Interesting laundry equipment at Grand Designs Live: one of the innovations on show |
Although the obvious way there is via Birmingham New Street to Birmingham International, the NEC's station, the online booking engine came up with a route via Coventry which shaved about 4 minutes off the outward trip at the cost of an extra change of train, and although I would not normally bother, this would be an interesting ride on a line I'd never used before, so we resolved that if we were on time into Nuneaton we would go that way, and if late we'd stay on board our Cross Country train to New Street and change there in the normal way. It was on time, and we had coffee and biscuits from the trolley on the way to Nuneaton.
The Nuneaton - Coventry line was closed to passenger traffic when I lived in Birmingham in the seventies but opened, serving Bedworth as well, not long after. It is now a full-fledged local service with several intermediate stops, although the single-coach train struggles to cope with crowds at the Coventry Arena stop on match days. For us, it transported us smoothly and comfortably to Coventry where we boarded a Virgin Trains Pendolino for the short trip to Birmingham International.
Using off-peak tickets meant that we arrived at the show late in the morning, so we had lunch there and then, finished with all we wanted to see by late afternoon, made our way to New Street to await the first off-peak train home. A little stroll around the Grand Central shopping centre above the station, a visit to the Ian Allan book and model shop, and a longer visit to House of Fraser easily filled the time - never fear a long wait for a train at New Street for there is no shortage of things to do in central Birmingham.
We bought sandwiches and Le Froglet wine at M&S at the station for our supper on the way home and boarded our train. Although we were travelling on open tickets we did have seats reserved on the first off-peak train because we know these can get rather busy. A grand day out, with brochures and purchases from the exhibition (we fell for a lavatory brush, believe it or not, at exhibition-only price, of course!) and from the city centre shops as we made our way back across the meadows to our current home.
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