Ironbridge; Tuesday, 16 August, 2011

I had quite a bit of time to kill today, having to check out of the hotel by 11am, but my train not leaving Birmingham until nearly 7pm.

I checked out and took my bag with me to the bus stop to catch the bus a bit further along the river Severn to the small town of Bridgnorth.

The town now has a thriving tourist industry based on being the northern end of the Severn Valley Railway, which has recreated the experience of heritage railway, even down to the exceptionally friendly and helpful booking clerk at Bridgnorth station who offered to look after my bag for the day so I didn’t have to lump it around with me.

I brought a rover ticket and spent quite a bit of the day taking in the scenery of the Severn Valley before ending up back at Bridgnorth mid-afternoon.

I had a long wander around the upper and lower towns before realising that the bus back to Ironbridge, to catch the bus back to Telford to catch the train back to Birmingham was in five minutes and my luggage was still at the station, 10 minute’s walk away.

Thankfully, I had already checked the timetable and realised that in the likely event of this happening I would have to admit to wasting £6 on the ticket from Telford to Birmingham and would have to buy myself a new ticket from Kidderminster, but it did mean that I could start my journey home on a steam train.

So a little after 3:30 the train pulled out of Bridgnorth station starting my, smooth and uneventful journey home.