New! Exciting! Improved! (not necessarily exciting or improved)

Last month, I asked for opinions from YOU, the reader.  The problem was the name of the blog still reflected my quest to acquire Northern Rail, and since I was now loitering in the West Midlands, it was out of date.  I canvassed you for your opinions on what to call it, and all your submissions, via the comments or Twitter, were gratefully received.  (All except the submission from my mum, who said she thought "Off The Rails" would be appropriate, and which cut a little too close to the bone). 

After umming and aaahing and generally putting the decision off, I finally came to a conclusion.  And so, ladies and gentlemen (though let's be honest, it's mostly gentlemen reading this nonsense), I present.... Round the Rails We Go.

Removing the geographic specificity means I can wander anywhere I like and it's covered.  It is not, I hasten to add, a mission statement; I will not be visiting Corrour station any time soon.  It is an acknowledgement that the remit of this blog is a lot bigger than when I started, with hundreds of railway stations now under my belt.

The new title also means that I don't have to keep harassing the lovely Jamie for redesigns.  He dropped me a header he'd designed, entirely off his own initiative, way back in the Merseyrail days of the blog.  (Prior to that it was a kind of orange colour.  We don't talk about that).  I gratefully received this moment of actual art on the blog, and Jamie has since updated it every time.  This way I don't need to keep going back to him and saying "can you change it to Round the Cornish Riviera Stations this week?".  He agreed to this redesign - in purple, because I like purple - and also provided the new background image, which I love.  Thank you Jamie, and I owe you a pint.

I've also added one other thing to the blog.  This is a bit embarrassing, and this is probably the only time I'll ever mention it.  However, for twelve years now I've been wandering all over the country, writing about it, and sticking it on the internet.  That's a lot of train travel and a lot of time spent writing and the expense has gone entirely one way.  I'm not complaining, because this blog and the travel has brought me a great deal of joy, but the further I travel from my house, the more the train tickets cost.  I don't like obligation on either side, so there was no way I was going to set up a Patreon (£6 a month will get you a t-shirt with my face on it!) but I have added a button, over there on the right.  It's for KoFi, and if you click it, you go through to a page where you can give me three quid.  That's it.  If you do feel like a tiny contribution, that's lovely, and I very much appreciate it.  If you don't, or can't, that's absolutely fine as well.  It's there if you want it.  Thanks.

Right, let's move on and I'll try not to think about it ever again.  To the trains!

Feedback Loop

I've actually started on the trains now - and thank you for your comments telling me I've done the one nice bit and it's all downhill from here on - so there's an important question to be asked: what do we call the blog?

Back when I started this little side project all those years ago it was called Round the Merseyrail We Go.  I didn't think much of it.  It was just something to go at the top.  Then, when I expanded the remit, it became Round the North We Go.  That lasted for years, even when I was wandering round Metrolink, because Manchester is still the North.

Now I'm in the Midlands and I'm in a quandry.  Do I change the name again?

Friend of the blog Jamie, who designed the header image, very kindly sent me a revised one when I decided to do the new map.  It's got the logo, it's got the corporate colours, it's got the mission statement, it's got the smily train and the two gays with their bunch of flowers.  It's perfect.

  

At the same time, I wonder whether changing it is right.  "Round The North" included Merseyrail, Northern, and Metrolink.  Changing to "Round the Midlands" feels like it would be disregarding that decade of travel.  It'd be making only the latest mission the important one.  But it would also be far more accurate and up to date.

Part of me, filthy southerner that I am, also sees the Midlands as the North.  I mean, it's all above the Watford Gap isn't it?  So I could just stick with "Round the North" and stuff it.  It was Round The North We Go that got nominated for awards and made it into the Guardian, after all.

Alternatively, I could get rid of the problem altogether.  Make it Round The Rails We Go.  I'll never need to change it again, so when I start doing GWR or whatever in the late 2030s I won't have to go digging around in the code.

What do you think, Constant Readers?  I'm interested in your opinions because I am so torn.  I don't know what to do.  I'd run a poll, except whenever I do that I almost inevitably want to go with the option that lost because I'm a bloody minded twat who doesn't like doing what he's told.  Instead, please comment below, or message me on Twitter.  All options are welcome.  Except for "delete your account".

Four Way Split

Take a train.

Stand on the platform 1 at Hamilton Square and take a train.  At that point, it'll just be a Liverpool train.  It'll have Liverpool on the sign board on the front and the automated voice will tell you "This train is for ... Liverpool Central.  The next station is... James Street."  You'll pass under the river and then it'll change. That Liverpool train will magically shift its state and become something else.  Without you even noticing, your surroundings will transform, morph, and suddenly you're going somewhere else.  All without leaving your seat.  At James Street, you'll learn where you're going.

"This train is for... Chester.  The next station is... Moorfields."

It looked like I was heading for Chester, then.  I was playing a game.  I'd decided, for no reason at all, to travel all over the Wirral Line.  I was going to go to each of its termini, just riding the rails.  Just taking in the route.

I got a seat at Liverpool Central.  The guard and the computer voice beg you to leave the train at James Street for Liverpool ONE, and some do, but it still hasn't caught on properly.  People still cling to Central as the heart of the city - good news for the Central Village development, when it eventually shows up.  I wonder if it's the name.  If Bold Street or Ranelagh Street would get the same volumes of traffic; if people are just conditioned to go that way by the name.  Two tourists clamber off the train, carting bikes, nervously checking out the line diagram to make sure they're in the right place.  A woman helps them; she got on at Moorfields with hair still damp from the stylist.  As we leave the station she fingers her new style anxiously, still unsure about it.

There's a blue spark as we cross the junction, and the lights vanish, and then we're back at Hamilton Square again.  A nurse boards and sits in the bank of seats across the aisle from me.  She crosses her sensibly shod feet and flicks through an Argos catalogue, letting it fall open on random pages, then urgently moving it on again.  She drops it on the dead Metro beside her as we break out of the tunnel into Birkenhead Central. Sunlight, but no sunshine; a grey murk and the threat of drizzle.  There's a train stabled alongside the southbound platform, the Councillor Jack Spriggs.

Green Lane is almost empty, as usual.  There's a single waiting passenger on the Liverpool platform.  He's sat in the shelter with a little lunch beside him on the bench, a can of Dr Pepper, a packet of ready salted.  The train squeaks and groans as it clambers up the incline, a ridiculously steep gradient that takes the train from underground to an embankment.  We're suddenly over the top of gardens and rooftops and basketball courts.  A quote on a wall - John 3:16 - God loved us so much He gave us His only son.  Whoever puts their trust in him will not be lost but will have eternal life.

