Super Bedankt, 2023

It's the last day of December, so, like every other blogger on the planet, here's a summary of the year.  I say "every other blogger" but there's fewer and fewer of us around.  Everyone's pivoted to YouTube or TikTok, or they're sending out Substack emails that you have to pay for.  I will never do that because I am too unphotogenic for YouTube, I don't understand TikTok, and the pressure of subscribers would send me into a tailspin of anxiety; I don't think anyone really wants to read emails called here is a list of train stations that exist, I got them off Wikipedia, I really needed some content this week be kind.

Anyway.  The point is that this has been a bit of a year on the blog.  After a few weird periods with pandemics and endless stuff going on with me at home, 2023 was surprisingly down to earth.  Me, some railway stations, and some walking.  Usually on a towpath.  I'd not realised, until I went back over the posts, quite how much time I'd spent on towpaths this year.  Even when the blog went abroad it went to a city full of canals.  This is not part of a rebrand; this is not round the canals we go.  That bloke on BBC Four has got that market sewn up anyway.  

As the West Midlands Railway project reaches maturity, it's inevitable that the stations are less centralised, more peripheral.  I'd not noticed as I was doing them quite how peripheral they were.  Wem, Penkridge, even as far as Long Buckby - I've seemingly only coasted round the distant corners of the map.  When I did go into town, admittedly, it was to beneath Spaghetti Junction, which is about the most urban location you can go to (and another towpath), but other than that there was a lot of striding across fields and through country parks.  For a blog that's really about cities and towns, it was surprisingly green.

That wasn't deliberate.  It's just me trying to spread myself about.  If I do the west of the map one day, I like to go somewhere at the opposite end the next.  I don't want to go to the same regions over and over.  I am starting to run out of options though.  I've visited two thirds of the West Midlands Railway map now, and so a lot of the stations left are the big hitters - Leicester, Northampton, Rugby, the central Birmingham stations, which need to be covered properly.  I've also not done any of the tram stops, though that's partly because I'd been waiting for them to finish the Wolverhampton station extension, which finally opened in September.  (It also means I can finally visit Wolverhampton station itself).  There are also some complex stations to visit, with very limited services.  I reckon, however, that I might be able to polish the whole thing off in 2024.  Five years of hard work done (sorry, that should be "work").

The true highlight of 2023, for me anyway, was the trip round Amsterdam's Metro.  It didn't seem to do much for the blog in terms of visitors or comments but I don't care.  Carousing around Amsterdam was absolutely one of the best experiences of my life, once you get past the terrible first day of flight cancellations and Luton Airport hotels.  For two days I wandered around a beautiful city, using its fast, efficient, reasonably priced transport network, visiting places I'd never been before and would never normally get a chance to see.  It was absolutely bloody brilliant.  The only thing is it slightly ruined me for my return to the UK, where everything is seemingly broken or expensive or broken and expensive.  I don't think I'll get a chance to do another foreign city, but that hasn't stopped me planning it.  I have Excel spreadsheets detailing how I could collect every station on both the Rotterdam and Stockholm Metros, if any eccentric Russian oligarchs want to chuck few grand in my Ko-fi.  

Closer to home, Merseyrail finally got its new trains... sort of.  The roll out has been slow and patchy - I went out the other day and three of my four trains were rattly old ones - and their reliability hasn't been great.  Headbolt Lane finally opened, but the battery trains kept going out of service, meaning it's still not at its full potential.  People won't use a brand new station unless they can be sure they can get a train.  And construction on Baltic station isn't due to begin until 2025 at least, so I'll probably be pushing 50 when I finally get there.  Possibly from the other side.

