First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

You spoke, and I listened.  That's democracy.  I wrote a woolly end of year post about where the blog might go in 2026 and you replied in your thousands [ed: pls chk] to say that you would actually read about me fannying around in the back end of Merseyside.  So it's back to where we started, back to Round The Merseyrail We Go.  (I will not be changing the header again).

There are sixty-nine stations on the Merseyrail network (nice) and the plan is that I'll visit one, have a poke around it, then have a wander round the vicinity too.  Merseytravel publishes Local Area Maps on its website, giving you a rough idea of what's worth checking out in the vicinity of a railway station, though in true Merseytravel style many of the links don't work and some stations don't have one.  That should be a good guide for me.  I won't be doing the City Line or any of the other stations on the map, because I need to draw a line somewhere, and I don't want to end up visiting the entire north all over again.  This is a then and now, let's see what's changed, kind of thing.

After all, a lot has changed on Merseyrail in nineteen years.  The trains are different.  The ticketing's different.  The city centre stations no longer have brown plastic seats, and they don't have that distinctive smell any more.  The city region, in general, is in a much better place than it was back then, pre-Capital of Culture, pre-Liverpool One, pre-tourist mecca.  No, it's not all perfect, and there are still regeneration projects, poverty, and a real need for investment and good jobs across the county, but it feels like a better place.  Also, I'm now in my thirtieth year of living here; it's a lot more familiar to me.

I'll let the fates decide where I visit each time.  I bought this lunchbox at Car & Kettle, in Settle; in fact, my blog post about that trip actually mentions me buying it.  I've not really used it much over the years - for most of the time it's been in a cupboard full of tupperware - but it's finally got a new purpose.

Each of those bits of paper is a Merseyrail station, and each time I go out I'll pick one at random.  Who knows where it could be?  Hillside?  Aigburth?  The prospects are endless!  Well, not exactly endless.  Not even slightly endless in fact.

You watch the very first one be Birkenhead Park.

Not Dull At All

Thanks to Amy Lou in the really delightful Dull Men's Club on Facebook for pointing this out.  If you track your train on the Wirral Line as it travels under the Mersey, the train symbol changes into a yellow submarine in the water...

...then back to a train once it hits land.

What a delightful little touch to put a smile on your face  More of this sort of thing!

Closing Remarks

When it came to 2025 on the blog, the main phrase is "completion".  I completed the Amsterdam metro map, two years after almost doing it.  I completed the Stockholm metro map, one year after actually visiting every station but forgetting to take a picture at one, so that was more a way of satisfying my particular brand of OCD.  And finally, after six whole years, I finished the West Midlands Railway map. 

That last one is pretty bittersweet.  A lot of the enthusiasm for it was wrecked by Covid.  A period of not being able to travel anywhere, at all, meant that I got out of the habit of going round the rails.  I got out of the habit of leaving the house, to be frank, and I've still not properly recovered.  It became hard work.  It wasn't helped by the West Midlands not being Britain's most scenic area; it's difficult to motivate yourself to travel two hours to pootle around the back of industrial estates overlooked by gasholders and motorway flyovers.  There were undoubtably highlights - I will go on at length about Coventry to anyone who asks me - but I'm glad it's over.  

I will still have to go back.  The Severn Valley Railway reopened its line, following the landslip that cut off the end, so Bridgnorth is once again collectable.  What I'm really waiting for is the two new lines to open - the Camp Hill and Wolverhampton-Walsall routes - but they seem to be existing in a strange limbo state where they're sort of finished, but also not finished.

The highlight of the year was obviously my trip to Helsinki, which was great fun, and makes me wish I could travel all over Europe visiting stations.  I can't, of course, but I can dream, and I do have a spreadsheet all ready with how to do it.  If funds are available in 2026, I have two potential cities in mind, but really, if an eccentric billionaire wants to send me to Istanbul or Beijing or Sydney I'll happily do it.

The question is: what happens next?  I have a couple of ideas going forward.  One is hyper-local: a revisit of Merseyrail's stations and their surroundings in a bit more depth.  I started this blog in 2007 and some of those early entries are really basic, not exploring the local area, not really doing much in fact.  I thought that maybe it'd be interesting to have another look and see what's changed.  Not least my decrepit old face.  Unfortunately I did run this idea past one person and he responded very much in the negative, so that's sat in the back of my head.

My other thought was the Tyne and Wear Metro.  This is one of the few Metros in the UK and, apart from a little pootle about it when I stayed in Newcastle, I've not really touched it.  It's sixty stations, it's a lot of big city but also great scenery, and it would enable me to visit both Horden, which opened during lockdown and still remains unvisited, and the newly opened Ashington line.

What puts me off is that four hour trip across the north every time.  It'd be tiring and, as I discovered heading to Birmingham every time, it can get boring taking the same train over and over.  I'm in two minds.

