Seaside Special - Beating the Beast from the East: Durham and Cleveland
My long-planned trip to England’s frozen north-east in late Winter 2018 was at some risk of not happening at all. A Siberian storm was blowing in from the Continent, dubbed ‘The Beast from the East’ by our inventive media. Nevertheless, I was determined to carry out my trip and found myself watching the weather forecasts with a hawk-like attention to isobar clusters and snow-bearing pressure drops. It seemed that train services were still running up and down the mainline and so I decided to bail work early and hit the rails. The weather was dirty, in that north-bound corridor, but passable. My journey sped me beyond the next belt of wind and snow swooping up the Thames Estuary to pummel the South-East. I was running away. There were no problems with the journey. Not really. Although an odd moment at Peterborough caused raised eyebrows. The train had to reverse back up the track and switch lines to bypass a set of frozen points just beyond the station. This prompt...