By Train to Malvern

 I'm having a few days off, and I've just taken possession of my Senior Railcard, so I thought I'd have a few days out on the train.

My first destination was Malvern.

As soon as I arrived at Hereford Station, I could see the importance of ticket offices in action - across England, there is a plan to close all ticket offices (though Hereford will not be affected).  Ahead of me in the queue was a man who was buying a railcard for his little girl, and the member of staff was helping them to fill in the form correctly.  At the next window, an American tourist was asking how to get to the next destination on their itinerary, and the member of staff was explaining the route, and printing out the details for them.  And then I wanted a day return with the Railcard discount - £6.60 day return is a bargain!

One of the things I wanted to do in Malvern was to visit St Ann's Well Cafe again.  I first went many years ago, and the group I was with came down to the Cafe from the top of the hill, so I thought it was a lot more remote than it actually is.

The hill up from the main road is very, very steep, though.  The turning is up St Ann's Road, next to the Unicorn pub.  About half way up I found a plaque describing how Victorian tourists used to ride up on donkeys, and I'm not surprised that was a popular way of getting up there!

Also on the way up, I noticed this blue plaque.

It was on the wall of this rather impressive building, which is now divided up into apartments.

And a bit further on, I found the opening times for the cafe - of course I'd chosen the day they're closed!  I went up anyway, along a switchback path under the trees, and it really is a lovely building.

Since I couldn't get a snack at the cafe, I headed back into town, and further down the hill was a new (to me, anyway) real ale bar called The Weavers.  I had a half of Black Knight stout, from Ludlow, which was very nice.

By about half past two, I'd done everything I wanted to do, so I thought I'd catch the earlier train home.

That's when it all started to go wrong, of course.

The 14.47 train pulled into Great Malvern, and everybody had to get off, including four people with bikes and a lady in a wheelchair.

No-one seemed to know why - one of the train staff told us that Hereford was not accepting any trains.

A couple of people got on their mobiles to try to find out more, without a lot of success.  Then someone said there would be a replacement bus service, so a bunch of us went up to the car park to wait for it.

Then someone who had stayed on the platform said there would not be a replacement bus service, and we just had to wait for the next train at 15.47, so we all trooped back again.

I went to the toilet, which is opposite the ticket office, and when I came out, I asked the lady at the window if the station had a working tannoy system.

"Yes, why?"

"Well, an official announcement would have been nice."

"What about?"

"The cancelled train."

"Oh - I didn't know about that either, until one of the passengers told me."

"That's not very good, is it?  Someone should have let you know."

So the 15.47 train came in, and none of the passengers were sure if it would make it all the way to Hereford, or if we'd be told to get off at Ledbury.

We got as far as the entrance to the Colwall tunnel, where the track goes down to a single line.  It was only then that we discovered, from the train driver, that there had been a points failure at Hereford, and that was why there were delays and cancellations.  He was waiting for the London Paddington train to come through the tunnel, but the London Paddington train couldn't come through until the train standing at Great Malvern moved on - and it was stuck on a red light.  No-one knew why, but he did his best to find out.  Apparently there was a problem at one of the signal boxes.

By this time, I had missed my bus from Hereford to Hay - fortunately, it wasn't the last bus of the day, so I still had a chance of getting home.

As soon as the London Paddington train passed us, the journey proceeded normally, and I had about an hour to wait for the last bus to Hay in Hereford.  Of course, by then all the cafes had closed, so I was reduced to buying a packet of biscuits from a corner shop to keep me going.

I was very glad to see the T14 when it arrived!

It's kind of put me off planning any more days out by train, though!