Back Where It Belongs

Well it was a nostalgic day as the first fare paying passengers to travel the newly opened Borders Railway otherwise known as the Waverley Route by the steam train Union Of South Africa headed to Tweedbank after the line closed back in 1969 .The same engine had the Queen on it yesterday to do the official opening at Tweedbank with Scotlands FM although the line opened on Sunday with the first of the Scotrail services running there and back, anyway so myself my mum and Sandra had tickets to do the first steam trip on a glorious day down in the Borders we got off in Galashiels instead of Tweedbank as it would have been hard on my mum to walk to Melrose a couple of miles away no doubt there would have been buses to there but my mum wanted to wander around Gala and we had lunch in Macari's cafe with my mum having fish and chips i had sausage egg and chips with sandra having a roll and sausage so we had a wander around the shops before heading back to the station which is a joint interchange with the bus station next door a very enjoyable trip and would recommend it all 6 weeks of steam trips are sold out according to the website but no doubt there will be plenty more,  a normal off peak return  costs £11.20 return which isn't too bad with a pretty good service anyway I will post a couple of other pictures in my extras section this shot was taken just on the approchih to Stow station heading to Tweedbank just as the driver opened up the throttle creating a big blow of smoke great stuff, now then movie for the day is 'BORDERLAND 2007' Go Large See Ya