New! Improved!

There's been a few quiet improvement projects happening at stations across Merseyside.  I say "quiet" because not much fuss seems to be made out of them; the workmen just seem to be toiling away and no-one's noticed.  I devoted a quiet Sunday to having a look at how a couple of them were getting on.

My first stop was Birkenhead North.  It's recently gained a new park and ride facility, with a secure car park on the opposite side of the tracks to the station building.  Now things are going up a notch.

The wrought iron footbridge has sadly been dismantled and taken away so that the station can become accessible to all.  Now concrete and steel are slowly forming into a brand new over bridge.

These will be the new lift shafts, in a new structure similar to the one at Hooton.  The bridge is going to go right across to the car park, making the platforms directly accessible from there and avoiding the need for a long walk round on Wallasey Bridge Road.  The new bridge will connect everything together into one complex.

Of course, you can't just demolish a bridge without giving passengers an alternative route; that would be annoying and lead to a lot of people being electrocuted on the third rail as they try to get to Liverpool.  They've jerry-rigged a new bridge at the opposite end of the platform which looks like one of those structures the Army have built in Somerset.

There was a reminder of how important the new bridge will be while I was there.  A young mum with a toddler and a pushchair struggled up and down the steps, taking five times as long to get to the middle platform.

(That makes me sound like a right bastard, but she did have another lady with her; she wasn't on her own.  I didn't just watch her and hope she'd fall over like some kind of sociopath).

The sad part of this is that Birkenhead North still has some of its original ironwork on its platform canopies, which the bridge will no longer match.  That's the price of progress I suppose.

One train journey later I was at Bidston.  It's always been an odd, desolate little halt; because of the marshy soil around the junction it was constructed from wood, as they were afraid something heavier would sink into the ground.  There's a single island connected to the road and the footpath by a pebble dashed bridge.  As the terminus of the Borderlands Line it's possible to wait here for quite some time - especially if there are problems with the trains - but the passenger facilities have mainly been a couple of benches on the platform.  Not so great when the cold winds sweep in from the Irish Sea and gather pace across the acres of bare fields and swamp that surround it.

Something needed to be done.  Now if it was up to me, I'd have moved the whole shebang to alongside Tesco across the way; that would be before the service to New Brighton branches off, so you'd have increased the number of trains to the station, and there would have been a better connection to the superstore and the retail park which are the main attractions round here.  You might even have got Tesco and the retail park to help pay for it.  That would be quite an astronomical ask though, and there are higher priorities elsewhere, so instead the architects at Merseyrail and Merseytravel came up with an alternative.

Their solution was to box in the open area between the ticket office and the toilets to create a new waiting room.  Glass walls and electric doors have been put in to create a warm, cosy space.  The roof's also been replaced with glass to leave it bright and airy.

 
In some ways, it's too welcoming.  While I waited for my train a gang of tween girls arrived and set up shop in the waiting room, breaking up the tedium of "playing out".  They grouped in a corner and played Let It Go from Frozen on a loop via their mobile phones.  While it's nice to have your ears assaulted by something that isn't misogynistic gangster rap or banging techno - I appreciate Idina Menzel as much as the next gay man - it's still incredibly annoying, particularly as the open space and slate floor made it echo into something unrecognisable.  (Also, Pharrell Williams' Happy should have TOTALLY won the Oscar.  So there's that too).

Ironically, a song about how "the cold never bothered me anyway" ended up driving me out into the biting wind and spotty rain, and I went onto the platform.  There's another, slightly bittersweet, technological improvement out here; despite the sign, there's no longer a pay phone at Bidston station, because when did you last see someone use a pay phone?  Someone who wasn't a drug dealer, anyway?  Instead a purpose built Help Point has been installed, which is sad, but it is the 21st century after all.

The work's not finished at Bidston, thankfully, because there are some distinctly slapdash features around - pipes held in by insulation foam, puddles on the concrete.  A poster apologises but the "inclement weather" (i.e. apocalyptic end of days storms straight out of the Hellmouth) has meant the work has had to be delayed.

My final stop on my tour of the new look Merseyrail was Aigburth.  Readers with long memories may remember a moment of hysteria when news reached me that the historic canopy at the station was being removed.  It turned out to be the kind of panic that erupts when people are left uninformed.  Network Rail were working on the canopy, and they planned on getting rid of some of it, but they'd not really publicised the plans; rumours erupted, petitions flew around, and the work had to be halted while everything was smoothed over.

