Hi-de-Hi!

Holidaymakers have helped make some railway stations become more than they deserve.  Small towns, towns that anywhere else in the country would have a couple of platforms and a tiny ticket office if they're lucky, end up with completely out of proportion behemoths.  Scarborough's station was colossal, compared to the quiet little town around it.

Filey, meanwhile, is an even tinier town, but it has an impressive roof and a forecourt and an ironwork bridge.  It was the home of a Butlin's, and all those people needed to be kept dry and warm while they waited for the train home.  The holiday camp closed in the Eighties though and now Filey has an out-of-proportion station it doesn't need.  But bless them for keeping it.

It's not perfect though.  The absence of all those Butliners means that they've had to cut back on facilities.  You can't buy a ticket here, as you can see from the subtle, understated signage on the ticket window above.

From the outside, the low frontage has a subtle charm.  It's marred by a badly tarmacced forecourt, and its position behind a dodgy row of shops.  Step out of the station and instead of a pleasing vista of the town you get to see fire escapes, service entrances and extraction fans.

It would have been nice to have visited Filey itself; head into town and have a root around.  But I had places to go, stations to collect, so instead I turned left out of the driveway, crossed the tracks and walked out of town.

I quickly got an estimation of what kind of town Filey was: old.  Not architecturally or historically, but demographically.  The houses on the way out were bungalows and semis.  They all had impeccable lawns and driveways, garlanded with ornaments of all sizes - wishing wells, gnomes, rustic bicycles with flowers in the baskets.  The cars outside were sensible Renaults, polite Vauxhalls, neat little Ford Escorts with shiny windows and the gleam of a well waxed paintwork.  They were all being maintained by nice old men and women filling up their days with busy work.

I passed the high school.  It was just called Filey School, which amused me; it reminded me of those ads you got by the side of the pitch in Billy the Fish - "drink milk", "eat food", "smoke tabs".  It was utterly prosaic.  I suppose in a town full of the elderly there's not too many kids around to attend.

Avoiding some idiot who had parked his Range Rover on the pavement, because he drove a Range Rover and therefore ruled the earth, I left the town.  Now I was striding into proper countryside, the genuine, rich world of Yorkshire.  I had images of Emmerdale Farm and James Herriot in my head; cows mooing while Nick Berry arrests a loveable scamp for shoplifting a Gerry and the Pacemakers 45.  I crossed a roundabout and stepped onto a public footpath, excited at my first glimpse of scenery.

Oh.

A thick, rutted track ran in a straight line beside a grotty hedge.  I'd managed to pick the one day in the whole week where it didn't rain, but the comprehensive drowning the nation's suffered meant that the path was still wet and slippery.  White stones embedded in the ground to help the tractors get purchase didn't help me.  My Doc Martens skidded on their too-smooth surface, and I realised it was easier to just walk on the grass in the middle, even if I did spend most of my time hopping over stacks of dog shit.  I can only conclude that the dogs of Filey are all about four metres tall, judging by the piles of excrement they left behind.

I could see Hunmanby, my target, off in the distance, so all I had to do was walk in a straight line in that general direction.  It was a bit dull if I'm honest.  No curves or twists.  The only moment of interest was when four teenage girls came in the opposite direction, their wellington boots at odds with their tiny shorts and high ponytails.  They sulked past me, not meeting my eye, clearly planning what bitchy remark to make about me once they'd passed.

I clambered over a stile and met with this sign:

I wasn't sure how to react to that.

It didn't say Don't cross this field.  It was just letting me know there might be a bull around.  I couldn't see it so I assume this was a pre-emptive strike against anyone who tried suing the farmer after they were gored.  "You were warned," he'd say over the hole in their lower abdomen (in my head, all farmers act like Farmer Palmer from Viz.  Viz shapes a lot of my perceptions about the world).  What was I meant to do if a bull charged me anyway?  Was I meant to stand my ground or run?  I couldn't remember.  I once had a horse charge at me and I stood my ground; it ran around me.  Mind you, horses don't have an enormous great pair of horns sticking out of their forehead.  Is there a Country Code app I can download for my phone?

My mind wandering I pushed through a copse and came out on the edge of Hunmanby.  There was a bench (In Memory of Peter Reed) so I took a seat and sipped some water.  Across the road a tiny old man, as wide as he was tall, was mowing the lawn with a machine that looked like it had been invented  to attack German soldiers on the beach at Normandy.  His braces held his grey woollen trousers high on his round stomach, lining him round the middle and making him look like a Pokeball with a head.

At first, Hunmanby could have been anywhere in Britain.  There were 1950s corporation houses, some of them with the front drive paved over to accommodate a second car.  A postman dashed up the driveways, iPod in his ears, keen to finish his round as quickly as he could.  Three people stood on the  path, gabbing, a Jack Russell lying at their feet with his head resting on his paws.

Rounding a corner, however, I found perfection: the halcyon image of England.

Pub.  Church.  Red phone box.  White painted fence above green grass.  The gentle incline of hills in the background.  The only thing that could have made it more perfect would have been Steed and Mrs Peel coming round the corner in a Bentley.

I was grinning.  It's weird being somewhere that looks like it's imaginary.  Is this what it's like at Disneyworld?  Real, and yet fake?  Of course the people here were far more convincing - not actors who trained to do Pinter and are trying not to let you see the despair in their eyes as a four year old clambers all over their Cinderella frock.

Past the pub it opened up into a wide village green surrounded by cottages.  The war memorial was sat at the edge, next what must have been the only two Goths in Hunmanby trying to look miserable even though they were clearly living in a dream.

I walked through the whole length of the village to get to the station, and it didn't let me down in any way.  It was pretty from every angle.  A Co-op inside a converted church, a B&B covered in flowers.  Even the residents seemed happy, as two old dears emerged from a shop and headed for their car, hand in hand like teenagers.

"Are you driving, then?" he said when she firmly stepped to the right hand side of their Peugeot.

"I think that would be for the best, don't you?" she said, intriguingly.  I wondered what he'd done.  Had he nearly mown down a child on the way in?  Was he really drunk?

The Old Station House was now definitely a private home, but they'd done it with respect, unlike some people who seem to buy houses next to railways and then complain about all those annoying passengers.  The fences were discreet and the house was well maintained: a gate into the garden from the platform was marked Private in a sign shaped like a British Rail lozenge.

That station house was nothing compared to the one at Bempton, next along the line.  It was painted white and ridiculously grand.  I couldn't work out why such a lowly halt had such an impressive structure built for it.

The rest of the station was resolutely unimpressive - just a single platform with a shelter.  It didn't even have a decent sign.

If I hadn't just come from Hunmanby, Bempton would have been charming.  As it was, it seemed perfectly decent but disappointing.  The pub was being refurbished; the post office was on an inconvenient bend; the shop was up for sale.  It was nice enough but not the vision of perfection that was the village next door.

There was a petrol station selling free range eggs from an honesty box under the road sign.  In fact, there had seemed to be an awful lot of places selling free range eggs from the roadside.  There must be a national egg overstock I didn't know about.

Isn't that a bit... racist?

I could have walked from Bempton to Bridlington.  It was a fair old way though, and once I arrived, I didn't think I'd have much time to have a look round.  So I got a bus.

I lowered the average age of the passengers by about thirty years when I boarded.  It had seat belts, which was a new one for me, and left me unsure; was I required by law to wear them, or was it just a hint?  I didn't bother in the end.

A cheery couple got on as we entered the outskirts of the town - "off for a walk down the prom", they told the driver.  They carried a thick smell of cigarettes with them, a smell that was embedded deep in their clothes, and spent the whole trip into town hacking and spluttering.  I felt like taking them to one side and explaining where "emphysema" and "lung cancer" came from.

The bus did a tour of the town centre before it reached the station, so I got a good view of it in passing. I wasn't enamoured by what I saw.  Pound shops and faded storefronts.  Peeling paint amongst a strange one-way system.  I headed for the front and found Scarborough's evil twin.  While that had been classy, elegant, pretty, this was unapologetically brash and common.

I went to the sea wall and followed it to the end.  Grim-faced teens necked luridly coloured bottles of alcopop as I passed.  The air stank of chip fat and cloyingly sweet toffee.  The dodgems had just one car in motion, two tiny little girls piloting their car round and round in a circle.

It was horrible.  It was as though someone planned a seaside town, but decided to suck any sense of fun or charm out of it.  And it was packed!  There were people striding up and down, most of them wearing too few clothes, enjoying this single dry day.  But no-one looked like they were enjoying it.  No-one looked happy or smiled, except for the very youngest of children.

I decided that most of these people were here on that most British of notions, the enforced holiday.  That instead of waiting until they could afford to go somewhere decent, or until the weather was better, they'd just booked a week away "because it's better than being here."  They'd gone to Bridlington because it's next to the sea and it's got some amusements and an arcade that'll keep the kids quiet so what more do you want?  It was just a change of scene, a break, a week without work.  That was all they wanted.  It hadn't occurred to them to go somewhere they might want to go.  It was just "this'll do."

I had two hours to kill.

I did another tour of the front, but frankly it was getting me down, so I found a pub, the Hook & Parrot.  It was all nautical themed, with the walls covered with nets and pictures of sailing boats.  The barmaids were gathered around a clipboard inside, loudly debating their shifts.  There was a surplus of mammaries; acres of heaving breasts made me think that perhaps the staffing policy was based on cleavage rather than competence.  I grabbed a window seat with my pint of beer, but soon moved as dozens of tiny flies battered against me, trying to fly out of the bright window.

