Changing Trains At Liverpool
To get from Birmingham to Preston, I took a London Midland train to Liverpool, from where I got a local service to Lancashire’s County Town.
The first train was excellent, as one of the pictures shows. It cost me £24.10 in First, but I had a big table to myself. I’ve used the company before when travelling between Liverpool and Birmingham and I prefer them to Virgin for that route.
Liverpool is a good interchange, as the station is close to Liverpool’s magnificent Civic Buildings. You can also walk down to the Mersey and then get a train back from St. James’s Street. I know that I know Liverpool well, but it must be the only city in England, where the iconic sites can be reached by walking downhill. But then it seems that few city centre stations are close to the shops and attractions. Some like Leeds and Nottingham mean an uphill walk.
On this trip, I’d picked up some sandwiches in Birmingham New Street Station, so all I did was visit the Walker Art Gallery or the National Gallery of the North, as it is sometimes called. We need more attractions like this, close to major interchange railway stations.
The poor part of the trip, was the train from Liverpool to Preston. it was one of Northern Rail’s Class 156, which after the two other trains of the day, was a real drop in standards.
Cafe Liverpool In Bilbao
I stopped here for a coffee by the cathedral, as anybody with a connection to my university city would.
Cafe Liverpool In Bilbao
It’s funny, but how many English cities would be used for the name of a hotel or cafe in Europe? The only common one other than London seems to be Bristol, but that is probably because a Marquis put himself about a bit!
The coffee was good though!
Are The Reds Fighting Back?
I’ve never seen a red squirrel in the wild and it has looked for some time, that they will disappear from the mainland in England.
However, the BBC is reporting that some red squirrels on Merseyside, may have developed an immunity to the squirrelpox carried by the dreaded grey squirrels.
I have found a link here to the research on this at Liverpool University.
Let’s hope that the immunity spreads to red squirrels elsewhere in the UK.
A Very Good Football Trip
As I said here, my trip to Blackpool, yesterday, started well at Kings Cross.
As I had a few minutes before the Glasgow train to Preston, I had time to visit the Virgin First Class lounge at Euston. I think some companies charge extra for the lounge if you’re on a cheap ticket or close it altogether at weekends, but Virgin don’t seem to penny pinch like that at Euston.
The train was on time to Preston, but it did look very much like rain.
Approaching Preston
As I had booked to Blackpool North station, which is a walk of three kilometres to the ground, I asked if I could use my ticket to Blackpool South station, which is only about eight hundred metres. I was informed that there would be no problem by someone from Northern Rail! I certainly hadn’t found a Jobsworth.
The guy on the train gave the same story and I arrived at the station to walk to Bloomfield Road.
Walking To Bloomfield Road
I made it in plenty of time, walking in the sun, although the weather was threatening.
It really started to rain, just as I got under cover in my seat.
The match was a topsy-turvy affair, with Ipswich winning with the odd goal in five, scored in stoppage time. Ipswich were one-nil down at half-time, so unusually for a manager, Mick McCarthy threw caution to the wind and played with four forwards across the field.
He got the result all the Ipswich fans wanted and you do wonder, if he hasn’t found the best way to use the talent he has available.
I must admit, I did look at the two Blackpool goals last night on the BBC and I can’t help feeling that if Cresswell and Smith had been playing, one or both of these goals might not have been scored.
In the end the Ipswich fans all went about their journeys home happy with the result, so the two Blackpool goals didn’t matter.
As it connects better to the London trains, I decided to do the long walk to Blackpool North station. However, I didn’t have to walk all the way, as I found a 14 bus, that went near the station. There was the usual silly ticketing palaver, you get with a bus pass outside London and I do wonder if bus companies have shares in those that produce ticket paper.
I got a crowded train to Preston fairly easily, but it arrived there, just as a Euston train was departing. A Virgin employee told me, I had an hour to wait, but as I had an Off-Peak ticket I could take any train. I then realised, it would be nice to eat something, so as a Manchester Piccadilly train was alongside, a gluten-free supper in Carluccio’s at Piccadilly station beckoned. I could then take one of the more numerous trains to London. The Virgin also told me, that the Manchester to London trains weren’t busy, as City and United weren’t playing.
Where had all the Jobsworths gone?
I had my supper in Carluccio’s at a fast pace and made the 19:35 train with ease. I had intended to upgrade to First, but as I got four seats and a table to myself in Stearage, I didn’t bother. In fact the fifteen pound upgrade, I didn’t buy, virtually paid for my meal in Carluccio’s.
As I’d arrived in Piccadilly virtually dead on seven, I’d ordered, waited for and eaten my meal in about half-an-hour, whilst checking the news and the football results on the excellent wi-fi. So with luck, I’d be able to go straight home from Euston and catch the start of Match of the Day.
I did! It had been a very good trip.
In a few years time, going from London to Blackpool will be a lot easier, as they are electrifying the line from Preston, as part of the major electrification between Manchester, Liverpool and Preston. It has also been stated that this will mean a tour-hourly service of faster electric trains to and from London. But as I’ll still have the problem of getting a decent gluten-free meal on the way down, but as it will be a greatly improved service from Blackpool to Manchester Piccadilly, I can still go via Manchester and have a decent meal, whilst changing trains.