Now Aigburth has a much smaller, more square canopy over just one part of the platform.  This is to help with maintenance and also to stop the roof from chucking its waste water all over the tracks.  I'm still not happy - surely there should be more covered space in a country as rainy as Britain? - but it's certainly not the holocaust we had believed it to be.  The ironwork has also been retained, which is good to see, and also offers a glimmer of hope that it might one day be used to support a decent canopy again.

These are tiny, piecemeal projects, not grand schemes that revolutionise stations and the way we travel.  They're not Crossrail or Liverpool South Parkway.  Still, in their own small way, they improve the experience of riding the rails, and help to increase traffic and satisfaction across Merseyrail.  Always a good thing.

The Definitive Ranking Of Merseyrail Lines

This is an homage* (*blatant rip off) of the excellent Buzzfeed post by Tom Phillips you can read here.  He's a bit harsh on the Northern Line, and I wouldn't have put the DLR first because it's not a Tube line, but anyway: at least he is satisfyingly cruel and cutting about the Arabfly Dangleway.

THE DEFINITIVE RANKING OF MERSEYRAIL LINES

Note On Methodology: for the purposes of this evaluation, the lines are broken down into sections, based on their terminus - so there are four entries for the Wirral Line, and three for the Northern Line.  Otherwise this would be a very short list, and I would miss the opportunity to waffle on.  I'm also going to deal only with the bits of lines that exist entirely on the Merseyrail map, so if you want to hear complaints about the points work at Manchester Oxford Road you'll have to go elsewhere.


19.  That annoying bit of red line between Earlestown and Warrington Bank Quay

It's too short, it has a stupid kink in the middle, and it doesn't really relate to any proper services.

18.  Ellesmere Port to Helsby and beyond

Because it gets about four trains a month, and to get one you have to clamber up and over the bridge at Ellesmere Port like a hamster in a run. It's like they don't want you to use it.

17.  The line to Blackpool North.

A route which exists purely to carry low-rent stag parties to fun pubs, and which never quite shakes off the smell of stale booze and unspent testosterone.

16.  Ormskirk - Preston

Everyone tumbles off the fast, frequent, electric Merseyrail train and wanders up to a manky Pacer that's chugging like a tractor running on pig manure instead of diesel.  It'll be rammed, no-one will be happy, and it takes forever.

15.  City Line to Wigan

With the exception of the rather fantastic St Helens Central, this is a stream of boring stations with odd names ("Thatto Heath"?  You're just making these up now).

14. Kirkby to Wigan

It's a line for people who want to go to either Wigan or Kirkby.  It might get a branch to Skelmersdale in the future.  Must I say more?

13. The Mid-Cheshire Line

It connects Chester with Manchester, it goes through some very pretty countryside (including the Delamere Forest), and it's got some very posh bits.  Usually full of nice old ladies going out for tea and lunch in Altrincham or somewhere equally glamorous.

12.  Crewe and Runcorn

Ok, it's got nice fast whizzy trains, but they don't always stop at Winsford and Hartford, and Acton Bridge is practically a ghost station.  That's just rude.  Also the trains tend to be full of twats shouting into their mobile phones to let you know they're very important.

11.  Southport to Wigan

Because my friend Jennie used to live in Parbold, and so I have a great deal of affection for this line.  It's my list, alright?

10.  Wirral Line to Ellesmere Port

Get your own damn line, Ellesmere Port, and stop stealing Chester's trains.

9.  Northern Line to Kirkby

Fun fact: the Queen was made to ride the line out to Kirkby when she opened Merseyrail in the Seventies.  I bet she was overjoyed about that.  Now it's just a little stub, and you have to sit on the platform for what feels like forever before the train leaves, all the while hoping that those scallies bounding down the ramp towards the platform aren't going to sit in your carriage.  They always do.  And they always decide to try and compete with one another for who has the most offensive and misogynistic rap music on their phone throughout the journey.

8.  City Line to Warrington

Liverpool South Parkway makes this a surprisingly useful line, busy and interesting.  You can interchange for a whole lot of more fascinating places.  Also: Widnes.  Oh yes.

7.  Wirral Line to New Brighton

Like the Kirkby line, it's too short and stubby, but it's got the seaside at the end, so at least you can have an ice cream.


