Dock Tales

 

You might come to this blog for many reasons.  The trains.  The photos.  My witty repartee.  If you come here to admire the scenic beauty of England, then I'm afraid this post is not for you.  Outside Birkenhead North station is a vast hinterland of abandoned docks and industrial units.  This is the back streets, the abandoned parts, the leftovers of Britain.  And here I was walking through it.

For once, I was in familiar territory.  This bit of the Wirral is familiar to me because it's the location of the Bidston Recycling Centre, the peninsula's number one spot for getting rid of rubbish, and as the owner of an awful lot of rubbish, I've been here a fair few times.  Many's the afternoon I've trudged back and forth with arms full of wood or broken tiles or, on one particularly sad day, boxes of VHS video tapes that nobody else wanted.  

It lends a certain piquant aroma to the surrounding area, particularly on a hot day in June, and there's no real way to disguise it.  Still, it could be worse; for many decades, the tip was simply the Bidston Dock, and rubbish was poured into it without any consideration to separating your paper from your food waste.  The pile has now been grassed over to form a hillock and nature reserve - one that has carefully placed stink pipes scattered around to let out the methane.  

Crossing a bridge that wasn't really necessary any more, I reached a building site.  Piles of rubble and metal were being shifted from side to side.  This will soon be a David Lloyd Health Club, boasting the largest padel facility on the Wirral, indoor sports courts and a cafe.  It'll also boast an open air swimming pool, with the CGI images showing sun loungers scattered around the edge like a Benidorm getaway.  Remember a few sentences back when I was talking about the smell coming from the tip?  Yeah.

I managed to get over the busy dual carriageway - one gentleman stopped his car and waved me across, which was good of him.  The flowers here are a tribute to PC Dave Phillips, who was killed here by a car thief as he tried to deploy a stinger in 2015.   I went up the steep hill, towards the district of Poulton, past a working men's club and a church with an open door inviting you into their cafe.

For decades there was another railway station in a cutting here: Liscard and Poulton.  Opened in 1895, it was the only interim stop on a branch line to the ferry terminal at Seacombe, and as such had an important role getting Liverpool commuters across the river.  It was never incredibly successful, however, and when the rest of the Wirral Railway was electrified in 1938, the branch was left powered by steam.  That decision hung a noose over the branch which wasn't finally tightened until 1960, when the whole route was closed and the tracks lifted.

The deep cutting was instead repurposed into a far more twentieth century route - the approach road for the brand new tunnel under the Mersey, the Kingsway.  Nothing remains of the station as a result.  There would've been an island platform where the central reservation is now, and the booking hall has been replaced with an electrical substation.  If you squint you can just about see the slope on the right hand side of the road that was where access was, but you have to use your imagination.

The only indication that there was ever a railway here is in the street running alongside, which is still called Station Road.

I crossed back over Mill Lane and followed a bendy avenue that paralleled the tunnel approach.  A woman in a pink tracksuit unplugged her electric car from the public charger built into a lamppost; across the way, a group stood on the doorstep of a house, laughing and gossiping.  A small side road had the unusual name of Paula's Way - I've not been able to find out exactly who Paula was - and then there was a wide road with stores that seemed to have escaped from another era.  The credit union was alongside a sewing store and a supplier of fruit machines; even the paper shop still had a sign for the Daily Post, which hasn't been published since 2013.

A footbridge takes you back over the motorway here, and I've always been fascinated by it when I passed underneath because someone has decided to paint it in the Merseytravel colours.  There's absolutely no need for it to be in grey and yellow, but there it is, and I enjoy it.  I walked over, keeping my eyes averted from the speeding vehicles below, instead taking in the many black stickers plugging a men's hairdresser in town.  Their use of the phrase English Barber had a vague dogwhistle to it.

A row of Victorian terraces now descended back towards the dock, with huge storage tanks providing the full stop at the bottom.  Most of the houses had venetian blinds or a thin film stuck to the glass to stop prying eyes, though a couple were old school with net curtains.  On the corner, an abandoned toilet sat alongside the wheely bins, vaguely hoping a kind dustman would cart it off for them.

