GoldenEyes

Everything's so flat now, isn't it?  Just a bit boring.  The flags are down, the pink signs are being folded away.  I can no longer switch on my telly and catch some sun-kissed, barely dressed athlete taking my breath away with his physical prowess.  There aren't any dancing horses, or complicated categorisations for people in Paralympic races that I can't quite understand.  There's no Claire Balding.

I miss London 2012.  Not even a hug from Wenlock, Mandeville and that lion thing for Team GB can make me completely happy.

The only thing that could possible drag me out of my post-Olympic funk was a bit of tarting.  I had an accomplice this time, in the form of Ian, who was also suffering from 2012 withdrawal.  We met up at Piccadilly and headed across town on a tram, sneering jealously at the kid who grabbed the seat on the hinge (which is the best seat), for Victoria station.

It was a filthy day.  The end of the Paralympics seems to have been a signal to the weather Gods: no more summer for you.  While the athletes parade was winding its way across London, the north was being hit by thunderstorms, and they stayed with us all week.  Victoria station cowers under the Manchester Arena, a space cockroach clinging to the platforms, but through a rare gap of sky we could see heavy, driving rain.

It was only one stop to our first station, Salford Central, and we were unsurprisingly the only people to get off.  It's barely in the new city, and isn't really useful for anything; the "Central" part of its name is a flat out lie.  It has, however, received a decent block of funding in recent years to make it fully accessible.

It means that the station now has a fancy foyer, glass and steel and exposed concrete.  Very pretty, of course, but completely unused.  Apart from Ian and myself, there was only one other person in there, and I strongly suspect they were just there to hide away from the rain.  It was a space that begged for a coffee stand, or a newsagents, but instead it was clinical, open, modern nothingness.  The raw red brick of the arches above had far more personality and charm.

The plus side of having a friend along for the ride is that you don't get shots of my nose hairs at every station.

We crossed the road by the Lowry Fish Bar ("home of Funky Fish") and headed into Salford's back streets on our way to the next station.  It was a weird mix of semis and low rise flats; not what you'd expect in a city centre at all.  But then again, this isn't the centre any more - that's shifted over to the Quays.  That's where the BBC are, and the posh shops.  The old centre has until recently been abandoned to its fate.

The cathedral close provided a welcome moment of prettiness.  We circumnavigated it, and found another piece of art off to one side; I'm not sure what the purpose of two big sycamore seeds in the middle of nowhere is, but still, nice try.  Even if it does look like a couple of winged testicles.

With the rain soaking us thoroughly, it was hard to see Salford as much more than a grim inner city.  The city's only recently turned its attention back to this area, and there is new paving and inspiring banners hanging off lamp posts, but the Crescent still threads through open car parks and tower blocks.  Ian paused for a moment of nostalgia by the Old Pint Pot pub; it was the first place he'd ever eaten a chip barm.  Sadly there was no blue plaque.

A bend in the Irwell signalled we were entering the University district - lots of 1960s buildings either side of the dual carriageway, with student accommodation dotted in amongst them.  The University was one of the reasons that our next station, Salford Crescent, was built in the first place.  I paused long enough by the sign to get battered by the rain, then we headed across the bridge to the station.

That picture was taken in the middle of the day.  Look how dark it is!

Salford Crescent was opened in the 1980s, and it smacks of "will this do?" British Rail investment.  There's a single island platform with a tiny cabin for the ticket office and a waiting room.  Obviously, it became overwhelmed quite quickly, and now Network Rail have acknowledged it's probably going to need some hefty investment to get it up to code.

We were hopelessly early for our train so we took up a seat in the waiting room and talked Bond: James Bond.  Ian is one of the few people I know with whom I can have an intelligent conversation about 007.  Normally I end up getting frustrated as people mix up Moonraker and Octopussy or try to tell me stuff that is completely untrue ("no, I read it on the internet, Louis Spence was DEFINITELY first choice for Le Chiffre").  The upcoming Skyfall, plus the fiftieth anniversary, has us both grinning gleefully.  The only frustrations I have are with Ian's insistence that Never Say Never Again is anything other than a boil on the arse of humanity.  He loves it.  He is wrong.

The next station is Clifton, but we couldn't visit that.  It only gets two trains a day - one towards Manchester in the morning, and one towards Bolton in the evening.  Robert's been there, but then, of course he would.  I'll have to come back another time for it.  Instead we plunged onwards to Kearsley.

On the train I revealed my ulterior motive to Ian: I wanted to show him a Nob End.  In particular, the Nob End nature reserve between Kearsley and Farnworth stations.

I will go anywhere for a good bit of place name smut and, fortunately, Ian agreed.  Conquering Nob End became our aim.

There was Kearsley station to collect first, a station which turned out to have a couple of pleasing relics.  Firstly, there was a bright orange GMPTE sign at the entrance, a colour scheme that they decided to abandon, for some reason.  Possibly because it's hideous.

Meanwhile, the station sign gave both of us nostalgic thrills.

Awww, British Rail.  Poor, unloved, disregarded, now missed hopelessly, British Rail.  You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

To reach Nob End, we had to pass through a copse of trees by the side of the river.  One look and we knew this was impossible.  The heavy, pestilent, remorseless rain had flooded the paths.  The only way we'd get through there was with a kayak.  Sadly, we concluded we'd have to kiss Nob End goodbye.

Instead we walked through the streets of the town.  I slipped on a wooly hat, which you won't see here because it makes me look like a Nob End, and Ian put up his umbrella.  I began to feel guilty for bringing him out here.  He'd got a day off work and I'd brought him to an outdoor swimming pool.  We were drowning in public.  Our feet were sodden.  Our jeans clung to our legs (I'd later take them off and find that my white jockey shorts were stained with blue dye).  I had to take my glasses off because the thin rain clung to the lenses and obscured everything; it was easier to just squint.

It would have been nice if we were at least in scenic surroundings, but Kearsley and Farnworth were distinctly average.  Red streets, boring lines of shops and cafes, a subway under the M61.  Nothing notable or inspiring.  I found myself apologising for dragging Ian out in the storm for this.  We couldn't even sample the delights of Probably the Finest Takeaway In The North West, the Fiha Tandoori.  As yet, I've been unable to ascertain the scientific analysis that lead to them making this claim, but I'm looking into it.  I'm guessing extensive market research and peer reviews over a lengthy period of time.  I'm sure they haven't just slapped an unverifiable claim on top of their shop.

After a bit of business consulting a map, we managed to find Farnworth station.  I really want to put an "s" in there to make it Farnsworth; too much Futurama.

Yes, that's me without my glasses.  CALM YOURSELVES.

The best thing I can say about Farnworth is it has a shelter.  We were able to reassemble ourselves, going through our pockets and bags and pulling out soggy papers.  It was a brief moment of dryness.

As it turned out, the rain was having a last hurrah.  Between Farnworth and Moses Gate it dropped back to a thin drizzle.

I'm not sure what Moses Gate is the gateway to.  Unless it's a fancy name for "that really big junction on the A666", which was mainly what we saw once we left the station.

Now we were in Bolton, which is sort of Manchester, and sort of not.  I was determined to be positive about the town, even though it did give the world both Peter and Vernon Kay.  A truly horrific light entertainment double header.

The town didn't do too much to buy my affection at first.  The road into town was a string of factories, industrial units and giant box retail units.  Cars ruled in this part of town, and we skipped across pedestrian crossings between juggernauts and white vans.  Workers stood outside, smoking a fag, watching as two dripping wet humanoids squelched past.  Now the rain had stopped, making us just look stupid.

Still, the tower of Bolton Town Hall acted as a beacon for us, drawing us into the town centre.  And when we got there, it was remarkably pleasant.  Some nice pedestrianised streets, some decent shops, a healthy buzz.  The Town Hall itself was a particular highlight:

The banner across the front read Congratulations Jason Kenny - Bolton's Double Gold Medal Olympian.  We were suddenly thrilled.  If there was a Gold Medal Winner, that meant there was a gold post box somewhere close by.  We headed for a coffee shop so that we could re-energise ourselves with hot chocolate and search the net for its location.

The afternoon warmed up, as did we.  Our jeans became less moist (though my socks would still be like sponges when I got home that night).  It was a shame that the weather only decided to be kind on the very last leg of our journey.  Across from us, the Albert Halls' ticker tape display advised us that Mick Miller and Jimmy Cricket would be performing on the 22nd September; I made a mental note to be anywhere else in the world on that night.