6.  Wirral Line to Chester

This would be a perfectly fine line if it didn't have Chester on the end.  Chester is a big succubus of snobbery and pretension, and doesn't deserve to be on the same route as perfectly respectable places like Bromborough and Birkenhead.  Also, I'm pretty sure you get radiation poisoning every time you go through Capenhurst.


5.  Northern Line from Southport to Hunts Cross

It's too long.  It takes an hour to get from Hunts Cross to Southport, and boy, don't you notice it.  Somewhere around Freshfield fatigue sets in and all those level crossings and golf courses become a blur, until next thing you know the guard's waking you up back in Hunts Cross because you've slept there and back again.


4.  The Borderlands Line

There's town (Bidston, Upton, Heswall, Wrexham).  There's country (a lot of unpronounceable places in the hills).  It's got a river crossing, it's got posh bits, it's got rough bits.  And did I mention that it goes to ANOTHER COUNTRY (ok it's only Wales, but it counts)?  Points are however deducted for  terminating in the middle of the marshes at Bidston. 

3.  City Line to Newton-le-Willows

It's the first intercity railway in the world.  If this line didn't exist, we'd all still be stuck in tiny villages, eating mud and marrying our sisters because no-one could go anywhere else to experience new things like cauliflower and eggs and people with less than eight fingers on each hand.  It's railway history, no, legend, and poor old William Huskisson died in the process.  You should doff your metaphorical hat every time you travel on it.  HUSKISSON!

2.  Northern Line to Ormskirk

I'm not just putting this second because it's my old home line: the Ormskirk branch is a veritable roller coaster of emotions and experiences.  SHIVER as you pass Walton Gaol and the Ashworth High Security Hospital!  THRILL at the idea of crossing the track on that really really high footbridge between Walton and Kirkdale!  LAUGH as you speed past all the poor queuing cars at Switch Island!  PERVE at the many attractive students who take the train on a daily basis!  ENJOY the sweet spot between Sandhills and the plunge into the tunnel where for the briefest of moments, the two cathedrals and the Radio City Tower are in perfect alignment, and you fall in love with Liverpool just that little bit more. 

1.  Wirral Line to West Kirby

You board at a petite Victorian terminus in a charming seaside town.  There are fast, regular trains, that take you through classy suburbs and expanses of golf links.  At Moreton and Leasowe, there are actual biscuit factories, like Willy Wonka but crunchy.  Under the motorway and past the docks, then a stop at Birkenhead Park - the oldest public park in the world - before you go to the modern, shiny Conway Park.  Then you're underground, through Hamilton Square and under the River Mersey into the Loop.  Four stations to take you pretty much anywhere you want to go in Liverpool city centre.  And before you know it, you're back on the way out again, heading back towards the sea.

We have a winner.

Thanks to Sean for suggesting this.

Better Living Through Railways

I'm fat.

No, please; no arguments.  I'm officially fat.  (You were going to argue, weren't you?  No?  Bastard).

After months of denial I've finally decided to do something about it.  No more bread or potatoes - I'm on the Atkins, swallowing eggs for breakfast instead of a yoghurt, which feels wrong.  No tea or dairy of any kind.  No booze.  And exercise.

My exercise options are limited; I haven't done real, proper, physical exertion since that blessed day when I stopped having to do P.E. at 16.  This is because I think spandex is the cloth of the devil, and that no-one who says their hobbies include "going to the gym" is worthy of conversation.  But I love to walk, as this blog will attest.  I can walk for miles without thought or a moment's hesitation.  So I've adopted this, the David Mitchell Workout Plan, as my program of choice.  Ok, it's not exactly going to get me a body like Daniel Craig, but so long as things stop wobbling when I run, that's fine with me.

Plus, walking enables me to visit some of the places close by I've meant to cover for the blog, but haven't got round to it.  A quiet Sunday afternoon gave me an opportunity, so I walked out towards Higher Bebington and the down Lever Causeway.

It feels odd to find such a straight road in England; no bends, no deviations.  We're so used to roads twisting back on themselves and having a sudden kink in the middle because there was a rock there in 1366 and no-one could be bothered moving it.  This road was built by Lord Lever, the soap magnate, along with a couple of ones that have fallen out of use, as a way for him to get from his home at Thorton Hough to the factory in Port Sunlight as quickly as possible.  It makes me think of him as Toad, barrelling along the road in an open topped bone shaker, shouting "poop-poop!" and pushing its engine to its limits.

