UK train trips

With just a simple backpack for a month-long trip I hopped on a route 422 bus to Central Station, and a T8 train to International Airport. Checking into China Southern was as always a chaos. Chinese companies are too technologically advanced and the website constantly malfunctions. Tickets were printed at the end and checked in all the way to London.

This gets me to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province in China. Flights from Guangzhou to London are cheap which brings the overall costs down. The legroom is poor and so are the amenities in flight. Quite disappointing for mainland Chinese people to pay a premium to fly from Sydney to Guangzhou, which is not cheap in the first place (flying to London is cheaper than flying just to Guangzhou).

Let's compare: a meal on China Southern (left) vs a meal on NSW Trainlink (right, Ice Cream purchased separately)

at least it's the city of Guangzhou. In soviet russia, concrete builds in you.

The Chinese border is scary even for Chinese people themselves. Long queues of Chinese people with their paper passports (there are electronic gates but most people do not have electronic passports), and when presenting to the immigration officer

*a deadly stare into your eyes* "Did you come back from Australia?"
*a bit scared* "yes"

The officer looks closer at how they react, spotting subtle movements or what they call suspicions. Then a loud chop and impatiently lets them through. A simulation of what it looks like:

Luckily they don't really care about Hongkongers coming into China. And therefore here we go, into the metro. At rush hour the train gets super packed right after the airport stations and remains a tight squeeze down dozens of stations into the CBD. The train is essentially full at the first station and only very few managed to squeeze on at subsequent stations. Line 3 with just 6 cars and a narrow train isn't designed to handle all these commuting crowds and chronic overcrowding has been an issue for decades.

Only in China: getting on a tram requires screening of bags. 

Chinese metro screens always feel like being in North Korea. The station designs are heavily influenced by that in Hong Kong but ugly with their random font selection.

The ride back was less crowded. Lots of stops till JiaheWanggang before speeding down the more sparsely populated areas, stopping at just Longgui, Renhe and Gaozheng and then the airport stations.

Exiting China was the easy part. Very unnecessary safety screening for batteries leads to immigration control, where a kind Cantonese-speaking person processes my document and lets me pass. 

On the plane, newspapers were offered, and fortunately there's one from the most progressive news outlet in the nation. They used to do a lot of investigative journalism back in the day but now it's just a copy-paste machine of official news sources. China is also the very few places where Aeroflot planes can be seen as the Russian national carrier grips onto its few remaining planes. 

Chinese airlines are also the very few permitted to fly over Russia. This gives a now rare view into Russian fields and cities

Flying over the Netherlands, crossing the North Sea and entering the UK at Southend-on-sea. The landing to London Heathrow is routed via Windsor & Eton as a standard approach.

"This is a Piccadilly line service to Cockfosters"

First tube ride: Heathrow T4 -> Heathrow T1,2,3 on Piccadilly Line. It feels really hot in the underground tunnels without air conditioning, even on this short section of tunnels.

Class 345 Elizabeth Line: The Central London section only opened last year, linking Heathrow with Bond St and Tottenham Court Rd.

-> Central Line -> Victoria Line

Giant sauna in Central Line but overcrowding on the line has already significantly improved since the opening of Elizabeth Line.

Early morning tour around London's most famous sights- Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament

Opposite of the parliament is the ex-Greater London Council building. The GLC was abolished and the building was converted to an aquarium. Nowadays the Mayor of London does the same job as the former GLC.

London's bus operators come from around the world. Abellio is owned by the dutch national railway, Arriva by Deutche Bahn, RATP which operates the Paris Metro and so on.

Past the abandoned Aldwych Station on the Piccadilly Line. Buses in London are also similar to those seen in Singapore or Hong Kong, except with just 2 axles instead of 3.

King's Cross- the main line station for East Coast Main Line towards Edinburgh (via York). Mainly used by LNER, several more also operate including Great Northern for suburban services, Hull Trains and Grand Central running just a small number of routes, and Lumo the low-cost carrier to Edinburgh. The Harry Potter shop is also here where the filming of platform 9 3/4 took place.

Harry Potter fans will find this similar to the movie scene. On the platform is a Hitachi Intercity Express train (IET), Class 800. These are also named Azuma, Japanese for East, for the easternly route they run on. These trains are now the main workhorse of intercity services and capable of a max speed of 124 mph (200 km/h).