I turned to the side, where a pub had been converted into a pair of houses, and down a one way road augmented with a chicane of kerbs to slow joyriders.  The pedestrian entrance to a recreation park was crowned with piles of fly tipped rubbish; bits of plywood, black bags, an upside-down pushchair.  I'll remind you that ten paragraphs ago I was talking about a massive recycling centre that would've happily accepted all that, but I guess it's simply too difficult for some people to give a shit.

I was on the Dock Road now, an unlovely stretch of tarmac between yards and garages.  Anonymous business units surrounded by parking sit opposite tyre centres and scaffolding.  Some of that has been swept away for a new grey building, angled in the middle to follow the dock, which will form the new HQ for an MDF manufacturing plant.  It's still unfinished and looks far too clean and pristine amongst the rest of the grimy units.

Round another corner, and I was confronted with the new face of the docks.  It's been nearly twenty years since Wirral Waters was unveiled to the public, an ambitious plan by Peel to fill the land round here with skyscrapers and businesses and turn it into a glistening Dubai on the Mersey.  You'll be unsurprised to learn that literally none of that ambitious plan has actually happened; in fact, Peel's complete lack of activity has been the cause of raised eyebrows, with some accusing them of land banking.  Where the Dock Road meets Duke Street, however, there is an actual sign of progress.

Miller's Quay is a development of six brightly coloured apartment blocks that wouldn't look out of place on a dockside in Frankfurt or Amsterdam.  They're a bright, bold statement of intent, a big show of investment, and even better they've been completely occupied since almost the first moment they opened.  There have been a few teething problems - parking was a problem for a while, with many residents preferring to leave their cars on the street rather than pay the fees, until double yellow lines were laid down - but it's a remarkable success.  They're even getting their own Sainsbury's, a little grey and orange blob now under construction, which is a canary in a coal mine of gentrification.

I wasn't sure whether the public realm around the towers was public after all.  The signage was vague, and in 2026, you kind of expect anywhere nice to be patrolled by stern-faced security men intent on kicking you out.  I walked between two of the buildings boldly, as if I had a right to be there, and found a lovely little promenade on the waterside with plenty of benches and planting.

I'm not one hundred percent certain I was meant to be there, but I had a nice little stroll and nobody leapt out to demand to see my papers.  Next to Miller's Quay, however, there's a large plot of undeveloped land; it was marked for an apartment block for over 55s, but the delivery partner pulled out.  I wouldn't want to be a pensioner round here - as I said, it was only just getting a supermarket, and there are no buses along the Dock Road except for, bafflingly, the N1 night bus when it passes through the new tunnel on the way to Birkenhead Bus Station.  I can't imagine there being many old dears who've much need for a bus at four in the morning.

The footpath has been upgraded along this side of the road to full luxurious dockside living, though on the other, its's still a strip of grey tarmac beside factories.  It was a strange, schizophrenic place, working and living coinciding; I doubted that many of the people on the fourth floor of Miller's Quay finished their cappuccinos on the balcony then wandered over for a shift at the skip hire place across the road.  

The East Float apartments were the first to be redeveloped into residential in the docks and for years they've stood on their own, isolated, the home of pioneers who gambled that they were buying into the new Albert Dock or Canary Wharf.  Beside them are some interesting red modular homes built by Urban Splash; there was meant to be an apartment block behind, but the division that built houses went into liquidation.  Only now is there work going on to build the block, a pile driver relentlessly banging into my thoughts as I passed, although its design is not quite as interesting as the first phase.

I'd walked the whole length of the float now, right down to where a lifting bridge allows ships to pass through from the Mersey.  The docks still see a lot of maritime use, even today; there's frequently a naval ship moored up for restocking or refurbishment.  It's nothing like it used to be of course, and with all the actual freight handled across the river in Liverpool, it's no wonder Peel are scrabbling around for new uses for all that land.

The problem is, they don't really seem to know what to do with it.  As I crossed the bridge, I approached the derelict Central Hydraulic Tower.  It once supplied power to the whole dock complex, and it's designed to resemble the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.  It's a beautiful building that's fallen into disrepair.

The first plan for the tower was that it'd be a bar and restaurant, with a rooftop lantern giving you views across the river to Liverpool.  There would also be a new hotel.  That fell through, and instead it was proposed to be something called a "Maritime Knowledge Hub", linked to the Wirral Met College next door.  That's also fallen through, and in the meantime, the Grade II-listed building is quietly collapsing.

