A Man, A Plan, A Superlamb

As featured at James Street Station:

MerseyRail's contribution to the SuperLambBanana festival, and fabulous it is too. (And map aficionados please note: that's not a FUCKING SQUARE on there!). If anyone out there feels like buying me this one in the SuperLambBanana auction, please feel free: I will be eternally grateful.

(See: http://www.gosuperlambananas.co.uk/ for the whole story).

Not Waving, But Drowning

It's been a while, hasn't it? A couple of months in fact. I can only apologise and say that I have been very, very busy. Basically, I've changed jobs, and so there's been a whole lot of upheaval and all that, and it means I've had to say goodbye to my Railpass. Sob! Like Mr D in the comment section of my last post, I was extremely upset to have to let go of the old girl. In fact, I even did a little calculation to see if there was any way I could justify £85 a month to keep it (I couldn't).

I've gone from working in Chester to working in Crewe, somewhat ironically. The MerseyTart is now esconced in the cradle of railways. And I am getting that thrill from arriving and departing from a major hub.

But it's not the same. I miss my little yellow and grey trains. I still get a little bit of Merseyrail action, from Birkenhead Park to Lime Street every morning, but it's not as much fun.

So I was lucky enough to be able to get a day off for MerseyTart antics. I say a day off - I was on strike. Yes brothers, as a local government minion, I was joining in the national action for pay. Comrades! Rise up and be counted! Well, actually, when I say "joining in" I actually mean "relishing the prospect of a day when I didn't have to go to work". I would have been rubbish in the Winter of Discontent.

The whole network was opened up to me, and I decided that I would get some more City Line stations. After last time's disaster (well, apart from the good food and beer) I would be determined and conscientious about capturing the stations on this route. Instead of my trusty Railpass, I bought a Saveaway, Liverpool's version of the One-Day Travelcard.

The branch I chose was out on the far end of the map, between Whiston and Newton-Le-Willows. This is, ladies and gentlemen, no ordinary railway line; this is the world's first intercity line, the original Liverpool to Manchester route. I was travelling on a route that had been laid out by George Stephenson and opened in 1830. Millions of travellers all over the world can trace their daily commute back to this single piece of railway track.

As is usual on the City Line, I went out to come back, and I alighted at Newton-le-Willows. My first surprise about Newton-le-Willows was that it was even in Merseyside in the first place. I had in my head that it was very, very posh; prime WAG territory. Perhaps it's the "le" that did it for me. Towns with a "le" always sound like they have ideas above their station. What's wrong with "in the Willows", eh? Anyway.

The station was being refurbished when I arrived; half the staircase was blocked with scaffolding, and the workmen had to down tools and step aside to let the alighting passengers through. It looked like a nice 19th century station, but with all the builders covering it, you couldn't really stop and appreciate it. I headed outside in search of a station sign, and I was disappointed to see that the only one on show was a platform sign transplanted to the roadside. Perhaps that's how posh it is round Newton; they refuse to have a Merseyrail box sign outside, lowering the tone. The sign was quite low down on the pavement too, resulting in me having to practially squat by the side of the busy main road to get the whole name in; an undignified start to proceedings, really.

Normally, I'd now proceed at haste to the next station, but instead I went in the opposite direction to seek out a bit of history. It was a terrible day to be out, raining constantly, a mist of fine drizzle that clung to me as I trekked out of town. The large suburban houses gave way to a garden centre, then I was walking under the M6 and I was out in the countryside. I was looking for a memorial to the world's first railway casualty.

The Liverpool & Manchester Railway was opened by the Duke of Wellington, then the Prime Minister, with all the attendant pomp and circumstance. The Duke himself then rode a train, with carriages of flunkeys and MPs in tow, from the Liverpool end in the direction of Manchester. It had been decided that halfway along the line, the Duke's train would stop so that a train coming in the opposite direction could process by.

You or I would think this was a great opportunity to relax in our seats and do our best regal waves as the other train went past. This is why you and I are not politicians. Instead, the MP for Liverpool, William Huskisson, decided to take the opportunity to walk down the train to talk to the Prime Minister (history has not recorded why he wanted to talk to him; I'm guessing toadying came into it somewhere). Unfortunately, Huskisson had completely forgotten that he was in fact walking on a railway line, and so was taken by surprise when a train turned up. So surprised he fell underneath it, and his leg was crushed. One report says that as the train went over him, he called out his own surname, which I think is rather wonderful, and I intend adopting "Huskisson!" as an exclamation of pain and surprise from now on.

Huskisson was rushed to hospital on the train to Eccles, but he couldn't be saved, and he died; sad for him, good for pub quiz question masters. (Incidentally, the Duke of Wellington carried on, despite the loss of one of his MPs; he was promptly pelted with stones in Manchester by citizens still incensed by the Peterloo massacre. You couldn't really call it the most auspicious of launch days). He was buried in a large monument in St James' cemetary in Liverpool (now in the shadow of the Anglican cathedral), but a year later, a memorial was built on the site where his unfortunate accident occurred. And that's where I was headed.

There are no signs to guide you to the Huskisson memorial; you have to know where to look. And even when you get there, it's pretty difficult to see. Notwithstanding that it was a grey, miserable day, it was pretty difficult to get a decent look at it. Large trees and bushes were planted on the embankment directly opposite it, so I couldn't go there, and behind it, there was an iron fence blocking the way. Basically, the only way to get a decent, full on appreciation of Huskisson's memorial would be to stand in the middle of the railway tracks. I believe that's a textbook example of "irony".

Much as I would have loved to sacrifice myself in front of the 10:32 to Manchester Piccadilly as a way of truly memorializing William Huskisson, I thought it was better to settle for a peek from the nearby road bridge. I wondered how many people even noticed the memorial from their train window as they passed, and, if they did spot it, if they knew what it was. Probably best not to know, really; you don't want to be reminded of railway fatalities as your high powered train is burning through the countryside. Sort of like reading "Alive!" on an aeroplane.

Memorial snapped, I returned to Newton-le-Willows, along its pretty high street, in search of Earlestown. I was getting really wet now, so drenched that I had to take my glasses off; the refractions through the water on the lenses made me feel like The Fly, so I considered it safer to just squint through the drizzle instead. The social scale took a definite slide as I walked. Newton's street of hair salons became Earlestown's road of Bargain Booze. It culminated in this glorious wreck of a cinema, opposite the station; somehow, I like it more as a shattered husk. There's something so evocative about it. I'd rather it stayed like that than be turned into an evangelical church or a bingo hall; I like that it's a reminder of the past, and an era that's gone forever. (Of course, I may be in the minority in this).

Earlestown station building was unimpressive from the street. In fact, possibly the most impressive thing about the shot that follows is my hair. The non-stop precipitation had turned me into Gareth Gates.

The platform buildings were much more interesting, which was fortunate, as I had to wait there twenty minutes for the next train. Earlestown holds a significant "first"; this was the first railway junction in the world, formed when the line to Warrington crept up to meet the Liverpool line, and it's now a large triangle with platforms on each side. (For a time it was even shown on the Merseyrail map as three seperate interchange circles). The platform building, meanwhile, is one of the oldest railway buildings still at an open station in the world. It's long been bricked up - leaving us passengers to loiter in the rain for our connection, as there were no waiting facilities on platform 3 - but the station's operators have at least put a brave face on this, decorating the closed building with heritage-type decorations:

The station also featured a good old, traditional drunk; huge of beard, many of carrier bag, sipping from a can of lager. I salute you, gentleman of the road. And rather more scenically, there was our first ALF of the day:

"For Town Centre and Market"? Yawn. Nice to see anyway.

Finally the train arrived, and I was able to leap on board. This isn't an exaggeration. Because of the curve of the railway, the gap between the train and the platform was about a foot; I had to grab hold of the rail and drag myself across. Having risked life and limb, I was able to settle down and dry out a bit before I hit St Helens Junction.

St Helens Junction, incidentally, is a dump. I can usually find a bit of beauty in all railway stations, but this was a dull, uninspired building surrounded by industrial estates. In addition, I almost cracked an ankle slipping on the steps down to the pavement; I was therefore not in the best of moods when I snapped the station shot. I didn't care that you could barely see the sign, I just wanted to get on to somewhere more interesting.

The road to Lea Green, my next stop, was theoretically through countryside. There were fields clearly visible on one side of the road, but the lumbering roar of the juggernauts put paid to that St Mary Mead atmosphere. And then the rain got even heavier, long, hard, driving raindrops that weasled down the back of my neck and slicked my jacket against me. "July" was just a theoretical; outside St Helens, I was in Autumn.

Worse still, there was a hill to climb to Lea Green, and my sense of direction deserted me halfway up it. I remembered from my map that it was a long, straight road from one station to the other, yet I was sure I'd made a right turn. And shouldn't I have encountered the station by now? It wasn't that far. With the rain pissing on me, I pulled out the map and tried to get my bearings, but I couldn't see any of the local roads on the map. Swearing like a member of the aristocracy who's just caught his knackers as he dismounts his horse, I did a volte face, thinking I must have missed a turn. But after a hundred yards, I was filled with doubt again, so the map came back out, and I found where I was. Yep; I'd been going the right way all along, and all my doubt had done was start my road map on the route to papier mache and ensured that I would miss the next train.

Angry with myself, I continued trudging up the hill until the yellow and grey shed that was Lea Green appeared on the horizon. Though the watchword for today's trips was "history", here I was bang up to date; the station dates only from 2000. I arrived at the railway bridge in time to hear the train rev up and leave the platform without me. It was therefore a somewhat grumpy MerseyTart who found himself posing under a nondescript park and ride sign.

Did I mention it was raining?

I slopped down to the platform, my trainers having let half of Lake Titicaca in over the course of the day (two blisters would be my souvenirs from the trip), and into the thankfully covered shelter to wait the half an hour for the next onward train. I felt bushed. I leaned against the plexiglass of the shelter and let out a deep sigh. I love travelling round the network for this blog, but the rain and the wind and the miserable surroundings had all conspired to make me feel frustrated and bitter. It was making me dwell on other things, other times where I'd felt down, other frustrations in my life. Thinking that maybe this wonderful new job isn't quite as wonderful as I'd hoped it would be, and might in fact be just as shitty as the old one, but in Crewe.

If this were a novel, then this is where a chirpy station attendant would appear and raise my spirits with a happy tale, and perhaps an invite into his warm station building for a cup of tea. This is not a novel. No-one else turned up on the platform until about two minutes before the train departed, when suddenly it was swamped.

What cheered me was a combination of three things:


1) The rain stopped. Okay, now I was under cover, so it didn't make any difference (besides, I couldn't actually get any wetter, short of chucking myself in the Mersey) but it was a pleasure none the less;



2) Lea Green has an ALF. I don't know where Sherdley Park is, but I'm glad it is commemorated in this way. Can I point out that the paint hasn't flaked off that duck? The white spots are part of the artist's interpretation. I checked out a couple of other signs to be sure. It's another boring bird, but it's better than Earlestown's market stall by a long chalk.


3) I got to watch a game of human MouseTrap. Being a new station, Lea Green is fully Disability Discrimination Act compliant, and the route up from the platforms (which are in a cutting) to the street is marked by a long series of ramps, rising upwards slowly. A train pulled in as I was photographing that scabby duck, and all the passengers began their steady climb up the ramps; back and forth, back and forth, like they were on a roller coaster building up to a big drop. It actually got funnier and funnier as they rose - it seemed so laborious, and silly. Sadly, I was too busy smirking as people passed one another again to take a picture of their steady ascent (or even better some video), but hopefully you get the idea. I should also point out there was a flight of stairs which no-one seemed to notice.


The half hour wait meant that I was a lot drier now (though not my shoes; they still squelched), and by the time I got off the train at Rainhill, I actually looked like a human being again. And the Attractive Local Feature board provided me with a handy one-two; not just another ALF for the collection, but also a handy reminder of this historic spot.



(Look how wet it is!). Rainhill was the home of the Rainhill trials which, as the sign points out, took place in October 1829. With the railway nearing completion, someone actually had the bright idea of scrounging up some locomotives to run on it, and a competition was organised to find the right engine for the job. Rainhill, with its long straight stretch of level track, was chosen for the job, and the entries lined up to complete the course. The idea was that the locomotives would complete ten trips over the mile long course, and the one that performed the best would win £500 and be the locomotive for the railway.

There were ten entries, but only five actually made it to the course. Four were called the Cycloped, the Perseverance, the Sans Pareil and the Novelty. If I tell you that the fifth one was called Rocket and was designed by George and Robert Stephenson, have you guessed the winner? Though really the names should have been a bit of a giveaway. The thrusting, white hot future of technology could hardly be represented by the Sans Pareil, could it? Rocket was the only one to finish the trial, and so the contract for the engines for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was given to the Stephensons.

I had all this in my head when I got to Rainhill, so I was even more excited to see that there was an exhibition on the trials. A noticeboard on the station informed me that it was housed in the local library, so off I went, keen to get that bit of local colour.

I was hoisted on my own petard. The reason I had been able to gallavant all over Merseyside was because I was a local government worker on strike. And what are librarians? Local government workers. Oh dear. A closed and barred Rainhill library stopped me from furthering my knowledge of Novelty and friends. I will have to make a return visit sometime.

Instead, I trudged back through the village (which is very pretty, incidentally) and I was away. I crossed the railway bridge (interesting fact: this was the first railway bridge in the world to be built at an angle across the tracks. Ok, I'll stop with the factoids now) and walked towards Whiston.

Just one more station to go, but I needed to make another diversion first. Not historical this time; quite the opposite in fact. My good friends Mike and Kirsten have recently had a baby, and as they live in Whiston, I needed no further excuse to pop in and coo over little Ella. Also, I wanted a free cup of tea.

Fortunately Kirsten was more than accomodating, and allowed me to sit and stare at her absolutely adorable child for an hour. Really, she is a lovely baby. Look:

Sweet! Bless her and her little smiley face.

Recharged with Typhoo, I was reluctantly dragged away from the baby and sent on my way to Whiston station. This is another new one, built in 1990, and tucked away inside a council estate. I apologise for the badness of this pic (as opposed to the badness of all the rest, of course); but the train was literally just coming down the tracks as I arrived, so it was a make-do picture, snapped in a hurry before I headed for the train.

So what have we learned from this jaunt? Firstly, we've learnt that just because your feet are covered, doesn't mean they're watertight.

Second, we've learnt that Ella is one of the loveliest babies in Christendom, and that despite my gruff, cynical exterior, I can melt at the sight of a smiling child just like a 94 year old woman.

Third, we've learnt that Merseyrail isn't just a commuter network; it's the ur-network, the one that started it all. The map shows this line going from Liverpool, and a tiny arrowed box indicates that it heads to Manchester, but really that box should say London, Paris, Delhi, Vladivostock, and all points beyond. This is where railways began, where they started to change the planet and the way we behave and act and live. The railways drove the world forward, and this line made Liverpool (and Manchester) right at the front, riding Stephenson's Rocket into the future. And as a passenger in the future, in a world where railways are taken for granted at best and rubbished at worst, it's nice to be able to ride the same rails and pay homage to the people who built it, and to try and stop people from forgetting just how fantastic a train ride can be.

The Perils of Good Living

I was out bright and early. It was a Friday flex day and I was raring to go. I was heading for the City Line, taking full advantage of the more regular weekday services, so I got on a train and headed out, out, out to the very edge of the Merseyrail area: Garswood.

I was following my City Line principle of going to the end and coming back on myself, so I had to get a slow train, which was infuriating. There were five stations planned for today's jaunt: I was going to get off at Garswood, then back on the next train once the station was collected. Off at St Helens, on at Thatto Heath, off at Eccleston Park, and then on again at Prescot and home. It'd take me the best part of the day, train timings permitting, but it would mean I could wipe out that whole branch.


What was particularly annoying was seeing every station go past. It was like a preview of coming attractions, and it was spoiling the surprise. I tried to mentally erase each station and, when that didn't work, I looked out for features I might want to come back to and study in more detail.


I had no idea what to expect at Garswood; I wasn't even sure where it was. I'd looked on the map, and it seemed to be way too far out to be Merseyside. The little bit of the town that I saw, around the station, didn't feel Merseyside-ish either. It felt like Lancashire, proper Lancashire, with cobbles and gruff blustery men and everything. There was a row of neat little houses, and a small corner shop, where a bought a bottle of water from the most pleasant woman. Seriously; she positively beamed at me, great dazzling white teeth, and she said goodbye with a spring in her voice.
There were two station buildings, one on each platform - an old one on the Liverpool platform, and a new gleaming one on the Wigan one. But that was it; there wasn't much to write home about. So it was back on the train and on to St Helens.


This was going to be the highlight for me, and it was what I had been looking forward to. I was aware that the somewhat manky old St Helens Central station had received a makeover, with a new building and so on, but I hadn't expected it to be this good. For a start it had 2 ALFs, with different attractions on each:





(Do you think someone should tell him he's sucking the wrong end of that lollipop?) The station had been completely rebuilt in gleaming glass and steel, and dripped modernity and 21st century chic - I loved it. It fulfilled my usual rants about investing in public transport. My only surprise was how small St Helens Central actually was. There were only two platforms, which surprised me; I assumed it was a bit of an major interchange. It looks like it was, once, but the other platforms are now covered in grass and weeds.




Outside, the massive glass wings of the station couldn't fail to impress. There was a waiting area on one side, and on the other, there was the ticket office and - shockingly - a toilet. Public toilets? In this day and age?!?! I romped happily for a bit, snapping away, before heading into town.

And this is where things went a bit awry. As I got off the train at St Helens Central, I got a text from my mate Mike, who lives and works in the town. It was 11:30, so naturally thoughts turned to lunch... and suddenly tarting was on the back burner.



I'm sorry for deserting my duty. But Thatto Heath became a lot less of an interesting prospect once Mike and I had gorged on food and lager. It was one of the best steaks I've had in my life: Le Frog - tell them I sent you, and they will just nod in a bemused fashion. We caught up on various bits and bobs - mostly his love life, which is a world of endless variety - and then he showed me St Helens one and only gay bar. It's like the Phoenix Club, only with pictures of gay icons on the walls. Being a metropolitan gay who grew up near London and now lives in another big city, I'd forgotten how desperately provincial and depressing small gay clubs could be. No wonder young gays are always running away to the Big Smoke.


I had a wander round the town, and I have to say - good show, St Helens; I was very impressed. It was a nice, pleasing little town centre, with a great open square in front of the church, and jammed full of shops and shoppers. It was a great mix of Victorian bombast and Sixties planning and 21st century regeneration.



Lunch done, and feeling fat and happy, I whacked Elvis Costello on the iPod and headed back to the station. So the rest of the branch will have to wait for another day. I'm pleased that I knocked off the extremities, and very pleased indeed that I finally got to see the new building. It doubles my anticipation of what they have done to Bootle Oriel Road and Sandhills - now I can't wait to visit them.

Whippin' (Everywhere Except) Piccadilly

So: a trip to Manchester for work. It was just a meeting with our software people, a complete waste of time really, but it got me out of the office so I shouldn't complain. I almost didn't make it due to a mental block which convinced myself my train was at ten past nine, rather than ten to: it meant that I ended up running across the concourse at Lime Street like an idiot.

(Incidentally, regular readers may have noticed that I keep passing though Lime Street without ever collecting at, and perhaps are wondering why I don't just pull my finger out and cross it off the list. My reasoning is thus: even though you have to pass through one set of ticket barriers at the lower level station and another at the main line station, I count them as one large station complex, and so as I do not leave station property, that does not count as a correct tart. I know that's not accurate, really, but it's my blog so I'll do what I want).

I got off the train at Manchester Oxford Road, which is the Manchester station as far as I'm concerned. Just as Moorfields is "my" Liverpool station, Oxford Road is "my" Manchester Station; it's the one I always use when I go to the city, it's a few steps away from the fabulous Cornerhouse complex, and it's a quite beautiful building. Built in the 60s, it has an epic sweep to it, sort of Scandinavian in feel (must be all that wood). Unfortunately the installation of ticket gates has sort of mucked up the interior, but it's worth seeing any day of the week.

Irritatingly, the large Oxford Road sign that can be seen from the street was covered with scaffolding, so I captured the station using a nearby sign. Suit!

My meeting was in the Town Hall, so I wandered off into the city. Full disclosure: I don't really like Manchester. I find it a bit of a confusing mess. It has grand, impressive buildings, and its regenerated districts are brilliantly done, but it just doesn't fit together in my head, and so somehow I end up lost. This is a rarity for me, as I usually have a very good internal compass - you can pretty much drop me anywhere in London and I'll be able to work out where I am and what direction to walk in to get somewhere. Manchester feels like Dark City, where the buildings shift around when no-one's looking.

Example: while walking into the city centre, I was suddenly gripped by an urge. I spotted G-Mex to my left, which has recently been rebranded as Manchester Central as an homage to its former life as Manchester Central station. The opportunity for historical tarting was too much to miss so I nipped down the side street and had a look. It's now a convention centre, and seems to have been beautifully done. The epic clock is still keeping time above the entrance, and a Metrolink stop maintains the transport link.

In an ironic twist, the mothballed station was now playing host to a convention of car parking suppliers, so the foyer welcomed me to Parkex (complete with grass covered parking meter - whose idea was that?). My suit had bought me entry to the building, but I didn't have a pass to go into the main convention space, and the security guard was looking at me suspiciously for not wholeheartedly embracing the parking experience, so I ducked out again.

I was now on a street which I knew, theoretically, was parallel to Oxford Road, so I figured I'd soon be by the Town Hall; but Manchester did one of its shifts while I was inside the G-Mex, and I soon realised I was heading in completely the wrong direction. Some handy pedestrian signs pointed me in the right direction, and soon I was going where I should be.

Thanks to the hopelessly inefficient woman at work who had booked my train tickets, I still had three quarters of an hour before my meeting. Why not capture another train station, just out of curiosity, while I was there? So I headed for Victoria.

Why Victoria, and not Piccadilly? Well, I'd never been there for a start. Plus I'd always felt a bit sorry for it - it seemed to be completely ignored in favour of its more famous brother.

Initial signs weren't good. The building looked more than a little bit shabby, certainly in comparism with the stunning Urbis building opposite. Inside though, it was a bit of a gem - a work in progress, yes, but going the right way.

By being the ignored, younger sibling in the Manchester railway station family, Victoria had managed to hang on to some of its original features. A wonderful, wood panelled row of ticket windows (with, sadly, only one open window); a domed refreshment room/bookstall complex.

It was undergoing building work, and the signs said that the "bookstall" would soon be the new passenger information desk. I hope it's done sympathetically and isn't a mess of plasma screens and raspberry settees. The platforms were dark and dingy, as the MEN Arena was built over the top of it in the 80s, but by then I didn't care; I'd spotted a tiled map in one of the entrance ways.

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway; what a beautiful map, and how evocative! I could have stood and stared at it all day. I wonder how many of those lines are still in existence? Staring at it summoned up images of steam driven journeys but bewhiskered Victorian gents, day trips to the coast resorts (prominently displayed for your convenience), the smell of coal, the rustle of crinoline. I focussed on the Liverpool section, and was ridiculously pleased to see some tarted destinations; Aintree, Maghull, Formby, Ormskirk and Freshfield, while New Brighton was still such a draw that it was indicated on the map even though there was no line there.

A school party of excitable eight year olds disturbed me, and reminded me that I had a job to do, so I snapped a shot outside the main entrance and continued on my way. It was too late for me to get Piccadilly as well, now; that would have to wait. That's the thing about collecting stations. Once you've started you can't stop yourself. Even on the train in, I had been studying the station buildings, considering my options if I ever (for what reason, I don't know) decided to become a Manchester Tart (by which I mean visiting its train stations, rather than transforming myself into a dessert).

One boring meeting later, and I was on the train home. But there was one last shock for me. The station was fast through most of Liverpool, but it did stop at Mossley Hill. Which is when I turned my head, looked out the window and gasped. Literally gasped.

There on the platform was an ALF. It hadn't been there when I visited in January. There it was taunting me.

Quickly I did some mental calculations. I could jump off the train to take a picture... but I needed to get home in a hurry, as I had things to do, so I couldn't risk the doors closing and leaving me there. To not capture it would annoy me, and to capture it without actually stepping on station property would annoy me even more. The doors seemed to have stayed open for an awfully long time. Did I have time? Did I?

I decided not to risk it. Instead I pressed myself up against the glass and took a pic through the window. It's not the same, I know, but I had to get that picture. It does raise an intriguing question though: is there anywhere else I've already visited, which has subsequently acquired an ALF? I'm appealling to you readers - if you're out and about and you spot a bunch of workmen installing a new sign, please, let me know. No ALF shall be uncollected!

Revenge of the Map Rant

Why won't anyone listen to me? Over the last week or two a new Merseyrail map has appeared in stations. Regular readers may recall my tirade against the last version (http://merseytart.blogspot.com/2008/02/map-rant.html if you want to remind yourself of the full insanity). Well, fasten your seatbelts, because the new one is even worse.

Apologies for the quality of the following pics, as they were all taken by my camera in front of a sign.

Good news: they've got rid of that awkward angled shape to represent the loop.
Bad news: they've replaced it with a FUCKING SQUARE.

I mean, just LOOK at it. It's ridiculous. It's called the "loop" line, fellas. That implies, oh, I don't know, a "loop" shape. Not a FUCKING SQUARE. Even as they've come up with this design, they've had to compromise it; the corners are rounded, and instead of four direction arrows, they now have to use eight (in a further design inconsistency, some are inside the square, some are outside it). I really cannot understand this.

In his excellent, though slightly terse book Underground Maps after Beck, Maxwell J Roberts bemoans the tendency of the newer maps of the Tube to introduce more and more curves. The Northern Line, for example, has acquired a few more bends and curves to try and remove any implication that the West End branch is more important than the City branch. I can see his point - the simpler the line, the easier to use the map is, and the easier it looks like the journey will be.


By turning the loop into a FUCKING SQUARE, Merseyrail have managed to make the journey from James Street to Lime Street look longer than it was. They've contrived two more twists which stop it from looking like a relatively direct route. And leaving that aside, it's ugly. Right angles should have no place on a route line; the Underground map prefers far gentler curves, and only employs right angles at the corners of the Hainault loop and the Circle line. Those are much, much larger loops than the Liverpool City one, and can take the twist. It doesn't work here.

So what else is new on the map? Well, Sandhills is still in red, because its projected opening date has now slipped to July (which is presumably why this new map was comissioned). After my criticism of the decision to highlight this closed station in red - therefore making it look even more important - Merseyrail's graphic designers have taken effective action. They've made it even more prominent by giving it an interchange circle. And it's still closed!

In fact, they've gone a bit wild for interchange circles in this edition. On the old map, there were only about twelve circles: three in the city centre, then further circles only at points where another line physically intersected another - at Chester, Southport, and Liverpool South Parkway, for example.

Now interchange circles are used when there's a choice of lines. So Huyton, Hooton, Birkenhead North and Hamilton Square all acquire circles. The idea seems to be, if you're on a St Helens train (for example), you would change at Huyton to get to Whiston, so it gets a circle. Fair enough. But there's no circle for Kirkdale, even though this is the station before the Ormskirk/Kirkby split (and it is the station you are advised to change at by the on board announcer). This is even sillier considering Sandhills is closed, so you can't swap lines there. The ridiculousness of putting the interchange circle on a closed station is obvious.

In addition, previous "end to end" interchanges become circles as well, so that's more circles at Ormskirk, Kirkby and Ellesmere Port. Then they've really run with that interchange idea, and given stations which are close together circles, with a little dotted line to connect them. In the case of the two Wigan stations (which had circles anyway) this makes perfect sense, as Wallgate and North Western are within spitting distance of one another.

At Burscough, though, it's just stupid. Burscough's a very small town which has two lines passing through it. But it's not that small, so the map suggests getting a bus between the two stations. I admire the effort to make this interchange clear to people, but if you're going to suggest people take a bus, why not show Upton/Hamilton Square as an interchange, since you can take a bus from one to the other? This is on top of the fact that the circles are the wrong size, and the angle between the two stations isn't at forty five degrees, and, most heinous of all, Burscough Bridge is shown using a circle and a tick. Deep breath.

The circle/tick surfaces in an even uglier form on the Wirral. Bidston's simultaneously an interchange, and not an interchange; it has a circle and a tick, but the two don't touch. The map makers seem to have this urge to show the curve of the Borderlands line, so that it runs parallel with the Wirral line for a bit; there's no need - just have it intersect with the Wirral line at a t-junction with a nice circle to denote the change. Don't give us this messy solution which creates a load of problems that weren't there before. Bidston is tricky, I know; some maps have shown it as a double circle, which makes it look even more important, and the double tick has never really been satisfactory. The t-junction is the only solution I can see that would work.

And by the way: note that Hamilton Square is no longer in capitals, but James Street is, even though the former is much more important to the network and a much more vital interchange point. (And also note that the bicycle at Bootle New Strand still goes into the River Mersey).


Anything else? Well, we've acquired two new lines. The map has been extended upwards to accomodate a branch to Blackpool from the City Line, for no apparent reason. I don't know why it's more important to show Blackpool North than, say, Manchester, especially since Blackpool South is shown as a branch but not coloured red, but there you go. It's also miles from the sea.


A second new line has been added at the bottom of the map, squeezed uncomfortably inbetween the Chester-Crewe and Helsby-Runcorn services. This one gives Hartford another interchange symbol, because apparently you can walk to Greenbank - though looking at Multimap, this looks like a longer walk than between the two Burscough stations. Plus Crewe's got a couple of extra branches.



All in all, it's a mess. Just the FUCKING SQUARE would be bad enough, but the rest makes it look horrific. I hope that this is an emergency map, produced because of Sandhills' delay, and they weren't really thinking about it. If this is the shape of things to come, I'm not happy. The map is Merseyrail; it's vitally important that it looks good and looks right, because people will judge the network on its success or failure. Please, Merseyrail, go back to your Apple Macs and think again...

Up the Kirk

So I got very, very drunk last Saturday. Actually, that's not quite true. The plan was to get very drunk round Jennie's house. Sadly, after four pints and a half a bottle of wine, my 31 year old brain decided it had had enough, and I nodded off on the sofa. DECREPIT.

Still, it was nice to see the old girl, and we had a good laugh and some chips, so what more could you want? Jennie lives in Parbold, which is on the map, but on a grey line so it doesn't count. I keep telling myself that anyway, though the temptation is always there. Parbold is a very sweet little village, with a train station and a canal and a great little deli-cum-cafe - go if you get the chance.

We went into Ormskirk on the Sunday morning for lunch. I have said before how this was where I studied, at (then) Edge Hill College, now a University, and so we had a poke around the campus before we wandered into town. It's amazing how much it has changed in ten years. The whole campus has doubled in size, with the sports pitches now built on. Buildings with Thunderbirds detailing and acronym names have sprouted out of the earth, while the bulldozers were busy demolishing the classroom where I had Writing Fiction seminars. The strangest part for me was when we wandered into the Venue, the college bar. The dance area smelt exactly the same, a sort of musky scent, no doubt the product of years of sweat and spilt lager, but so evocative. It flashed me back in an instant. The LRC (Learning Resource Centre, or Lurk) was still there too. When I lived on campus I used to spend my mornings waiting for the LRC to open, so that I could go in and play on the internet on the shared computers. That's how wild my student days were.

Ormskirk hasn't changed much, though it's been tarted up a bit. There's a big compass in the centre of the town, showing that Liverpool is to the south, Preston's to the north, Wigan's to the east and Southport's too the west, which has the unfortunate effect of reminding you of all the interesting places you could be instead of Ormskirk. It also has a Waterstone's now, which it never did in my day (thankfully; I had enough student debt as it was), but strangely none of the shops were open. Sunday trading doesn't seem to have caught on here.

I hadn't planned on collecting Ormskirk on this trip, because, as I said before, I wanted to make it a special journey. But I was there, and Jennie could be my photographer, removing the need for another nostril shot, so I did it anyway. She did say that I would have to come back, and I fully intend to; there are two more stations on this branch, so when I get them, I'll revisit Ormskirk for that full bathe in nostalgia.

It doesn't have a sign outside however. I think there may be a post up on the main road, but we got to the station through the "bus rail interchange" (i.e. an alleyway from the bus station down to the railway station) so there was nothing. I'll have a look on the return. In the meantime, here's me with a platform sign:

And for an added bonus, Ormskirk has an ALF. For the first time, we've gone orange, which is an interesting choice. By "interesting" I mean "unfortunate". Still, it's more than most stations could muster, so bless it for the effort.

The Northern Line was broken for track maintenance works, so I had a rail replacement bus from Kirkdale into town. The bus passed Sandhills on its way, so I craned my neck to see if there was any advance in the works; from what I could see, it still looks like a bomb site...

Precast Hun (thanks George!)

So it was a Wednesday, and I didn't want to go to work. I mean, I really, really didn't want to go. I was just miserable at the idea. I'd already left an hour later than usual, taking a rare opportunity to actually use some of my flexitime, and I was down. My job is actually getting worse, unbelievably. I didn't want to go.

Which is why, at Capenhurst, I found myself jumping out of my seat and disembarking. I needed a quick tart to pick me up!

I'd always been unsure how and when I was going to do Capenhurst. It's miles from anywhere, so once I got off, I was going to be waiting for the next train; there was no chance I could walk to another station. And it's not exactly scenic. This is another of those bus stop stations, just a couple of shelters and that's it. Another Cheshire station you see; no money.

So off I hopped in search of the station sign... and there isn't one. So sadly I had to crouch in front of a car park sign. The things I do for this blog. Nine in the morning and I'm squatting on tarmac.

And that was it. Nothing else to do for half an hour.

I had a bit of a wander round, but to be honest, I didn't want to look too conspicuous. Right next door to the station - the reason for its continued existence no doubt - is a massive plant operated by British Nuclear Fuels (or whatever they're called now). It has something to do with uranium, and that's as much as I want to know, thanks very much (and as much as I'll put on this blog). Given the hyper sensitive reaction of some authority figures (see http://tubewhore.livejournal.com/42140.html) to people just photographing a train station, I didn't want to inadvertantly capture the plant in shot and find the blog shut down under the official secrets act. The ludicrousness of all this, and the violation of basic elementary freedoms, are I think self-evident and require no further comment from me...