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Published: September 16th 2017
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I awoke early again - 530am - and we headed off to the train station to make our way to Macclesfield and a wedding. Managed to get a Liverpool to Manchester train half an hour earlier than we planned which gave us some extra time in Manchester to grab an 11am lunch, unsure of if or when we would eat again. Train to Macclesfield from there with a midday arrival.
We had booked an early check in to get dressed for the wedding, and a cab booked for 1pm to get to the wedding before 1:30pm. Two quick showers, some ironing and fast hair/make up and an early cab meant we were in our way at 12:50pm. Surprisingly, a bit of traffic through town though, so we arrived just prior to 1:30pm.
Then there was a wedding, with tea and gin prior to the ceremony. We all hoped that the rain would hold off for the ceremony but the drizzle started about half way through. Umbrellas made an appearance and we all persevered through.
My first English wedding would not have been the same without the British weather to accompany it.
The rest of the day and
evening was spent eating and drinking, sprinkled with wedding speeches and other things. Grabbed a taxi back to the hotel at the end of the night.
Up early the next morning to try to find somewhere to get breakfast in Macclesfield. Lucked out with a sandwich bar next door that did fry up breakfasts. Incredibly slow for a place opposite the station but we had time.
Then it was a train back to Manchester where we picked up a hire car. That process took a good half hour, or about 20 minutes too long! Ended up with a Ford Focus, manual and diesel.
Headed east towards York, stopping briefly for lunch at a services stop near Leeds. Then it was onto the Cold War Bunker in York.
The bunker was built and opened in 1961 to monitor nuclear explosions and fallout in Yorkshire in the event of nuclear war. It was one of about 30 built around the U.K. and was used up until 1991. Volunteers 'working' in the building, had they been called up, would have been collecting and recording details of nuclear bombs in the U.K. and tracking radioactive fallout across the region to
warn the public of its approach.
The bunker is the only one preserved in its operational condition - others have been turned into vets, recording studios or paintball facilities after they were sold.
The bunker has the original monitoring and communications equipment, plus decontamination rooms, sewerage ejectors etc. it was quite interesting. We heard about how the volunteers that would work there would be chosen - being the first 60 to the door are in, the others good luck and go home.
there was also the true story of 'hot beds', with 60 people on three eight hour shifts of 20 people each sharing 20 beds with no washing of themselves or sheets for 30 days at which time they would be out of food.
Of and then there was the story about the lack of radiation suits for those running outside to check the detector readings. Weird to think it isn't even that long ago.
After the tour was done we drove to the National Railway Museum in York, which is about the history of rail transport in Britain and its impact. It is a huge site (Wikipedia says 20 acres) and has more
than 100 locomotives and heaps of other stock like signs, parts and so on.
While Stuart entertained himself with trying to understand how steam engines worked I went and read about ambulance trains and how the British government apparently told train companies to start preparing trains in 1912 - two years before war was declared, meaning that they were ready to roll at the outbreak of war in 1914.
I also found the display in signals quite interesting - devices that would track where a train was on the tracks and let someone know to make sure that trains didn't collide. What I found most interesting was that these were created in the 1870s and are still in active use, despite the fact that they have been modernized and can now use the mobile network instead.
It was also the first location where we had seen armed British police walking around, following the unsuccessful bomb attack on the London tube yesterday. Not often you see British cops with guns, let alone at a train museum of all places. And they were big machine guns too. i guess being a museum located right next door to a train
station makes it a potential target?
I was also kept amused by some of the stats around the London to Edinburgh train route, including the fact that in three years between 1948 and 1951, the journey length increased by four minutes as well as in cost. Fun fact.
A couple of hours later we left the museum and headed out towards Shelby to a small town called Wistow where we were booked to stay in an 'annex' in someone's backyard, as a private Airbnb small bedsit. It was so cute and just perfect for the stay. Also significantly cheaper than York which was really expensive for the night, presumably something on in town or something, or just the fact that it is a Saturday night in York.
Grabbed dinner and a beer in the local pub that night and called it a day.
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