It's really hard to know what Wirral Waters is, or will be.  The feast of glowing glass skyscrapers was never going to happen - everyone knew that - but it doesn't feel like there's any kind of purpose here now.  It's as though Peel will simply allow anyone who turns up to build on their land.  A new factory?  Sure!  Apartment blocks?  Why not?  Down here, on the edge of the docks, there was the college, plus an office development, with a scheme called Egerton Village ("a dockside restaurant and bistro, small independent retail units, artists’ studios, managed workspace and even a central public events space") meant to occupy the space in between.  If you've got the money to build, you can.  It doesn't seem like a place. 

It's a development in search of an identity.  To me, the obvious solution is to fill it with apartments; the one thing this country needs is homes, and a vibrant new waterside village based around the docks couldn't miss.  I stood at the side of the road; behind me was the Liverpool waterfront, while in front of me acres of open water stretched away.  Surely someone could do something with it all.

The grey sky that had been amassing above my head finally broke.  I'd planned on walking back along the Corporation Road to Birkenhead North, closing the loop, but I didn't have a coat and I'd already walked a fair few miles.  Instead I headed to Hamilton Square and bought myself a cup of tea.  

Today actually marks the anniversary of this blog; the very first post was on the 17th June 2007.  Somehow I've managed to push through it for nineteen years, despite the general trend of the internet and increasingly vitriolic calls for me to stop, and I have you, the readers, to thank for that.  Your readership - and generosity - has always been appreciated.  Thank you again.  Here's hoping we'll all still be around for the twentieth.

Be Careful What You Wish For

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which, while amusing, is just sloppy).

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

Map! - The Greyening

There's been, over the last few months, a quiet design revolution at Merseytravel.  I'm not sure if this has been a corporate-led initiative, or if they've employed a couple of new, go ahead designers, but suddenly there's been an upswing in the quality of the promotional material produced by the PTE.  The posters are a little wittier and cleverer - this one, for example:

Or these two advertising term time travel, which I love.  They're simple, striking and fun; they catch the eye and give you the info you need.  Side by side like this they make a real impression.

Meanwhile a new symbol has appeared, the "bubbles" which tie the Merseytravel logo to the transport type.  It's swept across the county's bus stops and it looks good: modern, still in the corporate yellow and grey, and easy to understand.

A new Merseyrail map under this creative team should be great.  Can you hear the sadness creeping into my voice?  Because the new map is different, certainly, but it's not great.

(Click the pic to see it larger).

I'll start by apologising for the poor presentation of the new map.  I'd like to show it taken directly from the Merseytravel website, but they're still using the old map.  And by old, I mean a version dated 11/09 - yes, November 2009 - which still shows the Wirral Line loop as a square.  It may not have a bunch of new lines on it every six months, but come on; that's just lazy.  So I'm afraid you're going to have to rely on photos taken by me on a bright day at Hooton station and try and look past the reflections.

Initial thoughts: too much grey.  Grey border, grey info, grey everywhere.  There's no need for that grey backdrop to the map, especially as it highlights the mismatch in width between the map box and the station key underneath.  They don't align and it looks clunky.

Oddly I don't mind the grey being used to show the Merseytravel area.  That bit works for me; it makes the blue/green/red of the lines stand out more.  They're now definitely more important than the grey "other lines".  Although what's with that notch in the grey above Little Sutton?  That's either a glitch or an excessive dedication to the geographical boundaries of Merseyside.

And did you notice this isn't a Merseyrail map?  For the first time ever, this is headed "Local Rail Network Map" rather than Merseyrail.  The local rail company is relegated to the box at the bottom, just one of the transport providers:

Yes, I know that technically a Merseyrail map would show the Northern and Wirral lines and nothing else, but the diagram headed "Tube Map" in London should only show Tube services yet finds room for the Overground and trams and the Dangleway.  It's a change that makes me sad, but I can acknowledge it's perhaps a change for the better - or at least, the more accurate.  It's interesting to note that Northern are listed only for the City Line services, not for, say, Southport to Wigan; and that Arriva Trains Wales doesn't get a mention at all despite the Borderlands Line still occupying a prominent position.  Perhaps they didn't want to clutter up what is already a very cluttered bottom panel. 