I'd love to continue with this blog.  It's kept me going in many ways over the years and I love having a project on the go; the last six months without one have felt a little bit empty.  Obviously I'd love to go all over the UK, visit every station, go to every nook and cranny, but that's both impractical and expensive.  That'd involve hotels and passes and a level of commitment that'd be a struggle.  A boy can dream, eh?

As usual, I thank you for reading.  It's an increasingly dwindling readership in the 21st century, with most people doing videos or going over to other projects, but I am at heart a writer, and I can't sit there in front of a camera and push my ugly mug at you.  Thanks again.

Yuletide Felicitations

Here are some baubles on a tree on the platform at St Michaels station.

Happy Christmas!

Integration. Integration. Integration, that's what you need.

Tap & Go is here!

Get your MetroCard, link it to your bank details, and voila!  All you need to board a Merseyrail train  is a tap at the platform validators at the start and finish of your journey.  I've had a card for a couple of months now and I have to say it's transformative.  Wandering up to the barriers at Hamilton Square and simply tapping to get through.  Dabbing on the way out and knowing that the fare will be correctly calculated and capped.  No more queuing.  No more "pay at your destination" when the ticket office staff are on a break.  No more finding the ticket machine on the car park side at Birkenhead North isn't working so you go up and over the bridge to the booking office only to discover someone is trying to plan a journey to Woking via Swansea or something (this has happened and yes I'm still bitter).

It's a marvelous step into the 21st century at last from Merseytravel.  Even more excitingly, you can Tap & Go on buses too:

Oh no, hang on: that's a different Tap & Go.  You don't need a MetroCard for that one; simply use your debit or credit card and it'll go through.  Bus fares are fixed at £2 but if you use the same card the cap will still apply and you won't pay any more than the day pass rate.  It also means you don't have to talk to the driver any more, which is great, because bus drivers are almost always twats.  I've tapped and gone a few times on local buses and it's brilliant.

Oh no, hang on: it's not totally brilliant, because it turns out it only works on one bus company, Arriva, as I discovered yesterday when I futilely hammered my iPhone on the payment slot on a Stagecoach bus.  The driver - who was, in fact, a twat - covered it with his hand and said "We don't do Tap & Go.  What ticket do you want?".  

To recap, then.  If you live in the Merseytravel area and use Stagecoach, you need to ask the driver for a ticket.  If you use Arriva buses, you can tap with a credit or debit card, but not a MetroCard.  If you use Merseyrail, you can tap a MetroCard, but not a credit or debit card.  And none of these methods of payment interact with one another, so if you, say, take an Arriva bus to the station, then a Merseyrail train, then a Stagecoach bus from your destination, none of these will know about each other, so they won't be capped at the price of a Saveaway, so you'll pay over the odds.  I have no idea what the position is with the smaller bus companies, or with the buses that have had a rebrand to the yellow Metro branding and therefore you have no idea what company is running them.  Suffice to say, it's not exactly transparent.

This simply isn't on in 2025.  Liverpool and its environs are a major city region.  It has a good, comprehensive public transport network.  We deserve a payment system that is simple and easy to use.  The MetroCard is one step along the way, but it's a hesitant, tentative step.  I first wrote on this blog about the Walrus card in 2011.  Fourteen years later we've got one of the promised features, at last, at exactly the time the rest of the world has moved on.  Nobody uses Oyster cards in London any more; you tap with your payment card or your phone.  In Helsinki I had an app.  In Amsterdam I had an app.  In Stockholm I had an app.  Whizz the QR code on the reader and I was done.  There is no Tap & Go app as yet.

I understand it's difficult to implement these schemes, and it costs time and money.  I'm once again forced to ask - why don't you talk to the people who've made it work already?  Why not rock up at TfL and say "can we use your software, please?"  

I guess I'm getting a bit old and tired and cynical.  I'm getting a bit tired of Close Friend Of The Blog Mayor Steve Rotheram standing in front of some amazing new transport innovation and it turning out to be a bit rubbish.  The Tap & Go that's limited in scope.  The trains that suffer endless teething problems.  The bendy buses that aren't bendy buses.  The hydrogen buses that we simply won't talk about any more because that's a bit embarrassing.  The station at Baltic that's still not under construction.

I want Merseytravel - or Metro, if that's what it's called now; even the rebranding has been maddeningly done - to work well for its residents and encourage people onto public transport.  Simple, uncomplicated ticketing is one of those key elements, and it's still far off.  Perhaps taking the buses under local control will help.  I hope so.  

(And yeah, it'd be nice if Tap & Go were also available on the many stations within the Merseytravel region that are not on Merseyrail, but I'm trying to be a little bit realistic here.  You can't expect miracles.  That'll probably arrive in about 2087).  

The Dutch Cap

A couple of years ago I went to Amsterdam in search of the stations on this map.

Those coloured lines form the five lines of the Amsterdam Metro, and I trekked all over the city and visited them all.  It was great fun, and started a trend of me going to a foreign city and collecting their Metro lines.  Good, wholesome entertainment.

While I was there, I noticed that, in addition to the lines on the Metro, there were three heavy rail stations on the map as well: Muiderpoort, Science Park and Diemen.  Wouldn't it be fun to visit those as well? 

Best laid plans and all that.  While Muiderpoort was delightful, and I enjoyed wandering round the charming neighbourhood nearby, when I got to Science Park I discovered that there was a problem with the overhead wires; all the trains were cancelled.  I turned round, dejected, and went to get a tram back to the hotel.

All of you who were bored by this story the first time round are probably wondering why you're getting a recap.  The reason is, the BF.  He got an urge about a month ago to go away.  We deserved it, he said.  A little city break somewhere.  A treat.  What about Amsterdam...?

YES, I said, a little too quickly.

I'd like to add I had a thoroughly nice time in Amsterdam, wandering the streets, eating, drinking.  It was all lovely and I didn't force the BF to go on the Metro too many times.  (We were staying near to Rokin station - sometimes it simply made more sense!).  However, I did suggest that on the Sunday morning, while he had a nice lie in, I'd go for a little walk.  A little walk between stations.

As you'd expect for a station with that name, designed to spearhead regeneration efforts, a lot of money has gone into making Science Park look a bit funky.  It's cool and curved, because hey, this is a modern station, dude, yeah? 

I sound cynical, and, in truth, the design elements are merely some curved walls and a bit of glass.  However, when you see what a new station looks like in the UK, you actually appreciate the effort.  Someone tried here and that's to be commended.

So now here I was, back on the Kruislaan, back walking between some Dutch railway stations, only this time in the opposite direction.  It was actually nice to be back here because this is also where I was radicalised.  I'd always been a fan of urbanism - making cities nice with more people and trees and transport and things - but it was looking at this particular apartment block on Kruislaan that pushed me into evangelism.   

It was the one that made me think, why can't we do that in the UK?  Long rows of balconies and pleasing spaces.  Terraces, in fact, stretching the length of the home.  When I'd been here in 2023 I'd seen a woman reading a book on one of the balconies, and her young daughter had wandered out from a different door and come over to see her and it seemed so nice.  Big windows looking out on a tree-lined road with dedicated, separated cycle lanes and good quality pavements.

Why can't we do this in the UK?  Why do we always have to build miserable boxes, miserable shells, with no features?  Why are we building plain roads without infrastructure on them?  Why aren't we making life nice for people?  I'm tempted to enter the EuroMillions because if I had £197 million I'd absolutely spend it building some good homes for people to live in rather than whatever cube of nothingness gets chucked up in an field without any buses.

Fizzing with anger and frustration again I turned off the main road and into the sportspark.  Laid out here was everything for the active residents of Amsterdam, and I walked amongst their healthy souls, sweating fatly.  Kids played Sunday league football, their dads yelling louder than they ever could.  The thwack of tennis balls matched my step.  Through the trees I caught glimpses of a running track and joggers and cyclists were everywhere.

The southern edge of the park used to be home to De Meer, Ajax's home ground, until they moved to the much larger Johan Cruijff Arena in the 90s.  The land was sold off and turned into apartment blocks, with the streets named after great stadia that were home to significant matches: there's a Wembleylaan, and an Anfieldroad, which I regret not detouring for a look at now.

The end of the park was marked by a motorway, currently in the middle of a comprehensive resurfacing which had completely closed one lane.  A woman with a little spaniel called vaguely for him to come back to her as he darted back and forth over the bridge, excited to be out. 

I was dropped into the district of Diemen, behind more apartment blocks and on wide streets.  People were out walking, enjoying the unusually warm September morning, and the stream of cyclists was neverending.  On a balcony, a woman was hanging out washing to dry.  Cars crept around at 20 - that's 20 kilometres an hour, not miles, and nobody seemed to be bothered.

The area had obviously been done up lately.  Street furniture had been put in everywhere, benches and boulders that blocked pedestrian paths to road vehicles but also gave people somewhere to sit and rest.  These are, again, things that would never be introduced to a residential area in the UK because they would be presumed to be a magnet for anti social behaviour i.e. some teenagers might sit on the bench on a Friday night and giggle.  Instead British children stay inside on their phones, and apparently this is also a problem, because basically we hate children. 

There was a shopping centre here and I nipped in for a look round.  It had the vague smell of ham you always get in down-at-heel malls.  I'm not sure what causes it but no matter where you go in the world, if you go to an indoor precinct in the suburbs there will be a definite whiff of expired meat.  I've experienced it all over Europe now.  

