Expensive for what it is. Staff are helpful but the place struggles to justify its priceread more

The Heights of Abraham are the most famous tourist attraction in the very touristy spa-town of…read moreMatlock. Many a family comes from the surrounding cities of Manchester, Derby and Sheffield to spend the day exploring Matlock, and few can resist the CABLE CAR RIDE up to the attraction of The Heights of Abraham. To travel on the cable cars and enter The Heights of Abraham, one has to part with a steep ten pounds. The cable car journey itself is great fun, and if you haven't done it before, has novelty value, but if I'm honest, it's the best thing about the entire place, and it only goes downhill (no pun intended) from there. At the top you will find a shop selling memorabilia but as you can imagine this is largely tat, and much of it bears no relation whatsoever to the area or the place. You will also find a greasy canteen style café selling tea and coffee, baguettes, cakes, hot dogs, soups and jacket potatoes. The food is nice, but very overpriced, so expect to be stung yet again. There's also a restaurant, but its not much of restaurant as it only sells burgers, paninis and salads. These are nice, but also expensive, with a burger setting you back a good seven quid. Your ticket also includes the chance to explore two old disused mines which are pretty interesting and definitely worth seeing, though half an hour is enough time to cover both of these. There's also a rock museum, the boredom induced by which speaks for itself. On the whole it's a close call as to whether its worth it. Perhaps one should go once if in the area. The cable cars are good, and cost some millions to make, but its very expensive to go and once you're there. Basically yelpers, I'm leaving it up to you.

A Fascinating Day Out…read more We got a discount vouchers for this place and thought it might be interesting and it certainly was. Our guide whose name escape me just now was an absolute joy to listen to as using his knowledge he brought the whole tour alive. From the ingredients in beer to the brewing process through the ages including some beautiful vintage vehicles to the steam engine what was supposed to last 11/2 hours ended up being at least 2 hours not that it seemed to be that long. All in all we had a great time so much so that we intend to return and would certainly recommend it.

This has recently re-opened as the National Brewery Centre and has had a bit of a facelift. It is a…read moresmall museum which shows the history of brewing in Burton with a mix of machinery, video displays and wall boards. A family ticket - two adults and two children - is £27.50 which covers the museum and four drinks tasters (1/7th pint each) per person (squash for the kids, beer for the grown-ups). There is plenty of free parking. Sadly the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment. Most of the video displays were broken, the shire horses were out, and there was very little actually to experience. Anything interesting was cordoned off, so we could look at the outside of a bus, a train, some machinery, but not get close. Basically it is a small museum, with a couple of rooms of stuff in but not much to engage with. It is hard to see how they justify the new grander name of "The National Brewery Centre" and £27.50 is even harder to justify. When I was there they were doing some development work, so I hope they are expanding and improving. As of today though, one to miss.

Went here about 5 years ago now, but i dont think it has changed much in that time. They have some…read morevery nice shire horses which i believe are being rehomed when they close the centre. You can see how process of how they make th ebeer and at the end of th eday you can goto the pub in there :)

Great range of information and friendly staff the perfect information placeread more

very handy for info on where to go in derby and lots of other places. in the middle of the city.read more

East Midlands Railway, owned by Abellio is the replacement for the similarly named East Midlands…read moreTrains, operating the East Midlands railway franchise. Many of its' routes go into London St Pancras while it also serves cities such as Derby, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, York and even Norwich. While it provides slow routes compared to rivals travelling from Manchester to Liverpool, or Manchester to Sheffield it is the main route provider on many other occasions including Manchester to Norwich. I am impressed with some of the immediate changes with the new franchise - The new livery is smarter and looks good as I noticed the former East Midlands Trains to just become ugly, dirty and outdated so that really is an improvement to the network. I do think it's a shame that many trains haven't been fully refurbished, however. - Delay Repay has been extended to cover a 15-minute delay rather than the industry average and the only legal amount they'd have to cover of 30 minutes anyway. Other new franchises including Avanti West Coast are doing this too, but it's still a step in the right direction and I hope more companies start doing it too. I like EMR's assisted travel policy for disabled passengers, again they allow customers guaranteed assistance if booked within twelve hours of travel with a good online form, compared to 24 hours notice being required by many other companies. This is really good compared to the likes of TPExpress who offer some similar routes (they offer the fastest travel between Manchester and Liverpool/Sheffield) who's online form always changes the train time and they require a full 24 hours notice. They also allow customers to book it over the phone too, again this is good for customers who might not be tech-savvy and it's open 24-7. I do think they need to train staff fully on this front as I have had online bookings ignored. Interestingly one of their main and longest routes of Liverpool to Norwich, which goes via Manchester which takes 5 hours and 24 minutes still takes around 3/4 of an hour longer than getting a service from Lime Street to Euston (Avanti West Coast) and from there getting the tube to Moorgate, walking half a mile to Liverpool Street station and then continuing on your journey with a greateranglia service from there. (I presume it could be down to having a slow route through the north at first with the train from Liverpool to Manchester taking almost double the length of a TPExpress train). The website again is one of the most professional I've seen in a railway company, it's so easy to use and the same can be said about the app - it is actually much better than Avanti West Coast which commenced in December 2019 and as of writing is the newest railway franchise in the UK. One of my first times travelling with EMR was from Manchester to Leicester, as obviously these cities aren't usually connected by railway it meant having to change trains at Sheffield, their main route which is from their cities and London St Pancras seems to have nicer trains which include First Class which sadly some of their longer routes serving the north of England and Norwich doesn't. I also travelled with EMR from Derby to Sheffield, there were some awful delays on the network however my service wasn't effected as it came from Kettering. The train was clean with a good First Class service including gluten-free shortbread biscuits. While the seat reservations failed to work with no apology or explanation, the wifi didn't dip out during my trip, I'd rather have slow consistent wifi than faster wifi which went down constantly, as it did with CrossCountry when I made the opposite journey. Overall, I was pretty pleased with EMR but bringing their Liverpool - Norwich route trains in line with the services going into London and Kettering is much needed. The staff on board are also great (most of the time). 4*

