Much longer than Shortleat, and significantly longer than Midlengthleat too…read more This is a lovely little train that is part of the safari park and is included in your ticket. It's mainly for tourists and kids and it's absolutely adorable and goes back to the old days of trains but with a nice modern flair for colouring. In a way it reminds me of some of those colorful Indian trains like in that bad Owen Wilson movie recently. I come to Longleat mainly when coming to Center parcs as it's located quite close to the Longleaf Forest where the Holiday Village is. It's great for this little town in Southwestern England and I go to it fairly regularly.

As you go into longleat you purchase a passport ticket which allows you into various…read moreparts/attractions, one of the attractions is the model railway. This is a railway with wee individual carridges watch your head on the roof as you get in. The journey takes you past the lake and past a field that has different cardboard cut outs of lord bath etc. The railway was good fun for the children and the adults it takes approximately 15 minutes i think. There is a wee shop where you can purchase train whistles, thomas the tank engine products etc.

The East cremate their dead, whereas the Westbury…read more Westbury is kind of a haunting town on the Plains and I've always liked it here, and it's a perfect little English town which essentially is quintessential Southwestern rural England. It has its own little train station, yet it's a major hub for the whole nation, and I've only been here once but I definitely liked it. It is a major junction for Wiltshire though and has direct connections to Reading Taunton Penzance London-Paddington Cardiff Portsmouth Swindon Bristol (Temple Meads) Weymouth and London-Waterloo. It also has an amazing Station Cafe and could only score 5 stars.

To-day, Westbury is a moderately important junction station, where the Bristol-Southampton and…read moreBristol-Weymouth services cross the West of England main line from Paddington to Plymouth. It's all a far cry from former times: the station was opened in 1848, on a line from Chippenham, with services being extended to Warminster in 1851, Weymouth and Bath in 1857 and Salisbury in 1856. It continued as a country junction until 1900, when it was rebuilt in its present form as the first part of the new through route from London to Plymouth via Castle Cary. Through services began in 1906, and so began Westbury's golden age as a major junction station. It didn't last long: in 1933, a bypass line was built around the station to the south, for non-stop London-Plymouth expresses. The introduction of High Speed Trains in 1980s brought more decline, as the London-Paignton trains were routed via Bristol, the engine depot closed, staffing at the station was reduced, and the old platform one was closed. To-day, Westbury is expanding rapidly as a dormitory town for Bath and Bristol, and commuter traffic is increasing as a result, to some 300,000 passengers a year. There is an intermittent main-line service to London and Taunton, but the main services are the half-hourly Bristol-Portsmouth trains, and the two-hourly Weymouth service. Additional local services to Bristol are laid on at rush hour, and there are three direct trains a day to London via Salisbury. It can all seem quite busy again at certain times of the day. Station facilities remain basic, however, even if the fine buildings from 1900 have survived: but a new buffet and new toilets are being built, and there is a small waiting room, though ticket office hours remain limited. Most trains use the island platform (2 and 3), although platform 1 remains open for some services. The station has recently been made accessible for wheelchair users and other passengers with disabilities.

A small station with a fast main line service to London and the west of England. It has trains to…read moreWeymouth and Bristol so is an interchange. There is a ticket office and excellent toutist information is displayed in the waiting room.There is a coffee kiosk and taxis ard available here. It serves a wide area of south Somerset and there is a car park.

Not to be confused with Mitt Romsey, who is not related to Mitt Romney. And even if he was, I…read morewouldn't give a mitt. So this is a little old station in Romsey, which is on the line from Waterloo into Southampton, and it's a listed beautiful old building with a very unique and very attractive design. It feels like a tiny little town station, but with a truly grand building and style, and is definitely one of the nicer stations you'll find in this part of the country.

