Looping the Lakes
A day travelling through the Lake District by bus and train
As part of our mini-holiday to Carlisle, I’d planned a trip to the Lake District for me and the Tin Lids. The National Park is easily accessible from Carlisle which, when I booked everything back in May, was home to the cheapest Premier Inns within a 200-mile radius. An added bonus came in the form of free child bus travel throughout England during August. Like the £3 maximum fare scheme, participation is voluntary and broadly the same operators who accepted one also accepted the other. Carlisle has been Stagecoach territory for decades and, as the company has consistently participated in the Government’s voluntary fare initiatives, the children travelled free throughout our stay.
Sadly, as I’ve mentioned before, my children do not travel particularly well on buses over longer distances, so the direct service from Carlisle to Keswick and beyond was never really an option. Instead, we travelled to Windermere by train, departing Carlisle at 1035 aboard a five-car TransPennine Express Class 397 bound for Manchester Airport. We found seats around a table in Coach D, which appeared to consist entirely of unreserved seating - effectively TPE’s equivalent of LNER’s Coach C. Our train was 397004, the first Class 397 on which I’d travelled any meaningful distance. First impressions were favourable. The CAF-built units feel noticeably more spacious inside than the Hitachi products now appearing across much of the country and are very pleasant trains in which to travel.
Some of the most spectacular scenery of the entire journey is encountered during the relatively short run south over the West Coast Main Line, through Penrith, over Shap Summit and down towards Oxenholme. Oxenholme has all the outward appearances of somewhere which ought to possess little more than a postbox and an argumentative sheep. Eight hundred and forty-two people live there, according to the last Census. Yet the station handles getting on for 700,000 passengers a year. It is one of those glorious British contradictions: a tiny village whose principal export is people changing trains.
Despite the constant flow of passengers, I found myself thinking that life as a Station Dispatcher at Oxenholme might represent something of a ‘grandfather roster’. Certainly, there will be the inevitable missed connections and disruption on the West Coast Main Line, but the real operational headaches are more likely to fall on neighbouring Lancaster, with its greater number of trains, platforms and connecting services.
Our next train, the 1121 to Windermere, was running about 10 minutes late. I’d assumed it would arrive from the south having originated at Manchester Airport, but instead it emerged from the branch itself, working one of the regular shuttle services from Windermere. The service pattern is slightly haphazard but broadly hourly, with between two and four trains each day running through to Manchester Airport and a handful extending to Preston or Lancaster. As a result, the majority of services simply shuttle backwards and forwards between Oxenholme and Windermere.
We were only travelling as far as Kendal. Our train eventually departed Oxenholme at 1130 and, four minutes later, deposited us in the centre of the town. Today’s train was a three-car Class 195, complete with excellent air-conditioning and a Guard possessing a broad Mancunian accent. It’s funny the things that stand out. Kendal itself sits remarkably close to the West Coast Main Line and anyone looking out of the window as trains slow for Oxenholme could easily assume it forms part of the same urban area. We’d briefly considered walking the distance, but Google Maps estimated 58 minutes and, given our slightly delayed train, four minutes on 195118 seemed the far more sensible option.
We visited Kendal once before, in 2021, and noticed something the average visitor probably wouldn’t - the complete lack of Kendal-branded souvenirs. My daughter, whose Christian name happens to be Kendall, had been hoping to leave with half the town stuffed into a carrier bag. Fridge magnets. Teddy bears. Sticks of rock. Tea towels. Anything, really, bearing her name. Instead, Kendal seems to have surrendered the merchandising battle to Windermere, Bowness and the generic ‘Lake District’ or ‘Cumbria’. Except Everest-conquering Kendal Mint Cake, of course, but that is omitted on account of it tasting awful.
Our next journey began at Kendal Bus Station at 1300 aboard the iconic Stagecoach Service 555. Once operating between Lancaster and Carlisle, the route has in more recent years been curtailed to Keswick at its northern end. Our intended destination was Bowness-on-Windermere, although the 555 only serves Windermere itself, leaving a further two miles downhill to the lakeside. Just before departure, and from the vantage point of the upper deck of ADL Enviro400MMC 11205 (SK19 EVW), we noticed another double-decker draw alongside on Service 755 for Bowness. A quick check online showed it was due away at 1301 and would have taken us directly to our destination.
By then, however, our minds were made up and the decision later unexpectedly produced one of the more unusual journeys of the day, involving a minibus substituting for an open-top bus. Leaving Kendal, we followed the 755 towards Windermere, diverging briefly through Staveley, where the 555 crosses the Windermere branch line before rejoining the main road. Thereafter came the inevitable crawl into Windermere through heavy summer traffic, eventually reaching the Interchange at 1325.
While waiting for the 599, normality briefly gave way to one of those wonderfully British incidents which would sound entirely implausible anywhere else. A fire engine arrived on blue lights because a small girl had managed to become firmly attached to a bus shelter bench. Not emotionally, you understand. Physically. Her anatomy and the local authority’s metalwork had entered into an unwilling partnership from which neither could escape. The firefighters, displaying precisely the sort of calm competence we have come to expect, dismantled the bench with the air of men assembling flat-pack furniture in reverse. The child emerged entirely unscathed, the bench was reconstructed as though nothing had happened and, naturally, the siblings were invited to inspect the fire engine afterwards. If every emergency concluded with quite so much dignity, life would be infinitely less stressful.