A new addition is the logo for a Merseyrail bus station and Travel Centre, which seems like a good, logical addition... until you see how it's been applied.  The logo appears six times on the map.  Bootle New Strand and Huyton's Travel Centres are within shouting distance of their station; St Helens' is a very short walk away, so it's fine that they get the logo next to their station.  Lime Street has Queen Square, which is conveniently located if you come out of the right exit of the underground station; otherwise, it's a bit of a hike.  The logo at James Street is a fat lie, unless you think that a trek down the Strand is a handily located interchange. 

Birkenhead's travel centre symbol, meanwhile, is a collective throwing up of hands.  It's closest to Conway Park station, but of course, Conway Park doesn't have "Birkenhead" in its name.  So they've simply stuck the symbol next to the giant BIRKENHEAD on the map, tucking it in the notch of the Wirral Lines, and giving absolutely no clue which of the three stations nearby is closest. 

(Merseytravel's seventh Travel Centre is within Southport railway station, yet it doesn't get a symbol appended to it.  Why?  Because all the buses go from Lord Street, and the logo is for Staffed Bus Station and Travel Centre).

Up there in the key you might have noticed a weird phrase - "Rail to rail interchange stations".  What they're trying to explain is that a dotted line indicates two stations withing walking distance of one another - i.e. Greenbank and Hartford.  I don't think "rail to rail interchange stations" does mean that.  They've also removed the bus link between Burscough Bridge and Burscough Junction; I'm not sure if this bus no longer exists, or if they just decided it wasn't necessary to show it any more. 

There is, sadly, a real missed opportunity for some good news on the map.  Maghull North station is being built even as we speak; it's on target to open in 2018.  It'd be nice to put it on the map as Under Construction.  But no, that quarter of the map is still the same as ever (please note the dead spider is a feature unique to Hooton and does not appear network-wide... I hope).

At the same time, Maghull North offers a little bit of hope.  Slotting it in there between Maghull and Town Green will require a redraw of the map in the very near future.  The Merseytravel boundary line will move; the gap between stations will need to be rejigged.  It means that this current version of the map is temporary.  I hope that the people responsible for those great posters at the top are given a bit of leeway to experiment and innovate.  The Merseyrail map is a great diagram that just needs honing to perfection.

Ambush Makeover

So.  You've got a fleet of trains that, if they were humans, would be balding and have little pot bellies and would be making "aaaaah" noises every time they sat down.  The polite thing to do would be to send them out to pasture, but you can't afford to replace them.  What to do?

Why, give them a make over!

First Merseyrail applied vinyl to the side of their trains, to make them look peppier.  Now the interiors are getting a new look as well.  I rode on one last week, and I'm happy to report they've been done well.  It's not as radical a change as the one a decade ago - it's purely cosmetic - but it's made the trains feel fresh and bright again.

The new moquette on the seats is very nice.  Yellow and grey, obviously.  Was there ever any doubt?  Big orange strips have been applied to the doors as well, just so you know where to get off.

The most radical improvement is tucked between the seats though.

A bin!  An actual bin!  About time too.  It probably won't make much of a difference - for some reason, Merseyrail's passengers treat their trains like the floor of a cinema; chuck anything down there, someone else will pick it up - but it's nice to see.  If it swallows up just a few of those errant Metros, it's more than paid back the investment.

(Yes, that's two posts about trains in a row.  Don't worry, I'm doing a bit of station collecting later in the week).

Swiss Movement

The train bursts out of the tunnel into monochrome.  The world is black and white.  Thick snow whirls against the windows.  The Stanley Dock buildings, normally a redbrick monolith, are just a grey blob in the distance.  The only colour is the bright green corporate branding of a BP garage, glowing through the weather.

I'm on my way to Southport for breakfast.  The wonderful Bob Stanley, Saint Etienne legend and lover of anything that can be given the description, "New Elizabethan", posted this on his twitter feed:

On the main road in Southport was the Swiss Chalet, a cafe straight out of a Cliff Richard film.  I knew I had to visit before it closed forever, so I grabbed a Day Saver and headed for the Northern Line.

The carriage smells of Doritos, thanks to a man working his way through a party sized bag of Chilli Heatwave flavour, and there's the occasional incursion of snowflakes through an open window.  I wasn't sure why the window was open on what seemed to be one of the coldest days of 2015 so far, but there was a woman sat right underneath it.  She clearly needed the air.