At Rock Ferry, we pull alongside a train heading the opposite way, and I look through into a mirror image.  A boy with a rock star haircut and a leather jacket sullenly takes up a seat, earbuds jammed deep inside his skull.

This is, in its own way, my line, the one I travelled on the most.  Twice a day, there and back, to my job in Chester.  It's such a long time ago now.  It doesn't feel familiar any more.  I can't do the timings in my head any more - I can't work out where we are just from the view out the window.  The summer foliage confuses me too.  In my head, this trip is always cold, frosty, on a grey morning where you can see your breath.  Two men in high-vis suits are opening a drain cover at Bebington.  Some parkland, longer back gardens from a time when houses weren't squeezed on top of one another, and then Port Sunlight.  The concrete square of the Unilever building hangs over the track, ugly and basic, exiled to the western side of the tracks away from the pretty village.

The green cage for cycle parking at Spital has a single bike in it.  A man leans against the cage, red woollen hat, hoodie, drinking coffee from a silver thermos and looking like he wants to be back in bed.  The guard passes through without checking our tickets and doesn't close the connecting door properly behind him.  It clatters and thuds with the movement of the train until the braking at Bromborough Rake makes it click into place.  The trees that over hang the platform here have made it wet and slick with fallen yellow leaves.  A man with a double buggy tries to control it on the steep ramp, while excited babies wave from the front.

The guard comes back - still no ticket check - but he closes the door properly this time.  The doors open at Bromborough with a clatter of key and a sigh of pneumatics, then he leans against the glass partition with his head tilted back until Eastham Rake.  The grey concrete walls here still jar, twenty years after they were put up.  They're aggressively urban after the pretty quasi-rural halts that preceded it.  The paint at the base of the fences is flaking.

Under the motorway, across the county line, the ugly industry of Hooton.  Network Rail vans parked in a compound.  Hooton always meant halfway to me: it took as long to get from home to here as it took to get from Hooton to Chester, even though there were hardly any stations.  The driver opens up the train to maximum, enjoying the long stretch without stopping.  It pounds the rails, engine whining, whistling.  Anonymous, secretive cubes at Capenhurst, protected by double rows of razor wire.  Cranes extending it and its hidden uses.

The smell of pollen and wild flowers bursts through the open windows.  Count the road bridges, the places where the noise of the train amplifies suddenly, then the BANG as another train hammers past, air colliding with air.  For a brief moment, I can see across the plains to Wales, purple mountains rising up.  The little stubs of platform that are all that remains of Upton-by-Chester station and we're approaching Bache - "Leave the train here for the Countess of Chester hospital" says the computerised voice, but she sounds like she's been cut off, like she wanted to say more but someone took her mic away.  The train sighs as it rolls towards Chester, as though it knows this is the end.  Allotments, apartments, then a junction and a depot and an expanse of railway lands.

More tourists on the platform at Chester, Italian and Spanish, pulling suitcases and calling noisily to each other.  I take a seat and let the train leave.  When I worked here there wasn't anywhere to sit, just window sills you'd lean on, hollows carved in the stone by a hundred years of buttocks.

My train back is named: Operations Inspector Stuart Mason, a refreshingly banal title.  There's another dead Metro on the seat across from me and an open bag of Tesco pistachio nuts.  It's been opened along the side, and is full of discarded pistachio shells; I imagine someone moving the bag to sit down and inadvertently showering everyone, so I move it to the metal edge of the seat.  Two Scouse lads are "sick" of Chester, and are retreating back to Liverpool.

"A few bevs?"

"A few bevs."

"Magnet?"

"Magnet."

They rest their feet on the seat cushions as the doors beep and we move away.  It seemed like there was hardly any time between trains.  I notice a new sign for the drivers at Bache - REMINDER: Do you stop at Capenhurst? - and I realise I haven't seen Bache's ALF, my very first ALF, the one with the quizzical giraffe.  Is it still there?

We do stop at Capenhurst, and then I jump off at Hooton.  I'd thought about going all the way up, round the loop and back again, but the thought of seeing all the same stations over and over depresses me.  Instead I nip to the M to Go for a bottle of water.  The men in there are bantering with the station manager as she buys a coffee from the machine.  "Have you had any complaints because it doesn't do tea?"

"A couple.  But it's Costa, in'tit?"

"Yeah, but if you go into a Costa shop you can get a tea, can't you?"

"Do you want a cup of tea?" the larger of the men explodes, mock exasperated, his moustache quivering.  "I'll make you a cup of tea!"

I take up a seat by some discarded crisps.  A tall man and his girlfriend scurry along the platform - "fourteen minutes!" - and he spits heartily onto the track, presumably to clear his throat ready for the cigarette.  They sit further down and he puts dance music on the speaker of his phone for everyone to enjoy.  Fortunately it's mostly drowned out by the traffic on the motorway and the road bridge.  Another man, anxious, tiny, with a red backpack dangling off his shoulders: with his khaki trousers and neat blue shirt he looks like a very polite explorer.

A Liverpool train passes through, then a Chester train, then quiet again.  A robin lands close to my feet and eyes me up.  It wants to pick at those crisps, and I haven't moved, so I don't seem to be a threat.  It watches me for a little bit, then hops around some more, dancing round the potential meal, trying to estimate my danger levels.  The Ellesmere Port train clatters into the platform, and he whirls up into the air; lunch will have to wait.

Two businessmen are ahead of me on the train.  The bald one, head shaved and shining, barks into a mobile until the signal fades.  He turns to his colleague to complain, first about the phone, then about his missing pens.  "No-one ever puts a pen back in that office."

"What was that one you had?"

"It was a lovely silver Parker pen.  Just vanished.  Bastards."  They commiserate each other on their missing stationery, pads, pens, claimed by unscrupulous types without morals.

Little Sutton's much improved since I was last here.  The local schoolchildren have been let loose, and now the panels over the bricked up windows are bright and colourful.  A copy of Lord Kitchener wants YOU to join him at the station.  The two businessmen have moved onto their boss, his incompetence and his unfriendliness, but their Scouse vocabulary still comes through in their speech, resulting in strangely personable threats - "The more he does it, the more I think, fuck you, mate."  They alight at Overpool, along with a surprising amount of the train.