They were playing a CD of soundalikes - close enough to the original to fool you, but saving on the expensive royalties.  At first, I thought that was  Marti Pellow doing Love is All Around, until I realised the voice was too harsh and cruel.  The Scottishness was being affected.  The Paul McCartney doing Pipes of Peace was too high, and as for Karen Carpenter... The real Karen Carpenter was in possession of a voice so smooth you could have tobogganed down it.  This woman was having a good try, but she was harsh on the top notes.

In the corner, a man slammed down his hand and crushed another fly.  "Well done," said his wife.  Then they went back to sitting in silence.

The bar manager checks with a man at the bar eating cheesy chips.  "£7.99 for a bucket of five bottles of Fosters.  What do you think?"

"Yeah, it's good.  Wetherspoon's do that an' all."

"No they don't."  She looks suddenly doubtful.  "Do you think I should make it £6.99?"

"Cheaper than Wetherspoon's that way."

I couldn't stand it any more.  I finished my pint and left, passing two women with pushchairs ordering double vodka and cokes.  It was a grim, miserable place, and the only good thing was this:

...because they got the font right.

I decided I'd rather wait on the platform for an hour.  The station was a fair way out of town, tucked behind a Tesco, and I didn't have high hopes.  The sign was out by the road, on a level crossing, with a dowdy looking fence and weeds.

It turns out Bridlington station is bloody marvellous.

Well done.

As befits its holiday destination status, Bridlington has a larger than usual building, and it's been restored with a great deal of care and love.  While Scarborough has been updated, Bridlington has been enhanced, with the Victorian elements cleaned and given respect.

They've installed a glass wall at the far end of the waiting area, and it gives the station a balmy, Winter Gardens feel.  And I always love it when you see a sign for the "Buffet" in a railway station.  Not "shops" or "restaurants": a good, old fashioned, station buffet.  The fact that the one here is railway themed and all sorts of pretty is just a bonus.

I'm considering a job with Northern Rail just so I can work in there.  And look!  A working clock!  It's not that hard, is it?

It was all so adorable.  I wandered around with a wet grin on my face, loving every moment.  In a way, I was glad the town was so awful, because it drove me to the station early and gave me plenty of time to look round.

I crossed to the far platform and took up a seat in the sun.  It had buoyed me, rescued the trip from an ignominious end.  The warmth baked my face.  There were more stations on the Yorkshire Coast Line to get, all the way down to Hull, but this seemed like a suitable place to stop.  End on a high.

The Hidden Gem

Scarborough hides from you.  Most seaside towns can be seen from miles away, as the land slopes downward to the beach.  You'll come over a hill and see a nice bit of sand, or the top of a big dipper, or at least some waves.

Scarborough does none of that.  Walking into town from Seamer, I didn't get any feeling that I was getting close to the North Sea.  The land went up, with tall tree covered hills all around you.  They form a ring around the town - sentinels blocking off any prying eyes.

It means the railway and the road are funnelled into a narrow pass.  I was the only pedestrian, with a busy, packed highway to my side.  There were plenty of signs begging the tourists to use a dedicated Park & Ride facility instead of trying to park in the town; no-one was bothering though, preferring to queue to get that little bit closer to the front.

I squeezed through Yorkshire's version of the Khyber Pass and into the outskirts of the town.  The road was lop-sided.  On the left were fine Victorian villas and rows of elegant brick terraces.  On the right were factories, car showrooms and retail parks, all backing onto the railway lines.  A Magnet Trade factory smelt of wood chippings and sawdust, immediately transporting me back to my old CDT classroom.

The town gathered up around me and I was soon climbing uphill again, wondering if I'd ever reach something resembling a centre.  Shouldn't I have reached the coast by now?  The houses were ringed by tall trees in full leaf, and the B&Bs that I saw were surrounded by neat gardens and had window baskets on the go.  It was quietly elegant, discreet, the sort of place I could imagine 1950s bosses bringing their secretaries for dirty weekends.  You could have a very classy affair here.

I hit the town centre and got two icons for the price of one.  On the right was the station, which I'd return to once I'd had a look round.  On the left was the Stephen Joseph Theatre, a converted cinema which now serves as the home for all Alan Ayckbourn's new plays.  My only knowledge of Ayckbourn is a tv production of Season's Greetings from the Eighties, which I absolutely loved at the time.  I was only nine when I saw it but it stuck firmly in my head, as you'd expect from anything which starred Geoffrey Palmer, Anna Massey and Peter Vaughan.  (In fact I've just discovered that some kind soul has put the whole thing on YouTube; I'm simultaneously dying to watch it and scared my memories will be ruined).

Now it felt like a proper town, but still not a particularly seaside-y one.  The shops in the main street were the standard chain stores, Marks and Spencer's, Boots, WH Smith, and not one of them was selling a Kiss Me Quick hat or an inflatable crocodile.  The shoppers were well-heeled pensioners, not fun-seekers.  I was starting to wonder if the town had perhaps given up being on the coast as a pain in the backside when I turned a corner and gasped.

How can you not love that view?  It's everything wonderful about the British seaside in one single shot.

Just as exciting, beyond the little gardens I was stood in, was a white wooden building with Tramway to Beach stencilled above the door.  It was a funicular railway which could negotiate the steep cliffs for me.  I immediately thought of Glenda, my editor over at the Coronation Street Blog, who confessed to a passionate love for funicular railways after I rode the one in Aberystwyth.  Glenda is also a regular visitor to Scarborough; I'm sure the two facts are related.

She and an anonymous commentator helped me uncover this song, which bounced round my head as I walked over to the station:

Altogether now!

It was 75p for a trip down, and I was just in time for the next train.  While the one in Aberystwyth had been stepped, adapting to the 45 degree drop, this one was a far more traditional tramcar, with wooden seats and straps to hang onto.  Ahead of me was a lady in a wheelchair; I wondered if they made her pay the 75p.

With a clunk of gears we were slipping down the cliffside in a gentle drop.  Funicular railways aren't so much a means of transportation, more a classy way to fall.  There was a sigh of hydraulics and we were at the lower station, right on the seafront.  Money well spent.

It was hard not to love Scarborough.  Down on the front there were arcades, entertainments, candy floss, the Futurist cinema and theatre advertising a tour of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  I went into one arcade and chucked 10p's worth of tuppences into a machine, trying to get a three inch tall teddy bear.  Nowhere else on earth would I have even considered that to be a prize worthy of effort, but here, I was bitter that I didn't get so much as a key ring.  I got about 8p ahead before I chucked it all back into the machine.

I went back onto the front.  It wasn't even ten, and the prom was just waking up, but I'd been up since 4:30 - it felt like lunchtime for me.  I strolled past the candy floss and rock shops, taking in the sea air.  Two buff lifeguards jogged along the beach, trying to bring a touch of Bondi to northern England.  It really was a lovely spot.  The buildings seemed to cascade down the cliffs, different tiers taking the building from the town to the coast.  Of course, some buildings have cascaded rather more rapidly over the years - most famously Holbeck Hall, which took several days to fall off the cliff a few years ago.  The coast round here is eroding at a furious rate.  I'll miss it when it's gone.

I was hungry, and a bit worried about the distance to the station, so I reluctantly left the coast and headed back up into town.  I walked it this time, staggering up a vertiginous cobbled street.  I was the only one headed that way - everyone else was coming down.  I didn't plan that right.

There was a little cafe at the top of the hill, with its French doors wide open, and I nipped in for a cup of tea and a sausage bap.  There was a woman sat by the counter, reading the Daily Mail; when I ordered my food she sighed and dragged herself into the kitchen, her break interrupted by a damn customer.

I sat down by the window and the waitress brought over my tea; she almost immediately spilt the milk, hurling the whole jug over the seat next to me and splashing my trousers.  She dashed off to fetch a cloth, leaving me uselessly prone, the milk cascading off the table, unable to stop it.  It's always embarrassing to have people clean up around you, and I busied myself with my notebook while she mopped up beside me, trying not to catch her eye.

The bap came, floury and white, with three thick bangers inside.  I spread some brown sauce over them and wolfed it down, tasting the lashings of margarine and feeling the sausage meat burst from the skin between my teeth.  The cook had returned to her newspaper behind me, job done.

Scarborough railway station is topped by an elaborate clock tower, which looks like it's been crafted out of plasticine.  Up close, you can see the different elements - the balcony, the supports, the different artistic flourishes - but from a distance it looks lumpy.  Sadly the closer look also shows you the clock has stopped and netting has been inelegantly draped over it to discourage the pigeons.  Considering it's such a landmark in the town, it deserves better.

At ground level, things are rather more pleasant.  A couple of glass pavilions house the Pumpkin cafe and a ticket/tourist information office; the rail employees were more occupied than the girl with "It's Yorkshire" on her sweatshirt.  Beyond was an impressive train shed with plenty of room to move about.

I could see platforms three, four and five, under the overarching roof, but there didn't seem to be any sign of a platform one and two.  Then I spotted them outside the station: two long excursion platforms.  They'd obviously been built to accommodate the thousands of visitors who came this way, once upon a time, with exits on both side of the train and their own station exit separate from the main one.

I doubt they get anywhere near as much traffic these days; probably just the odd train coming in to stable overnight.  Platform one does feature the longest railway bench in the world, though, if you're into record breaking furniture.

I, on the other hand, am not.

I was far more interested in a large tiled map of the railways round here, on platform 3.  I spent a good few minutes just staring at it, running my fingers over the routes and thrilling quietly at all those stations to come.

For today, I only had a few more stations to collect, so I headed to platform 5 for my Northern Rail train.  I liked Scarborough, and I was sorry to be leaving so soon.  I'll have to go back sometime and enjoy it properly.  After all, it's only one train journey away.

Go East, "Young" Man

The point of this new quest - the point of all these journeys - is exploration.  Yes, part of it is acquisition - my need to tick everything off a list, the satisfaction of putting a line through a name on a map - but at heart it's about going to places I've never been.

I nearly went to Morecambe.  A Lancashire Day Ranger and a trip up the West Coast Main Line.  Then I thought: how boring.  How predictable.  A ticket I've used a dozen times.  A line I've been on a thousand times.  So I went East.

Scarborough and Liverpool have been twinned by the railways - harbour towns on opposite sides of the country, with First TransPennine Express shuttling between them.  It seemed like a suitably epic distance to travel.  Right across Britain to a place I'd never visited before.

It meant a very early start.  We live on a vertical island, tall and thin, with long lines of transport running from north to south.  On top of that, the Pennines form a tall spine down the centre, blocking the way.  It means that while you can get all the way from Glasgow to London on whizzy, modern, electric trains, the east-west are still run by manky old diesels.  Even the newly announced electrification plans will only get trains from Liverpool to Manchester, with a possibly-maybe extension to Leeds someday.

It meant that it would take my train more than three hours to do the 150 miles to Scarborough.  If someone had boarded a London train at Lime Street at the same time, they'd have been treating themselves to a full English in the shadow of Tower Bridge while I was still chugging on my way to York.  It changes how you view the country - in your head, that narrow strip above Wales and the Wash suddenly feels fat and bloated and impassable.

Six fifteen, and the train's engines ground into action and took us out of the station.  It seemed to cough and splutter as it went, as though it was still adjusting to the early hour itself.  I have to confess that I'm prejudiced towards First TransPennine Express.  The name's too long, and has too many capital letters in it.  I also have a suspicion about bus companies that decide to buy a rail franchise.  I think they look at trains as less-flexible buses, and treat them and their passengers a little disdainfully.  But this train was at least clean and cheerily purple.

I wasn't in my reserved seat.  The computer had bunched all the reservations together in Coach C, meaning that I was squished into a backward-facing seat next to someone boarding at Huddersfield.  Instead I found a space in Coach D, two rows back from a man with Duelling Banjos for his ringtone.  He started to slowly, laboriously, annoyingly write a text on his dated phone.  No-one had turned the keypad sounds off for him, so we all got to hear him tediously tapping out his message.  Beep-beep-beep-pause for thought.  Beep.  Beep.  Beep-beep.  Pause again.  Beep.  I wondered idly if I could garrotte him with my headphones, like Necros in The Living Daylights; they're only cheap Sony ones though so they'd probably have snapped halfway through.  I expect international assassins go to a special shop for theirs.

The conductor comes through, inappropriately cheerful for this time of the morning.  She's very pretty but hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses and with her hair in a severe bun; she looks like the "before" part of a Plain Jane Superbrain transformation.  She checks my ticket and exclaims, "Ooh, you're going all the way!", completely missing the innuendo.  "You'll have finished that book by the time we get there."

The familiar stations pass by - South Parkway, Warrington Central, Beechwood, Oxford Road.  After Piccadilly I enter the unknown.  The last time I'd been beyond Manchester by train was in 1998, on a trip to the NUS LGB conference in Leeds.  I had other things on my mind instead of taking in the rail side vistas.  I'd like to say we were planning our conference, deciding what plenary sessions to attend  and having a serious political debate, but actually we were wondering where we could go for a night out and what kind of shops they had there.

In Stalybridge and Huddersfield, the train stopped being a cross-country route and became a commuter train.  Suits came on board, tapping at Kindles and playing games on smart phones.  Most of them could get a seat, but a few were left standing by the doors.  I was glad I'd boarded at the start of the trip.  We passed through the odd tunnel as we rose higher and higher into the Pennines.  Sometimes I could see out through the dirt-encrusted window and catch sight of trees, green valleys, lakes.  Tiny mill towns with brick chimneys puncturing the clouds sat at the bottom of ridges and slopes.  The morning sun bounced off reservoirs and fractured.

At Leeds, the train more or less emptied, and we continued.  This was real virgin (not Virgin) territory for me now.  I'd never been this far east on a train before.  You'll clutch your pearls in horror, but I've never even been to York, never mind visited the National Railway Museum there.  I've always said we'd give it a decent visit, a long weekend where we can do it justice.  A day in the museum and then a couple of days to enjoy the city.  Somehow it's never happened.  One look at York station's epic architecture reminded me what I'd been missing.  (Though why are the station nameplates all left-aligned, instead of centred?  It just doesn't look right).

The passengers at York were day-trippers and holidaymakers.  As we crossed the Ouse they settled in, stowing their cases in the ends of the carriage, unfolding bags of snacks and drinks for the journey.  The trolley boy passed through, Polish, cocky, chewing gum incessantly as he poured out coffees.  I'd brought a bottle of water from home, so I didn't partake, but I did get an appreciative glance at his backside as he passed.

Beyond York was a long section of nothing, just countryside and fields, no stations or stops.  We seemed to be travelling far out, away from everything.  Then the computerised voice made her announcement, and I unfolded myself, a little stiffly.

I wasn't at Scarborough, but instead on its outskirts.  I'd got off a station early at the little junction at Seamer.  Yes, Seamer.  I'd like to state right now that I will give one whole pound to anyone who is willing to alter the sign there to say Seamen (or even better, Se men).  Come on, kids of Yorkshire!  You can do it!  All you need is a chunky felt and some Tipp-ex*.

Seamer's where the Yorkshire Coast Line, which I'd be exploring later, and the main route split.  It's an ordinary little station, but it had something I'd never seen before: a magnetic gate.  There's no steps to get you from the island platform to the exit, just a barrow crossing, which could be dangerous with such large trains passing through.  To protect passengers, they've installed a gate on either side of the line, with a lock that activates whenever a train is close by.  It's a good idea, though it lead to an awkward moment as a woman and I were penned in waiting for the train to leave.  It was one of those situations where you're not sure whether you should be making small talk or not, and you can feel the tension rising as you both mull the question over in your head.

Finally the lock pinged and we were free to cross to the road.  The station building's been turned into a house, which is a shame, because it's a lovely large building.  It was a simple design, but pleasingly symmetrical, and quite elegant.  Its proximity to the railway was obviously a plus for the current owners, too, because they'd put up a few old-fashioned railway signs as decoration.  I say, "the current owners", but I probably mean "the husband, while the wife rolls her eyes indulgently."

I paused in the little cul-de-sac and took my station sign photo.  That was it - my north east England cherry had been popped.  I had collected my first Yorkshire station.  Just another hundred or so to go...

*obviously I'm joking.  Don't vandalise the railways, okay kids?

Taking Flight

For reasons too boring to go into here, I found myself in Manchester with an hour or two to kill.  I thought about riding the Metrolink's newest line out to Oldham Mumps, but I didn't think I had enough time to give it my attention.  I wouldn't be able to pause at some of the stops on the way.  So instead I went out to the Airport.

The Manchester Airport spur was always going to be a bit difficult to get.  Perhaps difficult is over-stating it; it's just I like to walk between stations, and who ever walks into an airport?  It's not built for pedestrians.  A trip straight into the Airport station would slice it off my list, and also mean that the Styal Line became just one straight run.

The station was opened in 1993, and it's as Nineties as a Spice Girls single.  It's got that shiny, glass and columns look to it - bright colours and concrete.  It's not dated, but it feels very of its time.

It's a good piece of epic design though.  They didn't skimp.  That roof sweeps above you.  It's "landmark" architecture that deserves the name.  You head up ramps and escalators to a concourse area with a Smiths and a Coffee Shop and a glass roof.  There was also a weird plastic tree, which invited me to find out how Manchester Airport is improving its carbon footprint through videos and computer presentations; I declined.

 
It's all very calm and soothing.  Not at all frenetic.  The most action packed place was outside, where builders were constructing a new platform.  The Metrolink's coming to the Airport; a new line is under construction, passing through Wythenshaw en route and ending up next to the train station.  Access will be from this central area, meaning you can get tram, train and bus from one place: proper integrated transport.

I'm not sure how many people will use it to get here from the City Centre, though.  The train's £3.80 return, and takes about a quarter of an hour; the tram will be comparable in price but it's got twenty stops to call at before it hits the city centre, and even then it won't go to the main railway station.  It's a bit like building the Piccadilly Line when you already have the Heathrow Express.

I thought I'd have a coffee and a little sit down before I headed back out again.  The Station's at the centre of the Airport, connected to the terminals via some space-age passages.  It's pleasingly futuristic; it reminded me of Drax's space station in Moonraker, though without the dozens of perfect people in yellow jumpsuits.  Instead there were just a lot of harassed individuals dragging wheelie-cases.

I found a Caffe Nero in Terminal 3 (they're stingy on places to sit down when you're not airside) and took up position to watch people pass.  There was a certain laziness, a bit of a stroll to their movements.  You'd think that the prospect of international travel would energise them, but it didn't; it seemed to be a trial.

I watched families, couples, individuals make their way to the check in desks and then back to security. They were tense, because air travel is full of little tests to ramp up your anxiety levels - questions about packing your bag, the check of the passports, taking your belt off at security and hoping your trousers don't fall down.  They looked a bit miserable in fact.

It's often said that airports are the new railway stations, having taken over their role as the transport hub for the well-heeled traveller.  I don't agree.  Airports never have the same energy as a train station.  

Part of it is down to location.  Like I said, you don't walk into airports; you have to make a special effort to get there.  They're out on the edge of town, surrounded by acres of concrete, accessible by motorways and railways.  They form their own ecosystem, and are less a development of the city, more a city in itself, a symbiont attached to its body.  Plus, they all look the same.  The fast-changing nature of air travel - meaning that they are constantly updated to accommodate new planes, new procedures, new airlines - makes them into modular constructions.  Bland walls and easily moved furnishings.  Railway stations have copied some of the airport's ideas - the new King's Cross has separate areas for arrivals and departures, St Pancras has all the same international travel issues - but they've done it with rather more style.

A railway terminus can be a city's heart.  It's surrounded by life and activity in a way an airport isn't.  It's a permeable building, letting people walk through and up and over to other places.  It's not as special - most people only go to an airport a couple of times a year - but that familiarity means it becomes an affectionate icon.  Commuters develop an attachment to their termini, even if they're a bit rickety round the edges.

You don't feel you've properly arrived in an airport.  If you step outdoors - which you rarely do, because you're shuffled onto buses and taxis and trains as soon as possible to get you away - you don't get a view of a new world, even if you've travelled thousands of miles to get there.  You see concrete overpasses and car parks and Hertz Rent-a-Car.  You could be anywhere.  You've only arrived when you get off that train from the airport, at Zoo, or Chatelet-Les-Halles, or Paddington.  That's when you're on holiday.  Airports are places for you to travel from; railway stations are places for you to travel to.

In fact, it was all a bit sad.  It didn't help that all these people were flying off to Spain and Morocco and India and I was heading back to Piccadilly.  I went back to the station and hunted around for a decent station sign; there wasn't one outside the actual building because who'd see it?  People arrived via those air-conditioned walkways, they didn't stroll in off the street.  So this is the best I could manage.

It'll do.

Travel Advice

This weekend, the Wirral loop under the city centre is going to be closed.  It's to help with the works at Liverpool Central, so presumably they're up to something particularly exciting - is it too much to hope that we'll see some of the new cladding come Monday?

It does mean that James Street becomes the start and finish for the Wirral Line, giving us a rare opportunity to use Platform 2.  This is the old Liverpool bound platform, left over from before the Loop was built, and is probably the most interesting one on the network - not just because it was untouched by the 1970s refurbishments.

For this weekend only you can get up close to Dream Passage, Tim Chalk and Paul Grime's 1992 artwork.  This fascinating piece regularly catches passengers attention from the opposite platform, so you really shouldn't miss the chance to see it properly.  It's a fantastic work that rewards close examination - it's full of quirky details and ideas.  I got a good look back in 2009, when Network Rail were upgrading the Loop's track, and it was great.

Do yourself a favour and get on the train this weekend to have a look.  You'll have to buy a ticket to get down there, but for £2.80 you can have a good nose at a piece of rarely seen artwork, ride a Merseyrail train, and cross under the river and back - not bad value.  You could even treat yourself to a coffee and a sandwich at one of the lovely cafes at Hamilton Square (try Station, next door, or Home in the Ferry Terminal).  Make a day of it.

The King Is Dead

Lay out the lilies; shed a sad tear. He is no more.

For what's seemed like Millennia Paul McKenna has hung over the Chester platform at Hamilton Square. His book aimed at boosting your confidence through pseudo science (with a free CD) has been plugged on a poster for so long there have been whispers about devilry at work. Perhaps the former Chiltern Radio DJ had used his hypnotic powers to enslave someone at Rail House, ensuring that his poster remained long after all others died. While every other campaign withered and perished, replaced by a different push for the Mersey Ferries or the Young Person's Railcard, Paul carried on. His blank eyes stared. He WILL give you confidence. And perhaps feel you up while you're under.

No more. Paul McKenna's reign of hypnotic terror has ended.

Now we have a builder doing the 100 metre hurdles. Yes, it's for the Olympics, along with everything else in the country at the moment, but I welcome it. That man in the 2012 t-shirt represents freedom from tyranny. An escape from the yolk of a madman with a pocket watch and a weirdly soothing voice. We're free. FREE.

(The ad for cancer insurance is still there though).

Merseybeats

In all the excitement of my Wales trip and the first flowering of my Northern trips, I've sort of ignored Merseyrail.  It's meant I've missed out on a whole bunch of stuff, so consider this a round up.  A John Craven's Newsround covering the Merseyrail events that have interested me.