Our intended departure at 1344 aboard the open-top on Service 599 had, it seemed, succumbed to mechanical reality and in its place appeared Optare Solo. 47333 (PX06 FYD). There are few sights quite so gloriously incongruous as a little Solo attempting to impersonate one of Cumbria’s celebrity open-toppers on a sunny August afternoon. It was rather like arriving at Royal Ascot on a mobility scooter. Perfectly capable of performing the task but somehow lacking the expected sense of occasion. Even the drivers of passing 599s appeared unable to suppress broad grins as they caught sight of their colleague shepherding a packed minibus along one of Britain’s most celebrated scenic bus routes. Hoping no-one we knew had seen us, we left the bus outside the Tourist Information Centre in the heart of Bowness while the Solo scurried off to its terminus at Braithwaite Fold Car Park.
A wander around Bowness inevitably ended in the amusement arcade. Fortunately for my wallet, those expensive diversions came to an end at 1448 when our next Service 599 was due to depart for Grasmere. Sadly, the bus was tracking around 15 minutes late. Eventually ex-Cambus ADL Trident/Enviro400 19574 (AE10 BWG) arrived, spun at the Pier where we boarded and departed just 11 minutes behind schedule.
The delay now presented a problem. Under normal circumstances the 599 runs around 10 minutes ahead of the next northbound 555, allowing a comfortable connection in the tranquillity of Grasmere and onto our next destination, Keswick. Running late, however, the 599 had already surrendered that advantage and, with heavy loading at Windermere Interchange delaying our departure to 1520, we appeared to have missed the 1502 departure of the 555. Now it was in front of us there would be no prospect of catching it.
Or so we thought. Then fate intervened.
As we crawled into Ambleside, there, waiting ahead of us in the queue to gain access to the village bus stop, was the very 555 we’d assumed had long since disappeared towards Keswick. It, too, had succumbed to the combined forces of holiday traffic and human optimism. Suddenly the impossible looked merely improbable.
Google Maps and bus tracking can, on occasions, make you feel rather like Wellington studying the battlefield before Waterloo. I concluded that the 599 would loop around Grasmere, entering the village from the north, whilst the delayed 555 would approach from the south. It was either a moment of tactical brilliance or the transport enthusiast’s equivalent of buying a lottery ticket. We jumped off at the junction, where the 599 turned into the top of Grasmere and positioned ourselves hopefully by the opposing roadside and waited for the 555 to emerge from the same village (hoping that it hadn’t already).
Two minutes later salvation appeared in the unmistakable shape of Enviro400MMC 11569 (YX23 OPG). I wasn’t entirely convinced the driver was obliged to stop, given that the flag stood on the opposite side of the road and lacked any helpful ‘Both Sides’ legend. Fortunately, I had brought along two small children, who possess the sort of uninhibited enthusiasm adults spend decades trying to suppress. They waved with evangelical fervour. The driver relented. Never underestimate the persuasive power of an excited child!!
The upper deck was already full, so we had to sit in the lower saloon, limiting our views through the dramatic Dunmail Pass, although the journey remained thoroughly enjoyable. It was particularly encouraging to see passengers using many of the remote roadside stops. The descent into Keswick seemed to last forever but we eventually reached the town’s bus station at 1624, sixteen minutes behind schedule.
My abiding memory of Keswick was visiting as a child and being shown the clock on Moot Hall that only had one hand. We were holidaying with my Uncle György, who was a keen photographer and rarely ventured anywhere without a pair of binoculars. Using them, he demonstrated that the clock did in fact have two hands, one simply being painted the same colour as the clock face.
Perhaps 35 years later, the Moot Hall clock still maintains its strange quirk. Curious to see whether the illusion remained, I carried out my own investigation. This being 2026, I dispensed with the binoculars and instead relied upon the camera on my iPhone 16, zooming in as far as it would allow before enlarging the image further. The result was rather unexpected. During the building’s 2007 restoration, the deception appears to have been abandoned altogether. The clock now genuinely has just the one hand.
Back at the bus station we boarded the 1725 Service X5 for Penrith. Once part of the Stagecoach Gold network, the route has largely lost its premium identity following the widespread adoption of the company’s Steel Blue corporate livery. Lilyhall-based Scania N230/ADL Enviro400 15224 (YN65 XFE) arrived punctually from Workington and departed two minutes late after boarding everyone.
The X5 operates between journeys on the X4 to provide a half-hourly frequency between Keswick and Penrith. East of Keswick the two routes are almost identical, both following the A66 while serving Threlkeld. Some off-peak X5 journeys additionally divert via Penruddock (which remains the daytime domain of the X4), but all journeys leave the trunk road shortly before the M6 to serve Stainton.
We reached Penrith railway station at 1805 and were fortunate to connect with a delayed Avanti West Coast Pendolino back to Carlisle. 390126 had been due away at 1749 but eventually departed at 1814, returning us to Carlisle at 1828.
A couple of late-running trains and some fortunate timing on the outskirts of Grasmere meant the day ultimately worked out almost exactly as planned. In addition to an Off-Peak Day Return between Carlisle and Windermere, I purchased a £12 Stagecoach North West Explorer ticket. The Government picked up the children’s bus fares through the August free travel scheme.
The only mistake was my own. Earlier in the day I’d bought a £5.20 Carlisle Dayrider to reach the city centre from the Premier Inn, reasoning that it was cheaper than paying two £3 single fares. What I’d overlooked was that the North West Explorer was valid throughout Cumbria, including those journeys. The moral of the story? Improve my research.
The weather was kind, the buses were generally punctual, the drivers ranged from competent to excellent and, most importantly of all, the Tin Lids thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In the end, that’s what really mattered.
While in Keswick, I heard the sad news of the death of my friend Rod Liddle – on his day almost certainly Britain’s greatest columnist. I had been fortunate to get to know Rod through our support of the Free Speech Union and had many quite incredible conversations with the Great Man. I’ve attempted to insert a little of Rod in a couple of paras, by way of my own, somewhat limited, tribute.
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