That was a bit of a downer to end on, wasn't it?  Instead let's finish with a thanks to you, the reader.  You don't have to read this load of old guff and yet you keep coming back.  I'm touched and honoured and I still get excited when somebody comments.  I rarely comment back because part of me thinks that's really vain, like I'm revelling in the attention, but be assured they're all appreciated, as are the random Ko-Fi donations (especially the anonymous person who has bought me a coffee every single month - you are loyal and a delight).  Rest assured, I will carry on churning out the nonsense, and even if you get tired of it, if you see one more towpath or rant about the Government and decide you've had enough and leave, I'll still be here.  I've nothing else to do, quite frankly.

Giving Headbolt

The novelty of the new trains hasn't worn off yet.  Admittedly, part of that is because there's still a very good chance that you'll end up on one of the old ones; the rollout hasn't exactly been speedy.  But still, it's cheering to be stood on a platform and see people's faces literally light up when that white M bursts out of the tunnel.  

I was finally heading out to Merseyrail's newest station, Headbolt Lane.  This was actually my second try at getting to it.  The first, with Robert, had been foiled by a broken down train on the Ormskirk line which caused ripples of uselessness throughout the network.  Our first train was cancelled, then our second vanished from the board, and we were told to simply get on the next train and change at Sandhills.  This was more of a measure to get us off the busy platform at Central as once we got to Sandhills there was no sign of a train and there was a vague muttering about bus replacements.  We managed to get a train back into town where we were forced to console ourselves.

Real suffering, I'm sure you'll agree.

I was in town with a little time to spare before I met someone so I decided it was an opportune time to go out to the new end of the line.  I hopped on board and found my new favourite seat.  One thing I was sad to lose with the retirement of the 507/508s was the little sideways seat, tucked behind the banks of four; as a frequent sole traveller I liked sitting somewhere I wouldn't be forced to be sociable or close to other human beings.  Fortunately the new 777s have a similar seat which I nipped straight into.

(Before someone pops up in the comments, no, this wasn't 777 007, as pictured above; I have no idea what number it was.  I was just pleased to see the 007 train, which Merseyrail are welcome to name after me any time).

The journey was smooth and unproblematic.  The wifi worked, which is the first time that's ever happened for me on one of the new trains.  We passed through Sandhills and Kirkdale, and then took the branch to Rice Lane.  One curiosity is that the automated announcement says "the next station stop" - "The next station stop is Rice Lane.  The next station stop is Fazakerley."  The scrolling displays, meanwhile, only say "stop".  I'd have gone with station, myself, what with them being actual stations.  

Kirkby was just another station now, though still with one platform.  Perhaps to keep costs down, perhaps because of the bridge over the M57, the extension hasn't also involved a doubling of the line.  The new track is double, but the old third rail remains as a single.  I listened out for any noises as we switched from electric to battery power, similar to when the pantograph is lowered and raised at City Thameslink, but there wasn't anything.  Instead we simply slid out of the station and on the last few hundred yards to the terminus.

Headbolt Lane was built for the future.  It's got plenty of space to circulate.  Its two platforms are carefully aligned with the Northern service to Wigan so that it can be extended if necessary, perhaps even to Skelmersdale now there's all that money swimming around after the cancellation of HS2 (lol not really).  If the battery trains are a success, perhaps they can go all the way to the end of the line, or at least as far as poor Rainford, which is technically under Merseytravel's jurisdiction but gets none of the advantages.  In the meantime, a fence has been put up between the Merseyrail and Northern sections of the station.

Note, by the way, the Metro rather than Merseyrail branding.  This has been slowly creeping out across the network but nobody seems to have acknowledged it.  I first spotted it outside Rice Lane station back in March, and the new trains also have the same logo.  I assume this is like when the Elizabeth Line wasn't finished, so the lines taken over by Crossrail were branded "TfL Rail" so they didn't tarnish the brand.  Presumably once it's all 777s, all the time, there will be a big comprehensive relaunch and Merseyrail will be retired.

Outside the station, it's still chaotic.  The main contractor went bust during the build (also jeopardising Anfield's new stand) so the car park is a mess of no tarmac and diggers.  The bus exchange is sort of finished, but I didn't see any buses actually using it.  

