Train plus boat
The real outing is steam to Lakeside, then forty minutes across Windermere to Bowness and back, three to four hours on one ticket.
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The whole ride is eighteen minutes each way, and that is the first thing to know before you decide. Five kilometres of track in the Leven valley at the southern tip of Windermere, all that survives of a Furness Railway branch opened in 1869, closed in 1965 and brought back by enthusiasts in 1973. A steam locomotive hauls 1950s carriages through woodland with whistle, smoke and the smell of coal, then pulls up at Lakeside pier where the lake steamer waits alongside. Here is the point: the train alone does not make a day out, but it becomes persuasive when you buy it with the boat. The Train and Boat ticket to Bowness (about GBP 29 adult, 17 child, 84 family) rebuilds the old Victorian rail-to-steamer link: steam from Haverthwaite to Lakeside, forty minutes across Windermere to Bowness, and back the same way. Three to four hours that pass without effort, and you can just as well start from Bowness by boat if that is where you are staying, since the combined ticket is sold at both ends. The train on its own is GBP 12.50 adult return, 7.30 child, 37.50 family, under-threes free. Haverthwaite station is the heart of it: an engine shed you can wander through, a shop, a woodland playground and a tea room on the platform open from nine. It suits small children well, and access is better thought out than you expect on a heritage line: ramps to the shop, tea room and playground, staff who will give you a hand up into the carriage, and a wheelchair lift into the viewing compartment. No booking is needed; in fact tickets are not sold online at all during the steam season. You pay at the window and board the next train, and the worst that happens on a busy August afternoon is that you wait for the one after. Getting there: Haverthwaite sits directly on the A590, about 20 to 25 minutes from junction 36 of the M6 and 30 minutes by car from Bowness via Newby Bridge, with a pay-and-display car park beside the station (GBP 2.50 for two hours, 3.50 for the day). The season runs daily from 28 March to 1 November 2026, six trains each way, the first leaving Haverthwaite at 09:50 and the last one back arriving at 16:13 - though the 09:50 is dropped from 3 October to the end of the season. Outside that, only the December Tinsel Trains run, booked online and priced separately. Either end has something to round off the day: the Lakes Aquarium at Lakeside (joint ticket with the train) and the Lakeland Motor Museum a few minutes from Haverthwaite.
The real outing is steam to Lakeside, then forty minutes across Windermere to Bowness and back, three to four hours on one ticket.
An engine shed you can wander through, a woodland playground and a platform tea room open from nine.
Ramps to the shop, tea room and playground, staff to help you aboard, a wheelchair lift into the viewing compartment, and no booking needed.
Haverthwaite Station, Nr Ulverston, Cumbria LA12 8AL
Honestly no if you are driving thirty minutes from Bowness just for it: fifty minutes there and back is over before the children settle. Buy the combined boat ticket, or pair it with the Lakes Aquarium at Lakeside, and it becomes a convincing half day.
No, and you cannot anyway: the line sells nothing online and takes no bookings for ordinary trains. Pay at the Haverthwaite or Lakeside window and board the next departure; if you miss one, the next is about an hour to an hour and a quarter later. The one exception is the December Tinsel Trains, which are booked online only.