Finally we got up the energy to carry on.  We passed the giant statue of Fred Dibnah which, for some reason, they have crafted to make him look as much like the local flasher as possible:

Tell me he doesn't look like the man at number 22 you told your sister never to make eye contact with.

We knew which street the post box was on, but not where that was.  Luckily for me.  It meant that we passed Prestons of Bolton, the Diamond Centre of the North:

I suspect there are only a very small number of readers who understand my delight at seeing this particular shop, but once you see this ad, you'll understand why:

"And we all enjoyed the champagne!"  AMAZING.  If it had been open I suspect I would have dragged Ian in and pretended we wanted rings for our fictional civil partnership.

We both spotted the gold post box at the same time, and dashed towards it.  It's weird how a lick of paint can make a perfectly ordinary object thrilling.  Ian was pleased to see it:

I was fricking DELIGHTED:

Not much else in Bolton could possibly live up to that (although the sight of two midgets drunkenly snogging in a pub doorway came close) so we headed for the station.  Sorry, I mean Bolton Interchange - the addition of an unexciting bus terminus next door means that "station" is now a wholly inadequate term.

There's a dinky little station building up top - one which is perfectly adequate for its needs, Salford Central - and a pleasing portico.  A homeless man had unfortunately installed himself in there, so we moved round the side so that my station shot wasn't ruined by urban blight.

Sign fetishists will note that's the third GMPTE/TfGM logo we've spotted on our travels.  They're almost as bad as Lancashire County Council.

We headed down to the platform, an enormously wide space with a Coca-Cola emblazoned shop in the centre.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.  But round the side was another pre-privatisation delight.

Look at those British Rail signs!  Yellow and red and ever so slightly naff.  They're wonderful, and I'm pleased to see that Northern's equivalent of the Colour Tsars (the Purple Gang?  The Purple Meanies?) haven't torn them down.  If I could I'd put a spot listing on those two signs, before they can be replaced with something modern and charmless.

Ian and I both took pictures of the Buffet and Kiosk signs, much to the consternation of our fellow passengers.  We didn't care.  I suspect that the gold post box had reignited the Olympic flame inside of us and made us giddy and smiley again.  That's the real legacy, if you ask me.

Postscript: Ian later sent me this A-Z of the Olympic venues, in a further effort to prolong the 2012 spirit.  It is of course brilliant (how could anything that combined the Olympics and maps not be?), not least because I now know that the nearest station to Hampden Park is called "Mount Florida".  Once again, thank you Ian.  Wenlock and Mandeville and Team GB lion thing are very grateful.

Rebirth

I think it's safe to say the new Liverpool Central's a triumph.

I stepped off the train this morning into a gleaming, shiny white new world.  The Wirral Line platform (the Northern Line is coming in the Autumn) is now a wonderful place to be.

Removing the heavy brown plastic mouldings that previously occupied the platform wall has made it feel so much lighter and more pleasant.  Removing the rubber floor helps too.  The seating's been replaced with these grey and yellow beauties, which I believe are the same ones featured on the London Underground:

The other thing that strikes you is - there are no ads.  This must surely be a temporary measure; I can't believe that they've decided to just give up a handy revenue stream.   Equally, I can't see how they can put them in now that the cladding's in place.  I assume that there is going to be some kind of display case put in later, because I really hope this isn't permanent:

Yes, those timetables are pasted on the wall.  That's going to get really unpleasant really quickly.  Still, as you can see from the light boxes above, there's still a lot of work to do.  As I worked my way up to the concourse my fellow escalator riders were mainly Merseyrail staff and hi-vis clad builders, staring at me and my camera as though I was some kind of lunatic.  Ha!

I don't know if it was because it was so early in the morning, or if it's the new white tiling, but the station's acquired a zen-calmness.  Again, the lack of posters adds to the effect.  The station suddenly feels like that very calm transit station at the start of Star Trek: The Motion Picture: gleaming, pale efficiency.

The posters reappear at the mezzanine between escalators, so any hope I had that they were being replaced by whizzy LCD video screens was dashed.