There's no footpath, so walkers follow the bridleways on each side on the grass.  I was feeling quite pleased with myself for walking just this far, until a man who looked like Gandalf's older brother jogged past swathed in yellow lycra.  I secretly hoped he'd get his foot caught in a hoofprint and break a hip.  That'd learn him, the healthy bugger.  For such a well made road, the Causeway doesn't really go anywhere.  The only place this road goes is close to Storeton, and even then, it bypasses it.  I decided to go through the village, which I'd never visited before.

A minute later, I'd walked right through the village and out the other side.  It's minimal to the point of insignificance - there's just a few stone houses and farmyards, no shop, no pub, not even a church.  It was pretty enough, but I couldn't see the appeal in living here.  And I certainly couldn't see why you'd build a railway station here.

The original station on what's now the Borderlands Line, opened in 1896, was called Barnston, but in 1900 it was renamed Storeton For Barnston.  I'm not sure why.  This tiny hamlet - which must have been even tinier a hundred years ago - doesn't seem to be a suitable draw for a railway company.  I wonder if they thought the low passenger numbers were due to the name, rather than its position in the very centre of rural Wirral.

I returned to the main road, which was again without footpaths, and trudged on.  I was enjoying the lazy pace, the singularity of my presence in the countryside.  It was a bright day, but I was listening to an audiobook, Charlie Connolly's Attention All Shipping, so my mind was filled with frosty days in the Faeroe Islands.  I heartily recommend an audiobook if you're out walking - far better than another load of mp3s on your iPod.  His clambering through Icelandic storms did put my five mile walk in perspective, though; it was a good effort, but I wasn't exactly Scott of the Antarctic.

The road passed over the M53, and I took a moment to gaze down at the barrelling cars, hammering their way through the centre of the peninsula.  It all seemed so fast, so unsuited for a Sunday afternoon.  Where did they need to be at 70 miles an hour?  It just didn't seem right.

A few more twists of the lane (that's how you build a road in England, Lord Lever!) and I was at the railway crossing.  It's just a bridge now.  Apart from the fact that you're on "Station Road", you'd have no clue.

There used to be two platforms here with a low station building, but it closed in 1951.  The Borderlands Line's always wheezed along, barely managing to stay alive, so it's no surprise that they culled the underused stations quite early.  There was a goods yard too, which stayed open for another decade, but which is now just some industrial units.

Back on the bridge though, if you look hard enough, you can spot one sign there used to be something here. There are two bricks on the bridge wall - an older one at each end, with a newer type infilling between them.  In addition, the sandstone caps on top of the wall are replaced by utilitarian concrete in the centre.  This'll be where the building was once.

I left the old station site behind me.  There wasn't much to hang around for, let's be honest, and besides, it made me a bit sad: visiting the site of a dead station.  A bit ghoulish.

I was soon being tickled by the tendrils of Barnston village.  Again, I wondered why they called it Storeton for Barnston when the latter village is bigger, more interesting, and closer to the station.  It's got a church, a pub, a school, everything Storeton didn't.  It was as though someone renamed Lime Street Birkenhead (for Liverpool).  Just another example of railway company perverseness.

Even if the Borderlands Line is incorporated into Merseyrail, there are no plans to rebuild a station there.  This had seemed a bit strange to me - there's quite some distance to the next station, and there is a centre of population that could be served by it.  When I passed some people playing tennis on the court in their garden, I realised why.  Barnston is seriously rich.  No-one here would lower themselves to using public transport.  You could lay on the Royal Train for the residents here and they wouldn't bother using it.

I paused for a moment outside my favourite store on the Wirral, the Barnston Village Hat Shop.  I love that this small village is able to support a retailer selling the most pointless and unnecessary item of fashion this side of a handbag-sized chihuahua.  I didn't see a Post Office or a Co-op, but the villagers are sorted for all their fascinator requirements.

There was a pub just beyond it, the Fox & Hounds, and I thought I'd get myself a drink and recover from my trek.  I went through the first door into the pub.  Big mistake.

I'd wandered into the snug.  It was smaller than my bathroom, and rammed with locals, ruddy faced, bearded, cheery.  They stopped and looked at me as I entered, something I didn't think actually happened in real life.  I couldn't turn around and leave, not in a space that tiny, so I had to brazen it out.