The last stretch to Ellesmere Port passes terraces, a siding with Network Rail men clambering over the tracks, blocks of flats.  The station building is wrapped in scaffolding and hoardings, in the process of being upgraded to contain a cafe and community space.  Until then We apologise for any inconvenience during improvement works.

I'd thought about hanging around and getting the next train out, as at Chester, but Ellesmere Port's an unfriendly place.  The platform had people waiting on it who didn't seem to want to board the train, who regarded it as an intrusion.  They smoked cigarettes and eyed it suspiciously, craned over the handlebars of bikes.  I got back on the same train I came in on, along with a gang of students from the local college.  They open cans of energy drinks in unison, a little chorus of hisses, enough to keep them alive for the trip home.  A harassed man boards at Overpool, with flyaway hair and a nervous chew on his bottom lip.  Union Jack flying in a garden at Little Sutton; a collapsed outhouse and weeds next door.

One of the students is holding forth about Tube trains, and his experiences on them.  They're tiny, but the new ones are better - "they're bright and modern, like this train."  I imagine that would please Merseyrail.  We pass through the deep sandstone cutting at Hooton and he moves onto the lack of etiquette on the Underground: "everyone's pushing.  There's no consideration at all."  He's so busy with his rant about That London, they almost miss their station, and have to run to get off at Hooton.

The guard does a ticket check, nodding his and thanking you for each orange square, and we head back over the familiar line again.  "We are now approaching Spital" will never stop sounding revolting.  Every station has the green GoGoGo! cycling banner and a cage for bikes; hardly any are in use.  The man at Green Lane left his empty crisp packet and Dr Pepper can behind when he caught the train; they're like a shed snakeskin on the seat.

I close the loop at Hamilton Square, passing through the same platform I boarded from ages ago.  Now that they're endangered I feel affectionate towards the brown plastic seats - part of me hopes there's not enough money to redevelop these last couple of stations.  Lime Street is skipped again, its platform covered in a tent of scaffolding poles and fences, the new white panels checkerboarded with blank holes.

I get off at Liverpool Central to use the loo.  It's the second best place to have a pee in the city centre now, clean and efficient and with Dyson Airblades.  (The best place to pee is John Lewis because you don't need a train ticket to use them).

Back down to the platform.  It's rowdy down there; the races are on at Chester, and suits and posh frocks are tottering around after being in the pub.  They're noisy and excitable and I am ridiculously pleased when they all get on a train and leave.  An old woman tells her grandson to sit in the empty seat between me and a heavy man with a briefcase.  She's wearing leopardskin and pulling a pink wheely-suitcase.  I stood up to offer her my seat but she waved me back down.  "He's just come from the hospital, otherwise we'd both stand up," she explains, but I see her take my seat when I get on the train.  The man with the briefcase made no move to offer his seat at all.

The guard informs us in thick, guttural Scouse that this is the New Brighton train.  There's a school party spread along the platform at James Street, legs out in front of them, waving at us as we pass.  Across from me, in the bike seats, a woman in a blue cagoule eats a packet of cheese and onion Snack a Jacks with a slow deliberation.  Each rice cracker is held between two fingers and slowly raised to her mouth; she considers it, then crunches her way through it, before reaching for the next one.  She's wearing pinstripe trousers and girlish pumps over white socks.

She gets off at Conway Park, which is black.  While I've been underground a storm has crashed into Birkenhead, and the canyon of a station seems to be battered by it.  The brightly lit strips with the nameplate on it shine even more distinctively, like beacons.  An imperious looking man alights at Birkenhead Park - he could be Colin Firth's stunt double for The King's Speech, if there were any actual stunts - and then onto Birkenhead North.  People in hoods, like ETs, hunched over themselves, dart across the rain-strafed platform and onto the train.

The driver toots his horn as we pass the depot.  Long chains of carriages stretch alongside us, with a Beatles Story train looking unfeasibly bright next to its yellow and grey siblings.  Its psychedelic colour scheme is completely out of place in the middle of this barren stretch of railway and weeds.  Round the back of the retail park and under the motorway, then up onto the viaduct and Wallasey Village station.  A bamboo screen has been erected along the platform to shield the houses below from nosy commuters.  It gives the station an incongruously tropical air, exotic like a jungle hut.

A sign says that Wallasey Grove Road "is tended and cared for by the Edible Wirral Partnership" but the beds look tired, and there are weeds everywhere.  Perhaps they're "encouraging wild flowers" and a "bee friendly" environment, like I am on that corner of the garden I can't be bothered with.  The backs of apartment slabs, then the first glimpse of the sea at New Brighton.  It's thick and grey, unappealing under the drive of the rain, and Seaforth is hidden under mist.  There are more sandstone stripes in the cutting, fossil beds laid on top of one another, then the train clunks and shudders and we're in the station.

A couple of workmen are fixing the CCTV in the station building as I cross to the bookshop over the road.  I thought I would kill time in here until the next train, but it's too small and crowded, and the staff are too cheery.  I didn't feel relaxed enough to browse; I felt like I was being watched, and they were ready to jump in with help and conversation.  Only as I leave do I realise that the woman behind the counter is dressed as a pirate.

I leave and get back on the train.  It clicks furiously, as though a cricket was trapped under the wheels.  Dots of rain fall through the window and smudge the ink in my notebook.  At Grove Road, schoolkids with blazers over their head to hide from the rain get on board, and then another load at Village.  A banner advertising the Railpass has a picture of a man whispering into a woman's ear; someone has poked out her eyes, leaving her with two black spaces either side of her nose.  It somehow makes her look sarcastic, as though she's listening to the man and thinking "Christ, not this again."

Most of the kids get off at Birkenhead North, thankfully, changing to the West Kirby line no doubt.  A neatly dressed man gets on at Birkenhead Park in an outfit that positively gleams.  Everything looks new and crisp; shiny shoes, pressed trousers, a white jacket that's unscuffed.  I decided that he was off for a night out on the pull, making himself look the very best he could, but then he got off at Conway Park and torpedoed my theory.  No-one dresses up for a night out on the pull in Birkenhead - it's not worth the effort.

Four Network Rail men get on the train at Hamilton Square; clocking on or knocking off, I wonder?  I get off with them at Moorfields, and they look around for the lift - "I'm not fucking walking."

I'd decided to change at Moorfields because I thought it would complete the set of underground stations.  Only as I stood on the platform did I remember that I hadn't been to James Street.

Final leg now.  The train hits Central, and fills immediately; it's four o'clock on a Friday and the office workers with flexi time are out of there.  There's a crisp packet on the seat in front of me, cheese and onion, the artificial flavourings still lingering in the air.  It's passed to the neighbouring seat by a little round woman with a severe red bob.  She produces a historical epic from her bag, cracks the spine and begins reading.  Then the crisp bag is passed on again, to the seat next to me, by a trim pensioner carrying a hot pink handbag.  She's wearing open toed sandals and probably regrets it.

Further on in the carriage two teenage girls are showing their mum their purchases, delving into carrier bags and producing the treasures inside.  A shoebox is taken out and a single trainer is put up for the others to coo over.  A bikini is taken out of a Primark carrier: "Is that for your holiday?"

Through the tunnel again, a pause at Hamilton Square.  The young stylish couple across the way are big on public displays of affection.  Their bodies are rammed together, tight designer jeans swathed around touching knees.  She clutches her iPhone in a fist, its screen strobing across her clothes.  A cyclist boards and the standing commuters shuffle uncomfortably to let him on, but no-one moves the crisp bag on the seat next to me.

The stylish girl's coat slips from her shoulder as we move off again, revealing a pale shoulder under a white vest top.  She gazes out into the carriage through panda eyes, until her boyfriend reclaims her, pulling her back in for another kiss.  At Birkenhead Park there's a chirrup of phones as the signals are recovered, and a corresponding movement of arms into pockets to retrieve messages.  A schoolboy pushes the crisp packet onto the floor and takes the seat next to me, but sitting sideways, tapping at his lime green Blackberry with a well-practised thumb.  It plinks and beeps, new messages covering up his Everton football club wallpaper.

There's a thud as we clonk over the junctions and pass round the back of the giant Tesco Extra.  Bidston station is swathed in netting and building work.  The couple squeeze their way off the train, holding hands.  I can smell thick, cheap aftershave; I suspect it comes from the teenager next to me, spritzing himself anxiously all day to fight off adolescent sweats.  He receives a picture message but can't work out what it is: after turning his mobile a few times he replies with "?".

Someone is talking behind me in an Asian language, Mandarin or Cantonese or something, having half a conversation we can't understand.  That's the third foreign language I've heard on the train today, and it doesn't include the incomprehensible Glaswegian at Chester or the treacle thick Scouse accent.  There are flats at Leasowe I don't remember having seen before, but it's been a long time since I came this way, a very long time.  The boy and the pensioner both get off at Moreton, and the woman with the bob swings round, riding the rest of the journey side saddle so she can stretch her legs.

There's a stretch of unlikely countryside between Moreton and Meols, with paddocks and Shetland ponies and meadows.  The rain returns, but listlessly this time, falling against the window in splatters.  We pass over the barrow crossing before Manor Road, the one that seems to claim a victim every year, and then we're at the station proper.  It's nearly six years since I collected the station, but I suddenly remember being here, coming down the steps to the platform, listening to the Coral on my iPod.

Hoylake is pretty, of course, and probably about to get a makeover ready for the return of the Open next year.  Then the train clears its throat and rumbles, readying itself for a rest at the terminus.  The neatly mown expanse of the golf course provokes a burst of energy in the carriage.  Books are tidied away, bodies stretch, phones are produced and "I'm just coming into the station now" seems to be on everyone's lips.  At West Kirby I tip onto the last station of the day, the last branch, the end of the line.

I text Jamie.  Fancy a pint?

Friends in High Places

Brace yourself to think less of me, but I haven't been watching The Railway on BBC2.  I have recorded all of them, and they're stacked up on my Sky box, but I'm just never in the mood.  The problem is I've been with the BF for 16 years and he is utterly obsessed by docusoaps and fly on the wall documentaries.  Real Rescues, Motorway Cops, Airline, Airport, 24 Hours in A&E, Sun Sea and A&E, that one with that bloke who used to be a drug dealer in Corrie going "sorted" a lot - he watches them all.  He even watches foreign ones, ones with lifeguards on Bondi Beach or Auckland customs officials where it's all "I'm rilly sorry bit yi cin't bring binanas into Niew Ziland" and then they chuck someone's lunchbox in a bin and mark it Biological Hazard.  I try to ignore it but it all seeps in; I strongly suspect I would know what the correct procedure is to stabilise a young girl who's been thrown off her horse in North Yorkshire (young girls are always getting thrown off their horses in North Yorkshire; someone should start a petition against it).  I'm all fly-all-the-walled out. 

I understand it's very good, anyway.  I understand it's been a fascinating and insightful glimpse beneath the surface of a valuable public service.  The main reason I'm mentioning it in this blog though is last night's episode followed the folk of Merseyrail, and it featured a cameo by friend of the blog Chris Bowden-Smith.  Those were his dulcet tones telling the ladies in their eight inch high heels to mind their step, and asking the passengers to drop the Heineken cans before they got on board; they were his eyes physically assaulting the young men in morning suits as they disembarked.  Well done Chris.  (Obviously I haven't seen the episode, but I did skim through the first few minutes to make sure he was in it.  Luckily he was right at the start).  You can watch it yourself here. 

At the same time, at the other end of the country, another friend of the blog has made it into print.  Ian's marvelous, universally adored 150 Great Things About The Underground caught the attention of the people at Creative Review, and they asked him to pen a feature for them, including his own photos.  His spread can be found in the current issue, available from all good newsagents.  It's a great magazine on top of Ian's bit; a London Underground special, with some fascinating pieces about the evolution of the network's design.

So all in all, a great time for my friends to become famous.  I, meanwhile, am slogging my way across the north of England at six in the morning with no reward whatsoever.  Where's my book deal?  Where are my magazine pieces?  Where is the six part tv series chronicling my travels, eh?  I don't ask much - BBC Four would be fine or, at a pinch, one of the better Discovery channels.  I'm far more photogenic than that ugly pair after all.

No, I don't mean it.  I am totally pleased for Chris and Ian.  Now I'm off to strangle a kitten.

New! Improved! Different!

I've changed the look of the blog.

I've been meaning to do it for a while.  The lovely Jamie designed me a new, ALFie header and sent it to me two months ago.  I loved it of course.  Not least because he did it completely off his own back and didn't ask me or charge me or anything.  I love getting unexpected gifts.

Anyway.  The previous blog template was put together by me using a program called Artisteer, so I tried uploading the new header using that.  It didn't work.  I tried it again.  It didn't work again.  Eventually I swore at Artisteer and slammed my laptop shut.

Then I went to Scotland and London and fanned around a bit and did nothing more about it.

Until tonight, when I thought, that header is just too good for me to waste.  Besides, it's a bit rude of me not to use it.

And so I just used one of Bloggers Blog-standard templates and fiddled with it a bit and after a lot more swearing, I got it working.

So here we are.  The blog now features its very own ALF.  Plus it has the smiley train. And the man giving his boyfriend a bunch of flowers.

I'm still not 100% sure about the background though.  That may change.

I hope you like it.  Actually a part of me doesn't care if you don't: it's my blog and I can do what I like on it.  But I'm also quite needy and crave positive feedback (did I mention I'm on pills?) so if you do like it, let me know.  And let Jamie know.  He's also quite needy.

Kiddiewinks

Another day, another Merseyrail freebie from Jamie and Chris.  This time it comes in the form of a new idea for the younger travellers on the network.

I didn't realise this but under fives don't have to pay for travel on the trains.  That makes me sound a bit thick, but when am I ever going to have found this out?  I don't carry infants around with me.  Anyway, the point is that adorable toddlers don't get given tickets, which can cause them to get distressed.  Who knew this was a problem?  Who knew that all over Merseyside there were blubbing four year olds, distraught because they couldn't wave a bit of orange card about?  (Mind you, I remember having a roll of blank bus tickets from my Granddad, who was a driver on the Green Line in Hertford, and loving playing with them.  Simple pleasures, etc). 

Anyway Martin at Moreton station came up with this idea:

A ticket sized card for those kids to hold and play with on the train.  It's a lovely, simple gimmick which has been rolled out across Merseyrail, and I thoroughly approve.  Not least because after an absence of about thirty years, it sees the return of the smily Merseyrail train:

He's gone all trendy with that baseball cap, and obviously he's had some work done, but still: nice to see him back.  Well done Martin.

It also raises an interesting thought for me - why are kids so fascinated with trains?  I've often seen very young children waving enthusiastically at them as they pass, or bouncing around on the platform with glee as they come in.  I was once in a lift at James Street with a gorgeous little boy who was telling his granddad all about the trip and how exciting it was.  There's something strangely primeval about it - it's not just to do with Thomas the Tank Engine and Underground Ernie, but something to do with the whole experience of the train.  I don't think they'd get half as interested in a passing Ford Escort.   

Happy Feet

Before I headed off on my tour of North Wales (and by the way: thank you for all your comments - it's really appreciated),
there was an important international event: Eurovision.

Don't look at me like that.

As is usual, it was a night for snacks, booze and borderline racist comments.  Joining in the fun was Jamie, who arrived
bearing gifts.  Always a sign of a good guest.

The gifts were courtesy of his partner Chris, a.k.a The Golden Voice of Merseyrail, fresh from his stint doing the
announcements at Aintree during the races.  Top of the list came those magical items: MERSEYRAIL FLIP FLOPS!

This season, the flip flops are coming in black: minimalist and subtle.  The perfectly elegant accompaniment to any outfit.
There's also a little ad for Merseyrail's Facebook page too.  I'd be curious to know how many of the glamorous ladies
attending the races immediately ran home and Liked that page; I'm guessing the numbers ran as high as zero.

There were also a few postcards.  You might remember that I love the new Art on the Network poster, the Art Deco blue
one.  The postcards have been produced to promote the competition, and are little marvels.  First we have the blue railway one:

I love that so much.  In fact, I even e-mailed Merseytravel and asked if they had prints of it for sale.  I never got a
reply but I maintain they could make a tidy sum flogging those in the MtoGo shops and the Travel Centres.  

Anyway.  The second image, in the same style, is themed around the ferries:

Love.  It.  You can't tell me that the Ferry Terminal shop wouldn't be able to shift a few prints of that?

The bus one is less successful.  I like the green but I'm not sure it gels in the same way the other two do.  It's still pretty
gorgeous though.

They're really great.  Many many thanks to Jamie and Chris for the pressies, and many thanks to Merseytravel for
producing them.  Budding artists: don't forget you can still enter the Art on the Network competition here.

As for Eurovision, at least we weren't humiliated this year.  The winner was pretty unmemorable though; I couldn't
remember which one it was until they played it again at the end.  Ah well.  Next year in Baku...

In The Pink

So: it was Liverpool Pride at the weekend, an excuse for the city's homosexuals to get together and bond. I'm not really one for Pride festivals, normally. I went to Manchester Pride about twelve years ago and it was horrible. You paid to get in, which is odd considering it was being held on public streets, and then you were hemmed into narrow, crowded districts of bars and stands. There was an air of frenetic, unpleasant chaos about the place, not helped by the number of people nakedly staring at passers by, summing them up. I was there for about two hours before I'd had enough.

Liverpool Pride though - well, that's different. For starters it was free. Secondly, it was in Liverpool, a city I have very much taken to my heart since I moved here (gulp) fifteen years ago. I thought it was important to go along and take part, especially since there's been an unpleasant rise in homophobic attacks in the city over the past couple of years. Sometimes it's good to show that your community isn't afraid, and is actually proud of who they are.

We marched from St George's Plateau to Dale Street, which had been closed for the festival, right through the centre of the city. I was incredibly pleased to see people by the side of the road, cheering, shouting, applauding: all sorts of Scousers just enjoying the spectacle. Ok, one boy did point at me and shout "poof!" (well spotted), and there was a contingent of Christian Fundamentalists in Derby Square telling us we were all going to hell, but beyond that it was an incredibly positive reception. There's something wonderful about men putting their kids on their shoulders so they can get a better view of a six foot drag queen with awesome legs.

After that there was a day of hedonism ahead. Well, as hedonistic as you can get in an industrial Northern city - it wasn't exactly a bacchanalian orgy. It was just a good time. The whole experience was completely different to the Manchester one - there was a glee in the air, a really friendly atmosphere that was great to be a part of.

