The Cheshire Show

The railway doesn't so much pass through Congleton as skim its outer reaches.  It's a testament to the arrogance of Victorian railway builders: stick a station a mile out of town in pre-car days and it doesn't matter - people will still use it.  No point in building expensive viaducts and buying up property for demolition if you don't have to.  They were right, of course, but it means that Congleton station is in the wrong place.  Instead of being at the heart of the market town it's flung out amongst 1980s houses and a bypass.

It was pleasant enough, even if it had received an unwanted 1960s rebuild.  There was a volunteer refilling the flower beds while I was there.  The goods shed had been turned into a bathroom showroom.  I trekked up to the main road for the sign pic.

I was now left with a quandry about what to do.  The next station along the line was Macclesfield, but that was ten miles away; there wasn't much point in trudging all that way (there used to be a station inbetween, North Rode, but it closed in 1962, robbing me of the opportunity to visit Big Dogbottom Wood).  There was an hour until the next train, which would just about give me enough time to walk into Congleton town centre, have a brief look around, then turn back.  Not much point really.

If you don't know what I actually did, you must be a new reader.

Well, the Queen's Head was right there.  It would have been rude not to.  I sat in a corner with my pint of bitter while the manageress distributed Cheshire magazines around the bar.  I got the feeling she was trying to drive the pub upmarket, but was fighting a losing battle.  It was hard to take her aspirations at elegance seriously when the pub jukebox was playing some kind of England supporter's song and Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-Ling.

The man at the next table leaned over to me.  "When was this released?" he asked.

"Seventies sometime, wasn't it?"

"Must've been.  It was really popular."  He gazed off into the distance, remembering.  "Absolute shit."

Pint inside me, I crossed back over the road to the station.  Perhaps it was the alcohol, but I had to take a moment to appreciate Congleton's station manager, Julie, and in particular, her fierce scarf.  Looking at her photograph I could imagine exactly what her front room looked like.

Julie wasn't responsible for Macclesfield, my next stop along, and I suspect it would look a lot better if she did.  It's a Virgin managed station and so it's been painted in their gaudy red and grey livery.  It's odd how such a bright colour can seem so miserable.  Runcorn and Crewe suffer from the same problem; the paintwork makes the place look cheap.

It's ironic because if there's one thing you can't call Macclesfield, it's cheap.  This is the glittering heart of Cheshire, its rhinestone encrusted soul.  It's ridiculously rich, even if its station is ridiculously cheap.  I guess most Macclesfieldians (Macclesfieldites?) don't use public transport.

Heading down to the main road for the sign pic, I got a sudden flashback to the last time I'd come to Macclesfield.  It was to perform my last act as an employee of Cheshire East Council; I came here to sign my redundancy papers.  I'd sat alone in a little office, waiting for my turn, anxious and tired.  But when I signed that bit of paper I felt the happiest I'd been in months.  It means Macclesfield will always have a fond spot in my heart.

I crossed the road and clambered up the ridiculously steep hill towards the town centre - seriously, it's about 1 in 2.  Plus it's cobbled.  Cobbles belong in two places only: (a) Coronation Street and (b) Catherine Cookson novels.  Everywhere else they're a pain to walk on, especially when they've had a light splattering of rainwater and they're on a near-vertical slope.

Still, it afforded me a valuable glimpse into the town's retail offering.  Estate agents, hair salons, a Scandinavian food and drink bar, "Bathery - a Natural Handmade Bath and Body Boutique".  Even the Games Workshop looked classy.  There wasn't so much as a sniff of Poundland.

By taking this route into the pedestrianised heart, I was missing out on the real jewel in Macclesfield's retail crown, the legendary Arrighi Bianchi.  It's a converted mill that houses a huge collection of furniture and homeware, and is quite the destination for the North West's WAGs.  The BF and I visited it about a decade ago, when we were looking for a new sofa; we thought we'd try it out as surely somewhere that expensive would mean good quality.  It turns out that really rich people have terrible taste in sofas.  We couldn't find anything that wasn't gaudy, overpriced or over-decorated.  Everything was over the top and horrific, proving that no matter how much money you have, class is not for hire.  We ended up going to Marks and Spencer's.