There's also a new station building.  Maghull North, the previous newest station, was a pretty dull affair, little more than a conservatory with a ticket office in it.  On the other hand Ainsdale, which got a comprehensive rebuild five years ago, is a triumph.  

Headbolt Lane is a compromise between the two.  It's a beast of a building.  It's open and welcoming, and it has plenty of space and light.

Inside there's seating and toilets and a ticket office with actual people in it, plus a machine for socially awkward losers like me who don't like talking to humans.  It's all very efficient, although it's not exactly inspiring.  The design is perfunctory but - elephant in the room - in this part of Merseyside, it's bound to be constructed for security above all else.  No point in building an elaborate glass chandelier if the local scallies are going to use it for target practice.

I hope they won't.  A big part of building this station out here on the fringe of the network is bringing opportunity to an area that didn't have so much before.  Headbolt Lane to Liverpool Central is now a twenty minute direct journey; the number 20 bus, which goes from County Road nearby, takes roughly fifty minutes to reach Whitechapel in the city centre.  That'll help the residents of an area where car ownership is incredibly low get new job prospects and travel options.  

I think I'll have to come back again when the station is properly finished.  See it in its glory; find that totem sign out front.  In the meantime, I've once again completed the Merseyrail map.  Now crack on with Baltic, will you?

Heading Out

This blog has, right from the start, included photographs.  Back then they were taken on my Sony Ericsson phone (sidebar: I bloody loved my Sony Ericsson phones, until they suddenly went very shit indeed).  Today they're taken with an actual camera, meaning you have come to expect a certain level of quality from the photography here.

Those standards will not be met in this blog post.  I apologise in advance.

I'd gone out to Kirkby because I'd heard that work had started on the newest addition to the Merseyrail network, Headbolt Lane.  At the moment it's mainly enabling works - there's no actual steel or anything coming out of the ground - but still, a significant moment.  The first new station since Maghull North in 2018 and the first extension to the Merseyrail network since the Ellesmere Port line was electrified in 1994.  

I had to go out there in a car because of, variously, Omicron, Kirkby's reputation, and laziness, so I enlisted the BF to drive.  I do have a driving licence, and even used to have my own car, but when I had my breakdown it knocked all the confidence out of me and filled me with anxiety.  I once moved the car from the drive to the road outside and ended up sweaty and panicky with my Fitbit basically registering my heartbeat as "coronary" so that was the end of that.

He drove us out to Kirkby, a town which will never be mistaken for Venice.  It was built as overflow for Liverpool with an accompanying mass of industry for employment and like many towns of its ilk it's suffered from unemployment, crime and poverty ever since.  In recent years, Knowsley Council has made an effort to regenerate the place; some of the more regrettable housing estates have been knocked down, the town centre has been rebuilt, but this is still the place where every Hallowe'en the bus drivers go on strike because of the very real problem of kids chucking cement blocks at their windscreens.  

Hence the need for Headbolt Lane.  A lot of new housing has been built in an attempt to woo new residents to the town, and a fast efficient link into Liverpool would be a major catalyst for development.  It helps that Kirkby station itself has always been a bit rubbish - two single tracks meeting at buffers as the electrified Northern Line gives way to the diesel Wigan line - and that the branch has always had a lot of slack, timetable wise, meaning it's easy to slot another stop in.

We cruised the streets of the town until we encountered Headbolt Lane itself and there it was: the worksite.  Like many new towns, the planners had decided that what people really want is lots of long looping roads with no pavements, meaning there was nowhere to stop and get out and walk.  As a result, all the pictures are taken from a moving car, and a car that could do with a wash as well, so the dark foreboding skies may also be crud on the windscreen.  

The station will, eventually, occupy the curve between the road and the railway (as someone has nicely marked up on Google Maps) with a park and ride, cycle stands, and a station building.  For now, they're simply levelling the ground and getting movers and diggers on site.