Half the units were empty, and those that were full were closed, it being a Sunday morning and everything.  The only two stores that were open were the Albert Heijn supermarket (which I pronounce "Albert Hiney", because I'm hilarious and not annoying at all), and a flower shop called Bloem!.  There's something about that exclamation mark I really enjoy.   

I wandered back out of the shopping centre with a Coke Zero to try and offset the heat.  It really was incredibly warm for this time of year; lovely if you're a tourist, a wee bit worrying if you're a Dutchman living in a city that's roughly three metres below sea level.

Diemen station used to be next to a level crossing, a significant pinch point for traffic and railway movements on a busy line to Amsterdam Centraal.  A few years ago the city bit the bullet and eliminated the level crossing by building a tunnel under the railway line for traffic. 

It's such an enormous construction that your heart sighs.  Level crossings are a pain in the backside for everyone in the 21st century, and getting rid of them is the ideal.  However, when you see the engineering needed to implement it, you understand why they persist.  There's no way of eliminating the level crossing that closes the road through Birkdale eight times an hour without an engineering project of gargantuan proportions.

Diemen station was rebuilt at the same time but it's no looker.  Having spent all their cash on the road tunnel clearly the city planners decided two platforms and some ticket machines was all the railway could get.  They do have ticket barriers, of course, even though it's unstaffed; I'm not sure why the UK demands a person stands next to the barriers at all times watching people waft in and out when the Netherlands seems perfectly capable of using them without getting trapped.

They also skimped on the signs.  There wasn't a single Diemen sign outside the station that I could see, meaning I had to settle for the platform sign.  It didn't matter.  I was in a wonderful city and I had finally crossed off every station on their metro map.  I was content.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Back in May, I pointed out that there are no Merseyrail maps on the new trains.  I said this was a terrible shame.

Clearly I have an enormous influence over at Rail House because there are now Merseyrail maps on the new trains.  The only problem is they're not very good.

There are some great, talented graphic designers working at Merseyrail, producing some fantastic pieces of promotional material.  I assume they were all on holiday when this was made.

Let's start with the colours.  Yes, I've long said that there are Colour Tsars demanding that everything is yellow and grey, so I get why they've persisted with it here.  Even though it looks awful.  But making the region yellow and marking it as "Merseyrail network" in the key makes absolutely no sense at all.  So the Merseyrail network isn't those little green and blue lines where the trains run?  It's all the land inbetween?  It's Neston and Huyton and Frodsham and all those other places you can't get a Merseyrail train to - indeed, it's places that don't even have a railway station.  What they mean is "this is where Merseyrail tickets are vaild" - Day Savers and the like - but that's not what it says.

The reason for it is simple of course - they've used the old Merseytravel map, now called the "Local Rail Network" map, and stripped off anything that's not Merseyrail.  Why they have done this is purely a business decision; you're on a Merseyrail train, here's all the Merseyrail destinations, done.  It doesn't matter that it's actually quite useful information to know; that other networks show this sort of thing (the Tube map is overwhelmed with lines that aren't actually tube lines); and that getting rid of them means you now have to fill the space with horrible big grey boxes telling you that there are connections available.  The box at Bidston, for example, says this:
 

If only there were a quicker, easier, and more logical way to show this, like, oh I don't know, actually including the line on the map:

They've made the map wordier and more complicated for no reason at all.  It also means there's a big yellow space which is sitting there, unused.

And bloody Nora those grey boxes are ugly.  The directional spikes are horrible and the determination to not show any actual lines on the line diagram means they're scattered all over the place - the right hand side of the map has four boxes on it and only two of them have edges that line up. 

You can also see how copying over the map from the original means that Lime Street is shortened to "Lime St".  The reason this happens on the Local Rail Network Map is because there's not much room to fit it in.  Here you've got all the space in the world.  You could put Lime Street Lower Level if you really wanted to.

(I should clarify that this area on the Local Rail Network map isn't any good either.  Edge Hill is way too close, the spacing of stations on the Northern Line between Brunswick and Cressington is all over the place - who knows what it's going to look like when Baltic turns up - and why isn't James Street in capital letters when it's a city centre station on the Loop?  But all that's for a different rant.  Oh, and also the webpage on the Merseytravel site where the map is held calls it the "Local Rail Newtwork Map". 

Which, while amusing, is just sloppy).

The Merseyrail map on the trains really is a case of "will this do?".  There was an opportunity here for a proper redesign where those gifted designers I talked about earlier could be given a blank canvas and allowed a ground-up rethink.  Put the two Merseyrail lines on the trains and think about it as an opportunity.  Alternatively, stick with what you know and put the Local Rail Network Map on the trains.  This halfway house is no good to anyone.