It occurred to me that Macclesfield is what Chester thinks it is.  Chester's built a reputation as this historic, elegant city, but look a bit closer and you'll spot the holes in its facade.  Yes, it has the walls and the Cathedral and the Roman ruins, but as a place to live, it's a bit down at heel.  Its reputation turns to dust the minute you wander into the charity and pound shops of Frodsham Street, or you spot the horrific bus exchange, or the mess of down at heel, collapsing buildings along Brook Street.  Macclesfield is rich and elegant and pretty without even trying.

I left the town centre, past the moneyed playing fields of the King's School, and into a small estate of old people's flats.  There was a side path, muddy from the rain, that took me down to the River Bollin and the Riverside Park.

It was another park carved out beneath the railway line, but this had a much more organic, much more loose feel than Bathpool Park.  It should have been worse - electricity pylons crackled overhead, and the paths were less tidy - but it all felt like a more pleasant place to be.  The river helped, wide but not deep, trickling over the stones beside me and providing a tinkling soundtrack.  Now and then I'd hear the shimmer of the electric cables on the railway line, a gentle hiss that rose upwards, followed by the bang! of a fast train powering by.  The whoosh of ten carriages slicing through the afternoon, and then the power lines shook themselves still again.

Through a gate, and the park opened itself up into a wide meadow, dotted with buttercups.  I'd had a few fellow walkers before, all of them headed towards town, but now I was on my own.  There was a church spire in the distance, acting as a triangulation point.  I followed the path away from the stream, striding across the grass, listening to my annoyingly squeaky boots.

A herd of cows made me pause.  I love cows, as I've said many times; their big eyes, their slow trudge, their docile nature.  These cows were accompanied by a couple of bulls, however, with long lethal looking horns curling out of their foreheads.  I approached tentatively.  I wasn't sure what the procedure was with bulls: are you meant to run if they charge you, or stand your ground?  There were a few trees that I suppose I could shimmy up, if I were, say, Tarzan and not a porky 37 year old who couldn't even climb the ropes in PE at school.

A few of the cows looked up as I got closer, but the bulls didn't pay me any attention.  I don't know what was so special about the grass they were eating but damn, they seemed to be enjoying it, and a passing walker wasn't going to interrupt their meal.  Even if he was wearing a red t-shirt.

One kissing gate later and I was in a small copse of trees, pushing wayward branches out of my way and skipping over puddles.  I checked Google Maps as I walked.  I really should have been at Prestbury by now; it was starting to look touch and go whether I'd make it in time for the train, leaving me with another hour to kill.  I'd got that spare hour thanks to getting to Kidsgrove early, but I liked having it in reserve.

After a minor encounter with a greyhound, who stared at me as I approached ("She's looking for your dog," explained the owner, with the understated question of "why are you in these woods WITHOUT a dog?") I stepped out into a cul-de-sac on the edge of Prestbury village.  1970s houses built for commuters, they were all sharp angles and windows in strange places, grouped around greens with No Ball Games signs.  Why give the kids a green and then tell them they can't play football on it?  That's just cruel.

The village centre was far more pleasing, whitewashed restaurants and pubs and shops threaded along a quiet lane.  I reflected that, yes, this might be quite a nice place to live, all told.  I suddenly saw why Wayne Rooney moved out into Cheshire rather than staying in Croxteth.  I passed a couple of small hotels, discreetly tucked behind tall hedges and built for illicit weekends, and finally stumbled on Prestbury station.

Red faced and sweaty.  Not a great look.

I'd actually made it with a couple of minutes to spare, so there was time to snap a picture of the Prestbury owl.  Owls are a bit creepy, aren't they?  Or is that just because I watched too much Twin Peaks?

