The Trans Pennine Railway Real Ale Trail
Summary
Trains, local villages, real ales, lashed locals – a proper Northern experience!
Most people when they visit the North of England go to the usual sights of The Lake District, Durham, York etc, which are great, but for something more unusual for a tourist, consider the Trans Pennine Real Ale Trail, also known as the Trans Pennine Pub Crawl. The idea is to take the Trans Pennine train route that passes through 9 local villages and towns scattered across the Lancashire and Yorkshire countryside and stop in each one to visit one of the local pubs for a beer. The pubs themselves are cute and with a focus on real ales, but the overall trip itself has turned into something bigger than just the ales and you’ll find a real mix of people up for lash (partying) itorrelevant of what they’re drinking. More than anything, its a great way to meet some of the locals outside of the standard tourist settings
To get started, you realistically want to start in Leeds or Manchester Train Stations. The route itself technically starts in Staleybridge and ends in Batley, or visa-versa, but in reality you’ll be getting to the main city train stations to start and finish. From there, just head off and keep an eye on the timetable. You’ve typically got between 40mins and an hour between trains so plenty of time for a drink and maybe stay a bit longer for lunch. Enjoy!
For something in the same theme, but a little quieter, shorter and involving an old steam engine, try The East Lancashire Railway Real Ale Trail
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Lash Experiences around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone