We meet at Stoke Station around noon and take a short drive for take lunch at a distillery. Then, it’s the history of making pottery in…The Potteries. We visit the fascinating Etruria Industrial Museum and step back in time at the Gladstone Pottery Museum, which also houses the only toilet museum we know of!

It’s narrow-gauge steam and more recent railway history today as we head to the Amerton Railway for a ride around a country park, followed by Apedale Heritage Centre for narrow gauge steam and an interesting mining museum. This includes the opportunity to go ‘underground’ before we continue to the ‘railway town’ of Crewe and the quirky Crewe Heritage Centre.

We head south, spending the morning at the incredible Statfold Barn site, crammed with narrow gauge steam and so much more. Then, it is time for some reflection at the National Memorial Arboretum (a highlight for many on our previous visit), before making the first ever Inside Track appearance at the Chasewater Railway for industrial steam in a lovely lakeside location.

North today into the Staffordshire Moorlands and the excellent Churnet Valley Railway. Standard gauge, canal side steam, through beautiful countryside. There is even more steam on offer today, this time alongside a lakeside, on the Leek and Rudyard Railway before heading back pausing for industrial steam – and liquid refreshment – on the former colliery Foxfield Railway.

Our final morning and we meander back to Stoke-on-Trent for Stoke Museum and a visit to the historic, but still working, Middleport Pottery. We see how pottery is actually made before heading home from Stoke Station early afternoon.