And I was pleased to see that Merseytravel and Merseyrail were part of it all. Merseyrail had a stand, with pink t-shirt wearing staff on hand. I'm not sure what was going on at the stand, because when we walked past there was a man with a microphone trying to drum up volunteers: this is the kind of behaviour that causes me to have a small panic attack in case I'm dragged in and made to sing or something, so I backed away quietly. Otherwise I'd have checked it out for freebies (those pink t-shirts would do nicely, for starters). I'm such a cheap-ass, but then you knew that: remember how excited I got over my Merseyrail flip-flops?

Merseytravel were one of the sponsors, so I knew they'd be there, and I got very excited when I saw two women in Exchange Square with Merseytravel bags. Freebies! Freebies with a big M on them! I immediately dragged everyone to the stand to look for stuff to get. Sadly, when I got there, shyness took over. I couldn't quite bring myself to just say "Can I have a load of corporate guff please?". Instead I satisfied myself with some great Art on the Network postcards:

I particularly like the one on the left: it's got a great, fractured beauty to it. The woman on the stall saw me grabbing Art on the Network stuff and asked if I was an artist, before giving me the rundown on the competition.

I also got a postcard of Tony Fitzpatrick's work from Liverpool Central:

Job done, I rejoined my pals, who immediately called me out for being such a chicken and not getting a bag. Well, it's rude to ask, isn't it? So Jamie, bless him, took the matter into his own hands and went and got me one:

Hurray! Like I said, stick an "M" on it and I'm there.

The rest of the day was spent in various bars, knocking back pint after pint. I also bumped into Nat, who recognised me from the blog; humiliatingly, she spotted me in the crowd for Adam Rickitt - I wasn't there to see him, I was just on my way past! Honest! We had a bit of a chat, and I told her to get back on with blogging because she's become positively sporadic in her writing. I'm afraid I was home by eleven, what with being an old fart and everything, but it was a great day. I'm already looking forward to next year.

In London, April is a Spring Month

Best laid plans, and all that. This should have been a deeply thoughtful, carefully considered treatise on the significance of past and future. Mentions of the passing of time, the fragile beauty of a desolate beach, the swirling skies embodying internal torment.

Instead it looks like it's going to be the same old sarcastic rubbish about train stations and beer. Oh well.

It started well. I headed for Birkenhead Park ready for an afternoon of Wirral Line voyaging. I began with a literal high. The man ahead of me in the queue for the ticket office reeked of marijuana. I mean, absolutely stank of it. One sniff of his jacket and I'd have been crouched on the floor air guitaring Purple Haze. As it was, I just got a mild buzz, like when you rub your feet on a nylon carpet for the easy thrill of the static.

Down on the platform, the skies were doing this:

I wasn't too worried. I'd come out in just a sweatshirt, no jacket, but I figured it was the last day of April, and therefore practically summer. The swirling clouds above me would pass.

Somewhere around Wallasey Grove Road, the Gods decided it wouldn't pass, and a constant, heavy stream of rain began throwing itself at the train. By the time I got off at New Brighton it had become a relentless wash of misery.

Now I don't mind the rain. I'm not one of these girlie-men who recoil at the sight of a couple of spots. I hate umbrellas, and I hate hoods even more, so I've regularly been drenched to the skin walking to work or a train station or something. In fact, I find it sort of refreshing: there's something very liberating about being stood inside a downpour, letting the water drive itself through your clothes until you feel it tingle your flesh and the cold slipping into your bones. I've stood naked in monsoon-territory weather abroad, just enjoying the ping of the droplets on my body. I put this down to being born in January 1977, and therefore having been conceived somewhere around Spring 1976: my poor mother had to carry me through the blistering heatwave of that year, and her no doubt horrific discomfort somehow worked its way through the uterus and into my subconscious.

Where I'm going with this is, I didn't mind walking through a bit of precipitation. What was depressing about the weather I encountered was its half-heartedness. It was grimy, grey rain, the kind that just falls onto you as though it couldn't be bothered hanging around in a cloud any longer. It splattered on my skin and face, not soaking me, but not being dry either: each droplet was marked against the stripes on my top. It was miserable rain, and as I walked along I just felt it driving my mood down with it.

The plan had been to visit a relative rarity on the Merseyrail network: a closed station that was probably going to stay that way. Unlike say, St James or Otterspool, where there are vague aspirations to reopen them sometime, Warren station was closed in 1915 and no-one is particularly keen on seeing it come back.

Warren was one of those "in theory" stations. When the railway to New Brighton was built, they built more or less evenly spaced stations, and probably hoped that there would be enough development as a consequence of the new train line to justify its existence. It didn't work that way. Even today, the site of Warren station is isolated amongst golf courses, parkland, and the bare open front of New Brighton. The Wirral is a crowded little peninsula, and the demand for seafront property has never been higher, but round here there's still a sense of wild open land.

So the anticipated passenger numbers never arrived, and soon Warren was only getting one train a day. Finally, it was destroyed by a combination of the First World War and a new tramline along Warren Drive, parallel with the railway line. Warren, barely a station in the first place, was handed back to nature.

(Incidentally, I should say I'm glad it's gone, because I used to know of someone called Warren, whose main claim to fame was that he had sex with some bloke in a glass telephone box on campus while I was doing my degree. Saying that I had "tarted Warren" may have turned my stomach).

I pushed on through the rain on Warren Drive so that I could check out this remnant of the old days. The station was located on the imaginatively titled Sea Road, right at the end. At one point this would have all been the gentle dunes of the Wirral coastline. Now I had the Warren golf course on one side, and a series of nouveau villas on the other. There is some quite marvellous architecture in New Brighton: if you're ever around there, you must check it out. There was a full on Spanish hacienda on Warren Drive, complete with barbecue.

The Sea Road houses were less grand, but seemed to say, "I've spent my life working hard, and now I'm going to retire somewhere with a bit of coast and a view of the 16th hole". There were buttoned up balconies peering over the fence of the course, their patio heaters shrouded in vinyl condoms and the seats upturned on the table. As I struggled along a BMW Z3 went past - it was a few years old, not fashionable any more, but it seemed to represent the "glossy aspirational" air of the place. It was caviar sandwiches on chip butty budgets.

The men on the golf course were fully kitted out with golf umbrellas (hence the name, I guess). I was a bit worried, because I thought you wasn't meant to golf in the rain? Isn't there an increased likelihood of being struck by lightning? I can't pretend that I wasn't mildly excited by the idea of one of them being turned into a pair of smoking Saxone shoes by an errant lightning strike. A quick flash and you become an anecdote and a black and white picture in the course bar. The rain couldn't be bothered with lightning though. That would have been too interesting.