Sandhills seems deserted until the train came to a complete halt.  Then the doors on the waiting room slid open and bundled up humanoids shuffled on board, like the world's slowest zombie film.  Sandhills is aggressively chilly at the best of times; the wind whips across the Mersey and hammers at the viaduct, whisking at coats and umbrellas.  With snow too, it must be hell.

The seat across the aisle from me is taken by a teenage girl who is, at first glance, talking to herself.  Only when she shifts her head does her hair catch on her shoulder and reveal the slim microphone of a hands-free kit.  She begins what seems to be a monologue - I assume she's on the phone to someone; hopefully she's paying, because the other person isn't getting a single word in - that stops suddenly when two British Transport Policewomen push down the aisle and into the next carriage.

"Fuuuuuuuck" she hisses into the mic.  "The police are on the damn train."  I guess that the little chatterbox has declined to buy a ticket, and secretly pray that the police make their way back with an inspector.  We pass through Bank Hall, a white strip of platform against the black walls, and she bellows, "I just missed a call off Kevin 'cos I'm on the phone to you!"  A tap at her smartphone with her touchscreen enabled gloves and she switches to Kevin.  "Yeah, I know.  I'm getting off, like, now."  While I wonder if there's any call for a Scouse Catherine Tate, the rest of the carriage heaves a sigh of relief when she leaps off at Bootle Oriel Road.

Her replacement is a neat middle aged lady with enormous glasses, swaddled in a camel coat.  She immediately pulls out a 2015 diary from her sensible handbag and begins flicking through it.  Barely a month into the year and already the pages are defaced with squiggles and doodles.  She snaps through the weeks, sighing at all the jobs still to come.

The snow doesn't seem to be settling everywhere.  The roofs of Bootle are white, but the streets just look wet, and the playing fields of schools are streaked with green.  It tries to hide the heaps of rubbish abandoned trackside at Seaforth, but can't make it pretty; nor can it conceal the boarded up windows or the graffiti on the tower block.

A man, further down the carriage, seems to have a cold, or the early stages of one.  He coughs, hacks, sniffs, then clears his throat of a voluminous amount of phlegm.  I'm scared he's about to gob it onto the floor of the train and I'll have to stare at it for another half an hour, but he gets off at Waterloo and the spit goes with him.

Beyond Blundellsands the houses double in size.  Terraces are replaced by semis; there are gardens and driveways.  At Hall Road, the old engine shed has been demolished to leave what a sign advertises as a Development Opportunity; no-one is biting, and so there's just an expanse of concrete.  The coastal dunes appear, sandy heights, mixed with the sand traps of our first golf courses.  With no buildings or trees to stop it the wind barrels across Liverpool Bay and assaults our little train, hammering at it loudly, making me hunch up in my seat.

As we approach Hightown the woman across the way folds her diary back into her bag and clutches her head, suddenly panic stricken.  She closes her eyes for a while so she can think hard, then tips her head back and stares at the ceiling.  Her fingers play with the mittens in her lap.

Floodlights and high fences; the military firing range skulks between the line and the sea, red and white Keep Out signs every few metres.  The snow seems to be letting up.  Formby just looks damp, not frozen.  The platform is packed and a stream of pensioners board the train; one takes the seat opposite diary lady and pulls out a crumpled copy of The Times.  There's suddenly life on board.  Until now the passengers have been silent, but now there's a gang of old ladies gossiping at one end, and two workers in high vis jackets laughing boisterously at the other.

More golf courses, low rises among patches of flat, so artificial looking, with their tatty little flags hanging limply in the rain.  The woman with the diary gets off at Ainsdale, and then there are trees, high, regimented pine trees, dark and swaying and filling my window.  A pair of hardy walkers battle the winds with their tiny Jack Russell; he's wearing a little tartan coat.

There's a sudden smell of chimney smoke before Hillside, drifting in through that bafflingly still open window.  Fake flowers in tubs look ridiculous on the platform, the bitter darkness around them making their plastic blooms look cheap.  The computerised voice has started spluttering; her next station announcements are accompanied by a sharp crackle of static and feedback.  The heavy squeak of the brakes as we pull into Birkdale, wheels struggling with the wet and cold tracks, add to the feeling that this train is past its best.

