Fantastic journey

I love this DVD mainly for one reason and that is because it is two journeys for the price of one.

You get London Liverpool Street to Ipswich and Ipswich to Peterborough although, please be aware it is aboard two seperate Class 170 Turbostar units of what was then, One Railway.

Let's start on the first part which is Liverpool Street to Ipswich.

Starting out at Liverpool Street, we pass through busy London and Stratford, into the suburbs of London towards Shenfield. When this was filmed, it is obvious that there is a signalling problem of some kind, as you see trains stacking up in the Shenfield area.

This is my local line into London, so it is not uncommon to hear of something going wrong on almost a daily basis. Leaving that aside, once you get into the Essex countryside you get brief glimpses of how the painter, John Constable got inspiration for his paintings.

During the last few minutes of the ride on disc 1, the train travels through Stoke tunnel located just south of Ipswich station. An interesting trivia fact for those who don't live in the area might be interested to know that the original Ipswich station was located on the South side of the tunnel which was opened in 1846 and consisted of only one platform.

this station was closed in 1860 when the present Ipswich station opened with one through platform and two bay platforms at the North end. It wasn't until 1883 that platforms 3 & 4 opened forming into the station that we know in its present form.

On disc 2 is Ipswich to Peterborough and this journey keeps us on the Great Eastern Main Line through Needham Market and Stowmarket before the line branches off at Haughley Junction. There used to be a station at Haughley junction, but it closed in 1967 as part of the Beeching axe.

The train heads West in almost a straight line passing through the villages of Elmswell and Thurston, then calling at Bury St. Edmunds where the original buildings and towers still stand. Some of the yard to the immediate West of the station still exist and can be seen upon departure here.

The line runs along the A14(T) road after Bury St. Edmunds station and it is not uncommon to see people in real life try to race the train here. We follow the A14(T) road for several miles to Chippenham Junction where the line to Cambridge continues West while our train rounds a severe curve to head North-West towards Ely. The line becomes single track at the Southern end of Soham and continues as single track for the remainder of the journey to Ely where the train rejoins double electrified track.

We are now travelling in the Fens and the train heads off in a North-West direction to March where the old lines to Wisbech and Spalding once branched off. The line you see branching off only heads to Whitemoor yard.

The penultimate station of Whittlesey is stuck in a time warp and still has semaphore signals and manual crossing gates.

As we approach Peterbrough, you see a brief glimpse of the Nene Valley Railway at Peterborough, which was once a through route between Peterborough East and Northampton.

Overall, this double DVD is excellent value and I sometimes combine my viewing time of the DVD with that of Central Trains No.3 DVD to take the train up to Nottingham as the trains arrive and depart at the same platforms in both DVD's.

I would really recommend this DVD set to anyone and happily give this a rating of 10/10

Andrew Berry | Ipswich | October 2020