So I pushed on to the site of Warren. "Nothing to see" is about right. I suppose, in fairness, it has been gone for nearly a hundred years. There's no reason there should be anything here. But I was hoping for some kind of sign of previous life, having battled my way through tepid moisture. A bricked up flight of stairs. The foundations of a ticket office. The ghost of Bernard Cribbins blowing a whistle. Anything.

There was nothing except some over elaborate brickwork and some borderline pornographic graffiti. If I'd scrambled up the bank, apparently, and stuck my head over the fence, I might - might - have been able to see the remnants of an old platform which was uncovered during engineering works. Possibly.

I'd had enough though. The pissy rain, the grey skies, the men clearing the rubbish from the path ahead of me - it wasn't exactly "breathtaking vistas" but more "drab". I felt fed up. I was wet, and cold, and my ambitious plans for the afternoon were gone. I'd planned on venturing further along the coast, right to the site of the proposed Town Meadow station, between Moreton and Meols. It would have been a really symbolic "past/future" kind of thing. I couldn't be arsed. It was too much to bear.

I slinked back to the moistened surroundings of Wallasey Grove Road station (even when it's a bad weather day, I still hate turning back on myself). There I was able to board a train that was dry, with the heating on, and after a while I started to feel human again. I needed a pick me up though. I needed something to make me whole again. What could that be?

(This is where I would normally insert a HILARIOUS close up of a pint of beer. I forgot to take one this time, so you'll have to use your imaginations).

Yes, I headed to the pub, or more specifically, I headed to the Wetherspoons in West Kirby. As I've said before, they have free wi-fi here, so I could Twitter and so on from my iPod touch to my heart's content: always a good way to pass the time.

Secondly, they have some, ahem, characters there. While I was in the pub I listened to the conversations of a group of "professional" drinkers who, it seemed to me, spent all their days working their way round Merseyside comparing the various different Wetherspoons for price, service, and comfort. High point for me was one of them talking about some woman who'd had the temerity to bring a baby into the bar, a baby which had subsequently wailed. As the man said to the manager (according to him) "If I made that kind of noise, you'd chuck me out." Well, quite.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I could get Jamie and Chris out to buy me drinks chat to, which is a far more pleasant way to round off a Friday afternoon than pressing up against fences in the middle of a rainstorm. They presented me with a genuine, one of a kind piece of Merseystuff: a real Merseyrail map, formerly sited at Meols station until it had faded beyond recognition. The City Line is hinted at, rather than actually being legible - it adds a frisson of excitement, if you ask me (where will my train go? What station is next? The thrills!). It's surprisingly big. You don't realise how large those posters are when you stare at them on the platform.

Unlike last time, we managed to keep the conversational topics reasonably clean until I had to dash off to Sainsbury's for my Friday night shop with the Bf. Which was a shame because, as always with me, once I start drinking I find it very difficult to stop. I had to go home and drink lager until I slipped into a coma to make up for it.

A Golden Day

The recent foray into the old maps of Merseyside's railways got me thinking about the history of the network and, more particularly, what's been lost. Liverpool and the Wirral have always been blessed with train routes; it's one of the reasons we still have a good network today. It hasn't stopped the closure of some lines however.

Principal among these was the West Kirby to Hooton line. Opened in 1886, this line curved up along the west of the peninsula, taking in the likes of Parkgate and Heswall on its way to the terminus at West Kirby. Unlike its brother line on the east coast, this meant it passed through a lot of rural communities, small places without much of a commuter base; it also failed to reach any major destinations, and almost inevitably it closed completely in 1962. Almost nothing remains of the line; it's been turned into the Wirral Way, though a station has been preserved at Hadlow Road, which I visited years ago.

I was curious to see what remained of the terminus. At West Kirby, the Hooton branch had its own station, just a single platform off to one side of the electrified lines, with a goods yard separating the two. I thought, as it was a nice April day, I'd take a trip out there to have a poke around.

West Kirby was one of the first stations I did, three years ago, and I was curious to see how it was getting on. I'm pleased to say that it's a very pretty little station, with a nice glass atrium area at its centre. The last time I was here the shop units were vacant; now there's a toy shop, and a stripped pine and frappucino coffee shop with outdoor seating spilling over into the station area. Pleasingly, the cafe is accessible from the street and the station itself, giving the building a little dose of activity and life. Out on the pavement the Victorian building looked good, just as a small town terminus should, though I'm forced to ask - exactly how difficult is it to fix a clock? A good station clock in such a prominent place should be maintained and loved. Surely these days it's not too difficult to do? We can put a man on the moon, etc.

Stopped clock or not, it's still a lot better than its neighbour. After the station closed, and the goods yard went too, the council took over the unused land and built a civic centre there. A council office, a library, a health centre, a leisure centre and a fire station were all put onsite. To tie these disparate buildings together, they decided to stick with one architectural style. That style was "breathtakingly awful public convenience".

It's a marvel, isn't it? It's like someone saw the Royal Festival Hall and decided to copy it on a local authority budget. Then ran out of cash halfway through. West Kirby is a very pretty town, and the stained white tiles of the Concourse building are incredibly jarring. I have a kind of grudging admiration for their brutality and ugliness, but the idea that they may soon be replaced and rebuilt doesn't fill me with sadness.

I skirted the building, heading south along Orrysdale Road, which was created when the old railway went. I was heading for the railway bridge at the throat of the line, which used to host a junction which enabled traffic to move between the two branches (but was in reality barely used). From there I could get an idea of just what a huge site had once been devoted to the railways.

Everything left of the current station was given over to trains. Walking round the quiet town now, it's amazing to think that such a vast quarter of it had once been busy with steam engines, timber yards and industry. It's like Stratford Upon Avon used to have a nuclear power plant at its centre; it doesn't seem feasible.

I headed back into town through a green space which had once been a trackbed. There's very little remaining of the old station, a few walls, some contours in the ground. The trees planted here with the redevelopment have matured and were just starting to bud alongside a bank of daffodils. I paused; perhaps the Concourse would look better when viewed through nature in this way?

Yeah, maybe not.

