Go Forth And Multiply

As it turned out, Seaforth & Litherland didn't have an ALF at all.

Actually, while we're on the subject, am I the only one who thinks that "Litherland" sounds obscenely gynecological? "I'm sorry, Mrs Carter, but you have an infection in your litherland - it's eight weeks on the antibiotics for you." It's the confluence of the L-th-L sounds; all that tongue and lip action going on.

S&L (yes, I'm too lazy to keep typing that) is up on a viaduct. For some reason, our Victorian forefathers chose to build the station miles away from the road, so the exit is down a long steep passage. It's quite atmospheric: I wish I'd arrived at the station, rather than left it, because I'm sure that pushing up to the platform from there must be a much more interesting experience.

The station entrance is an archway on a busy main road, cowering under the train viaducts. There's not even room on the pavement for one of the new Merseyrail box signs, so the station sign is welded to the side of the wall. I don't mind telling you that the obligatory me and sign shot was a right bugger to line up. The combination of traffic, narrow pavement and pedestrian defending fence meant I ended up pulling a move last done by Beth Tweddle at the Beijing Olympics.

I crossed the road though, because I wanted to get a shot of the entrance. It's a strange one, S&L. It's not a grand entrance by any means, but this isn't a grand area - this is a working man's station. It was built for dockers and so there's no question of making it "pretty". It's blunt, and to the point, and in the process it's charming.

There's a wide, heavily used dual carriageway to the docks separating the station from the residential area, so I was forced to clamber over a vertigo-inducing pedestrian bridge to get there. As I descended the steps on the other side, it was as though the colour had been sucked from the view.

When I told The Bf where I was collecting, he pulled a sort of pained face when I said Seaforth & Litherland. "But you won't actually walk round there, will you? You'll just get back on the next train?" "Yes," I lied. I hate nipping out and nipping back - it's cheating. Now I was here, though, I could see what he meant.

The road was wide, but empty. On one side, an abandoned petrol station had been reopened with a single pump. Hand lettered signs on a piece of cardboard advertised "BIODIESEL: 96p"; the cash office was a garden shed, and a miserable grey haired women eyed me suspiciously as I walked past. On the other side of the road, there was a wreckers yard. There were a couple of other pedestrians, but somehow, I felt very isolated.

Beyond here, there was a row of Victorian shops. I suppose they used to be a row, but somewhere along the line - probably during the war - the terraces on either side had been destroyed, and now the four stores were islands. Outside the "General Store", three kids surrounded a decrepit looking "guy". One boy was stood on the kerb, clearly the leader, marshalling the other two: when the door of the store opened, all three surrounded the shopper, wanting a penny or fifty for the guy. It was the kind of money extraction methods the Mafioso would be proud of.

Dominating everything, however, were three tall tower blocks. I walked on the opposite side of the road to them, trying to stare at the tops, but the weak sunshine was right behind them. They were like monoliths in the centre of a plain. One was called Churchill House, and I wondered exactly how many dreadful behemoths poor old Churchill had his name attached to. He died at exactly the wrong time, just as brutalism was rising, and concrete was the new toy for architects to play with.

I could picture these three tower blocks on the original architects' drawings. There would be sunshine, and trees; the wide expanse of grass at their feet would have children playing on it; the shops at the base of the towers would be bright and clean and modern. They were the future. Why would you want to live in a rancid terrace, surrounded by Blitzed patches of rubble, when you could live in the clouds?

Architects get a lot of abuse for inflicting buildings on people, but I think that's wrong. Architects are, far more than any other artist, optimists. They believe the best of people. Whoever designed Churchill House and its brothers thought that its residents would be good people, people who would take pride in their building, and who would congregate and chat. They didn't know that humans aren't like that. They saw epic views from the fifteenth floor; they didn't imagine broken lifts, or cold corridors. My cousin Tracy lived in a tower block when I was growing up, and me and my brother would play in the echoing corridors outside her flat when we visited. They were dark, and cold with lino, and every door was the same. We were the only kids playing there. Tracy didn't let her kids out there, and there was never a question that she would let her daughter out there or down to the playground at the bottom of the flats. Architects thought about happy children playing - they didn't think about accidents leaving children screaming for mum a dozen floors up, or abductors lurking round the corner, or drug addicts resting on the tyres between hits. It was a sad sight - like much of the area, it depressed me. Like the residents, the buildings were trying to aim high, only to be brought down to earth with a bump.

