The British Transport Police is the national police for the railways in the U.K.. Every day they watch over the journeys of over 6,000,000 passengers, with the goal of getting them home, safe and sound.
The job of the BTP has been getting more and more difficult, with a higher influx of people taking trains across England, Scotland and Wales on a daily basis. In fact, in 2018/2019, there were 68,313 notifiable crimes. However there were only 60,867 in 2017/2018, so there was an increase of 12%.
There was one crime, however, that they probably could have skipped over.
And in the blink of an eye, we’re already well into the first week of September. Time goes by so quickly! Anyway, here are our most popular posts for August 2019. Some of them were actually written before August (heads up that rules and offers change and we can’t guarantee that those older posts are still accurate), so take a look to make sure you didn’t miss any of the good stuff:
Train stations are usually, of course, the point where people enter or exit a city or part of town. But a train station was recently opened in Japan where the only way you can access it by train (not by foot or other modes of transportation), and once you get there, the only way you can leave is, again, by train.
Walt Disney World opened in 1971 with three places people could stay. There were the Polynesian Village Resort and the Disney’s Contemporary Resort that were both there on opening day and were standard hotels on the monorail line.
Early map of Walt Disney World
Fort Wilderness Campground opened about a month and change later, and it was available for those who preferred to sleep in campers, tents or in the wilderness homes that people could rent.
ABOVE: Rare photos of Wilderness Homes at Fort Wilderness. They began to be replaced with “log cabins” (they’re still just single wide trailers) in the late 1990s.
PC: home.hiwaay.net
Back in the very early days of the resort, you could only navigate Fort Wilderness’ 700 acres by walking, or guests staying at the campground could rent a golf cart. But just a couple of years later, people could also take a steam powered train, the Fort Wilderness Railroad, on a 3-1/2 mile ride through the fields and wilderness, and over trestles, to get them from the main entrance to Pioneer Hall, the now-defunct River Country (they simply abandoned that one. Click here to see what River Country looked like in its later years), and all of the camping loops in between.
Here’s what the official Disney blog had to say about the Fort Wilderness Railroad in 2011:
“…The system featured four stream trains that circulated through the campground on a 3½-mile track. The trains’ cars were themed after “plantation locomotives,” a specific style of open-air cars that shuttled consumables, like sugar cane and pineapples, around Hawaiian islands.
“Each of the four trains – decorated in forest green, red, and gold colors – measured just under 115 feet and could seat 90 guests.”
The Fort Wilderness Railroad only ran regularly from 1973 to 1977, and on special occasions from 1977 to 1980. Its full history, including its start up, the multiple reasons why the project was abandoned, and how/why it was almost revived, and then not, is pretty fascinating. Take a look…
On a trip to South Florida, we were staying for the evening in Fort Lauderdale. The next afternoon we were meeting up with relatives for brunch in West Palm Beach before having dinner with friends that evening back in Fort Lauderdale. We could have driven the 45 minutes each way but our friends suggested we look into taking the train instead.
We were interested because the train serving this route is run by Brightline, excuse me, their new name is Virgin Trains U.S.A. It’s the same train that’ll eventually connect Miami with Orlando via high-speed rail. If this is possibly going to be the way to travel from central to south Florida, might as well give it a test run on the 45 minute trip between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, right?
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