The West Kirby to Hooton line came at the site from the opposite direction to the Birkenhead trains, so I crossed the road and headed for the Wirral Way. A nice signpost and information board pointed the way into this little oasis of green. I stepped onto the path and it almost immediately fell silent; so strange how sometimes you can move away from the town with just the slightest movement. The houses along here would once have been buffeted by noise and chaos from the trains - now they had trees, and greenery out their back windows. I bet there were a fair few householders who saw a sharp rise in their investment when they sold on.

It being a spring day in the Easter holidays, I wasn't alone on the footpath. There were families out strolling, dog walkers, cyclists - even a couple of horse riders at one point. I was being stalked by a woman on a bike, which was a bit disconcerting because she clearly could have overtaken me if she wanted, but for some reason she refused to. Perhaps she just liked staring at my arse.

The path passed through Ashton Park, and I walked underneath what once would have been the only connection between the two sides of the railway line. The tennis courts on one side and the lake on the other were separated by the railway; with its closure, they had been allowed to grow together again, and the trees and bushes had smeared the division between them. The bridge had been made redundant as the park's users formed their own muddy footpaths as they crossed from one side to the other. It did provide one key service now: somewhere for the local teenagers to hang out, looking sullen and pretending they were bored. Why do teenagers always have to hang out somewhere? I mean, they never just pick a random wall in the middle of an avenue - they always cling to a landmark, like a bridge, or a tree, or a corner. I used to loiter round a green BT junction box when I was growing up. Teenagers are like the human equivalent of pigeons.

I had no intention of walking the length of the Wirral Way. I had things to do, for starters, and besides which, it goes for miles. Instead I came off at the next bridge, which had once been home to Kirby Park station. Kirby Park was about as simple a station as you can get; a platform with a ramp going up to the street, and a coal siding. There was only one track here, though they optimistically built the road bridge big enough for two. Fat chance. Again, there's practically nothing to see, apart from the gap in the fence at the road level which was once the route to the platform.

I had a meander back into town ahead of me now, but I didn't mind. It was a lovely day, really bright and fresh, and I was glad I'd left my coat at home (I wasn't so glad when I got back that evening and realised my door keys were in my coat pocket, meaning I had to sit in the garage for an hour and a half waiting for the Bf to return). I did at one point consider going back to conscript a couple of those teenagers though:

Come ON, youth of West Kirby - a simple application of magic marker and you can make that "Maddona [sic] Drive". Where's your drive to commit acts of petty vandalism? Why aren't you altering road signs to commemorate pop legends? I suppose you're all studying for GCSEs and having part time jobs and being productive members of society. Kids today, tch.

Growing up in the Home Counties, I never really saw the sea; it was something reserved for special days out to Brighton (we couldn't afford holidays, either). It still comes as a surprise to me to realise how close I am to water. The Dee estuary grew larger as I followed Sandy Lane to the parade and the Marine Lake, and there was the diamond glint of the water in the sun, and the rugged peaks of Wales across the other side of the bay. The low tide created a vista of golden sand pockmarked with pools. I love my home, and I wouldn't move for the world, but looking out at that view I became envious of the householders who woke up to that every morning.

I relaxed my walk, taking "promenade" literally, and strolling alongside the lake towards the town proper. Again, there were families crowding round me, little girls wearing heelies scooting ahead, toddlers trying out their bikes with stabilisers. Pensioners had installed themselves on the benches and in the shelters, sitting beside one another and not needing to speak as they watched the light dance on the surface of the lake. There were a couple of windsurfers, but there wasn't much of a wind, so they moved idly around, seemingly as lazy and quiet as the rest of us. I gained a strange pleasure from watching people just enjoying their surroundings - they weren't here to go to the arcades or the funfair or any of the other cheap amusements you get at the "seaside". An ice lolly on a bench is about as exciting as West Kirby gets. It's a coastal town where the coast itself is the prize, and I love it.

Back into town though, past a cafe called Lattetude (I can't decide if that's awful or genius); past the famous branch of Boots where Glenda Jackson used to work (can you imagine trying to return an item without a receipt and finding her behind the counter? One Elizabeth I glare and you'd be scuttling back behind the Lemsips). I had a scout round Linghams bookshop, but to be honest I'd been put off by the display on the environment in the window which featured a book called Global Warming and Other Bollocks. Plus, it failed the Fleming Test, where I go in and check how many James Bond books they have instore; all they had was Devil May Care, the terrible Sebastian Faulks novel, so I turned on my heel and left without bothering with their local book section. I continued on to the Dee Hotel, a Wetherspoons pub which I can safely declare is one of the finest drinking establishments in the UK. Not only is it clean and tidy, not only do they have leather sofas, not only do they have free wi-fi, but most importantly, the barmaid asked me if I was over 18. When you reach your thirties, you'll take what you can get.

For once, I wasn't drinking alone. As payback for supplying me with all those signs, I'd offered to give Jamie and Chris a respite from the powdered eggs to buy them a drink. Not only are the two of them rail enthusiasts - making me look like a rank amateur, to be frank - but Chris actually works for Merseyrail. Indeed, Chris is the voice of recorded system messages in the stations: if a bomb goes off in Hamilton Square, it'll be Chris' honeyed tones that guide you to the exits (assuming you still have any legs). He's worked on the railway for over thirty years, and was able to regale me with tales of Merseyrail past and present. They suggested that I could cut a load of time off the Merseytart project by wandering up the stairs in their house, which apparently is covered in station signs, and Chris spoke of his ambition to have a signal in his back garden (Jamie's face at this point strongly indicated that this will happen at roughly the same time our robot overlords put us to work in the spice mines). Most important of all, they have met my hero, Bart Schmeink, and confirmed that not only is he very Dutch and very nice, but he's also roughly eight feet tall. Fantastic.

It was a great afternoon, and the conversation took in a lot more than just Merseystuff, some of which isn't suitable for publication on a family blog. Finally it was time to go home, and they presented me with a gift:

My very own Merseyrail mug! I was ridiculously excited, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Now I can finally have Merseytea. On the back there's a handy rundown of Merseyfacts, which I presume was put there as an aide memoire for staff every time some wanker turned up to complain about "Miseryrail". Even I was cynical about some of the facts but Chris assured me, yes, they're all true (or at least they were when the mug was fired).

So in short, I had a look at some old train stations, walked down a country path, paraded along the coast, and topped it off with a few pints in good company, culminating in my own souvenir of the network. Life can be awful sometimes, and the world can be a horrible place, but it's not all bad. There are plenty of nice bits left.