At this point the workmen spotted me snapping photos from the dashboard like a very bad private detective and started giving me funny looks, probably thinking I was from Network Rail checking they weren't slacking, so I took one more photo then we headed off.

Further down the line was a pedestrian footbridge over the railway and I thought this might be a good place to get some more shots.  Kirkby's reputation for, let's say "mischief", put paid to that.  The entire bridge was encased in a metal cage with only the narrowest of gaps between the bars; I managed to stick my telephoto lens through a bit but there are still shadows at the top and bottom.

Someday there will be two platforms for Merseyrail, a third for Northern trains, and a proper commuter station around those tracks.  A few years after that - with any luck - it'll be a through line to take you all the way to Skelmersdale.  Next year we'll be able to come here on one of those brand new trains they keep teasing us with.  Then we can get on the next train back because you don't really want to hang around.

Infrastructure! Infrastructure! They've all got it Infrastructure!

When I bravely returned to the trains - still waiting for my OBE, folks - I spotted this at in the booking hall of Birkenhead Park station.

After decades of the only access to the platform being via a stepped ramp - lovely if you've got a pushchair or are in a wheelchair - they're finally going to put in a lift.  Sadly the design isn't anything to write home about, just a brick tower wedged on the side of the existing ramp.  It's a shame they didn't take the opportunity to redevelop the station itself.  Until the Luftwaffe intervened, Birkenhead Park looked like this:

Photo from The Wirral Railway and its Predecessors
by T B Maund FCILT

And now it looks like this:

Photo from Google Streetview

The area around the station is actually remarkably lively, with a varied parade of shops and new apartment blocks being constructed close by.  Plus of course you have the Park itself, which has become a real tourist attraction in recent years.  You could knock down that disappointing brick shed, build something modern and appealing, and stick three or four floors of flats over the top to pay for it.  Merseyrail gets a nice new station, the area gets a load of new homes, everyone's a winner.

Anyway it got me thinking that I haven't really passed my expert* (*not an expert) opinion on the various developments that are happening on my beat so I thought I'd do a little very late news round up.  I'm concentrating on stuff that's happening on Merseyside because I am, at heart, the Merseytart; there are also interesting developments happening across the North and West Midlands that I look forward to visiting someday.

Lift Me Up

So those Birkenhead Park lifts are part of a funding package that'll put new elevators in at five stations across Merseyrail.  Meols got their last year - eventually; it seemed to be the slowest construction project in history, and they didn't even have a pandemic in the way.  Hunts Cross will be next, with Birkenhead Park, Hillside and St Michaels to follow.  The graphics for the plans are all a bit "Grand Designs CGI in an episode from 2003 that isn't even widescreen" but you get the gist.

Combined with the new trains with their sliding footplates this should mean that Merseyrail is getting closer to being entirely step-free.  It's agonisingly slow though.

Lea Lands

Lea Green is mainly famous for being a massive series of ramps with a station attached.  That's not going to change, but St Helens Council recently approved plans for an all new building to improve the facilities there.

Photo from Google Streetview

Let's be honest, the existing station is a public toilet with pretensions.  It's inadequate by most metrics, but more especially for a station whose usage has shot up in recent years.  The plan is for it to be swept away and replaced with something far more interesting.

In addition to a new multi-storey car park for better Park and Ride facilities, there'll be a much bigger station building, with waiting facilities and catering.  The area will be landscaped with a new station square constructed.

All this is great of course and I support it wholeheartedly.  My only slight complaint is that the platforms and station are separated by the new plaza; it seems a bit weird to turn left to buy a ticket, then turn round and leave the building again to reach the trains.  However, with new ticketing technology and a lot of season ticket holders using that Park and Ride I imagine the booking office won't be incredibly busy anyway.  Well done Merseytravel and St Helens; now how about starting work on Carr Mill station?

