New and Newer

 

Here's a fact about rail maps: they lie.  Ok, perhaps lie is too strong a word.  Misinform is perhaps better.  They often write a cheque they can't cash.  They place all the stations at the same distance from their neighbour, implying that they're all a nice even gap apart.  They expand city centres to fit in all the stops and make them look more important than they are.  They tell you that the best way between two points is to take a train from here to there and change and then over there when actually you'd be better off walking because it's actually round the corner (I think we all know which bit of the Underground I'm referring to).  And they make it look like there's a nice direct service between two stations when there's nothing of the sort.

Actually, that's not fair.  There are direct services between Ashchurch for Tewkesbury and Worcestershire Parkway.  Three of them, provided by CrossCountry, spaced four hours apart.  Which is hopeless, considering they're right next to one another.

It meant that when I arrived at Ashchurch for Tewkesbury station I headed for the southbound platform, rather than the north; I was going to have to go to Cheltenham Spa, change trains, and then head north again.  This was irritating for many reasons, chief of which being that Cheltenham Spa isn't even on the West Midlands Railway map, so it was an absolute waste of my time going there.  

As you may have guessed from the name, Ashchurch for Tewkesbury isn't exactly well placed.  It's a whole two and a half miles from the centre; a sign outside the station says Welcome to Historic Tewkesbury then signposts a 56 minute walk to reach the actual town.  

There was, at one time, a branch line that crossed from Ashchurch through Tewkesbury and on to Great Malvern.  Unsurprisingly, Dr Beeching (boo, hiss) took one look at this and closed it.  The route of the railway line is a footpath, while the station was where there is now a Morrison's.  

Ashchurch closed at the same time, but, as usual, everyone almost immediately realised this was a mistake.  The station was reopened in 1997 with a bare bones construction; two platforms, footbridge, car park.  No ticket office and a couple of glass shelters.

Its services have been slowly stripped back, too.  Now there's only one train an hour in each direction, one to Worcester, one to Temple Meads, with the aforementioned three CrossCountry services threaded in between.  These are the only services that get you to Birmingham.  

I got on the surprisingly clunky train for the one stop journey.  Up here in t'north we think we've got easily the worst trains in Britain; the ones the south chucks our way when they've finished with them.  This train reminded me that there are shit trains all over the country.

I'd actually been to Cheltenham Spa once before, late in the last century.  An old college friend had moved there and so a few of us went down to see her for the weekend, staying in a B&B.  While we were there I bought a black shirt with a flame design which I then wore out in public; I'm not sure what the hell was going on in my head back then.  I think I may have been temporarily possessed by the spirit of Guy Fieri.  

The point is, I remembered it distinctly for its charming white stuccoed building, like an escapee from a Poirot.  I was delighted to arrive and see it looking like this:

I continue to have the worst timing for my visits.

I went up to the road and took the station sign - may as well, while I was here.

There's a second entrance to the station, opposite a row of shops, so I walked round the block to reach it.  The railway bridge was decorated with a huge mural declaring that Cheltenham thanks... those who risked their lives to keep the country running during the Covid outbreak of 2020.  It was starting to look dishevelled and worn; some of the colours were fading, and there was graffiti over the top.  I wonder how many of these memorials will be allowed to quietly disappear over the years, how many Thank You NHS rainbows will be painted over, as we all try to put the pandemic behind us.

I went down to the northbound platform to wait for my train.  There was an extremely good looking despatcher there, plus this button, which I stared at for way too long.  I really wanted to push it.  I didn't.  But I really wanted to.

Another reason for Ashchurch for Tewkesbury's relative failure as a station is that Worcestershire Parkway came along in 2020 and stole its thunder.  This was another station built with a car park close to a motorway junction, except this one was bigger and brighter and it had interchange facilities!

This is the point where the east-west services from London and Hereford cross the north-south services to Birmingham and Cardiff; as such, it's a great spot for an interchange.  Unfortunately, there is nothing around here except fields so there was no real impetus to build it.  Worcestershire County Council, however, saw the potential for a new development centred around the crossover.  They pushed through the construction of the station and it'll soon be the hub for what they're definitely not calling a new town, even though that's basically what it is.

The service pattern is still getting there.  More trains need to pause here to make it properly worthwhile, but it's been promised those in future timetable changes.  Its passenger numbers have already exceeded expectations, once again proving that if you actually build transport infrastructure, people will use it, so crack on with it, Government.

What they've constructed here is what we can politely term efficient.  The problem is, I've been spoiled.  My little wander round Stockholm has shown me what you can achieve with transport infrastructure if you actually try.  Daniel Wright's Beauty of Transport blog shows it too.  There's a world where stations are recognised as important human places, as crossings and meeting spots, as fixed points in the movement of worlds.  
 

Great railway stations call out to us and inspire us.  They bring joy.  There's a lot to like about Worcestershire Parkway - the dark wood ceilings, the curves, the sheer space to allow for movement between platforms.  But it's a little bit boring.  It doesn't make you want to cheer.

There are still signs that it's been done on the cheap.  There's only one platform on the east-west line, which is asking for trouble.  They've created a bottleneck.  There are plans to someday introduce another platform; of course, if you'd built it all in one go, you'd have the convenience of that facility on opening day, plus you won't have to find funding and close the railway for construction at some vague point in the future.  Saving a few grand today means spending a few hundred grand in ten years' time, not to mention added inconvenience.

Still, the ticket hall is reasonably grand, and includes actual ticket windows with real human beings behind them.  It could do with a little shop to create a bit of animation.  At the minute, there's only a coffee cart outside.  There's not really anywhere to sit and wait for your train.

Let's celebrate a transport facility being designed, planned and opened in the 21st century.  Let's cheer a new station.  Let's hope there's more to come.

I waited in the car park for the BF to arrive in the car and drive us home.  I got in and turned to say thanks - but wait!  That's not the BF!  That's a gelatinous cube!

Your journey is over, adventurer.  Next time, be more careful who you get into cars with.

Spa Day

I'd only been walking through Great Malvern for a couple of minutes, but it felt... different.  I followed the imaginatively named Avenue Road and tried to work out what it was.  Finally it hit me.  I wasn't in England any more.  I was in Europe.

The trees were tall evergreens, pointed and shady.  The roads curved gently, lined with regal looking villas set back into the hillside.  In the distance, high grassy peaks broke the horizon.  Squint a bit and you could be in Germany, or Switzerland.

This is, of course, because Malvern is a spa town, so it's natural that the architects and planners looked to the Continent when it was laid out.  Malvern water has been famous for centuries, but it wasn't until the 18th century that it became fashionable, and the town really took off as a place to be in the Victorian era, with the Queen herself reportedly carrying a bottle everywhere she went.  There were dozens of hotels and boarding houses in the town, with Great Malvern at the centre of the industry.

It felt clean and healthy.  Something in the air.  I could believe you'd come to Malvern from a grime-choked industrial city and feel better immediately.  The railway brought both those looking for restorative cures and day trippers keen to experience the restorative water.

I turned north at the crossroads that marked the centre and walked past the beauty salons and hairdressers and coffee shops that make up the commerce in a well-to-do town.  It was resolutely middle-class, moneyed but subtly so; there wouldn't be sports cars, just SUVs and silent hybrids.  A woman carrying a basket walked past the Great Malvern Hotel wearing a mix of beiges and blues; she could've come from any decade in the last hundred years, stylish but discreet, beyond fashion.  There was, of course, a Waitrose, plus furniture stores full of nick-nacks and a bridal shop.  Even the Indian restaurant was called Flute rather than something a bit more genuinely subcontinental.

At a pedestrian crossing, a couple of dads with their four kids were milling about waiting for the lights to change.  An elderly woman with a shopping basket approached them and said, firmly but politely, "if you move to the back of the pavement, there will be room for me to pass."  Then she raised an arm and herded them against the wall.  Once they were in place, she smiled and walked on.  The two men looked at one another, a little baffled, a little confused, wondering what had just happened.  She'd not said "excuse me" or anything, just instructed and corralled.  That's being properly posh.  You're absolutely certain that everyone else is there to do as you want them to.

The road I was on was cut into the hillside, with homes above and below me.  To the left, they showed me their best side, as the houses aimed windows and gardens at the view.  On the right, they were much meaner, as I got the practical backs and dark walls and garages.

A lot of the houses were now nursing homes.  I imagined it would be a lovely, peaceful place to retire to, but I wouldn't fancy trudging up and down the hills with arthritic knees.  I was headed for the town's other station, Malvern Link, which sounds like a terrible modern day name like "Parkway" or "Interchange", but is actually considerably older and named after the nearby Link Common.

I trudged across the grass.  It was very early on a Saturday morning, barely ten o'clock, so I had the common to myself.  I had of course planned on visiting the day before, after Colwall, but had been too tired.  I was glad now.  On a sunny Friday evening there would've been people all over the grass, picnickers, footballers, sunbathers.  Now it was just me and my thoughts.

On the other side, by the road, I found a drinking fountain.  Until a few years ago, you could buy Malvern Water in any shop in Britain; it was owned by Coca-Cola and was a common brand.  Unfortunately, in the 2000s, a drought dried out the source and the water had to be filtered.  This meant it was no longer mineral water, but was instead spring water; a subtle but telling difference.  Not long after Coca-Cola closed down the bottling plant entirely.  There's still a plant producing artisan water for sale, but as you can imagine, it's on a much smaller scale.  This drinking fountain looked like my best chance to actually taste the waters.

Fortunately, unlike the one at Eastnor, this tap was in full working order.  I took a mouthful and then topped up my water bottle.  It tasted of... water.  It's probably corporation pop, rather than the more exclusive spring water, but it was still refreshing after the stroll across the common in the morning sun.  I thanked the British Women's Temperance Association for installing it.  I might disagree with their cause - quite vociferously - but I liked their generosity.

A dart across the road and I reached Malvern Link station.  The old station house had been sold off as a private residence, and the new building was more or less a waiting room with a ticket office wedged in it; clean, efficient, but hardly inspiring.

I took the obligatory sign picture then wandered down to the platform.

It turned out I'd just missed the next train back to Hereford, and the next one wasn't for nearly an hour.  There was, however, a Great Western Railway train to Great Malvern a few minutes later.  I boarded the starkly modern Class 800, painted in that beautiful version of British Racing Green GWR use, and took a seat in a kind of dove grey coloured space ship.

I had two reasons for returning to Great Malvern station.  Firstly, it gave me something to do rather than loiter on a platform.  Secondly, it was a really nice station.

It had clearly been built by the Victorians with the aim of impressing those out-of-town travellers, and so it had a subtle grandeur with delightful little touches.  The columns supporting the roof, for example, were decorated with ironwork leaves and flowers at their top.  It wasn't perfect - the station clock wasn't working, which really grates when it's as prominent and attractive as that one - but it was a charming small town halt.

On top of that, it had a proper station cafe, tucked inside the main building.  I went in and ordered a cup of tea and sat in a corner.  It was exactly as station cafes should be - a moment of calm.  I was sat underneath a big picture of Celia Johnson - because everyone who runs a buffet thinks they're in Brief Encounter - and sipped my tea and waited for my train.  Take a spa day to Malvern.  It'll do you good.