• Liverpool Central's Coming Along

This is of course the biggest thing that's happening on the network at the moment.  The shutters are still down at Liverpool Central, and will be until at least the end of August (for the Wirral line).  The website at Love Liverpool Central is doing a good job of posting interesting updates, including photos like the one I shamelessly stole above.

I was in Liverpool early last week and took a wander through the shopping centre.  It was an eerie experience - eight o'clock on a weekday and I could hear the echo of my own footsteps.  The dullest job in the city must belong to the two chaps posted at the entrance, whose entire task is simply to redirect people.  They were stood by the barricades in fluorescent jackets, chatting away.  By this point pretty everyone who needs to use the station must know it's out of action, so presumably they spend all day doing nothing but drinking coffee from Greggs.  Incidentally, I noticed that their stock of sandwiches and snacks was severely reduced - presumably the lack of footfall has destroyed their trade.  WH Smiths hadn't even bothered opening before nine am.

The Echo has been allowed below ground for a look (presumably my invite is still pending) and it seems like a pretty comprehensive rebuild.  Am I alone in quite liking the stripped back brick look?  The works have also given me a new game to play when passing through on the Wirral Line - there are markers on the wall, (showing distances or something, who knows) but which look like years.  You can pretend you're travelling forward in time.  

(Alright, I was drunk when I spotted it).

• Walrus Looked For Volunteers

I got an e-mail from One Card Liverpool, the money off scheme I never use, asking for volunteers to trial the Walrus Card.  They wanted people who could use the card for their commute for a month so they could be monitored and evaluated.

I was halfway through filling in my application when I noted that they only wanted people who used certain bus companies or the gated Merseyrail stations (the city centre, plus Hamilton Square, Conway Park, Chester and Southport).  I was very disappointed, as I'm sure you can imagine.  Frankly, I would have done the trip every morning just so I could play with a Walrus (that sounds wrong).  

The other disappointment is that they're testing on the stations that already have the technology in place.  Shouldn't there be Walrus points appearing at the other stations by now?  Perhaps just a trial one at, say, Ormskirk or Kirkby?  It doesn't look like the proposed timeline for its introduction is going to be kept to.  Shame.

• WiFi Across The Network

Speaking of technology, the Post reported that Merseyrail were looking at introducing wifi on the stations and trains.  If I'm honest, I'm not really bothered by wifi at the stations.  Can you not wait until you reach the surface to Instagram that picture?  I was just in London, and though it was novel to surf the net at Euston Square, we were only there for five minutes before our train arrived.  I can live without my Twitterfeed for that long.  Trains on Merseyrail are, at worst, every fifteen minutes, and if you can't go fifteen minutes without updating your Facebook status you have a problem.  And most of them are above ground anyway, so you should get a half decent mobile signal.

Wifi on trains is a different matter: putting your laptop or tablet in the loop on your commute could add an hour or so to your working day.  Or you could just have some gentleman's time en route; it's up to you, though I imagine the person in the next seat might complain.  I can't see it happening until the new trains arrive though, towards the end of the decade.  If you're going to fit new technologies to the existing cars there are far better things you could spend your money on (e.g. heating that doesn't operate at surface of the sun temperatures in August).  So I'll file this one under "nice but not really that exciting".

• You Love Them (well, maybe not you)

In the last few days, the results of the nationwide passenger survey were announced, and Merseyrail got an astonishing 96% satisfaction rate.  It's the highest in the country, and way above average.  Kudos to them.  I might be biased, but I do think they do a very good job.  To celebrate they handed out "Golden Tickets", a lottery which could have seen a lucky commuter get a guided tour of a factory by a weird pederast free Railpass.  Even this pleasant gesture didn't go down well with everyone, as evidenced by this person on my Tumblr dashboard:

I sometimes wonder what people expect from a rail company.  Ermine seats?  Conveyance to their front door?  A blow job at Freshfield?  It's like when the punctuality figures come out - they'll regularly show that Merseyrail is the best in the country, but the Echo will be beseiged with comments about how they were on a train the other day and it was cancelled and they had to wait at Rock Ferry for half an hour for the next one and nobody was any help and it was ridiculous.  Fair enough, that was a bit grim for you (and it's happened to me in the past), but what about the other trips you take?  How about all the commutes where the train didn't break down?  Where it got you home on time?  It's not like they do it deliberately.  They don't make the thirty-year trains break down just to annoy you.  And seriously, try commuting in London.  I have someone on my Twitter feed who regularly complains if he can't get a seat on the train home.  Some people have worked in London for twenty years and never even seen a seat on a Tube train.  They don't know they exist.

Basically shut up and stop whining.  That told you.