The platforms were in a hollow beneath the road, with black and white painted waiting shelters and two giggling teenage girls waiting for an afternoon trip to Manchester.  The mouth of the Prestbury Tunnel yawned at us as the electric Northern train slid into place.

There are two Adlington stations.  Adlington (Lancashire), out near Chorley, I collected last December.  I could cross Adlington (Cheshire) off my list as well.

I was now faced with an uninspiring stroll along a busy A-road for the next half an hour or so.  I missed my iPod.  I've mislaid my headphones, and it's hard just walking along accompanied by your own thoughts.  Sometimes I need the distraction.

The rain started up again; I experimented with the hood on my new coat and found it was ridiculously huge.  It hung right down over my eyes, making me look like the universe's tallest Jawa.  When the wind got caught up in it again, I gave up, and just let the top of my head get drenched.  A series of signs, jammed in the grass verge, advertised the upcoming Adlington Summer Festival; one had MICHAEL JACKSON in big letters then underneath, in a much smaller font, tribute.  I think the last word was pretty unnecessary, what with the King of Pop being dead and all.  Even if he had been resurrected I doubt he'd pick an English village fete for his comeback gig.

There was a brief moment of excitement as I passed the Swizzles-Matlow distribution centre; Swizzles are one of the few sweets I love unreservedly.  Every Hallowe'en I buy one of those tubs full of Drumstick lollies, Love Hearts, and Refreshers, and gorge myself.  I know they're meant for trick or treaters, but I object to that horrible American import on principle, so the local children can whistle.  (Obviously I throw the Parma Violets away - I'm not a fool).

I was entering Poynton now.  There was an antiques centre, and one of the ugliest Wetherspoons I have ever seen - it was like a shed made out of tin.  A local estate agent had changed its For Sale boards so they looked like the cross of St George and had Come on England! across the top; I can safely say this is the worst thing to happen in this country since the Black Death.  In the village centre the roadway had been raised to the same level as the pavement and a sign said This is a shared space village - please give way to all.  I applaud the principle of shared spaces, but you'd have to be a particularly bloody minded pedestrian to go wandering across a double roundabout.

I turned left.  There was a long, tree-lined road out to the railway station.  I got a small giggle out of the sign for the Chester Road Dental Surgery: the two partners were listed differently on either side, with each of them getting top billing.  It's a dentists, ladies, not the poster for The Towering Inferno.

I found Poynton station down a side road.  It's another Victorian delight, and in rather better condition than some of its cousins.  I loved the tile work, and the stained glass windows, even if they were covered with mesh to stop vandalism.

The station's clearly been adopted by some very keen volunteers, who've restored a lot of the features.  There's a pretty garden on one of the platforms, and the doors are marked with heritage signs - "Booking Hall", "Lamp Room", "Station Master".

It was an appropriate way to end my passage through Cheshire, with a loved station in a wealthy village.  For the remainder of the day I'd be in Greater Manchester, and I doubted things would be quite so charming.

Canal, Plus

Longport is on the Northern Rail map, but it's not of the Northern Rail map.  It gets only a very token pair of morning rush hour trains from Northern; for the rest of the day it's East Midlands services only.  You suspect that they'd quite like to withdraw the purple trains altogether but those damned Rail Regulators won't let them.

I arrived on an East Midlands train, of course; there was no way I was schlepping all the way to Stoke-on-Trent at 6 am for a Northern train.  I'm not completely mad.  Instead I turned up in a dinky single carriage train, which is somehow deemed suitable for a Crewe-Derby service.  I can't believe that isn't oppressively rammed by Uttoxeter.

The station looked abandoned anyway.  The charming Victorian station building, with its pretty curved gable ends, was fenced off and blocked up.  There was a "For Sale" sign, but I couldn't see anyone breaking their neck to purchase it.  A bypass road meant the station was stranded at the end a back street, by a noisy engineering firm and a series of small terraced houses.  It wasn't suitable for conversion into a tea room or restaurant, and the area was too downmarket for a residential development, so it simply rotted away.

Plus, there wasn't a station sign.  I had to make do with one on the platform, and you know that really grinds my gears.

All in all, Longport wasn't coming over very well.  Emerging onto a screamingly busy main road, with juggernauts pounding above me and the wail of industrial equipment, just added to the dystopian atmosphere.  I choked on fumes and sought an escape: a small side path that took me below a bridge and down to a canal.

Suddenly I could breathe again.  The angry traffic was still above me, on the bridge, but with the streak of water and trees ahead of me it seemed to be another world.  It helped that the factory over the road featured a large brick kiln; visiting the Potteries and finding actual pottery manufacturing equipment was deeply pleasing.

Following the path produced more hints of industrial decay - rusting metal, collapsed walls, sharp spiky fences guarding silent machinery.  A digger ground at the hulks of a plant, pulling it apart without precision or mercy.  There was an occasional barge on the canal, but they were all tied up.

Then, beyond another bridge, it changed.  It was as though the city just hit the "off" switch.  I'd reached Westport Lake, a former clay pit turned into a nature reserve.  There was no sign of its old life.  Instead trees reached into the distance, and swans and geese floated on the surface.  A classy-looking visitor centre stood on stilts at the water's edge.

It was a popular site.  Cars turned up to disgorge athletic looking pensioners ready for their morning constitutional, and there was a stream of lively dogs being herded along the towpath.  I stayed away from the lake itself, following the canal back into industrial land.  The factories were newer now, with more metal and chrome.  Mysterious pipes crossed from one bank to the other: they wore a necklace of spikes to stop overenthusiastic youths from clambering across.

Under one bridge, half a dozen men were huddled from the lazy rain.  It was half-hearted, the kind of weather that was neither wet or dry and that would make my mum exclaim "pee or pass the pot!".  Two of the men wore neon vests, and as I got closer, I saw that the others were all a certain type: thick-set, middle aged, sullen, sucking on cigarettes.  I sensed a cadre of community service.

By now I had the towpath to myself; I'd moved far enough out of Stoke for it to be a bit of a trek for the casual stroller.  The banks were covered with stinging nettles.  Now and then, I'd cross a pipe taking away overflowing water from the canal, or pouring a cascade back into it.  In the distance, I finally spotted a canal barge, grinding its diesel engine in the distance.  It was moving very slowly, and I almost caught up with it.

It was coming in to rest in what looked like a small marina, but was actually a tunnel mouth.  The Trent and Mersey canal was diverted into two underground passages at this point, collectively known as the Harecastle Tunnel.

The entrance I could see was the fan house for the newer Telford Tunnel, built in the 1950s.  The actual tunnel predates that but the fan building had to be constructed so that diesel barges could pass through without killing their occupiers.  The boat that I'd followed along the canal seemed disconcerted by the No Admittance sign; they clearly hadn't planned on loitering in what was literally a backwater.

I took a few pictures then headed out, passing the older Brindley Tunnel on the way.  This was the original route through the hill, opened in 1777.  It was constructed without a towpath; the bargemen had to lay on their backs on top of the boats and walk their feet along the roof to carry their goods through, an exhausting task carried out in pitch black conditions.  It continued to be used for over 120 years, until parts of it began to collapse; for a while attempts were made to keep it in a state of good repair but they finally gave up in the 1960s.  Now it's been allowed to quietly fall back into the water.

That distinctive brown colour of the water, incidentally, has been blamed on iron ore leaking through the Brindley Tunnel.  There's a school of thought which has suggested planting reed beds to clear it up; there's another one which says it should be left as a relic of our industrial heritage.  Needless to say, neither side is currently winning the argument.

I had to walk up onto the road for a while, so I braced myself for the usual trudge through along a grass verge at the side of a country lane.  However, the road was surprisingly well appointed.  It glistened with new tarmac, and there was a footpath and a bus shelter.  It seemed strangely urban for such a remote spot.

I found the reason for all this investment round the next corner.  A giant green alien spaceship, squatting in the middle of the countryside.

