A day in The Tin Bath.....

"OMG she doesn't have a proper bathroom if she has to use a tin bath!" I hear you saying.   Actually The Tin Bath is the what the Railway Touring Company called the train which was steam hauled from Manchester on Sunday.

Here's one of the steam engines that pulled the train.

 and the other one

 The red line on the map below shows The Tin Bath Route.

Along with our friends we boarded the First Class Carriage of the train at 10.30 am for the 10.45 departure from Victoria Station, Manchester, the train had started it's journey in Preston.    

Leaving Victoria Station behind we travelled through various districts of Manchester into Yorkshire, enjoying tea/coffee and Danish Pastries during the journey to our stop in Sheffield, where we had an hour to grab a drink in a local pub before rejoining the train.

The next leg of the journey would last five and a half hours, travelling through Barnsley, Penistone, Huddersfield, Burnley, Blackburn, Bolton and  back to Manchester Victoria.   We enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine (beer for the boys), which we had taken on the train and the train stewards served up a selection of finger sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, and tea and coffee during the second part of the journey whilst we enjoyed the scenery.

Arriving back in Manchester we left the train and called in a city centre pub for a drink before going to Red Hot World Buffet, an all you can eat place that caters for every taste imaginable - sushi, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, USA, Japanese,  Thai, Mongolian, English and more desserts than you can imagine!  We were invited to the opening of the Manchester branch last year, by friends whose son designs the restaurant chain, and we received a passport entitling us to a 20% discount on our total bill as many times as we like until the year 2022, so it was a great opportunity to use it.

After gorging ourselves we went for a little walk around to work off the food and called in a pub where they were celebrating St. Patrick's Day.  We stayed long enough to have a couple of drinks then phoned for a taxi to take us home as we were really tired.    It had been a very long but enjoyable day and we are hoping to take a trip with the Railway Touring Company in January/February on the Settle to Carlisle line.

I won't be around next week as MWM and I are off too the Isle of Wight on Monday until Friday.  Of course I will be taking photos and will tell you all about it when I get back.