Digital reservation system shows passenger bookings and is synced to the booking system. These seats are non-reclinable with a thin padding, decent for journeys of up to 3 hours but can feel like sitting on ironing boards for longer journeys.

Boring Cambridgeshire with nothing to see. The train speeds out of London, hitting its max speed of 200 km/h. A green belt policy in the 1940s prohibits the outward expansion of London preserving the green space surrounding Greater London. As a result London's suburban sprawl is relatively small and settlements spaced out. Passing Stevenage, a new town outside of London, and the train reaches Peterborough, a major interchange marking the end of London.

Newark Northgate, Doncaster and York. As the historic capital of Yorkshire the station was built to be a major railway hub featuring a giant railyard around the station. 

York's National Railway Museum right next to the station. Main exhibits include the rocket, first ever steam engine in human history.

More steam locos. The best part of British railway is its olden days, and this is also what most of the museum is.

The oddest piece of exhibit: the japanese Shinkansen

Welcome to the Shinkansen.

British kids run around the high-speed train's cabin, the oddest thing seen ever. These 0 Series trains are the first ever trains used on the Tokaido Shinkansen and this one in York is the only one on display outside of Japan.

Continuing down the locomotive hall

An Eurostar and Intercity 125. The Eurostar trains through the channel tunnel still hold Britain's speed record. Intercity 125 (Class 43) is a set of diesel locomotives designed to speed up Britain's national rail at a much-compromised scale to 125 miles per hr (200 km/h). It has been a common train type seen across main line railway of Britain before being phased out lately.

The Mallard, breaking world's fastest steam train record at 126 mph (203 km/h) and still stands till this day.

Many of the old railway company names are used till today. LNER (London & Northeastern Railway) is reused as the name of the government-run franchise after Virgin East Coast franchise defaulted.

Buses around York operated by FirstGroup. The city also operates Park n Ride services, discouraging the use of motor vehicles in the historic town centre.

York is where the true England city can be found. The narrow alleys is also where Harry Potter was filmed.

The city's church- York Minster. Minster means a church and places names with a -minster suffix often indicate the presence of one, eg. Axminster, Leominster. Being on the east coast of England the city sees a lot of Viking influence as well as Normans, but Clifford's Tower is the very few structures that remained.

York Station is built just outside of the old city centre across the city wall. The train north this time is an Aberdeen-bound bi-mode set, running to Edinburgh then continuing onto Abderdeen in Scotland.

The train arrived several minutes late but LNER has a generally satisfactory on-time performance. On the other side of the station it's a usual day for Transpennine Express, an operator serving northern England with an exceptional service cancellation rate.

Natural scenery in Yorkshire look far better

The many rail and road bridges crossing River Tyne into Newcastle. Finally the real Newcastle (-upon-Tyne), a major urban centre along the train line.

The train continues up north, skipping towns such as Alnwick and Morpeth. The line gets slightly more curvy inland before heading towards the coast in Northumberland.

Berwick-upon-Tweed, the border between England and Scotland. While the town is technically in England the houses look more like a Scottish town. In fact it was so undecided where when war was declared it was declared against England, Scotland and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Following along the coastline and the A1 road the line heads towards Edinburgh, its final destination. The East Coast Main Line is often rated as one of the best train trips in the world thanks to the scenery here along the shoreline.

Shortly this Aberdeen-bound train reaches Edinburgh Waverley, a major hub for LNER and ScotRail. It's a massive station with multiple terminating platforms on both ends, and several through run platforms for services like this. While it's a massive station there are only several major exits, with one on both sides.

The station itself lies between the old town and the new town, next to the Edinburgh Castle. The old town brings great European vibes on its High Street and narrow alleyways transversing through the hill. 

The city is also popular amongst European travellers. Massive coaches shuttle those on organised tours to this scenic part of the city.

The best viewpoint of the castle is still at Princes Street where the tram line runs on. 

Edinburgh's buses and trams are all operated by the city council. Lothian Bus, the operator, has been consistently rated the best bus operator in the UK. With great signages and service frequency it is not hard to see why.