JCB are a Staffordshire firm, and I'd stumbled on their new distribution centre.  It was a great building.  It's hard to design this kind of facility without it looking like a big square box: we've all seen ugly crates by the side of motorways and railway lines.  JCB had gone with something more elegant, with white curves rising up out of the ground and spreading to form the roof.  The wooden offices, the small ponds and pathways, even the shades of green spoke of a company that was sliding into the landscape as a partner instead of an invader.  It would have been easy for them to have plastered it in JCB yellow for corporate consistency, but instead they'd been sympathetic.

I crossed the road and entered Bathpool Park, just as the Council workers were emptying the bins in the car park.  I was following a path that danced around the railway line; indeed, I'd seen the route from the train and thought "I hope that's not the way I'm going".  It was just a bit dull.  The path was plain black tarmac, handy for cyclists, boring as hell to walk on, and the desire to create a "wild" environment meant that for a long time I was trapped between trees and a fence.

Still, it was quiet and traffic free, so I shouldn't complain.  At one point the route was blocked by a British Gas van.  The men were having a tea break - obviously - and the youngest one was telling a story with hand gestures and tongue rolling.  I'm not sure what he was talking about but, judging by the lewd hip thrusting, I'm guessing it wasn't his night at the opera.

The park opened up after that, with a wide lake that had already attracted anglers.  Another sport I don't understand; if you want to sit by the lake, feel free.  You don't need to rip open a fish's gullet as well.

Walkers were strolling by.  One woman scared the heck out of me by suddenly plunging out of the undergrowth on her jog, her headphones leaving her blithely unaware that she wasn't alone.  I walked past sports pitches, and scenic bridges, and those cast iron workout machines that give you a little training regime without the gym fees.  Much to my humiliation, there was a doughy lady in her fifties working up a sweat on one of them, while her husband watched.  I kept my head down and feigned a limp.

Further on, a ruddy faced country type was sat on a bench, taking in the picturesque view.  "G'morning," he called to me as I passed.  "Hiya!" I replied, because apparently I'm Antony Cotton.

The park ended, and I emerged into leafy Kidsgrove.  I'd thought this trip would take a while, but it looked like I'd powered my way through and I'd be able to get the earlier train.  It meant I missed out on a wander round the town, which was a shame, because it was about as different from Longport as it was possible to get.  It was as though I'd passed through a Stargate and emerged in another universe.

The houses were large, the trees were plentiful, the cars were exclusive.  Kidsgrove might be in Staffordshire but its heart belongs to Cheshire.  I passed a Job Centre - which was empty - and a couple of pleasant looking tea rooms.  I had a bit of a stare at a hairdressing salon, trying to work out what letters were missing from its sign, before I realised it said "Cut To A T".  I may have been a bit tired after all that walking.

The station was tucked behind the main road, past a teenage couple canoodling in a doorway.  There was a bridge over the canal; it turns out this is where the Harecastle Tunnel emerges.  If it had a towpath along its length I could have saved myself a fair amount of time.  Of course, I probably would have plunged into the water and drowned because there aren't any lights, or I'd been gassed by a diesel engine, but that's beside the point.  I was pleased to see that there was rust coloured water here too.  I hope they don't install those reed beds.

The station sign was also on the bridge, though at least it was a proper totem one this time.  Another sign that Kidsgrove is a bit classier than Longport.

Its station building is a lot less lovely though.  The line was electrified as part of the West Coast Main Line and an unlovely concrete and brick building was put up to symbolise the brave new world.  It was promptly ignored for forty years, and now it's a peeling edifice with little charm or beauty.  Practical but uninspiring.  It gets a sole point for those BR symbols embedded into the front.

I'd already passed through here once before: Kidsgrove is a junction, where the Stoke-Manchester line deviates from the Stoke-Crewe line.  It spreads across four platforms, a wide open space that's far bigger than it needs to be.

It was now about four hours since I'd left home, and I'd managed to collect two stations.  Over the course of the next five hours, I'd collect another eight.  That's just odd.

Triangulation

All over the country, there are railway ghosts.  Lines that have been abandoned.  Stations that were closed.  Goods yards declared surplus to requirements.  You can trace their shapes on maps: big supermarkets right next to railway lines, or the tracks suddenly splitting wide apart to accommodate long demolished platforms.  Sometimes you can see a long vein of green that runs round the backs of houses for mile after mile.  It looks like some particularly forward thinking planners laid out a pedestrian route a hundred years ago, but it's actually the trackbed of a railway that was Beechinged.

The Liverpool Loop Line - or to use its older, more formal name, the North Liverpool Extension Line - was a railway that ran from Halewood to Aintree, skirting the city's eastern suburbs.  It took revellers to the races, freight to the docks, day trippers to the coast.  It's all gone now, turned into National Cycle Route number 62, part of the Trans-Pennine Trail, and a ghostly thread through the past.

I'd long wanted to walk the Loop and trace this piece of railway history but, to be honest, cowardice got in the way.  The line passes through some of the less desirable areas of the city, and the idea of being on an isolated, out of the way track, vulnerable and alone, put me off.  Fortunately, for this trip, I had backup.  It was only Ian and Robert, so it was less the Krays and more the Three Stooges, but there's safety in numbers.

We got off the train at Broad Green and crossed under the M62.  The flyover sweeps over the whole area, a grand concrete arc that refuses to bow down before the little houses below.  Its confidence is admirable, and it's sad that it almost immediately crashes into the mess of the Rocket junction, brought low by a lack of funds and ambition.  Cross the road by the Turnpike pub and you can find the slopes down to the former railway line.

It might be "just" a cycle route now, but there's no denying that heritage.  It's clearly a railway route, with that fantastic Victorian bridgework contrasted with their more prosaic 20th century cousin.   We followed the path down to the track level and we were soon on a cool silent pathway.

There was a secondary motive for our little journey.  Ian used to live and work in Childwall, before he headed off to the Big Smoke, and so this walk was something of a nostalgia trip for him.  I was intrigued to visit parts of the city I'd never been near before.  Generally speaking, if it's not on the Merseyrail map, I've never been there; famous chunks of the city like Old Swan and Knotty Ash are complete mysteries to me.

The old railway bridges are still intact throughout the walk; it's what makes it such a good route for cyclists, because it's miles of entirely segregated pathway.  We were frequently interrupted by the tring of a bell as another lycra-clad bicycler came up behind us.  One pair even had cameras mounted on their helmets; it's the Liverpool Loop Line, folks, not stage five of the Tour de France.  All you'll get out of that is a very dull YouTube video.

After a mile or so we peeled off the route to head into Childwall.  We were actually passing over the site of the former Childwall station, which closed in the early 1930s.  The railway company built the station to service the village, but it was a little too far for easy commutes, and when the tramways started providing competition they gave up and closed the station.

There's no sign of the old station; it was demolished not long after it closed.  There's a Sustrans information post, on which someone's graffiti'd Stab the BNP (combined with the Fuck UKIP at Broad Green, it made you sort of proud of the politicised vandals), but there's no info on the old station.  Across the road are cottages built for the railway workers, but they could be semis anywhere in Liverpool.

Before he became one of the London elite, Ian worked for Liverpool's most glamorous company: Mersey Television.  Ok, he was a website writer, not Chief Boob Wrangler to the many glossy haired starlets, but it's still a frisson of showbiz that Robert and I could only aspire to.  As he lead us through the village, he pointed out its many links to Hollyoaks - the parish church frequently pressed into service for weddings and funerals, the sandstone pub that doubled for Chester's boozers.  Childwall (pronounced "chilled-wall", not like a small human, in another of those damnable Scouse affectations designed to alienate outsiders) was a charming little place, green and pleasing.

Of course, the true hub of the Hollyoaks industry is the Lime Pictures complex (formerly a teacher training college).  It was easy to spot the entrance thanks to the dozen girls hanging around outside the entrance hoping for autographs.  I don't watch Hollyoaks, never have; my only exposure to it is when I change channels and catch another blonde girl arguing with a gay-faced teen about something.  I know Stephanie from Over the Rainbow is in it now, plus Gillian Taylforth and Candace from Coronation Street, and I assume that brother of the boy from 2 Point 4 Children is still in it because he is Chester's Ken Barlow.  Ian still filled us in on the behind the scenes scandale, with tales of production team changes and writing crises.  We craned our necks to see if we could spot any of the set (better known to me as Brookside Parade, because I am an old fart), but the site is surrounded by thick woodland.  Finally we bought a bottle of water each and headed back to the Loop Line, pausing only by Ian's old flat so he could criticise the new owner's taste in wallpaper.

Soon we were heading south again on the path.  Excited children on half term squealed and squeaked around their parents; women walked their dogs with the lead in one hand and their mobile in the other.  The thick trees formed a cooling canopy over our head, gently rustling in the low May wind.  We were isolated from the city around us.

Of course, that's part of the reason why the Loop Line closed in the first place: it doesn't really go anywhere.  Linking up the suburbs in a chain might work somewhere like London, where the outer boroughs are townships all of their own, but Liverpool is centred around its river.  A railway line that doesn't go anywhere near the city centre, just through a series of leafy suburbs, was going to have problems getting passengers.

The city recognised this when it was building what's now the Northern Line from Garston to Southport in the 1970s.  The original proposal was that the Loop Line would simply link into it, making a massive circle line around the city, until analysis showed that people wouldn't really use it.  The second idea was to make two loops, one in the south of the city and one in the north, which would have connected onto the main line into Lime Street.  There was going to be a massive, six platform underground station at Broad Green which would have enabled you to connect with trains going to all points of the compass.

Ambition is one thing; reality is another.  The Link and Loop works in the city centre went over budget, while the UK went into financial meltdown.  British Rail put the whole scheme into cold storage, which is a polite way of saying "the bin".

By now we'd reached Gateacre (pronounced "gattaca", because obviously), which used to have its own railway station.  In fact, it had a station right up until 1972.  It lost it in a broken promise that I'm sure the residents are still bitter about.

The Big Idea in the late Sixties was to send all Liverpool's long distance services into Lime Street, while the local service - the Northern Line, as it would become - would travel under the city centre through underground stations.  Problem was, the people of Gateacre had an existing railway service into Liverpool Central, which British Rail planned on demolishing.  For a while they had a shuttle going back and forth, but finally BR closed the line and promised they'd get their station back when the electrified Merseyrail services opened in 1977.

Since that's the former station site, you may have deduced that Gateacre never reopened.  Budget squeezes meant that the electric lines were only opened as far as Garston; a bit more money was found to extend it to Hunts Cross for interchange with the Manchester line, but after that, nothing.  In what can only be described as a mean-spirited act, British Rail whipped up the tracks and built a transformer over the tracks at Hunts Cross, effectively a big yah-boo-sucks to Gateacre.

It's a shame, for a number of reasons.  Hunts Cross is a rubbish place for a terminus; the line through there is far too busy, and it's close enough to Liverpool South Parkway for people to start suggesting that maybe it should be taken off the Northern Line altogether.  If the tracks continued on to Gateacre, it wouldn't be such a problem.

Plus, Gateacre is lovely, and it would be nice if it were linked into the rest of Merseyrail.  It'd be commuter heaven.  Instead, everyone's forced to drive to work, or take a bus, and we all know that buses are rubbish compared with trains.

We wandered into the village's centre, past Moran's (the oldest music shop in Liverpool) and over to the Black Bull pub for lunch.  We took a seat in what looked like an empty space near the front of the pub, but soon revealed itself to be the family room; not too much bother, really until we got onto Scottish politics and I called Alex Salmond a "c**t" three feet away from a toddler.  I'm not built for family areas.

After a quick trip to the loo, I returned with accusations; which one of Ian and Robert had corrected the sign in the gents, crossing out the unnecessary apostrophes?

They both denied responsibility, but we collectively agreed that whoever did it was a wonderful human being and we should buy them a pint.

Full of sandwiches and beer (except Ian, who remains bafflingly teetotal), we headed back to the line for the last stretch.  There was an information point on the south side of the road, which we hoped would have a lot of stuff about the railway, but was very much cycling-centred.  It's a shame they gloss over the line's history this way; it's so glaringly obvious why the route is there, they should celebrate it.

We trekked back up to the main route.  Ian turned to me and said, "Does it not bother you that we've missed out walking over a section of the track?"

I paused.  "Well, it does now."

I HAVE OCD, ALRIGHT.  Much to Robert and Ian's bemusement/annoyance, I insisted that we backed up a little, so that I could cross the railway bridge and walk over the twenty yards or so of the path that we hadn't passed over.  I blame Ian.  If I hadn't realised there was that little section, uncrossed, I would have been quite happy to carry on.

Having indulged my mental illness, we headed south again.  An abandoned tin of Asda "Smart Price" lager seemed to act as a marker that we were heading into less salubrious surroundings.  The path was the same, with the greenery all around us, but the people changed.  They were noiser and harder.  The jogging women had thin, gaunt faces and bodies, and they wore unbranded track suits instead of the head to toe Nike we'd seen earlier.  At one exit, a man was slumped against the bollards; something had put him out of it, and I'm guessing it wasn't joy at the onset of summer.  Three teenagers appeared and nudged him into consciousness via shouting and prodding with the toes of their trainers.  A gang of lads, spread across the path in a single line, walked a straining, sinewy dog.

It was still pretty, it was still charming, it was just a tiny nudging up of tensions, a hint of threat that hadn't been there before.

There were no bins along the path - a real oversight if you ask me - and so the bushes became the place to put your litter.  Dog turds were left out on the tarmac too.  It was a shame, especially when now and then you'd get a break in the trees and you could take in a long view over the Cheshire Plain to Fiddler's Ferry.

We'd left Liverpool now, and entered Knowsley.  A cast-iron sign welcomed us to the "Halewood Park Triangle", which sounded wrong to me; shouldn't it be the Halewood Triangle Park?  This was the point where the railway line used to split in two directions to form a wide junction with the Manchester line.  When the track was lifted, they turned the whole area into a country park, with a lake, playground and sculptures.  It's a pleasant place to wander, though I'm not convinced by some of the artworks.

That's just an exploded lamp post.

The path split, and we headed west, with the aim of reaching Hunts Cross for the train back into town.  I was sweating profusely - the afternoon had turned out to be unexpectedly warm - and the tree pollen had got into my throat and made my voice croak.  These sound like complaints, but really, I was absolutely content; I was with my friends in a railway based adventure, and we had a nice meal booked for later that day.  It was about as good as it could get.

The green bridge carried us over the railway line and onto Higher Road.  After the gentle noises of the country park, the A562 seemed overpoweringly loud, a cacophony of traffic and noise.  I insisted that we pause for a selfie outside the park sign, then immediately hated myself for using that word: I was doing up the nose shots on my phone long before Kim Kardashian and Ellen at the Oscars.

We trekked along towards Hunts Cross, pausing only at the pedestrian crossing so I could embarrass myself again by discussing female ejaculation just as a nice middle aged lady turned up next to us (it's a long story).  There was a nice surprise when we reached the station; it was one of those cheapskate brick ones last time I visited, just a kiosk for the stationmaster to sit in.  It's had a bit of a makeover, and now there's a proper ticket hall.

It's a vast improvement, with a nice covered area and wooden ticket windows.  Good work, Merseyrail.

It seemed appropriate that after a day of travelling over Liverpool's dead railways we should end up at a very active one, a station that seemed to have a new life in fact.  The platform was full of people travelling back towards town.  I wish the line carried on, and we'd got that massive Broad Green interchange, but at the same time I'm happy with what we've got.  Merseyrail's great.  We're lucky to have it.