In fact, if like I did, you have a ticket from Blackpool North to London, you will have several stations, where you can change onto a fast train to London, if you just missed a direct train and didn’t want to wait two hours. You could change at Preston, Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool or even Wigan North Western.
I can’t help but feel, that this long-awaited electrification is going to make a lot of difference to the whole of the triangle based on Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool.
It should have been done years ago!
Two Stories From Liverpool
I don’t go into betting shops these days, except in a High Street, when I need to use the toilet, as most good betting shops, have ones that are clean and well-kept.
So when I see that Liverpool is thinking of banning fixed-odds betting machines in shops as reported in the Liverpool Post, it won’t affect me. But I do think, that allowing these money grabbers into shops, was a very backward step for life in general.
The other story is very progressive and the BBC is reporting that Merseyrail will allow contactless payments all over its network.
This should happen everywhere and on buses too!
Liverpool Tries Scrapping Bus Lanes
It is being reported on both BBC Breakfast and their web site, that Liverpool is scrapping bus lanes in a nine month experiment to see if it reduces congestion.
What Liverpool really needs is better information on how to use the buses and walk around the city, as I said here in this post. I didn’t get a reply. Unlike from Birmingham after this post.
Closer to home, I’m being seriously inconvenienced by road works in a bus lane, which has resulted in the closest stop to my house being closed. This means that when I return from the Angel with my shopping, I have to walk several hundred metres further. In a couple of cases, I’ve taken taxis home, to avoid the walk.
Hopefully, in a few days, we’ll be back to normal!
Electrification At Eccles
I got off the train at Eccles station and took these pictures of the electrification.
It’s all coming on at a pace faster than I had expected. And it looks a lot more robust than I’m used to seeing on railways in the UK. More details on the electrification of this line are given here in Wikipedia.
The first benefit for rail users will be Manchester to Scotland services by Trans Pennine using new Class 350 electric trains,, which are scheduled to start at the end of this year. Liverpool to Manchester services should start in a year or two, using refurbished Class 319 trains.
The First Shoots Of Electrification
Huyton lies on the original route of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and you pass through Rainhill, where the trials were synonymous with the Stephenson’s Rocket, on your way to Manchester. As you travel you notice the pylons for the electrification of the line by the trackside.
It reminds me of watching as a child, as the pylons started to be added to the Great Eastern Main Line electrification was extended to Chelmsford and Colchester in the 1950s and 1960s.
There is one big difference. The modern pylons are much stronger than those of the past. Hopefully, these will cure some of the overhead wiring problems encountered on some of the lines electrified in the last century.
Huyton Station
To get to Manchester from Preston, you can go directly to Manchester Victoria, but I wanted to go to Eccles to see the start of the electrification of the lines in the area.
I changed trains at Huyton on the edge of Liverpool.
A Train Leaves Huyton For Liverpool
The station is a bit different to when I used it years ago in about 1965. At the time, I was in digs in the area, whilst studying at Liverpool University and went there once to catch a train into the city. I think I may have cycled there from my digs, but I have no memory of the details.
But it wasn’t the smart station it is today. Although Wikipedia says here it will be getting better. it will in a couple of years be on a fully electrified line between Liverpool and Manchester, with four platforms instead of just two.
An Open Letter To The Lord Mayor Of Liverpool
I spent four years in Liverpool in the 1960s and as I met my late wife there, although like me, she was a Londoner and we had forty good years together, I have a great affection for the Second City. I also know the city well, although that is in part memory from nearly fifty years ago.
On Friday, I took the Virgin train up from Euston for a meeting with Liverpool University. As I had an hour to spare, instead of going straight to my meeting, I decided to awake an old memory by going to see the Richard Huws fountain by the Pier Head. I took the Wirral Line to James Street station and I must say, the Underground looks very good after refurbishment.
The fountain didn’t disappoint, especially as it was working.
I then needed to find my way up to the University. As I’m 66 and have a free bus pass, I remembered that in the 1960s, there was a bus from the Pier Head up Brownlow Hill. But I also know, that traffic layouts in Liverpool have changed a lot. So I did what I would do in London and found a bus stop. I tried several and there was no information that I could find that told me how to get up the hill. So in the end, I took a taxi and got entertained by one of Liverpool’s many comedians.
I know the city from a walking point of view well, but I didn’t see any serious walking maps like those in London, Ipswich or Bristol. I even gave directions to a group of alumni from my university, who were looking for the same fountain.
On the subject of information about the city, you rarely find any adverts or posters in London, directing tourists to visit Liverpool. Only recently, I finally persuaded an old friend, to have a couple of days with her husband in Liverpool and they returned thoroughly impressed with what they had visited. I recently came up to see the Chagall exhibition and the floor of St. George’s Hall, but I only heard about the latter by accident. I’m glad I didn’t miss it!
Unlike some cities I won’t name, you have the attractions, the hotels and the restaurants, but they just need to be linked with more and better information.
The Anonymous Widower 