The historic town of Romsey has a well-preserved and well maintained traditional railway station on…read morethe line from Salisbury to Southampton. It is used by over 330,000 passengers a year. The station opened in 1847 on the line from Southampton to Salisbury (via Eastleigh). In 1865 the route from Andover to Southampton via Romsey and Redbridge opened, making Romsey a junction; also known as the Sprat and Winkle Line, it closed between Andover and Romsey in 1965, but the southern section from Romsey to Redbridge (on the Southampton-Bournemouth line) remained to form the main Salisbury to Southampton line. The Eastleigh to Romsey line closed to passengers in 1967 but reopened in 2003, making Romsey a junction station once more. It is served by the Cardiff/Bristol to Portsmouth service (roughly hourly, half-hourly at peak times) and the Salisbury-Romsey-Southampton-Chandler's Ford-Romsey service, which provides an hourly service in all directions (and thus provides two trains and hour to Southampton, one direct, and one via Chandler's Ford, Eastleigh and Southampton Airport). Facilities include a ticket office (open part time), ticket machines, toilets, waiting rooms, covered bicycle storage, a small cafe (open part-time) and a small car park.

I had Grate Expectations of Grateley, and they were not quite met…read more 72 miles from London you will find this wide-open station with uncovered platforms and a tiny futuristic-looking bridge that kind of looks like it could fall down at any minute LOL. It has very straight tracks in both directions and the famous picture I have from when I came here several winters ago is when the whole station and both tracks were covered in snow. It serves the area well, but it's pretty remote and it's nearly a mile from the village itself, so it really feels like it's in the middle of nowhere.

Small local station, well-kept and tidy. Sadly, parking is very limited and payment machines far…read moreapart. Several times I've missed my train due to zero available parking. Been like this for 6 years and no improvements forthcoming. Only ticket terminal is on Platform 2 (London bound) access by overline bridge. There's often a queue and it's frequently out of order.

Small twin-track station, on main Bristol/Bath SW line…read more Situated just outside the centre of town (approx 10 - 15 mins walk to the main bus stops outside the Town hall). There's not a great deal by way of amenities - no fancy waiting rooms, refreshments or toilet facilities. It's manned several hours a day for ticket sales and assistance, and there is a decent sized car park right next to it. Mainly used for commuting upline to nearby Bath and Bristol. It's pleasant enough and there's shops selling snacks within ten minutes wlaking distance so it's not out in the sticks or anything. Beware rush-hour though as it gets absolutely choc-a-block on the station around then!

Small and gets the job done. A lot of construction right around there which made traffic around the…read morestation tricky and testy. The staff working were very friendly, as after I had exited the main platform area I was looking for a public toilet and they were all located on the inside of the turnstiles...a person working at the gates let me back in so I could relieve myself before making our way to Stonehenge.

There's a lot at Steak when you come to Salisbury. And remember, salis fair in love and war…read more This is a lovely old and well designed station for the amazing city of Salisbury. On the line from London to Exeter you will find the Salisbury station, which is one of the main stations along the way. Offering perfect access to the beautiful old Cathedral and the lovely Wiltshire wilderness county town of Salisbury on the plains, and not very far at all from Stonehenge. Also trains from Cardiff to Portsmouth and Brighton come right through here as well so it's quite a big crossing on the railways. It's a lovely old station of brown brick and one of my favourites. It had been growing in usage throughout the middle of the last decade but in the last few years it went down quite a lot which is sad. We hope that it increases again in future.

Bristol Parkway station is located at the intersection of the lines from London (Paddington) to…read moreSouth Wales and the main line from Bristol to Birmingham, providing a major interchange between the two. It was one of the first 'Parkway' stations to be built, in 1972, to attract car users to trains by providing ample car parking at locations with good road links, close to urban areas. This site was chosen both because of the interchange it offered, and because of its proximity to the M4 and M32, just north of Bristol. When opened, shelter was fairly meagre, with 'bus stop' shelters on the platforms and a small waiting room and ticket office by the entrance to the car park. Because of its exposed and windy position, additional long platform shelters were erected, but it still had a reputation for being a cold place to wait for a train. Over the years, substantial suburbs have developed around Stoke Gifford, and in 2001, a new and much larger station building, with a dramatic curved roofline, was built in recognition of its growing importance. In 2007 an additional platform was constructed on the London-bound (north) side, to provide additional capacity. The station is now used by over 1.75 million passengers a year, with in excess of half a million passengers changing trains here. The station now has heated waiting shelters on the platforms, and the main building has a small shop, cafe and ticket office. Other facilities include a taxi rank, payphones, cash points and bus stops for local bus services (including to Frenchay hospital and Bristol city centre). The station has level access (via lifts to the platforms). The station is served by all long distance trains on the London-South Wales main line and the cross-Country main line from the South-West to Birmingham and the North. It is also served by local services from Gloucester, Westbury and Weston-super-Mare.

This is a great, modern, functional station on the North side of Bristol. It's close to the M4/M5…read moreintersection, so it's a far better place to collect someone from than Bristol Temple Meads (in the centre of the city) if you're located to the north of the city. However, there are a few things to be aware of: 1. Parking is £5 a day. The payment meters are awkward to operate, and if you don't pay you will get clamped & fined. 2. The car park gets full by 9:30am most days, and if you park outside an official space, you will get clamped (even if you've paid for a ticket). 3. Traffic in the area is hellish at peak hours. Journeys from the motorway to the station can take in excess of 45 mins between 7:30 - 9:00 and 16:00 - 18:00 for the 2 mile journey. The station is fairly new with good facilities: clean toilets, a small newsagent, a coffee shop and a sandwich shop. There are also lifts to all platforms for the disabled.

Swindon is one of the traditional railway enthusiasts' meccas, as the 'Railway Town' of the Great…read moreWestern Railway (GWR), and its station has a complex but interesting history. It is still an important and busy station to-day. The line - built by the famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opened on 17th December 1840, to a temporary terminus at Wootton Bassett, and through to Bristol on 30th June 1841. When the GWR was being planned, Brunel and his engine designer, Daniel Gooch, decided that Swindon would make a good place to locate the main engine depot and engineering works. As well as being the junction for the line to Cheltenham and Gloucester, it was also the point at which the relatively level line from London changed to the more steeply-graded section to Bath. This was important in the early days, when steam locomotives were relatively under-powered, and the idea was that different engines would work the two sections. The GWR built what was effectively a new town - initially called 'New Swindon' - with a railway works, depot, 300 cottages for the staff, and a new station, opened in 1842. The station was - unusually - paid for by the building contractors at their own expense, and to recoup their outlay they built the first ever railway refreshment rooms (separate rooms being provided for First- and Second-Class passengers). The GWR agreed that all trains should stop there for a 10-minute refreshment break as they changed locomotives, which they did until 1895. But from the start refreshment rooms were famously awful - beginning the dreadful reputation of railway buffets! With a captive market, the owners charged high prices for inferior food and drink. Coffee was dispensed from an impressive silver urn in the shape of a locomotive, but this did nothing to improve its flavour. Even Brunel himself was moved to write this wonderfully stinging letter to the owners, in December 1842: " Dear Sir, I assure you Mr Player [the manager] was wrong in supposing that I thought you purchased inferior coffee. I thought I said to him that I was surprised you should buy such bad roasted corn. I did not believe that you had such a thing as coffee in the place; I am certain that I never tasted any. I have long ceased to make complaints at Swindon. I avoid taking anything there when I can help it. Yours faithfully, I K Brunel." To-day, railway Swindon is a shadow of its former self, with the works closed, albeit with some of the handsome buildings (Grade I listed) retained as workshops and the railway museum 'Steam'. But the main island platform buildings survive from the 1842 station, together with a new platform on the south side, opened in 2004. The historic refreshment rooms were located on the south side of the station, but sadly no longer exist, having been demolished in 1972 - in an astonishing piece of corporate vandalism by the former BR - to make way for the ghastly office block that now occupies the site. The growth and affluence of modern Swindon means that this is a busy station, serving nearly 2.5 million passengers a year, and remains the junction for the line to Stroud, Gloucester and Cheltenham. All trains from London to Bristol, Cardiff and Cheltenham stop here, as well as the occasional direct service to Oxford, offering a fast train to London every 15 minutes during the day, Mondays-Saturdays. The station has a couple of cafes (I've not tasted the coffee, though!), a small newsagents, waiting rooms and is fully accessible.

Clean efficient station with helpful staff. Lovely comfortable clean train to London Paddingtonread more