The guard talks over the computerised voice to announce the end of the line, adding a "small reminder" for us to take all our goods with us.  The Times is folded away and the woman roots around in her handbag for her Concessionary Travel Pass - I must be one of the few people on the train with a paper ticket.

I barrel out of the station and straight down to Lord Street, not pausing, so that I could reach  the Swiss Chalet before it gets busy with lunch.  It's a tiny doorway with Grill Room above it, white on black, then a flight of steps upstairs.  I push up, nervously.  I have a prejudice against cafes on the first floor of buildings; totally irrational, but I'm always slightly afraid of what I'll find when I get up there.  By then it's too late, there's no turning back, and you have to partake.

Upstairs it's warm and clean and very, very empty.  I'm the only patron.  At the back, a little grey haired waitress in a very traditional black uniform is chatting to the chef.  His kitchen is fully open for us to see inside, and he leans on the counter, master of his domain.  I hesitantly slide into one of the banquettes at the side and the waitress spots me.  She hurries over with a menu, apologetic for not spotting me, and then leaves me to look down the page.

It's a feast of food you didn't realise restaurants still served.  There are six starters: soup of the day (mushroom, I've been told), grapefruit cocktail, prawn platter, tuna platter, egg mayonnaise and orange juice.  Just a glass of orange juice.  It's brilliant.  Further down there are lamb cutlets, gammon (with a choice of pineapple, egg or mushrooms), a mixed grill.  Omelettes, sandwiches - open and closed - and various things on toast.  I plump for a tea and a toasted sandwich.

"Do you want chips or salad with that?" she asks.  I go for salad.  "Aww, being good are you?  Well done."

The seats are leatherette, the place mats are decorated with herbs.  On the walls are pictures of French drinks (reproductions) and hefty pieces of tree bark to underline that Swiss Chalet feel.  I don't think it's been redecorated for at least thirty years, probably more.  Karen, the second waitress, bashes her way up the stairs and calls her hello across to her colleague.  Diane tells her it's been dead - "bit of snow, risk of slipping, they don't come."

I warm my cold hands on the stainless steel teapot as Diane offers the chef a drink.  He's Spanish, and he goes for "one of his Spanish hot chocolates"; she wanders behind the counter and busies herself with the steaming hot water.  She's barely served it up before my sandwich is brought over.  Toasted white bread and a pile of salad leaves and carrot shavings.  "Do you want any sauce with that?" she asks.  "Salad cream?"  I decline, and take up my knife and fork.

As I eat, a pair of pensioners stagger up the stairs, pausing at the top for breath.  They greet Diane by name and take a seat in the window.  She chats to them for a bit, then takes their order, two coffees and a toasted teacake each.  The wife snorts.  "I guess that means he's off his diet!"  In the background, Kate Garroway is taking hints for beating a cold on Heart FM.  "Chew a raw clove of garlic?  I don't think my husband would be happy about that!"

I'm suddenly sad this place is up for sale.  The owner is retiring and I doubt it'll be bought as a going concern.  It'll be ripped out and upgraded; the banquettes will be replaced by sofas and wooden chairs.  The grill hatch will be closed off.  They'll offer paninis and lattes and another piece of the past will quietly die.  I wonder where the pensioners will go for their teacakes.

I eat my sandwich - the salad is incredibly dry without any kind of vinaigrette; I should have taken her up on her offer of salad cream - then I wait by the till to pay.  There are postcards tucked into the top of it, from loyal customers no doubt.  Diane is busy talking to her regulars, but the Spanish chef spots me and calls out for her.  I over tipped, partly because I'm hopeless at that sort of thing, partly because I felt bad about her being put out of a job.

I went straight back to the station.  I'd been in Southport only the previous week, with my friend Jennie; we'd have gone to the Swiss Chalet then if she didn't have a pram with her adorable son Robin in it.  My train is waiting for me at platform 3 and I realise that it's the one I came in on.  The skies have now turned bright blue, a fact that had annoyed Diane in her chat with the old folks - "I'm covered in layers!"  I'm the only one in the front carriage until just before departure, when a distinguished man with a walking stick and a Metro under his arm clatters aboard.

The guard on this train is far more refined than the one on the journey in.  His voice is only slightly accented, as though he went to public school and had the Scouse forced out of him.  "I'll be making my way through the train as we work our way down to Liverpool; if you have any questions feel free to ask."

