Wednesday, myself and my "better half" opted for a lunch out somewhere, well it's been a fair weeks since we were last out together, and as the kids were at school we thought that  we might as well treat ourselves right??.

Having thought of a few options, we eventually settled on The Wentworth Arms in Elmesthorpe, a small village not too far from Hinckley and, of course, more or less next to the railway line that runs between Nuneaton and Leicester, a coincidence on my part???. Well yes maybe ;). Arriving just after 12:30pm, we located a nice little booth next to the front window of the restaurant which overlooks the main Station Road between the A47 Clickers Way and the next village of Stoney Stanton, as well as a small field, you can also get good views of the railway line too, fancy that lol. Station Road, is so called as there was once a station in Elmesthorpe until 1969, when it was closed and subsequently demolished, however the old goods shed still stands and is now in use as a private business, although sometimes proposals to reopen Elmesthorpe do reappear from time to time. 

Having a guess that we'd be there for the best part of an hour or so, I had a little gander at Real Time Trains website and seen that there was a few movements booked through during the course of our stay, and so in between eating I would have a look out to see what was coming.

The Start of it.

Normally, as a rule, I refrain from having a starter course, but as I was not working today, I decided to push the boat out and indulge in a starter, better the devil you know, I went for the starter I usually have which was the Crispy Chicken Strips, lovely pieces of chicken in a Louisiana-style coating accompanied by a garnished salad and BBQ dip, needless to say they weren't on my plate for very long :P. 

The Main Subject.

After having the starter, and allowing sufficient time to go down, I was presented with my main course, again, in my opinion, was a tasty dish and was the Gammon & Eggs, consisting of quite a thick piece of gammon steak, it was accompanied by thick cut gourmet chips, garden peas as well as 2 fried eggs, ideal if you want to dip your chips in the yolk, because lets face it, we've all dipped chips in an egg yolk at some point or other, you can though have either 2 pineapple rings instead or 1 egg and 1 pineapple ring, it's entirely your choice.

The Inbetweeners.

Whilst it's easy to go on about how good the food was, and believe me, it's very good, it's very easy to overlook another main interest of mine - The Trains!!!. During the hour or so I was there, I seen 3 freight services with loco's from GBRf, Freightliner and finally DB Cargo making appearances:

• 12:43 66740 Sarah 6G16 Stud Farm - Bescot.
• 13:23 70005 4M81 Felixstowe - Crewe Basford Hall.
• 13:46 66183 6B30 Mountsorrel - Northampton Castle Yard.

There was of course the usual diet of CrossCountry Class 170 Turbostars plying their trade between Birmingham, Leicester and East Anglia, but due to operational requirements, 6V92 Corby - Margam steel empties were cancelled, and 6M26 Eastleigh - Mountsorrel empty ballast was running a bit late, and we had to leave before it arrived.

Photting with Style!.

Apart from a very decent place to grab a bite to eat, whether you want a light snack, a big juicy steak or even just a coffee and cake, on the opposite side of the field is a stile which is also a public footpath across the railway line PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS ISN'T A GREEN LIGHT TO TRESPASS ON THE RAILWAY!!. The stile is set a fair bit back from the line and gives quite a bit of height over the overgrowth to view, and indeed photograph passing trains, although the only flip side really is the fact it isn't a particularly busy line, although from time to time, especially at certain weekends you do get diverted container freight services from East Anglia to the Midlands/North-West as well as the odd sand train that originates at Middleton Towers, near Kings Lynn, and if you're really lucky, the occasional discharged oil tank train from Bedworth going back to Immingham's Puma Energy site - usually consisted of a rake of rent-a-wrecks.

Further information about The Wentworth Arms can be found HERE.

Cheers

James