I used East Midlands Trains last weekend for a return trip up to Loughborough from London…read more The whole experience was pretty good - the train left spot on time in both directions, and the trains - modern 125mph diesels - were clean and comfortable. They weren't particularly busy, which helped, but the whole experience was incident free - as it should be. We managed to get a group booking which made the round trip cost £16 each - pretty good, I thought. The only gripe I have is that the Midland platforms at St Pancras always feel like an afterthought - the ticket office is downstairs, as are all the other facilities (like loos). There's a solitary cafe which feels like it was intended for Midlands passengers. It's OK in summer, but it feels very bleak in winter. East Midlands Trains is the name of the company that runs the trains services on the Midland Main Line from St Pancras to Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield. It took over the franchises of Midland Mainline and much of the area operated by Central Trains, last November (2007). Although I'm not a fan of Stagecoach, the ultimate operating company, I have to say it was all pretty good last week.

Fairly easy to navigate. Plenty of staff around to ask questions or for help. Busy stop to…read moreairport is directly outside and come fairly regularly

I used Derby Railway Station as a connection on a journey from Manchester Piccadilly to Leicester,…read moreit is a fairly small station with only seven platforms, but with Derby only being a very small city with a population of around 250,000, this is pretty understandable. The station is operated by East Midlands Trains, which did cause some confusion in the past with Yelp merging the two listings by mistake, for anyone reading this confused, British railway stations which aren't the busiest, major stations such as Manchester Piccadilly and most in London, are often operated by local railway operators who mainly use the station, in this case East Midlands trains operate this station, so the staff you'll see around often have jackets with that provider on, in a similar way Brighton Station is operated by Southern Railway. Other providers serving the station include Northern and Cross Country. Being on the Midland Main Line, East Midlands Trains offer serves to East Midlands Parkway (for the airport), Leicester, Chesterfield etc and Cross Country offer services on their Reading-Newcastle and Cardiff-Nottingham routes, which, as well as the named cities, also call at Birmingham and Sheffield. Sadly, there are no direct routes to Manchester with the best routes being an East Midlands service to Stoke On-Trent or Sheffield or a Cross Country service into Birmingham New Street and then onto there, the services into London are also pretty infrequent and although you can get an East Midlands service into St Pancras, arriving in just over 90 minutes it is again better to go into Birmingham. It is located rather close to Pride Park Football Stadium, home to Championship side Derby County, who potentially could be in the Premier League with a playoff win over Aston Villa at the end of the month, making it quite an easy ground to get too, so good luck to them on their promotion quest. The station seemed quite clean, and the staff in the station seemed nice, the bridge was quite modern considering at most other stations including nearby Sheffield they tend to be a little grubby and ugly. There isn't a lot of businesses inside the station, there is a Costa and WHSmith which are pretty much regulars to train stations in the UK, especially the latter. A clean train station, mainly offering local services, just over half an hour from Birmingham and Sheffield where you can get loads more trains to carry on your journey. 3*

The station is very convenient for me - just an £8 pound taxi ride from home. It is not the best in…read moreconnectivity unless you want to go to Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham or a few other cities - Plymouth, Bristol for example. However to get to London you can just take one stop to Tamworth and then change for direct to London - that is my plan today. The station is not really very inviting but they do have a small news and coffee shop and (very important on a cold winters day like today!) a heated waiting room serving both platforms. In summary - thank goodness for little stations like this that connect you with everywhere in England, Scotland and Wales affordable and without having to drive! Review #92 2019

Burton Upon Trent is located between Derby an Birmingham. Burton Upon Trent rail station is…read moreoperated and managed by Cross Country Trains, which operate frequent services between Nottingham and Birmingham New Street / Cardiff Central. Crosscountry services run twice every hour to Nottingham, and once hourly to Birmingham, and once hourly to Cardiff Central. Cross Country high speed services to the South West, and th North East stop at the station, however these are less freqent, and occur mosty during the morning and evening commute.

Very attractive building, sort of in a nice area. Very helpful staff and lealfets to help you…read morearound the wonderful world of Chesterfield!