Quarter Measures

If you've ever used Runcorn station you'll know it's... not great.  It looks like a Portakabin and it's woefully inadequate considering it's the first stop for London trains outside Liverpool.  Things will only get worse as HS2-compatible trains call, not to mention any increase in services to North Wales.  Fortunately the construction of the new Mersey Gateway bridge has meant the council has been able to radically alter the road network around the station.  Previously it cowered under flyovers for the Silver Jubilee bridge; now they've been swept away, and the plans are to replace them with homes, offices and shops, plus a new station building.

That's more like it - glass and concrete creating a welcoming gateway to the town.  The only slight flaw in the plan is the council's application for funding from the Government was rejected.  They're still pushing ahead as best as they can.

Borderlines

The Borderlands Line continues its very slow progress towards being an actually useful part of the railway network.  There are the new trains, of course, with their hybrid engines to make the journey smoother and faster.  Faster, more reliable trains will mean that the service can go to two trains an hour, making it a lot handier.  And the Government recently awarded funds to progress the design of a new Deeside Parkway station, beside the industrial park between Neston and Hawarden Bridge.  Add in Merseytravel's own plans for a Park and Ride station at Woodchurch and the suggestion that the new 777 trains could run down the line from Liverpool city centre and the Mid-Wirral Railway suddenly looks like an extremely interesting prospect indeed.  

New Frontiers

Whenever new Merseyrail stations are floated, two are at the top of the list: Headbolt Lane in Kirkby and St James beneath Liverpool city centre.  (Give it up, Town Meadow, it's never going to happen).  

To briefly summarise St James: until the First World War there was a station in an open cutting just south of the city centre at Parliament Street.  It was never well used and when wartime cuts came in they closed it and never reopened it.  The cutting remains as an access point for Network Rail but it's never been a priority.  

Now the area around it is the fastest growing district in the city centre.  There are new apartment blocks springing up everywhere, Cains Brewery is a big tourist attraction with its bars and eateries, and there are loads of new businesses and hotels appearing in the Baltic area.  Add to that the fact that it's halfway along a mile and a half section of railway without a station and it'd open up investment opportunities in Toxteth and it's all a no brainer.  

The project is now progressing but at a depressingly glacial pace.  Last Autumn the City Region agreed to give Network Rail £1.2 million to progress with the design, while another £300,000 was paid out to buy the land adjoining the cutting, enabling the Council to safeguard it for a station building.  This is all great of course but I just want to scream get on with it!  I want my new glamorous Baltic station!  (St James is, obviously, an unacceptable name).

There's better news for Headbolt Lane station with funding finally in place and plans for work to start later this year, with a hopeful finishing date of 2023.  Headbolt Lane does have the advantage of being in a much more accessible part of the city region, with plenty of space for a station and a bus exchange, but it'll still involve extending the electrified lines another mile or so.  I'm not too impressed by the station building - at first glance I thought it was half-timbered, but instead it seems to be a direct copy of Maghull North - and it still seems to be one platform rather than two.  That'll have to come later, if and when the Skem extension is built, so it seems daft not to do it now.  I also hope, given recent events at Kirkby, that they're going to build a really big set of buffers.  But I'm glad it's finally happening.

In more speculative news, the new Everton stadium at Bramley Moore Dock recently got planning permission.  The dock is barely a quarter of a mile from the Northern Line, at a point which would interrupt the big gap between Sandhills and Moorfields.  Everyone seems to agree that a new station would be a great idea.  Nobody seems to agree who should pay for it.  We'll see.

Elsewhere, the new Paddington development behind the new Royal is right over the tracks into Lime Street, leading to suggestions of a new station there (nice idea, but won't happen); the Mayor is looking into a spot for a brand new HS2 station (will probably open after I die so you know, whatever) and Network Rail continues to scratch its head and try to work out what to do with the hopelessly overcrowded and almost dangerous Liverpool Central.  New platform?  Lots of new platforms?  A new station entirely?  Who knows what will happen?  (Probably nothing until someone literally falls off the packed platform and dies but until then we'll keep our fingers crossed).