Railholiday News Blog
On this page you will find snippets of what we are doing here at Railholiday. Like most things Cornish, these snippets are likely to be posted "dreckly"!
For more on what we are doing you could also take a look at our social media feeds.
May 2026
Railholiday features in a BBC News item about the increase in staycations due to the high price/restricted availability of jet fuel resulting from the attacks on Iran.
April 2026
Our latest blog is a guide to visiting Penzance, which is easy to access by train from all our carriages. We hope you will find it useful.
March 2026
We have changed our booking conditions to add a free cancellation option and a cooling down period. We hope this will make it easier to book with confidence and allow time to talk to any others in your party to make sure the dates work for them.
The roof of the royal carriage is now finished and Dave has started working on the window frames. Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram to witness our progress.
November 2025
We have won the gold prize for Responsible Tourism at the 2025 Cornwall Tourism Awards in November! It was a really tough class, with lots of entrants, so we are absolutely thrilled. Responsible tourism is at the heart of all we do, so winning this accolade means a lot to us.
To read our latest newsletter, covering the events of 2025 please follow this link.
Disaster struck our blog page in November when it was inadvertently deleted by our web provider. We've managed to recover the majority of posts using a site called Wayback Machine. However several articles have been lost and it is likely to take several months to rewrite them all. Do please keep visiting Railholiday.uk as it will continually be evolving.
June 25
The gas boiler that heated Harvey has been replaced with a 12kW air source heat pump as part of our push to reach Net Zero carbon emissions. As part of the project Harvey has been fitted with luxurious underfloor heating throughout. In November 2024 Dave completed the insulation of the lobby area, and underneath the carriage. We have also added thick curtains to the main living rooms and bedrooms to retain even more heat and keep the bedrooms darker at night. This has made a huge difference to how cosy Harvey feels in winter.
Work continues on the royal coach in earnest. Dave has repaired the inner frame in the main living area, using sweet chestnut from our woodland. He is now making external panels, which are well underway.
Dave has been making fibreglass moulds to replace the droplight windows in Mevy. Despite purchasing the highest quality FSC marine ply for these windows, they have started to look very shabby after only a decade of wear. We are hoping the latest technique will reduce the time spent in maintenance.
June 2024
We have added a green roof to the air source heat pump housing, so we are now waiting for nature to do its magic. We now have a total of eight green roofs over our two sites.
To read our latest newsletter, covering the events of 2024 please follow this link.
We were delighted to win the Cornwall Sustainability Awards Most Sustainable Small Business of 2023 in December.
June 2023 marked the 25th anniversary of our first holiday letting!
Beyond Paradise (The new series on BBC iPlayer) it certainly is, not Shipton Abbott but the filming locations of Port Eliot stableyard in St Germans, Looe, Pentillie and Whitsands Bay. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world. We're not sure why they felt the need to pretend it's set in Devon...
The fabulous Boconnoc Steam Fair came to Port Eliot in St Germans for the first time this year, and we had our first weekend of Tunes in the Park, with Tom Jones, Madness and Elbow.
Both St Germans and Harvey at Hayle have full size outdoor table tennis tables now. They are proving very popular with guests....and staff!
The Old Luggage Van is undergoing some major works on the far end and the path side ahead of a very busy season. Jan 22
Railholiday feature in a new BBC feature on quirky places to stay. You can see it here.
Great News! Railholiday have won the self-catering section of the iPaper Travel Awards 2021. You can watch the awards by clicking here.
If you haven't yet seen Railholiday in Tim Dunn's excellent series The Architecture the Railways Built on TV you can now watch it online. Tim says: "As you might know, I’m also the Travel Editor for Trainline (the UK’s largest train ticket retailer)… so I’ve written this dedicated page about the episode on our Trainline site."
Harvey is treated to a new set of curtains made by Dave and Kaf. April 2021
Royal Coach - Paint stripping is progressing well in the London Lounge of the Royal Coach. Repairs to the structure under the windows are underway. Many of the Anaglypta ceiling panels are missing and so GRP moulds have been taken from the best remaining ones to reproduce them. 20th February 2021
Harvey features on the BBC's Escape to the Country this week (1st week of February 2021).
Railholiday feature on Tim Dunn's The Architecture the Railways Built on Yesterday at 8:00pm on Tuesday 26th January
December 2020. Work starts in earnest on the Royal Coach.
The life expired canvas roof covering was removed and the non-original hardboard false ceiling taken down.
Repairs and repainting trackside of the TPO - November 2020
Preparatory work begins for the royal coach project
Repairs and repainting of the Old Luggage Van in July 2020
The time stamps on these pics are 14:56 and 15:47 - guests arrived just after 16:00!
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Contact Railholiday by email at office@railholiday.co.uk or by phone on (+44) 01503 230783. ©
