cancellations, Preston station was a mess of passengers trying to get either home or to their destination. Southbound trains were least affected but northbound was a sadder story. The station staff were doing their best amid a situation that was changing by the moment to pass on travel information.

Platform 3 for the North, just a bit short of trains at the moment.

This involved a lot of standing around on a railway station that isn’t a warm place at the best of times and these weren’t the best of times. It wasn’t worth the risk to go off in search of food, drink or a sit down just in case things changed. Some northbound trains did arrive eventually but they were only travelling as far as Carlisle. A small compensation but they would get some northbound passengers a bit nearer their destination.

A glimmer of hope on platform 3 as a delayed train for Carlisle is flagged up.

Platform 4 is still a place of online timetable checking and coffee grabbing

A Carlisle train got me to Lancaster, a pub visit got me some hot food and a bus got me to Morecambe. I scrapped the rest of my plans for the day and chilled out in the warm and dry of a pub and my hotel.

Try for Ulverston tomorrow.

https://www.visitpreston.com/

https://www.dickensianfestival.co.uk/

https://www.visitlancashire.com/explore/morecambe

https://broadwaterguesthouse.co.uk/

https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/imagesbylachlan

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Lachlan1/sets

https://lachlan-main.pixels.com/