Also gone: that massive poster space over the head of the Wirral Line escalators, the one that advertised a computer game shop that stocked games for "Commodore, Spectrum, Amstrad" well into the 21st Century.  I wish I'd got a photo of that while it was still there.  Sigh.

Anyway, that's gone, to be replaced by some tiles.  Probably for the best, as the last advertiser there was the Sony Centre on Paradise Street, and they've gone the same way as the Commodore.  It's a cursed space.

All this is, of course, just the hors d'oeuvres before le grand buffet: the new look ticket hall.  I'd lowered my expectations, to be honest, trying not to have high hopes.  There was no need.  Damn it looks good.

That big yellow space on the left is the new-look toilet area.  It's no longer a grim, UV-lit hole; instead it looks like something straight out of The Colour Tsars' fantasies.

There are LCD advertising spaces up here, as well as photos of the old Liverpool Central building across the back wall (unfortunately my pic was hopelessly blurred - sorry!).  Turn right and you pass through the ticket barriers - exit barriers in the centre.

The MtoGo's had a bit of a tarting up, though not much because obviously it's still pretty new.  It's been re-branded over the door - "easy-to-eat food" - just in case you were worried that they were selling live squid or doughnuts with nails in or something.

That emergency exit on the left, incidentally, isn't permanent, in case you're worried that the Colour Tsars missed a bit.  That will eventually give escalator access to the new Central Village development.

The biggest change in the ticket hall is... light.  There's actual, real daylight streaming into the hall now. A major design flaw in the old station was the location of the lift down to the platforms.  It was actually outside, meaning that the disabled, the elderly and mothers with prams had to walk through the rain to get out.  That area has now been brought into the main ticket hall and roofed over with a glass ceiling.

It makes everything so much brighter, and also means you get a good view of the Victorian rooftops behind.

Also in this space is the final part of Grant Searl's Animate the Underground series.  It previously got the short straw, being stuck on the floor of the station in a spot where you couldn't pause and contemplate it.  Now it brightens up the path to the lift, and it looks so much better.  Did they ever announce what the solution to the riddle was, by the way?  I don't remember seeing it anywhere.

Basically, Liverpool Central's a joy.  They've taken it, washed it down and made it new again.  My only concerns are those posters stuck to the walls (that can't be the final version, can it?) and a tiny worry about whether those brilliant white walls are going to stay brilliantly white for long.  I feel like standing at the entrance to the station and confiscating magic markers off particularly cheeky-looking scallies in case they decide to mark it for posterity.

After a bit of shopping, I got the train back from Lime Street, meaning that we paused at Central and I got to see it gleam all over again.  There were some dignitaries on the platform (presumably they're waiting for the Northern Line to reopen before they invite me round - I can do the official opening, if you want, Merseyrail).  I loved watching people getting off the train and taking it all in, and I can't wait for the new look to spread across the other underground stations.  I've seen the future, and it's ruddy marvellous.

Brigg It On

Kirton Lindsey railway station serves the village of Kirton-in-Lindsey.  I'm not sure why they don't bother with the "in".  Perhaps someone at Rail House has a hyphen phobia.

Two of us got off the train, raising the question: are there only three trains on a Saturday because no-one uses the service, or does no-one use the service because there are only three trains on a Saturday?  You could end up falling into a spiral of an argument with that one.  The only way to test it would be to increase the service and see what happens, but why would Northern Rail bother with that when there are only two people using the station?

The station once had two tracks, a footbridge, and a fine station house; now only the house remains, converted to a private residence.  It's been well preserved though, with a nicely planted garden.

The boy who got off the train with me was already barking into his mobile phone as we trekked down towards the road.  I let him get a bit ahead of me so I could take the station sign pic.  Five years later, and I'm still a bit embarrassed larking around with a camera in front of a BR sign.  You'd have thought I'd be used to it by now.

Of course, I wouldn't look like such an idiot if I didn't pull faces like that.

I needed to catch a bus from the village and, as usual, it had been incredibly difficult to plan it back home in Birkenhead.  It's 2012, people.  I should be able to sit at my computer and be able to plan a simple bus journey with little hassle.  As it was, I scurried along the footpath, knowing that there was a bus stop somewhere around here, and hoping I'd get there with time to spare.