The sun's refracted off the water on the parked cars at Birkdale; it shatters into pieces and fills the carriage.  We pause a little longer because there's a teenager with a broken leg struggling to board.  The tannoy has been fixed - turned off and on.  Through a series of level crossings to Hillside, where a woman in an elaborate furry hat boards.  Behind her is a tiny brown spaniel.  I would never feel comfortable taking my dog on a train - what if it needs to pee?  She goes to the front of the carriage and the dog settles in at her feet, used to the trip.

At Ainsdale another swarm of pensioners board; their Reactolite glasses have turned black in the sun, making them look like the cast of Oceans 80.  They're talking about someone who's about to go in for heart surgery in frankly disturbing detail - "is it open or keyhole?" - and we're nearly at Freshfield before I realise they're talking about a dog.  In the seats opposite is a smart-looking man in a buttoned up wool coat; at his feet is a University of Liverpool bag.  He's bashing at his smart phone, tapping out a series of messages, until an expanse of golf course kills his signal.  He tucks the phone back into his pocket, but at the next station it's out again.  Across from him an old man reads the Racing Post.

The guard appears in the carriage, and it turns out he's something of a silver fox; a little chubby, but with a lovely smile.  He leans in the doorway and watches the scenery spin past.  Behind me, the old people are now talking about someone called Elsie.  They've lowered their voices and I can tell from the murmurs that Elsie is not getting a glowing report.

"Tickets and passes please."  To my surprise, the smart man looks suddenly shifty.  He looks up at the guard pleadingly.  "The man at Ainsdale told me to pay at my destination."  The guard doesn't seem convinced, but he tells him he'll have to pay in Liverpool and moves on.

Two women have clearly got chatting on the platform at Formby, and are now in full flow.  "I'm going to the Adelphi.  Three courses for six pounds."  They both oooh approvingly.  "There's usually a roast," the woman continues, "or a beef thing in gravy, but the veggies never alter.  Still, six pounds!"  They both seem blown away by this, even the one who goes there regularly.  It suddenly becomes clear why the Adelphi - once the jewel in Liverpool's hotel crown - will never stop being crappy and down at heel.  With a constant stream of pensioners filling its dining rooms, why change?

Another dog gets on at Hall Road; its owner keeps it well away from the furry hat lady's spaniel.  At Blundellsands, a Britpop refugee sits down across from me.  He's got huge sideburns and a tight leather jacket and looks very Paul Weller circa "Stanley Road".  He balls one hand into a fist over and over while across the way the smart man is talking loudly on his phone.  The entire carriage is horrified to learn that the Bristol office is DEFINITELY closing.  Britpop pulls out an iPod shuffle, and I choose to believe he's listening to a mix of Menswear, Kula Shaker and Elastica.

Racing Post gets off at Bootle New Strand, and is replaced by another Metro reader.  I don't like the Metro because it's taken one of the lovely parts of rail travel - people neatly folding their read newspaper and leaving it on the seat for someone else to pick up - and turned it into an irritation.  Now the train is flooded with copies of that day's paper with its wraparound cover advertising the newest drama on Sky Atlantic.

The train is really getting warm now; I suddenly understand why the woman on the journey up had the window open.  It's stuffy, filled with people who've overdressed for the weather, noses poking out of hoods.  There's a canal at Sandhills, struggling to look pretty in the midday sun, but too industrial to pass.  The wrecked viaducts on Pall Mall, the old lines into Exchange Station, beg to be put to some use, but I can't think what, then we disappear into the tunnel under the Echo building.  Britpop gets off at Moorfields, but we are joined by half a dozen other passengers.

I've decided to go to the end of the line.  While most of the train gets up and shuffles off at Liverpool Central, I stay seated, the same place I've sat for three quarters of an hour.  Someone smelling of chips gets on board - not chips, fries; they smell wet in a way that chips don't - and a woman with leggings printed with the sky holds an expensive looking carrier bag between her legs.  Behind me, someone is talking about their daughter - "Catherine was very overweight so they took her to Slimming World and she lost four stone!"  I wonder who 'they' are; I imagine some kind of intervention, with Catherine being bundled into the back of a van and driven to a church hall to be re-educated.

I look up for the gap in the tunnel that signifies the old St James station, as I always do when I come this way, and briefly fantasise about a day when there will actually be a Baltic station there.  A sudden deceleration and we drift into Brunswick beneath high sandstone walls.  The woman with sky-painted leggings gets off, and I see that her expensive looking bag is from Swarovski.  The train is silent again.  No excitable pensioners, no groups.  A girl stares at her phone as though willing it to come to life, then drops it into her lap, exasperated, halfway through the tunnel to St Michaels.  When daylight appears she snatches it up again eagerly.

St Michaels station needs an ALF, maybe two; one for the Festival Gardens, one for Lark Lane and Sefton Park.  As we continue onwards, the computer voice tells us the next station will be St Michaels; she gets stuck on that station for the rest of the journey.  Clearly her reboot didn't take.  Aigburth obviously makes me think of Robert, who lives within spitting distance of its platforms, and Cressington is as charming as ever.  A workman is painting the woodwork in corporate grey.  I'm surprised his tin of paint is from Dulux and doesn't have Colour Tsar Approved stamped all over it.

Furry hat woman gets off at Liverpool South Parkway; I'd forgotten she was still there.  Her dog was so well-behaved throughout.  I also forgot to look out for any remnants of the old Garston station, though I don't think there are any.  It's now a slow creep to Hunts Cross, a kind of extended sigh at having to go this far.  There are men on the tracks by the Northern depot and I try to remember the last time I came this way.  I've certainly never gone end to end on the Northern Line before, top to bottom and back again.

I head out of the station for a bottle of water, and return in the midst of a sudden, violent hailstorm.  I'm behind two Community Police ladies, knocking off their shift for the day, chatting about where they're going to go tomorrow morning.  We huddle in the warm waiting room - there used to be a coffee bar in here, but it seems long gone - while the hail batters at the windows.  A new train comes in and we hustle aboard along with a member of the "Train Presentation Team".  He whisks down the aisle with a black bin bag, completely missing the Nature Valley wrapper under the seat in front of me.  I am momentarily anxious that future passengers will think it's my litter.

There are already people on board; I suppose they just grab the first train they see, rather than wait at the station in the cold, and go to the end of the line and back.  The new guard is a woman, and she tells us in enthusiastic Scouse to change at Liverpool South Parkway for mainline services.  Ones like the fast East Midlands train that we're forced to let by at the flat junction outside the station.  We cross over to the local lines and sink down to LSP's Northern Line platform.  The computer voice tells us to change for long distance services, but she says "Birmingham" with a slight question in her voice - "Birmingham?".  A kind of, why would you want to go there?

A couple get on, already bickering.  "Don't shout at me, I'm not stupid," she snarls at him when he calls her over to an empty seat.  He lays out a cushion on the seat next to him and their tiny dog leaps up and makes himself comfortable.  She pulls off her scarf furiously and they sit in angry silence; I'm so busy watching them I miss Garston again.  My neighbour is a man with an upside down head - bald on top, beard on the bottom - who taps at a game on his phone.  His high forehead wrinkles with concentration.

Aigburth again, and a gaggle of nice ladies with handbags in the crook of their arms get on board.  My ears pop in the tunnel after St Michaels.  The angry wife now pulls her coat off, but she seems to have calmed down, perhaps taking her cue from her dog who is utterly unruffled.  A harassed looking woman whose hair has escaped her pony tail boards; she jabs at her phone so hard I can hear the crack of stylus on glass across the aisle.

At Brunswick, a rough looking woman with a tooth missing is fascinated by the dog on the cushion.  She starts talking to it then, when it unsurprisingly fails to respond, she turns to the owner and starts yammering to them.  We learn that the dog is called Filo, which immediately makes me think of pastry, and the woman starts calling his name.  Filo looks terrified.  She calls out "seeya!" as though the angry couple were old pals and jumps off at Central.  I'm not surprised that the wife says "seeya!" back before following it up with a roll of her eyes and a whisper to her husband.

I thought about getting off at Central, but the OCD part of me knew I'd have to cover that last little bit of line so I ended up back where I started from.  A fabulous looking old lady takes a seat with her leopard skin suitcase and an enormous handbag; she looks like a Lancashire Elaine Stritch,  I get up, my knees protesting now that I'm 38, and wait by the doors as we pull into Moorfields.  There and back.