AVIEMORE & INVERNESS 30th June 2012

My third SRPS trip, despite living in Cornwall with attendant long trips to get there. The effort has always been worthwhile, although I was congratulating myself on having flown on a Flybe cheap ticket from Newquay to Edinburgh which avoided the grief caused by the monsoon. A very useful Travelodge at Glenrothes enabled me to join the tour at 06.09, and I was very thankful to be allocated a seat in coach M with friendly fellow-travellers. The schedule allowed for photography, with Kingussie a particularly fine station, and it was nice to be able to eat hot meals at one's table at a sensible price. The trip on 27 October to Fort William with double headed steam on the return should be good although presumably it will be diesel hauled outwards.

I thought the Strathspey Rly shot itself in the foot with chasing people off its platform - although not contributing any fare revenue that day, some of those people would be likely to come back another day. An invitation to visit their well stocked shop might have been quite lucrative for the railway anyway. I hope that the individual concerned did not put too many people off visiting what is a very worthwhile preserved line.