And I was tripped up by my diet.  Normally I'd have ordered a pint of something brown and frothy, with a name like Old Dickerson's Mange, but instead I had to order this:

A mineral water.  A bloody mineral water.  I could feel the disdain from the locals.  I collapsed into a vacant chair, under the flatscreen showing the racing, and buried myself in my drink.  Even that was a mistake, as I began to realise that the table was probably empty because it was reserved for one of the regulars - Pete or Mick or Dave or something else dependable.

I'm sure the pub is lovely.  I'm sure if I'd wandered into the Lounge instead, I'd be singing the pub's praises - it looks marvellous from the website.  Instead I cowered under the Callaghan-era Carling Black Label clock and the pub trophies and wondered how long I could brazen it out before I died of shame.  As each new patron arrived, they chatted amiably with people they've probably know for decades about the upcoming Liverpool-Brighton match, and I became even more anxious.  Don't ever talk about football in close proximity to me.  I'm begging you.

Finally I faked a call on my mobile and left.  Yes, I actually did that.  I'm not proud - I'm more than a bit ashamed - but it seemed the only dignified way to leave the pub before I'd finished my drink.  Strange that after all that walking, this was the bit that made me sweat the most.  Shyness is a terrible affliction.

Some Hope. Not much Glory.

Part two of a two part trip: for part one, click here.

Pedants will observe that Wrexham is not on the Merseyrail map. Well, not physically, anyway: it's mentioned in a box at the bottom. Furthermore, a quick scan down the page will reveal that this post is all about stations on the Borderlands Line which are also not on the Merseyrail map. These pedants will therefore be frothing at their mouths, demanding a justification for this heinous act.

My justification actually comes in four parts:

1) Doing only part of the Borderlands Line never felt right. Since it's such a simple, single route, with trains shuttling back and forth, it feels like a self-contained route, so stopping at Shotton and saying "well, that's that done" seemed like I was short changing it.

2) One day, someday, maybe, it will be part of the Merseyrail family as an extension to the Wirral Line. Possibly.

3) In the comments to this piece, an "Anonymous" commenter suggested I should do every place that's mentioned on the Merseyrail map - in other words, include the little arrows on the edge as well. I kind of like that idea, though of course, it's a tentative thing. It's easy for me to "do" North Wales. Glasgow, less so. I'm mulling it over.

4) It's my blog and if you don't like it, tough.

Sorry for the truly dreadful map. You should see the whole thing: it's an abomination.

With Wrexham under our belts, Roy, Robert and I headed out of town on the Arriva train to Gwersyllt, a station on its way out of the borough. We were - after much agonies - using a North Wales Rover ticket. To be honest, I didn't have any agony buying it at all, but poor Roy spent forty minutes at Waterloo station trying to convince the staff there that it existed, and that he could buy it from them. They finally concluded that they couldn't sell him any Rover tickets, and sent him away with a flea in his ear.

Roy next went to Lime Street Mainline, who'd also never heard of it. They at least called Chester to enquire about it, but they hadn't heard of it either, so in the end Roy just jumped on a train to Bidston to meet Robert and me. Surely the staff at Bidston could sell it to us? Erm, no. Apparently not.

What to do? The North Wales Rover covered two zones, Flintshire and Wrexham, giving us unlimited train journeys and even bus trips if we got tired. But no-one seemed to want to sell it to us. Robert came up with a plan: accost the conductor on the train and see if we could buy it off him.

"Can we have three North Wales Rover tickets please?"

"Yup." A couple of taps on his touchscreen, and three paper tickets slid out into our palms. Chalk one up to Arriva Trains Wales.

We got off at Gwersyllt which, like the rest of the line, is unstaffed and undistinguished. The station's over the road from a Lidl, and will never win any prizes for beauty or elegance. As we got off, a long-lost member of the Goldie Looking Chain decided to get off too, with his best swagger in his trackies.

Gwersyllt does at least have a big prominent sign. This would be an increasingly rare sight as the day went on.

From there it was a wander down a dual carriageway to get to our next stop. Summer was having one last gasp for air; it was officially the first day of autumn, but it was the closest thing to August we'd had in weeks. There were still berries on the trees and flowers in the gardens, and a gang of road workers were cutting the grass in the central reservation, filling the air with that just mown scent.

(Incidentally, a quick tip for Wrexham CBC: you could save a bomb on your road maintenance costs if you sent out just a couple of men to mow the verge, instead of the seven we saw. And if you gave them decent lawnmowers, instead of strimmers).

The road narrowed to a bridge and we crossed over into Flintshire or, as it is in Welsh, Sir y Fflint. We were headed for Cefn-y-bedd, which lead to a discussion amongst us three Englishmen as to (a) how you pronounced it and (b) what it means. Since our debate was getting us nowhere, I gave in and called the Bf, who grew up in North Wales and so knew this kind of thing. According to his linguistic prowess, Cefn-y-bedd translates as "Rear The Grave". And he pretends he's a Scouser.

Rear The Grave turned out to be a pretty little village, with a large pub about five minutes walk from the station. Roy - whose drinking habits make me look like a teetotal nun - advocated we go there for another pint, but as there was only fifteen minutes till the next train, we settled into the shelter on the platform instead.

Caergwrle used to be called Caergwrle Castle & Wells, until sanity prevailed sometime in the mid Seventies. The pretty little shelter on the platform still had this name painted over a very deep blue that was certainly not Arriva Trains colours: I predict a truck with a couple of gallons of emulsion is on its way even as we speak.

The station also provided another mystery: what is "Chester on Tour"?

These stickers had been applied to a few of the stations along the way - I'm guessing it's something to do with the football team, but I'd be happy to be proved otherwise.

Sign snapped, we continued to Hope, along a route that was far more scenic than our previous one. The trees were thick and overhanging here, and the traffic was light. The houses were also a charming mix of nineteenth century and older cottages, threaded along green streets. The road took us over a pretty weir, and we all stopped to admire it.

It was lovely, but I wondered how long I'd be able to live here before I cracked and went insane with a pitchfork? I see the countryside as something to be viewed from a distance, on a day trip. Once you start getting immersed in it, and are living in it, you realise the reason that it's all so pretty is there's nothing there. I'd be driven mad if I had to get in a car every time I wanted to buy a magazine or something non-essential. And what do you do when your home is attacked by armed thugs, who break in and hold you hostage? You can't call for help, because no-one will hear you. (Of course, in the city, they'll hear your cries and ignore them because it's none of their business, but that's not the point). I don't want my last few moments to be spent trussed up on a folding chair while thieves ransack my home willy-nilly, free to romp as long as they like because there's not even a street light outside.

This discussion took us into Hope, which, besides having a lovely name, also does well as a village. Tiny chip shop, tiny dressmaker, tiny garage, a church and two pubs - compared to Cefn-y-Bedd, this was a throbbing metropolis. We had loads of time before our train so we picked the Red Lion at random and went in.

I'd now like to apologise to the landlady of the Red Lion. The three of us relentlessly leered, lusted after and perved at your barman son, who was incredibly fit and wearing shorts. We made a number of comments that would have made Samantha from Sex and the City blush, mostly involving him being stripped naked and spreadeagled over a bar stool. It was a thoroughly shameful display of objectification and we should have been more discreet and polite.

On the other hand, it cost £9.50 for a pint of John Smiths, two pints of Stella and a packet of Quavers, so I think we can safely say you've had adequate compensation.

Once we'd drunk our drinks, and adjusted our underwear, we headed for the station. Sort of. What's going on, Hope? Why don't you want to put up signs for your train station? Are you ashamed of it?

I lead the way, brandishing an Ordnance Survey map and mentally tying my compass to it. Roy and Robert were less convinced as we headed down into a cul-de-sac, with plain semi-detatched houses on either side. In fact, they began to openly pour scorn on my directions. I suspect they secretly hoped I was wrong, so we could miss our train and go back to the pub for another session of Fantasy Barman, but I knew I was right. I just knew it. There wasn't a doubt in my mind. Ok, maybe a little one.

That's why I look a bit smug in that photo.

To be fair, the station was really hidden away: if you didn't know it was there, you would never find it. And as I've said, Hope was a pretty large village - there are loads of potential passengers there.

Back on the train, and thankfully the ticket inspector wasn't the same one who'd sold us ours that morning. It was starting to get embarrassing, running into him over and over.

Off at the delightfully named and consonant heavy Pen-y-ffordd station. It looked a bit prettier than some of the other Borderlands stations, and we found out why: it's been adopted.

Kudos to you, Richard Spray, and your horticultural efforts.

The route from Pen-y-ffordd to our next stop, Buckley, was colossally dull. We were all starting to flag a bit by this point, with the beers and the walking taking their tolls on us. My foot, which is well on its way to being fully healed, was also starting to make its presence felt in my trainer, throbbing slightly. It wasn't in the mood to trudge alongside a bypass, on soft grass because there was no pavement, with nothing to look at. Not a thing. There was the occasional horse in a field, but that was it. Beyond that it was just one long slog. The weather was turning on us, too, and the skies were greying over.

