Newsletter — December 2024
Hey all, and welcome to our December edition of the RailSoc Newsletter!
This semester has been quite the success, and we hope to carry the momentum into next semester with more entertaining trips and events. Thank you so much to everyone who joined our society for the first time this year, and a continuing thank you to our regulars, you all help keep this society on track :chuffed:
With exams crawling ever nearer, we now have our final trip of the year to ease the stress and take your mind off things, our sumptuous seaside journey to Dunbar, in collaboration with the ever-lovely people at the ornithological society!
As ever, we will be meeting in the Waverley station main concourse, at a slightly earlier time of 9:30. Return tickets are expected to cost about £8.50 with a railcard or £12.90 without one.
With beautiful coastal trails, a historical harbour and ruined castle Dunbar is not to be missed. And if ever you felt interested in what spotting birds instead of trains might offer, this joint trip with Birdsoc will be the one for you as the Dunbar area is a haven for seabirds.
Sometime after we also hope to host a merry little Christmas themed social after the success of our Halloween party, so make sure to keep an eye on our socials for that announcement :jingle:
If you want to spot some heritage locos of your own there are plenty to be spotted at Edinburgh Waverley this December.
The easiest of these is the Edinburgh Polar Express experience, running steam trains 5 times a day each weekend, and as we know, it costs absolutely nothing to see the train from the outside! Also making an appearance on Saturday the 14th and the 21st of December is the Edinburgh Christmas market rail tour, again headed by a steam locomotive. They are due to pull into Edinburgh at 13:30 and leave again at 16:40. Times are often unreliable though so prepare to wait…
For diesel fans the Midland Pullman HST is visiting Edinburgh around twice a week, usually arriving around lunchtime and leaving around afternoon tea-time (specific times). Additionally, on the 30th of December, the SRPS Bo'ness Xmas Explorer featuring the class 47 arrives in Edinburgh at 08:45.
If you’re into this kind of rail-nerd stuff don’t forget to join our discord!
A final note: As the university cracks down on protests and refuses to negotiate on full divestment from bodies complicit in the ongoing genocide, solidarity with the Palestinians is more important than ever; to that effect Railsoc has released a statement condemning the actions of the university and emphasising our support for the Palestinian people, which can be read here.
That will be all for now, thank you very much for reading this far and from everyone at Railsoc we wish you a happy high-speed holiday :HST: