The Green Mile

Before I headed out to Milan, I looked around for books on the network.  Sadly, there didn't seem to be any, or at least none in English, and I didn't have time for a crash course in Italian.  I finally found Italian Ways: On and Off The Rails From Milan to Palermo, by Tim Parks, but I didn't enjoy it.  Parks is a resident of Northern Italy and the book catalogues a series of rail journeys he'd taken over the years, but it came off as somewhat patronising to me.  What he enjoyed, on his trips around the nation, was when the service was chaotic, when the trains were a mess or broke down, when the staff were rude.  When high-speed services with new electric trains are introduced, he grumbles about their efficiency and their seat reservations; when Milano Centrale is rebuilt and modernised, he complains that it has lost all the charm it had when he got his bag stolen and you'd be accosted by random panhandlers.  

It's a very middle class English attitude, that the Continent should be a bit ramshackle because it's so much more authentic, and that Italians are completely wrong to want trains that are reliable and clean and decent.  I imagine that when he comes back to London and a suburban service is cancelled he's furious and hisses "typical British Rail" but because it comes with an Italian accent it's somehow delightful.

The reason I bring this up is because my next station was Lambrate, and Parks specifically mentions it in his book.  I quote:

"This is the station where the Gypsies gather, on the southbound platform on the metro, the Green Line.  They take over the stone bench opposite the last carriage when it arrives.  There are three or four swarthy men, unwashed and unshaven, half a dozen women, one or two with babies in their arms, and a few adolescents, girls and boys.  The boys have violins or accordions.  Often they have painted nails, sometimes even lipstick.  The girls have an infant in tow.  As each train comes and goes, one or two Gypsies get on it.  They start at the back carriage and work their way forward, the men in scruffy waistcoats playing their musical instruments, the women begging in their long dresses, repeating their mournful spiel over and over in a high pitched monotone...

...As a rule they work the Green Line down to its southern end, then take the train back and spill out onto the platform at Lambrate for a break.  No sooner do they stop begging than they cheer up at once."

Reader, I travelled all over the metro for an entire week, up and down the M2, in and out of every station, and I encountered beggars on the train exactly twice.  One was the student girl singing Hallelujah I previously complained about; another was a clearly homeless man who shuffled down the train when I was on the M3.  Now admittedly, Parks' book was published in 2013, so perhaps there's been a huge crackdown across the entire network in the past decade that has seen them wiped off the map.  I will say that I disembarked at Lambrate, went all the way up through the metro station to the exit, and didn't see a single fake Romany ready to fleece the innocents of Milan. 

This isn't to say that Lambrate was a charming country halt.  Outside it was like any other urban European railway station; a bit grubby, a bit panicky.  There were dodgy looking salesmen with armfuls of Temu-level crap.  There were backpackers who were blissfully unaware of anyone else in the world and who stopped in front of information screens without warning.  

The underpass beneath the tracks also served as a public walkway, so I went through it, delighting in destination boards listing exotic places like "Verona" and "Brescia" and "Bergamo".  Places you knew about as holiday destinations stuck on the front of a train the same way "Leeds" or "Birmingham" would be in the UK.  Travel broadens the mind, and also reminds you that every beautiful tourist trap is just a place where people live and work and shop.

At the back of the station was a newer extension and a car park, plus a large gyratory which I negotiated to get to the Via Ronchi opposite.  It was a long straight road with flats and shops, much the same as I'd seen elsewhere in the city.  I crossed over to the far side where there was a hint of shadow; it was almost noon and I was feeling both the heat and the exhaustion from all that walking.

Udine station was at a busy roundabout surrounded by bars and cafes and a small park.  A group of students looked confused outside the entrance, checking their phones obsessively, in a way that implied they'd somehow ended up here against their will.  Old men sat on the pavement with their cigarettes and coffees watched them with bemusement, absolutely not offering to help in any way, but enjoying their befuddlement.

Udine is also the last underground station on the M2.  The track goes on the surface after here, taking over old tramways in some cases, and as such this was my last chance to experience the distinctive Milan Metro architecture I'd become very familiar with.

As though it knew this, Udine offered up an ideal example of the form.  The station was clean and well-maintained.  At the mezzanine level, there was not only a newsagent-slash-miscellaneous store, but also a coffee shop in one of the underground units.

Much as I love a metro station, I don't think I'd be happy sitting at a table to have my lunch in one.  They're places to pass through, not to enjoy the moment.  I liked the untouched 1970s aesthetics of the bar, though, and wondered if it would be allow to continue now there was a private company involved in the letting of station retail.  I wondered if it'd all be ripped out and replaced with a Starbucks because they signed a deal to appear in every station on the Green Line.

The overground section was arriving at almost exactly the wrong time for me.  The brief moments in cool dark depths gave me time to recover and regroup.  Now I was being sent into thirty-odd degree heat, at lunchtime, covered in sweat and general unpleasantness and tired.

Cimiano station did give me a moment of nostalgia.  A long station with a canopy roof, wedged between a motorway and tall apartment blocks, I was reminded of Stockholm's Green Line; specifically around Kristineberg station.  

I headed down the steps to the ticket hall, which is under the railway viaduct; as at Lambrate, the underpass doubles as a right of way.  The busier, more dense part of the city was to the right, but I turned left.

I was following the track along the backs of apartment blocks on a route that was theoretically parkland.  It felt neglected and unloved, boring lawns and winding paths that you wouldn't let your kids play on alone.  A homeless man slept on a bench in the shade.

I was following a small woman with a shopping basket, at a reasonable distance of course so she didn't think I was a pervert, winding round the car parks of flats and the back walls of homes.  Now and then a cyclist would pass in the opposite direction.  On a corner, a fly tipper had abandoned a fridge freezer and a broken wooden sun lounger.

My next station, Crescenzago, presented a problem for me as it was closed for refurbishment.  This whole section of the M2 was getting a comprehensive makeover; indeed, if I'd gone to Milan a few weeks later, I'd have had much more severe access issues.

There was a rail replacement bus linking Crescenzago with its neighbours, but no train services at all.

We now have a dilemma.  The rules - the rules I invented - say I need to get a train to or from the station for it to count.  I couldn't do this.  But I had walked there, and I would pass through the station on my way back into the city (and also when I subsequently collected the Gessate branch).  So as far as I'm concerned, I have been to Crescenzago.

It's me, it's a Metro M, it's the station Crescenzago.  Job done.  As always, if you disagree, please proceed to my Ko-Fi to give me airfare and hotel money so I can return when the station reopens in September.  Happy to help!

I turned into the streets then, away from the railway line, happy to have a little bit of shade.  I was really flagging now.  Once again I'd forgotten that I'm nearly fifty, that I can't just decide to walk ten miles a day in record temperatures without any advance preparation, that I need to lose a lot of weight.  My knees were starting to complain about the lack of care and attention.  I drank deeply from my vending machine water bottle and made a decision.  Bus.

I imagine I was quite firmly judged by the bus driver.  I was less than a kilometre from the end of the line; this was in fact the last stop before we got there.  I didn't care.  I had a few minutes of blessed sitting down in an air conditioned seat until we pulled into the bus station.

Cascina Gobba is a major confluence point for transport of all types.  It nestles in a cloverleaf junction of the motorway, and so it's got a massive car park, a bus exchange, and fast regular trains into the city centre.  There are works underway to extend a tram line to the complex, with a footbridge under construction to take you straight into the metro station.

It also had, for twenty-five years, an automated people mover called the MeLA.  This was an elevated cable tramway which connected with the near, but not near enough, San Raffaelle Hospital.  However, the people mover closed "temporarily" in 2024 and has never reopened.  It's officially meant to be coming back, but there's no word on when or how.  It should be noted that the MeLA wasn't integrated into the transport network, and needed its own separate ticket for access, which makes me wonder about its financial viability.  I was mainly disappointed that I didn't get to ride it.

One thing Cascina Gobba* doesn't have is a station sign outside.  This is a ridiculous oversight on ATM's part and rest assured I will be writing a strongly worded e-mail via Google Translate.  As such I will have to provide a platform sign as proof that I was in fact at the station.

If you can somehow manage to see round my enormous head there, you'll notice that the station has four platforms.  This is the point where the M2 splits into its two branches, and so the station is laid out to accommodate that.

Irregular font alert on that station sign as well.  That e-mail just got even narkier.

On the train to Cologno Sud, I made a decision.  The last three stations are all within the municipality of Cologno, spread along the track at an even distance, and I realised... I couldn't be bothered.  I decided I'd go to the stations, of course, that wasn't up for negotiation; but I wasn't going to walk from one to the next.  I was too hot, too tired, too irritable.  I'm sorry Cologno, I let you down, but I'm not sure I really missed much.

Certainly the view outside the station wasn't exactly picturesque.  The line runs on a high concrete viaduct and so the entrance is housed on a bare stretch of land that's overshadowed.  Nice and cool, yes, but I wouldn't fancy wandering around here late at night.

It's this viaduct that's caused the whole line to be closed at present.  At fifty odd years old it's reached the point where the concrete needs to be examined for flaws and reinforced where necessary.

Back up, onto the train, then off again at Cologno Centro behind two ATM workers arriving for their shift.  I tried not to be distracted by their extremely tight trousers and headed out, through the ticket barriers, and into the extremely similar exterior space for the sign picture.

At track level, the stations are great; there is absolutely no chance a similar station in the UK would get a roof these days, and the glass everywhere keeps them bright and open.  On the street though, they're no looker.

Picture taken, it was back up to wait for my penultimate train.  Outside peak hours there can be a fair wait.  I sat on one of the cool marble benches and drank my water.  Only after about five minutes did I notice the sticky patch right next to me, swarming with ants, which caused me to leap up hurriedly.  I hoped that none of them had breached my short leg and given me literal ants in my pants.

And then the end of the line: Cologno Nord.

The line had dropped down to ground level now, meaning my poor knackered legs had to climb a staircase to get to the exit.  Just beyond here there's a depot for the trains.

Up, over, down to the car park and the station's back exit.  The final station on Milan's longest line.  The behemoth.  It was all easy from here.  (Yes I know there's still one branch of the M2 to go.  I'll get there.  Another day).

*(note to self: write children's book with a loveable character called Cascina Gobba)

Map! - Now In Colour!

I'm sick.

I have a rotten cold.  It's abating slightly now, but I'm still not out of the woods.  I still have a cough and a bunged up nose.  I could literally die at any moment.  Your thoughts and prayers are much appreciated.

Anyway, I have dragged - DRAGGED - myself out of my sick bed to write this post, because there's something important happening on the Metrolink.  A new map!  I was alerted to this by a tweet by Mark Ovenden, who wrote the excellent Metrolink: The First 25 Years book Robert got me for my birthday.

Pleased to see that the @MCRMetrolink will soon re-instate coloured lines to the network diagram. Service numbers will also be helpful for new people navigating the UK's biggest #lightrail system. Bravo @OfficialTfGM pic.twitter.com/5n2jnQxH6U

— Mark Ovenden (@markovenden) January 23, 2018

Oh yes - colour is back!  After a year or two of peddling that tedious grey effort, Metrolink have caved into public pressure and reinstated different coloured lines for different routes.  It's about time.  I am, as you may have noticed, something of a metro map fan, but even I had problems navigating the old monocoloured map.  When I was getting the tram from Trafford Bar into the city last week, it was only by carefully concentrating on the map and squinting at the tiny letters that I realised my tram wasn't going to Piccadilly; I had to jump off at Cornbrook and change.

The old map.

The new map.

The new diagram immediately looks fresher and friendlier.  The soft pastels Metrolink uses are an interesting choice compared with, say, the bold primaries of the Tube, but they really work.  It looks modern.  Interestingly, the colours chosen are, in the main, not the same colours the old map used to differentiate between lines.  I assume this is something to do with differentiating for colour blindness - ensuring that two colours that can't be confused don't run alongside one another.  To summarise:

• Altrincham to Bury (service A) was orange, but is now dark green (and called service 1);
• Altrincham to Etihad Campus* (service B) was reddy-orange, but is now purple (and called service 2);
• Bury to Piccadilly (service C) was dark green, but is now yellow (and called service 4);
• MediaCityUK to Piccadilly* (service D) was light blue, but is now orange (and called service 7)
• Ashton-Under-Lyne to Eccles (service E) was pink, but is now pale blue (paler than the old service D blue, and called service 3)
• Manchester Airport to Deansgate-Castlefield* (service F) is the only one that keeps its old colour, dark blue, but is now service 6
• East Didsbury - Rochdale Town Centre (service G) was purple, but is now lime green (and called service 5).

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed asterisks in the list.  This is because of the real reason for the new map: service changes.  The Altrincham to Etihad Campus route is now cut back to Piccadilly, with the MediaCityUK service being extended to replace it.  More importantly, the Airport route is finally being extended across the city centre, so travellers are no longer dumped on the edge of town at Deansgate-Castlefield.  Now they're carried right across town to Victoria.

Here's the weird thing, though; the Airport line is going via Market Street, rather than using the new second city crossing via Exchange Square.  It means the Rochdale line (service 5) gets the new tram link to itself, which seems... odd.  It means that only a quarter of the trams leaving Victoria for St Peter's Square will go via Exchange Square.  That doesn't seem right to me; it seems like a waste of capacity.  

Another weird point about those service numbers is that they remain entirely diagram-based.  None of the trams will feature them - they'll just have the destination on the front.  This is disappointing.  Wouldn't it be better to have a nice orange 7 next to "Etihad Campus" on the front of the tram?  Really underline the colour and service so they register in the minds of passengers?

You might have also noticed that the old diagram featured an eighth route, service H, which was lime green and went from East Didsbury to Shaw and Crompton.  

That one's vanished entirely from the new map.  There's also no mention of it in the accompanying press release, which mentions all the other service changes.  Service H meant there was a tram every six minutes between Shaw and Crompton and East Didsbury; trams leave Rochdale every twelve minutes.  It seems unlikely that they would halve the number of trams on a section of line without mentioning it, but it's also unlikely they'd double the number of trams to Rochdale without a show-off press release as well.  And this is the route that goes via Exchange Square, too, so there's plenty of space in the City Zone for another colour.  Perhaps they just forgot about it?

My principal complaint about the new diagram is that it looks ever so slightly unbalanced.  The yellow, pale green and pale blue lines are all on the same side, meaning they slightly recede into the background; they can't compete with the bold purple/green stripe down the centre of the left hand side (with the dark blue Airport line in support).  It looks a bit like it's fading from view as your eye moves across it.  As I say though, the colours have doubtlessly been chosen and checked with experts to ensure they're legible - this was apparently what did for the old colour map:

That one featured a pink and a brown route, instead of the lime green and orange we've got now.  (It also deals with the change of direction on the East Didsbury line at St Werburgh's Road far more elegantly, though I prefer the new white blobs for interchanges).

One final point, similar to my sigh over the new Merseyrail map: as an enthusiast, I'd also like to register my disappointment that the under construction Trafford Park route doesn't make an appearance.  A nice little dotted line branching off from Pomona would've been great, showing that things are still moving on with the Metrolink.  But that's it really.  It's a good diagram, restored to greatness with a bit of colour.

Now I'm going to return to my sick bed and await death.  

Left of Centre

I was predisposed to like Aberystwyth.  I used to work with a girl named Emma who'd both studied and met her husband there.  Consequently she had dozens of fond memories of the place which she was happy to share.  She made it sound like a great, jolly, pretty town.

She was right.  There was a laid back, fun atmosphere to the place.  From the wide sweep of the bay, with a pier and guest houses painted the colour of ice cream, into the clogged streets behind, there was an energy and a charm to it all.  The promenade was being washed down with jets of water as I walked along it, preparing for the summer season.

I turned inland by a small square.  There was an old-fashioned pub overlooking it, and a group of students congregated on the benches.  The University does of course explain a lot of the town's vibrancy.  Aberystwyth is the end of the line, hemmed in by the sea on one side and the mountains on the other; you need to make your own entertainment.  The far Western brim.  The students had taken the town and filled it with their youthful vigour.  We were out on the edge, away from the bright lights of the rest of the country; it was a place to create your own world.

It was weird being in a proper town again.  For the last few days Barmouth had been as exciting as it got, and after that, Aberystwyth felt like a throbbing metropolis.  There were pubs and clubs and shops everywhere.  Suddenly I could see familiar names like WH Smith and Boots again.

I walked through the town to the station, a white stone building that stood imposingly over the locals.  Its off-centre clock tower was designed to be seen from as far as possible, directly down Terrace Road; I imagined harassed families running down it from the beach, buckets and inflatables flying, watching the minutes to their train tick away.

All was not as it seemed.  The station was still there, but there wasn't the proud arms of a railway company up there, or the double-arrow BR logo.  The writing along the top was A Wetherspoon Free House.  The station building was a pub now - another boozer carved out of an old building by the corporate behemoth.  Meanwhile, to the side, a retail park had been constructed on the old railway sidings, replacing engines with a Lidl and a Great Outdoors.  It was disappointing, though at least they'd named the pub Y Hen Orsaf - The Old Station.  Directly opposite was a far more offensive pub name:

Having a pub called the Lord Beeching opposite a station is like putting a giant photo of the Pope opposite an abortion clinic.  It's just offensive.  Especially since Doctor B sliced two of the lines from Aberystwyth, cutting a five platform station down to one mainline and one heritage platform.

To give Wetherspoon's their due, the building has been extremely well-restored.  The narrow rooms and areas of the old station have been maintained, with the pub gubbins inserted carefully inside, and the mustering area at the head of the platforms has been converted into an open terrace area.  I got myself a pint and sat down out there to watch the station activity.

With the boozers annexing the main station building, all the facilities had to move somewhere, and so ticketing and so on are now located along the side of the platform.  It's still possible to walk through the grand archway directly from the street into the station, but you pass an Indian restaurant instead of a moustachioed porter these days.  Passengers are pushed off to one side, following the barely noticeable sign you can see above.

I finished my pint and sauntered onto the platform for the train.  It was filling up with students clutching rucksacks, holdalls, black bin bags; for the first time in ages, I wasn't the only one on the train who looked like they were moving house.  There was a toilet on the station, which made me smile.  Years ago, I'd read the novel Stripping Penguins Bare, in which Benson, the hero, is picked up by an enormous man in the station toilet and taken to a farmhouse for a thorough seeing to.  I'd recently revisited the whole Benson series - the story of a Catholic schoolboy growing up in New Brighton -  as I'd got the long-awaited fourth book as a gift a couple of months ago.  Sadly, the newest book was a major let down; the author had gone away and convinced himself that he was writing social commentary, instead of amusing character pieces, and so it's three times as long with a quarter of the jokes of any other book in the series.

I didn't venture into the toilet; it was unseemly, and I really didn't want to find an enormous sex-crazed farmer in there.  I had a train to catch after all.

Collecting Aberystwyth meant that every station to the west of Dovey Junction was mine.  I'd conquered both branches of the Cambrian Lines - Mainline and Coast.  I was tired but deeply happy.

Eagle eyed observers will have noted that the Cambrian Lines go all the way to Shrewsbury, so really, I should have got the stations in between Dovey Junction and there as well.  To which I say - piss off.  Yes, there were more stations en route; yes, there's a part of me that wishes I could have got them too; but the geography and timetabling of the line meant that I wouldn't get home until nearly ten o'clock in the evening as it was.  If I'd stopped for stations on the way, I'd have had to stay another night, and though it was tempting, I wanted to get home to my own bed and my own telly.

Instead, I made just one more stop - appropriately to the self-styled Gateway to the Cambrian Coast Line.

For once, the station wasn't the main attraction.  I was here to meet the closest I have to a showbiz pal - Mike Parker.  Mike's the author of the absolutely fantastic book Map Addict, the story of his obsession with the Ordnance Survey.  It's always great to read a book that makes you think, "it's not just me then".  He writes lovingly and generously about his affection for the mapping giants, covering its history and infusing it with personal stories.  I enjoyed it so much, I did something I have never done before - I sent him a fan letter (well, a fan e-mail).  We struck up a correspondence and, when he was in Liverpool with his partner before Christmas last year, we met up and had a few pints in the Ship & Mitre.

Now I was in his neck of the woods, so he offered to return the favour.  He met me on the platform and immediately offered to take the obligatory sign shot.  We picked a heritage sign round the side, for a bit of variety.

As I write this, Machynlleth is underwater; terrible floods have swept through the town, driving people out of their homes and closing businesses.  (I have checked that Mike is okay; he lives outside the town, so all he's lost is some foxgloves).  Back in May though, it seemed to be yet another pretty Welsh town.  Mike filled me in on its history and sights; he's from the Midlands originally, but has turned native, learning the language and writing extensively about the country and its people.  He's even written about Dovey Junction in his book Real Powys.  He pointed out the town clock, for example, erected in the 19th Century by an unloved English landowner and now damaged.  Unfortunately, the builder was so unloved, they've had problems raising the money to refurbish it...

Our first port of call was Y Plas Machynlleth, the local civic centre, where Mike had to prepare his AV equipment (not a euphemism).  It was the Machynlleth Comedy Festival, and he was performing a standup routine later.  Through trial and error we set up his laptop, then headed back out into town for a pint.

It became clear that Machynlleth wasn't like other Welsh towns I'd been to.  Criccieth doesn't have a comedy festival; Tonfanau can only dream of an arts centre.  Machynlleth attracts thinkers, liberals, frontiersmen and women; it's a town that embraces life at a slight angle.  On the outskirts is the Centre for Alternative Technology, promoting eco-friendly developments and innovations, as well as researching new ones.  The people who waved hello to Mike (and he was very popular in town; we couldn't turn a street corner without him bumping into someone he knew.  It was like walking down the road with Sean Connery) were all a little different - a bit rough round the edges, a bit more easy going.  It's a town that's got its feet firmly planted in an organic compost heap.

(It does also have an Aga Shop, the only one I've ever seen outside of Chester; I guffawed, only for Mike to confess his devotion to his recently purchased Aga.  I don't think they're ovens, I think they're gateways to a cult, like those tests the Scientologists perform on people to get them through the door.  I suspect if I'd gone inside I'd have emerged with a five burner cooker and a strange devotion to Xenu).

We chatted over a couple of pints, before Mike had to go and give an interview to Radio 4.  Told you he was a glamorous showbiz person.  I tottered in the opposite direction, back to the station.  Outside I took an up the nose shot, just for completion - every other station got a photo with my nose hairs in it; why should Machynlleth be left out?

The station building, incidentally, is a lovely little thing.  Like much else in the town, you can feel the respect and care the residents have for their environment; they have put some effort into preserving their locale.

Trains for both branches of the Cambrian Line meet and part at Machynlleth.  The trains to England from both ends join up here (ignoring poor old Dovey Junction in the process), making an extra-long train to cross the border.  I clambered on board and chose a quiet seat for my journey home.

P.S.  Mike was worried I wouldn't know how to pronounce Machynlleth, so he sent me a handy pronunciation guide:

Thanks Mike!