Feeling a lot more melancholy, I pressed on to my final station. As I did, the scene slowly brought itself to life again. There was a college, and then bedsits, and then traffic started to slowly appear again. As a committed public transport user, and someone with that blandly lefty way of looking at the world, I have a certain amount of disdain for cars: but it's undeniable that they add life and energy to the street scene.

I was off to meet my Waterloo (hey, it could have been worse - it could have been an ABBA pun). It's quite touching that, even though there's a massive, internationally famous terminal station in London called Waterloo, Merseyside has insisted they keep theirs as well, and refused to rename it (actually, this one was first: the London station was called Waterloo Bridge when it first opened). I like to imagine a series of pleading letters from Rail House being rebuffed by the station supervisors over the years ("No, I will not call it Waterloo in Sefton Station. What do you mean, there's already a Waterloo in London? I've never heard of it").

The world had perked up considerably by now: there were shops, and people. And then I saw the station, and I was immensly cheered. It was a proper little small-town station, at the heart of a proper little small-town shopping area - there was even a Woolies next door. It looked well used, and I loved it. It reminded me of underground stations in places on the outer edge of the map, where you emerge somewhere like West Ruislip or Barking and you realise how London is just a whole load of towns rubbing up against one another.

The street was so busy, in fact, that I found it almost impossible to get a decent purchase on sign shot. There were people everywhere. Eventually I wedged myself up against the traffic light and snapped it quick.

Christ, I look knackered.

Down on the platform, I have to admit, Waterloo couldn't quite match to the street-side ambience. There were hanging baskets in the ticket hall, but down below it was a bit cobbled together. One odd feature - I was going to say interesting, but that would be a lie - was the long shelter, which also served as a corridor to the exit.

When the train came, it was packed - half term meant that there was a load of bored teens headed into Liverpool for excitement. I couldn't blame them for wanting to get out of the Bootle and Seaforth hinterlands. All of the stations I'd visited had been a bit depressed, a bit miserable. Even Waterloo's shopping district was dotted with pound shops and "to let" signs. It was all just a bit... down.

But it closed a gap on the map, so that was good. For those of you keeping score, this means there aren't that many left. I've been using MS Paint and a copy of the map to keep track of my progress, erasing stations as I go. Here's the before:

And here's the after:

I keep forgetting about the pair of stations at the end of the Ormskirk branch. It's mainly the City Line that's keeping us afloat, but even then, there's just one branch. Soon it'll just be a sea of yellow...

Putting The Boot In

Where 007 goes, I follow. I have mentioned my status as a slavering James Bond fan boy before in passing. I can't help it. I just love James Bond - the films, the books, everything. To me, there is no better way to spend two hours than watching an arrogant self-centred man seduce beautiful women, drop sarcastic comments, and perform outrageous acts of deplorable murder for his country. Before blowing up an entire building. You get sex, violence and comedy; what more could you possibly want?

Unless you've just emerged from a comatose state, you'll be aware that the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace, hit the cinemas on October 31st. It's become a tradition that my friend Mike and I attend the first showing of a new Bond, going way back to 1997, when we were just students and so we could afford to waste a morning watching Tomorrow Never Dies (not that watching a Bond film is ever a waste of time). Now we're "grown up", it's become more difficult to organise - we have jobs, and responsibilities, and in Mike's case, even a child to enter the equation. But somehow we still manage to book a day off to go and watch various things explode (and here's my potted review, incidentally: AMAZING. Amazing in a different way to Casino Royale, but amazing nonetheless. Go see it. That wasn't a suggestion.)

I took advantage of this day off to book another one specifically for tarting purposes. My last few posts have been sadly devoid of me actually getting out and about (apart from the Chester Rant, and even that was accidental), so I thought it was about time I got out and filled in a hole on the map.

Out on the Northern Line were four stations which remained uncollected, mainly due to Merseyrail's improvement schemes. They've been rebuilding Bootle Oriel Road for well over a year, and so I left it off the list so I could witness it in its completed state.

But before all that, I had to get to Liverpool, and I went over to the city with The Bf first thing to try and get a Wirral Line station. I've avoided the city centre's four stations, by and large, ever since Mr D in one of the old posts suggested that I finish with all four of them in a grand victory loop. The idea really appealed to me, and I came up with an idle concept of a four way pub crawl (not so much a crawl as a mild skip) - alighting at each station, capturing it for posterity, then having a pint of Liverpool's own Cains beer in a nearby bar. Assuming Cains is still going when I finish. Moorfields, I know, was caught right at the start: but I still haven't done the Old Hall Street entrance, and besides, I can go there again just for the hell of it.

