We dragged ourselves down to breakfast and Jo decided afterwards that she was having no more fried breakfasts - she'd had enough. After breakfast, Phil went back to sleep (well he'd been trying to all through breakfast despite having 2 coffees) while Jo packed up. Then we dawdled down to the station via the chocolate shop that we'd seen the night before and a bakery to get lunch. The train to Chester turned up on time and rattled off through the countryside. We spotted a miniature steam railway that we think went round the lake a Rhyll. We also passed one or two mini Dawlish-Warren's (eek) before Jo fell asleep and Phil got absorbed in his railway magazine from 1989 (don't ask).

We got to Chester and found that it was a disappointing station and rather a dump. It was old, badly maintained, vandalised and there was no sign of any station staff. The only noteworthy point was that we saw a nuclear flask train go through the station. Crewe station was no better and the Railway Age museum was even more of a disappointment. We could see it from the station but there was no access from the station and no information about it on the station. Eventually we got directions from a local who told us we had to walk for about 20 minutes round the estate to get in.

When we finally go in, the APT (advanced passenger train) at the museum was interesting and looked quite good now Virgin had sponsored the repaint, but the info inside wasn't technical enough for Phil so after so photos we wandered off into the rest of the "museum". There were a few poor exhibits, mostly about signals, in the old Crewe signal box - Phil got excited about them but only because he could understand them - there were no explanations or anything so Jo was just confused. There were also a few other bits in an old shed, but nothing convincing. We were very unhappy about having to pay, especially to some woman in an apron with a cat - she could have been anyone. We will not go back, nor recommend it to anyone else.

Getting back to Crewe station, we realised that we had returned to civilisation because all the trains were in chaos. (fun!). and the info on the boards bore no resemblance to reality. (a couple of months later the info boards apparently gave up and have probably never been fixed). On the way Phil tried to get excited about the junction at Stalybridge, which goes up to Stockport, but missed it. Jo was just bemused about what could be so exciting about it. We also saw our first Pendolino - pity it wasn't the last.

Anyway, we eventually got to Leeds eventually and made our way to the bus stop. (thanks to Ali for providing the bus info)and found that we had just missed a bus and had quite a long wait for the next. Since we were tired, we went round to subway and bought food from there and took it to the hotel with us. The hotel was 2 houses joined together and thus had 2 staircases, We were shown up the "train" stairs to our room - cool. (the others were "mountain" stairs - both due to the paintings on the walls). The room was nice but we were both tired and ate in front of the TV and fell asleep soon afterwards.

This page is part of Phil and Jo's online madhouse. The links below are what is in the madhouse - please look around.