My car is at the garage for repairs at the moment, so I thought it would be fun to try SOTA by train.
Arnside Knott G/LD-058 isn’t too far away by train, only requiring one change, at Carnforth. I booked my train tickets a couple of days ago via an online app, at a cost of £9.90 for a return from Bentham. Bentham train station is not very far from my house, probably around 3 or 4 minute’s walk.
The train was right on time at 0935.
There was a 27 minute wait until the connecting train and I was hoping to look in the railway model shop, but the shop was still shut. The clock shop next door had opened precisely at 10am as advertised!
The train at Carnforth was a few minutes late but not by a noteworthy amount.
What strikes me is how dreary and grey all of the stations look.
Anyway, before long, the train got to Arnside, the sun appeared and all looked colourful again!
The walk seemed much shorter than I’d imagined it would be and it was quite a straightforward route up to the summit.
I’m enjoying activating on 17m at the moment and I’d taken a home brew lightweight 20m, 17m and 15m linked dipole and 4m pocket pole, which fits inside my rucksack. I didn’t want to take a full sized pole on the train. The rig was my trusty home built camouflaged MTR-5B.
Business was quite slow on 17m but I easily qualified. I swapped on to 15m to see if there was any DX to be had, but it seems that I struggled to get out very far. It was such a pleasant sunny day that I decided to brave the ‘44’ crowd and put out a call on 20m. After the pile up had been worked down, my log contained 41 QSOs.
It was time to head down off the hill and seek out a hot drink in a cafe (and use the facilities!). After a wander around the gift shops and buying a gift for my wife, it was time to head back to Arnside station.
The train was several minutes late, which had me a bit worried.
Unfortunately there wasn’t time to visit the now open model shop at Carnforth station, there was about 7 minutes available before the train to Bentham was due. Oh well, a visit to the model shop will have to happen on another day.
The train pulled up at Bentham station right on schedule at 3.16pm. It had been a successful day out despite worrying about missing a connecting train.
I’m trying to think of other destinations by public transport, maybe Claife Heights G/LD-053 might be do-able?
73, Colin