On top of this, James Street has had its main ticket hall rebuilt completely, and so I didn't want to go there until it was done. The early start did mean that I had the chance to capture an alternative entrance however: the one to Water Street, which is housed in the basement of the India Buildings. It's only open at peak times, so this seemed like the best way to get it - much to my asthmatic other half's discomfort. To get to the ticket hall, you have to negotiate this tunnel.

Doesn't look like much, does it? Think again. Cunningly hidden inside the tunnel are vast fans, which suck the oxygen out and leave you a pitiless, airless husk, gasping for breath. Ok, I may have lied about the fans, but there's something about this tunnel which makes it a challenge to even the fittest. It's something to do with the way it's angled - deceptively straight, but in reality a relentless uphill slog to get you to street level. The cunning gentle twist in its passage also disguises its length, so you think it's about to end, but no! There's still another 20 yards to go.

Gasping for breath, and with The Bf sucking in a frankly disturbing way on his Ventolin, we emerged into the ticket hall. Because it's just an auxilliary entrance, Merseyrail have pretty much ignored it - and thank God. There's a bit of 70s unpleasantness with the ticket window (which looked unmanned), and the Colour Tsars have been out again with the yellow and grey, but the rest is pure pleasure.

(Apologies for the blurring). Beautiful tiling, lovely ceiling details - just marvellous. I particularly liked the telephone booths: their symmetry, either side of the exit, was of course a definite pleasure for me, but they also summoned up 30s glamour: flappers calling cabs after nights of scandalous indulgence, monocled businessmen making terribly important international calls, journalists with paper stuck in their bowlers calling in a scoop at the last moment. It's a shame it's been allowed to decay. I know no-one uses telephone booths any longer, but it could be scrubbed up a bit, an old two-part phone could be installed for show, and it could be discreetly lit. A little bit of charm to distract the commuters on their way to the offices - or would it be wasted on the head down scurriers who breezed past me and my camera, oblivious to everything?

Eventually we had to get on with things, so it was out onto the street to tart the entrance - though I was surprised to see there's no actual station sign outside. If you squint below, you can just about see the name on the map by my shoulder:

With the Bf off to work (ha!) I was left to my own devices, off to buy a Saveaway for my trip to Bootle. I considered stopping off at Sandhills, en route: it's been open since July. But one look at the mass of building work and scaffolding on the platform changed my mind. It was clearly a long way from completion, so I stayed on the train and carried on, through Bank Hall (where there were men on the platform looking befuddled at the art - what is it?!?!) and then off at Bootle Oriel Road.

It looked like the work was still carrying on here, too. The only people who got off with me were a load of builders in hard hats, who met up on the platform with other builders in hard hats, to discuss whatever builders in hard hats talk about - cement, or something. Bits of the station were still encircled by that plastic mesh fence that is put out temporarily while the tarmac dries, and it felt bitty, somehow. I crossed over to the other side and got the obligitary "I WOZ ERE" shot outside, then took a look at what £4.25 million buys you in stations these days.

The answer? Not a lot.

Let's be frank here: that's a mess. I feel disloyal for saying this, because I've ranted at length about money not being spent on stations, but that's all over the place. It's steps! It's ramps! It's lifts! I understand there's a Disability Discrimination Act to comply with, but this is ramshackle, and unfocused. There's no "wow!", which is a shame. After the mega "wow!" of James Street, this was retail park "will this do?" architecture. Is it asking to much for the station building to at least look permanent? It was a major disappointment, and genuinely dispiriting. It also made me pessimistic about the prospects for a good design at Sandhills.

Crashing on. Next stop is Bootle New Strand, so I hoiked myself onto the main road and headed north. It's years since I'd been to Bootle. Mike - my Bond sharing friend - once worked for the Inland Revenue here. They're housed in a building with the not at all terrifying name of The Triad. If you want to house a Government department, why not choose a building named after an international criminal gang? I'd come out here to have lunch with him in a Yates' at the Triad's foot (we're all class), and so I'd got a look round the infamous Strand shopping centre while I was at it. It was dispiriting to say the least. Grey, unpleasant shops, low end chain stores, covered vacant fronts: I haunted the artificially lit malls for a while before I burst out onto the street in search of a bit of sun and freedom. I believe it's been refurbished since then, expanded, re-energised, but I didn't fancy poking my head in to find out. The shopping centre turns its back on the road outside, presenting an ugly concrete face to the traffic, with the only colour being a grim looking pub squatting in the corner. It almost seems to resent Bootle, but in fairness, Bootle seems to resent it right back.