We talked on the way about the Borderlands Line, and its future. Before we travelled on it, we'd all been quite gung-ho. Bring it into Merseyrail! Get it on the map! Having almost completed it, we found ourselves asking - why? Because what struck us was how different the Borderlands Line was to Merseyrail. Unstaffed, deserted stations in tiny villages. Barrow crossings. No kind of customer services. How different it was to the very urban stations we were used to.

Getting Merseyrail to Wrexham - yes, absolutely, I can see that is a valid target. Especially as Wrexham General becomes more and more important. But when they electrified all the way to Chester, it meant they also got the urban sprawl of the Wirral in on the act too, places like Bromborough and Spital, dense urban environments. How many people would use a frequent service in Cefn-y-bedd? How many passengers would get on at Hope for the hour long journey to Liverpool?

The more we travelled on it, the more it seemed like the Borderlands Line would be a bad fit with Merseyrail. I can absolutely get on board with an extension to Woodchurch; possibly even as far as Neston or Shotton. But beyond there, it's a lot of rural halts that would just get in the way. It seems less like a business plan, and more like someone colouring in the lines on the map.

As for Buckley station - well, it's a liar. It's nowhere near Buckley, which is another minus point for electrification. It should be called Little Mountain, because that's where it is, and besides, that's a much better name.

The train was late at Buckley, by twenty minutes. Robert was able to bring up the National Rail update on his phone while we huddled in the shelter from the newly arrived rain. We were accompanied in the shelter by two teenagers, who were both listening to their iPods way too loudly, causing a competing mash-up of discordant sounds. I couldn't work out what they were listening to: from this distance it sounded like half a dozen keyboards being thrown into a grinder. I'm getting old. What's wrong with a bit of Blur, eh, kids?

They gave us some very odd looks as we took our photos too. They didn't say anything though. If they were in Merseyside they'd have been all over us, demanding to know what we were up to, but in rural Wales they've been brought up better.

Only one station remained to be tarted on the Borderlands Line, and that was Hawarden. We'd debated whether to walk from Hawarden to Shotton to finish with, but decided that it'd be better to stay there and get a pint and a pub meal. We'd been walking for hours, and the soulless trip to Buckley had taken out our last bit of enthusiasm.

This is not to denigrate Hawarden station in any way. It was lovely. Lots of planters, freshly painted, murals in the shelters - all very nice. It even had a footbridge over the tracks, instead of making you cross the line itself. Once again, we have someone to thank: Mr John Wannop.

Since it was the last station of the day, we went for a group shot, which unfortunately blocks out the English translation for us foreign types:

But here's me and the translation, just for completion's sake:

Incidentally, how do you pronounce Hawarden? All three of us pronounced it "Hard-on", leading to many base jokes and schoolboy sniggers. But the announcer at Wrexham pronounced the middle syllable - "Ha-warden" - and quite spoiling our fun. That doesn't sound even slightly smutty. Maybe it's part of a concerted effort by the locals to remove the innuendo, like when everyone started pronouncing "Uranus" differently.

You've probably heard of Hawarden; it's quite a notable town in North Wales, and it's worth visiting. It's famous for being the home of Michael Owen, who bought up an entire close for his family after he hit the big time. He himself lives in a manor outside the village. We considered nipping in for a hello, but there wasn't really time. Plus we thought we'd get shot.

Instead we hit the pub for that pint and meal. You'd have to be on a footballer's wages round here to afford the beer: £9.10 for a pint of John Smiths and two Stellas? The Red Lion was forty pence more, and that included a pack of Quavers. Plus, it turned out that they didn't serve food until 5:30, despite there being a sandwich board outside and menus on the table. And if that wasn't bad enough, there were no fit barmen, only two young girls in low-cut tops. Who wants to see that? (Oh you do, do you?). We got up and left. Hang your head in shame, Fox & Grapes.

There were other pubs, but to be honest, we were all exhausted, and running out of money (there are no cash machines in Hawarden! What do they do, barter?). Stuff it we thought: we'll go home.

We'd earned it, after all. Six hours of trekking through North Wales, following the Borderlands over the border and back. It was finally time to say goodbye to this strange little anachronistic line, this commuter route that isn't, this country train that goes to the city. I've crossed it off the map now, and I can feel a sense of completion.