I don't want to sound down on Bootle. Before I got to the New Strand, I'd passed the new Health & Safety exec building: modern and vibrant and exciting. Opposite the shopping centre, there's a tall block of apartments under construction, and new shops, so it seems that there is money coming into the area. All I can say is that I was able to travel between the two stations in less than fifteen minutes, and I had no desire to linger.

Anyway, a bit of positive about Bootle New Strand: it was another rebuilt station, but for some reason this one seemed far more charming than the other one. Perhaps it was the clock (though it could do with a clean), or perhaps it was the little newsagent by the entrance. An old lady hobbled up to it ahead of me to buy her Daily Post, which I found sweet. I wondered if she'd been doing that for decades, right back to when the station was called Marsh Lane & Strand Road in the 60s, before they built the shopping centre. There was meant to be a bridge, going directly from the station into the shops, but it was never built, and now you have to cross the busy road to get to the centre and the buses.

Another plus about Bootle New Strand was that it gave me the closest thing to an Attractive Local Feature board all day. OK, it's basically an advert, and it's only half the size of a proper one (a semi-ALF? A quasi-ALF?), and let's face it, it's not very pretty, but I'll take what I can get, quite frankly.

The next station was Seaforth & Litherland. All I know about this area is there was once a Sunday night tv drama on BBC1 called Seaforth: it starred Ken Barlow's son and it was the kind of thing that Grannies like, and I remember there being some sort of vague controversy when it was cancelled after one series because it had got loads of viewers but the BBC1 controller just thought it was shit. Perhaps, to commomorate this gone-before-its-time series, Seaforth & Litherland's ALF would be a picture of Linus Roache crying, or perhaps a pile of burnt TV licences. Or perhaps everyone else in the world has forgotten about this show, and Seaforth & Litherland would have its own charms to capture my attention. Who can say?

It's All Downhill From Here On In

Funny thing, the Cosmos.  You're tripping along, playing patsy to its random whims - having a great time?  Bam!  Have some cancer! or perhaps Lovely girlfriend you have there.  You know what?  Bam!  She's Jaye Davison with a frizzy perm and you've just become a punchline.  Sometimes its arbitrary whims contrive to exalt you, sometimes it wants to bring you to your knees.  And sometimes, just sometimes, it contrives a series of coincidences to make you think "ooh, higher power!" (if you wasn't a committed atheist since an early age).

This week is a case in point.  For some reason I couldn't find a single book in my collection to read on the train; therefore for some reason I picked up my copy of Merseyrail Electrics: The Inside Story by T B Maund.  For some reason, I then continued to read this book, even though I was in a public place and everything.  And so for some reason, on the 22nd October 2008, I read the following sentence:

The climax to this part of the story was achieved on 25th October 1978 when the new lines were officially opened by H M The Queen.  A plaque at Moorfields was unveiled followed by a trip to Kirkby...

Now leaving aside the fantastic mental image of our Sovereign sat on a yellow and green  MerseyRail seat to Kirkby of all places - perhaps nipping off at Rice Lane for a Maccy D's at the outlet by the station - the cosmic coincidence of the dates was staggering.  The following Saturday would be the thirtieth anniversary of MerseyRail's official opening.  

I'd been planning on nipping over to the 'Pool that weekend anyway - the Bf and I hadn't been to Liverpool 1 since they'd opened its second phase, and we wanted to poke around - but suddenly we had a cosmically ordered reason to go.  It almost makes you believe in all that bollocks Noel Edmonds goes on about.

Pedants might be aware that the Queen's official opening was purely a case of right monarch, right time: she was in Liverpool anyway to open the cathedral, so they might as well have got their money out of her.  The Loop and the Link had been in operation since 1977, and Moorfields station itself had been opened completely in May: Her Maj's approval was just a token tap on the head for a job well done.  None the less, they got a plaque out of it, so I figured: why not take a look?  The cosmic significance of MerseyRail's core being thirty one years old, just like me, but pretending it was thirty, like... erm... some people, was also not lost on me.  

I knew exactly where the plaque was too: just inside the doorway at Moorfields, between the kiosk and the escalators.  I'd decided: since MerseyRail itself wasn't going to commemorate this momentous occasion, I'd have to do it for them.  But the plaque isn't there any more.  They've built some toilets in the ticket hall.  Firstly, I was shocked that they'd done this and I had no idea: I'm usually quite good on station improvements.  But secondly, where's the plaque gone?  Please don't say that ER II's best unveiling efforts can now only be seen if you're having a piddle.

A true journalist would have poked his head inside, but there were penny for the guy kids loitering nearby, and I tend to avoid them like the plague.  (This isn't a fear thing: I just object to giving children money because they stuck a Ghostface mask on top of their mam's tights, and therefore enable them to buy gunpowder-based devices.  I'm funny like that).  Also, I suspected that the plaque was in the ladies', and my urge for knowledge only goes too far.

So a disappointment really (though Liverpool 1 was really rather amazing - geographically confusing, economically draining, and emotionally stirring, when I realised that USC was on the site of The Escape, legendary gay club which was indirectly responsible for my cherry popping).  None the less, I will take this opportunity to say: Happy 30th Birthday, Link and Loop - you may be a bit ragged round the edges, but some of us still love you...

Viva La Deva. Or Don't. See If I Care.

I like London Midland, I really do. I like the nice green trains, the little route diagrams above the doors which go Liverpool-Birmingham/Birmingham-Nottingham/Nottingham-Euston, the smiley smiley ticket inspectors (there is in particular a lovely Asian woman who is an absolute joy first thing in the morning). But when a train is cancelled, they are absolutely rubbish, as I discovered yesterday trying to get to work. All Lime Street's destination board said was "Cancelled"; no please, thankyou, we apologise for the inconvenience, nothing. It just flagged up, in tiny letters, that there was a bus service to Crewe.
Well, sod that; getting up for work at 7am is bad enough, without being crammed on a Green Line full of grumbling commuters in a traffic jam outside Runcorn. So I dashed back down the escalator (and incidentally, fat woman with suitcase: IT SAYS STAND ON THE RIGHT. Thank you for your time) and caught a Wirral Line train to Chester for the Arriva shuttle to Crewe.

Can I be brutal here? Of course I can - it's my blog. I don't like Chester. I just don't. Even before I spent four and a half years slaving there in a thankless capacity, I didn't like it. It's just so... smug. It's an appalling generalisation, but I feel it's a valid one. There's just a sense of self-satisfaction oozing out of its ancient walls, and dripping from the Rows. An implied sense of superiority over you, the visitor; like they're doing you a favour by letting you have a gawp at their stupid clock (am I the only one who doesn't get what's so special about the Eastgate Clock?).

As a city, Chester seems to have built up this impression that because it has a Roman name, this entitles it to a seat at the top table. What it actually means is the last time Chester was important or interesting was two thousand years ago, so stop harking on about it. I especially dislike the snobbery that the city has towards the mighty city of Liverpool to the North. When I worked there, and it was race day, people would suddenly start ranting about "pissed up Scousers". Because apparently only Scousers went to the races to drink; everyone one else was there for the racing. Obviously. I know there's a bit of residual bitterness because the Dee silted up and made the Mersey important, but if the Mersey had silted up as well, Chester would be as important as Oswestry right now, and no manner of black and white faux medieval Rows (because they're Victorian copies, you know) will save you. Chester should be grateful that it's getting some reflected glory, and Chester station should be glad that platform 7b (as seen above) is there to bring interesting, vibrant people into the city every half hour, before the rest of them contract terminal rigor mortis and their lips purse themself into oblivion.

There's a lot of bitterness there - can you tell? I speak as someone who grew up in Luton and now lives in Birkenhead, so clearly I'm harbouring some kind of inferiority complex; but those towns are gritty and unpretentious, while Chester is home to Hollyoaks, where not even the tits or the hair colours are real. And even that's filmed in Liverpool.

Anyway, the gist is: I stayed away from tarting it. Even though I've travelled through Chester more than any other MerseyRail station, I couldn't bring myself to snap it. This was also tied into the aforementioned job, which I loathed with a passion exceeded only by the passion with which I hate my current job. Snapping the station for this blog would mean I'd have to write about it, and pour out my thoughts, and then, when I was done, I'd still have to go there every day. I thought: I'll tart it on my very last day. It will be my last goodbye. As it turned out, on my very last day, I got so drunk I missed the train home and had to get the Bf out of bed to come and pick me up, so it remained uncaptured.

Until today. (Cue DUM-DUM-DURRRRRR!!!! music).

Yes I know I need a haircut.

Once called Chester General, that's the frontage of Chester Station poking up behind me, and more importantly, the "Station Square" that has been contrived in front of it. It's another one that's being redeveloped, and it was ages since I'd visited. Last time I'd been here, about four months ago, the coffee shack had been demolished and they were serving lattes out of a trailer. The toilets were a load of portaloos behind the ticket office - the ticket office which had been opened by Giles Brandreth MP. Anyone who disagrees with my Chester dislike should know this: Chester voted for Giles Brandreth to be their MP. Twice. Case closed, don't you think?

I'm not sure about the blue. This new, funkily shaped pavillion now squats in the brick hall of the station, and it doesn't completely work. As regular readers (hello you!) will know, I am not a heritage buff, and I like my stations modern and gleaming. Amongst the good quality Victorian artistry of Chester General, however, this modern confection jars. I think the turquoise is somehow meant to remind us of the green of a copper patina, the ancient metal corrupted through years of time; instead, it just reminds us that notorious barrel scrapers Arriva are responsible for maintaining this station (the only one on the MerseyRail network not run by Serco, which is why this most ALF-worthy location has no ALF) and so it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The design is as though someone said "build me something modern" and didn't care how it looked inside the station. I applaud their refusal to comply with the heritage facists of Chester, who forced that Grosvenor Court on the city (it's the building in the roundabout at the end of Foregate Street, which is a modern office block forced to pretend it's a Georgian terrace even though it's surrounded by a dual carriageway). But couldn't the architecture have been... well... better?

No matter; there are still a few little touches around to make you enjoy the station. This sign, for example, which is pleasingly visible from the platform where trains to London and Holyhead depart. It's stunningly "romance of the rails", and I'm glad that it's one of the first things you see as you enter the station. The ceiling's been cleaned up in the refurb, too, and I believe WH Smith are going to move out of that cubby hole by the entrance into a proper shop that won't be 1000 degrees in the shade and melt all the Mars Bars.

There's also a tribute to one of Chester's most famous sons, right behind Russ Abbott. Thomas Brassey was a great engineer, who travelled across the globe building railways, starting out with the Stephensons, and then striking out on his own to take contracts for routes across Europe and the Americas. He's basically a Primark Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I should also point out, in deference to my theme of Chester-bashing, that he grew up in Aldford and didn't achieve any greatness until he moved to Birkenhead, but no matter: when they redeveloped the old goods yard behind the station into a load of anonymous flats, they called it Thomas Brassey Close, so clearly it was all worth it. His plaque on the concourse, however, I will concede is understatedly charming, and I gave a metaphorical tip of my equally metaphorical stovepipe hat to him.

My favourite architectural feature at Chester, though, isn't Victorian might or Noughties glamour: it's beautiful, traditional, evocative British Rail. If you head towards the East Car Park, there's a barely used platform which still retains its old fashioned light features:

Wonderful thing. It smells of steam trains, and tea urns: it shouts drab fashions and powdered eggs. It's British Railways, and I love it, and I love that for all the Chester Renaissance gubbins, someone, somewhere has recognised that these seemingly mundane light fittings are actually part of our heritage.

I did enjoy romping through the station, now that it had been shorn of associations with That Bloody Job; I'm especially pleased that it slices off the foot of the Wirral Line from the MerseyTart map. In fact, there are now only three stations left on the Wirral Line (apart from the Loop, which doesn't count). I almost don't want to go and get them, to be honest, because that will mean the end of a chapter. Everything west of James Street will be finished with, and I don't want it to be: I like it too much. When I started romping round the railways I thought I'd polish it off pretty quickly, but as I'm getting near the end, I'm realising I don't want it to stop. There have been a few times when I've thought, "Ooh, shall I go and collect some stations?" but have put it off because... well... I don't want it to end. Being the MerseyTart has brought me a good deal of pleasure, and I'd like to think there's a lot more tart in me (oooh, cheeky! Etc, etc).

Can Margaret Drabble peg down a sleeping bag in a blizzard?

I saw this when it first aired, and I adored it. And I just found out that they repeated it on BBC4 last week and I missed it. And they haven't put it on iPlayer. And this person has posted only the first six minutes on YouTube.

EPIC FAIL.

You cannot beat a bit of Victoria Wood. Or even a lot of Victoria Wood. "Whenever I take an Intercity, I always end up sat opposite the woman who is eating the individual fruit pie by sucking the filling out through the hole in the middle." That's not in this documentary, it's in As Seen On TV. (That's not a documentary, it's a women's cocktail bar - sorry, once you start quoting Victoria Wood you can't stop).

The Once and Future Station

For all my bullishness about the wonders of public transport, it does go wrong sometimes.  So it was a couple of weeks ago, when my Crewe bound train was cancelled and I was left with an hour to kill before the next one.

Never one to waste an opportunity, I went for a wander round the city centre.  Liverpool has completely transformed itself in just the short time I have lived here.  It really is remarkable.  When I moved Oop North thirteen years ago, the biggest redevelopment project in the city was Queen Square, with its attendant bus stands and Nando chicken.  Now huge swathes have been transmogrified into shops, restaurants, apartments.  Rope Walks really is an exciting place to wander round, and the new Liverpool One shopping district is amazing.  Even if they did have to demolish the Escape and Quiggins to build it.  I hope the one-two of 2008 hangover and credit crunch unpleasantness don't send Liverpool back down the slope again; it's achieved so much in so little time.

The effects haven't reached everywhere, of course.  Toxteth - despite a great deal of good, ambitious plans - is still the bad side of town.  Unloved, infamous, the huge mansion rows are still punctuated by burnt out shells, like bad teeth, and it's definitely not a place to go wandering unawares.  I was only at the tip of it, the wrong side of Parliament Street - I was in the shadow of the Anglican Cathedral - but it still smelt of neglect and disdain.  

I was here in search of history and future, a sort of Marty McFly type trip.  There's an abandoned station here.  Closed in 1907, St James station was in the perfect place, logistically speaking - it broke up the long gap between Liverpool Central and Brunswick stations.  Unfortunately, there was no-one around to use it, and it was shut to passengers.

Temptingly, it's still there.  Well, sort of.  So in my quest to visit all the stations, I thought I'd pay it a visit.

I should perhaps clarify.  This post may be of more interest to people who like brick walls.  It's a very nice wall, don't get me wrong; but it's not exactly Euston, you know?  This is the view from across Parliament Street.  Behind this wall, there's a cutting, with two platforms still in existence down below.

It's a very high wall, though.  So as I wandered around it, all I got was a good view of some Victorian mortar work.

There is, however, a door:

which gives access to a stairway, which allows you to get down to the unused, unloved platforms.  Even though they haven't seen a passenger since crinoline was in style, the area is sort of kept in use; it's a handy access point for workmen to the tunnels, and, in the event of some emergency, it could theoretically be used as an escape tunnel.

I wandered around a bit further, hoping for a crack or something to let me see down, but it was no good; not a single hole.  Damn those efficient 19th century workmen.  In the end, I threw self respect to the wind, stood on my toes, and poked my hand over the top of the wall as best as I could.  This is the result:

I am choosing to believe that it is a glimpse of the track, with the overgrown platform to one side.  I could be right.  Oh, fine: if you want a full and frank explanation, with decent photos, go here.

There are sort of tentative plans to reopen St James, one day.  The platforms are there, there's plenty of open ground next to the cutting which would enable a station facility, and perhaps a bus interchange, to be built.  There's no expensive tunneling or engineering needed.  The problem is that it's nowhere.  On one side is the huge Cains brewery, which isn't exactly the great employer it once was.  On the other is an abandoned church.  Even the maisonettes over the road have been boarded up ready for demolition.  And even if it were opened - you're not that far from the city centre.  You can walk to Liverpool Central in about ten or fifteen minutes from here, for free.  Why pay to cut that journey time by a few minutes?

I'd love to see it reopened, obviously, but I won't hold my breath.

The 21st Century Railway Is Coming. Bring Your Wallet.

This blog is about many things. The inadequacy of the Merseyrail map, my desire for immortality in the pages of Modern Railways, a catalogue of my never ending array of disastrous weather-buffeted hairstyles. But essentially, at heart, it's about architecture. I've always been drawn to railway station architecture, its forms and shapes - the Victorian declaration of might, the Art Deco sweep in the Thirties, the shabby second rate British Rail years, the gleaming glass and metal of today. I started this whole project to see stations, not trains or signalling, because that's what I love to see.

I hate to see stations going to ruin. Long-term readers may remember my dismay at Hough Green, which had been allowed to collapse into dereliction and was unloved, and my horror at Little Sutton's boarded up windows. I want to see them shining and used and unshabby again.  I'm an optimist, basically.

This blog's also about hope: about the future.  My glee at seeing St Helens Central's new, glamorous glass building wasn't affected; I want to see money invested in the network and its facilities.

I'm happy to report a whole load of investment is being pumped into Lime Street station right now. The money's going in two places, both of them badly needed. Out front, a whole load of cash has been found to demolish the ugly public toilet-esque row of shops that block the front of the station from the road, as well as the mangy looking office block (Concourse House) beside it.  This has been controversial for a while after two selfish bastards - whoops, sorry, I mean caring shopkeepers, forced a High Court decision on the compulsory purchase of their premises.  The delay meant that a tower earmarked to replace Concourse House has now been credit crunched, so all they're going to put out front is a lot of posh paving.  But this will mean all the difference, as you'll be able to see the grand sweep of Lime Street's frontage again, and from the inside, you'll be able to see out onto St George's Plateau and that huge tv screen thing that keeps flashing twenty foot high images of the Joker at me in a thoroughly unnerving fashion.

Inside, they're upgrading the passenger facilities.  Lime Street has always been divided in two (leaving aside the underground station).  On the one side, behind the North Western Hotel, are the "suburban" trains on platforms 1-6, for Wigan, Manchester, and the like.  Around them are the ticket office, the bars, the WH Smiths, the Burger King, and all the other big terminus retail outlets.  Plus the toilets.  The long London bound Pendolinos depart from the other side, which is severely underdeveloped.  Platforms 7 to 9 have nothing in the way of facilities, not even a ticket barrier to call their own (crowd control barriers have been strung across the way for the last few years).  In the centre is a long cab road, which once provided access for mail vans and taxis, but hasn't been used for years.

The plan is now to build customer facilities in this cab road, and work has actually started on it.  Of course, they've released a highly glamorous CGI image to publicise it.  I'm always disappointed they don't take the piss a bit more often in these things, and fully exploit the potential of CGI, and put a brontosaurus in the background, or a T-1000 morphing into the 16:32 to Birmingham New Street.  I'm sure people would be far more excited about redevelopments if they thought that they'd be able to ride the Starship Enterprise to Euston.*  But I digress.  In a blatant contravention of copyright law, I've ripped the picture out of Network Rail's press release and I feature it here for your pleasure:

I like the way the artists at Rail House in London have stuck a trackie-wearing scally right at the front, so we know it's Liverpool.  They missed a trick by blacking his face and pulling his hood up - how are we meant to see his moustache and curly perm now?  Anyway.  Since I pass through Lime Street every day (platform 8, every night, stalkers) I've started snapping away to try and catalogue the works as they go on - these pics are taken from last Friday (hey, it's been a busy week).  Here's the "before" - as it looked Friday morning: 

Like I say, it's just dead space there.  The new passenger facilities will include a first class lounge for Virgin customers.  Something which is desperately needed.  In fact, it's amazing that they've gone so long without one, given that Virgin are so obsessed with first class passengers.  It'll also include an information point, replacing this:

...so you'll be able to complain about Beardy Branson's rubbish service in far more salubrious surroundings.  In addition, there will be four new retail outlets.  Having passed through Manchester Piccadilly a couple of months ago, and been confused to find that someone had let some trains barge through the centre of the shopping mall, I'm unsurprised at Network Rail's desire to improve our shopping experience.  No word yet on which retailers will be taking spce there.  I'm hoping for a Starbucks so I don't have to use that Costa any longer, with its burnt tasting coffee and its young offender staff.  I'm guessing it won't be a new branch of Harvey Nicks, anyway.

It also looks like there will be a proper passenger ticket barrier of some sort.  I'm a bit concerned about the effect that it will have on platform space.  By Friday night, they'd started putting up a load of support poles:

Apologies for the blurring.  These have the effect of cordoning off the platform from the new retail area - but the platform is now only about six feet wide.  I came off the train tonight, and things have progressed a bit more, to the extent that the whole centre area has been blocked off - but it makes the space for passengers to alight really narrow.  As all the bodies moved down towards the exit it was slightly claustrophobic (and bloody annoying when the dopey tart in front of you decides to just stop in the middle to attend to her wailing brat, thereby blocking everyone from getting away).  They'll have to hold the passengers in a waiting area, because there was no space at all for people to get on and get off at the same time.  The plus side is that as Lime Street's a terminal station there's usually a bit of a breather before the train moves off again anyway.

The anticipated end date for all of this is early 2010, but I think that includes the shop demolition and the landscaping outside, which will take a lot longer.  I can't imagine it'll take that long to throw up a few shops.  I shall keep you posted, as and when I can be arsed...

*In fact this is the kind of thing I'm talking about, only this is actually real:

It's a giant mechanical spider crawling down the side of Concourse House.  BRILLIANT.

More info on that (hurry, this weekend only!) can be found here.