Train boy was still yelling into his phone, but he was walking far too slowly, so I overtook him somewhere outside an industrial estate.  Kirton-in-Lindsay, from what I saw of it, won't win any prizes for Britian's Most Charming Village.  I think the state of the bus shelter pretty much sums it up.

Now I'm a fan of gratuitous male nudity, as I'm sure you're aware.  If you feel like removing your shirt (or more) - go for it.  I have no objection, and I will happily watch out of the corner of my eye.  That's the kind of pervert I am.

I normally like a bit of warning though.  I was waiting at the bus stop, minding my own business, when I noticed that train lad had taken his shirt off and was changing.  I didn't know where to look.  Well, alright, I did know where to look; I just had to try and do it subtly.  I thought I'd managed to get away with it until I got home and found a photo of him staring straight into the camera.  Ahem.

(Verdict: six out of ten - a bit podgy).

I could have walked from Kirton-in-Lindsay to Brigg, the next station.  There's actually a footpath that connects the two villages.  I'd have preferred it, to be honest; it's more in keeping with the spirit of the blog.

Problem is, Lincolnshire's not the most scenic of counties.  It's incredibly flat and open.  There aren't many hills or forests to surprise you.  So I'd have been trudging across field after field.  And worse, the path was a completely straight, uninterrupted diagonal.  You can see the faint trace of it on the satellite map below - just a single line cutting through crop after crop, just above the farmhouse.

View Larger Map

It looked, let's be honest, boring as hell.  And it was an eight mile trek.  Eight miles without interruptions, turns, or hills.

Stuff that, I thought.

The 103 took me to Scunthorpe and, by the time we reached the town's bus station, I was the only passenger.  I was trying not to feel paranoid about the way public transportation seemed to empty when I got on board.

This is going to sound odd, but I didn't want to explore Scunthorpe.  Its station is on my to-do list, and so I wanted to save the town for when I collected it.  Using up all its delights on a bus journey just seemed wrong.  I wanted to keep it for when I arrived by rail.

Instead of wandering around for a while, I headed for the department store - which was another Co-op.  Again, I was reminded that this is the county the twenty-first century forgot.  On my way in I'd been surprised by how many independent petrol stations there were - no Shells or BPs, just "Riz" and "Applegreen".  The cafes in the town centre seemed to regard modern coffees - lattes and cappuccinos - as some kind of aberration.  It was all a bit bizarre.

 
Nice scones though - and yes, I put the jam on top of the clotted cream, WHAT OF IT?

After that, all I had to do was return to the exchange for my next bus, out to Brigg.  This one was a lot busier, alleviating my fears that I was some kind of public transport curse.  We headed out of town on utterly straight, utterly tedious dual carriageways.  The land here is so cheap and easy to build on that they indulge themselves with the transport network - long, clear, over-engineered roads that other parts of the country can only look at enviously.

We passed signs for the Humber Bridge, and I craned my neck in the hope of catching a glimpse of its famously tall towers.  I thought I saw them at one point, but they turned out to be some chimneys for an ugly factory; I think the bridge will have to wait for when I collect Hull station.

The bus terminated in a lay by behind the shops in Brigg, where a couple of teenagers were celebrating Saturday night with a bottle of Strongbow in the shelter.  I followed my fellow passengers into the town centre.

Gainsborough had felt like it wanted to be as up to date and exciting as the rest of Britain, but it somehow never managed it.  Like no-one invited it to the party.  Brigg, on the other hand, had abstained from the modern world, and it felt all the better for it.  It had decided that it was quite happy with living in the past, thank you very much.

The market was just packing up as I stalked the cobbled streets.  I stood on the bridge over the river and watched ducks peck at underwater food; I passed families sucking 99s after a day's shopping.  Presumably the bunting was a hangover from the Jubilee and the Olympics, but equally, I could believe it was always there, hanging across the high street, a tribute to Her Majesty (gawd bless you ma'am!).

Behind the main street were elegant Georgian townhouses and tiny courts lined with flowers.  I was charmed,  in spite of myself.  Brigg was where the folk song Horkstow Grange was first recorded by the academic Percy Grainger.  If you've never heard of this song, lucky you.  It's perhaps best known for its main character, who gave his name to 1970s folk rock band, Steeleye Span - who, as I've complained on previous occasions, are The BF's favourite band.  Basically, if Brigg had burned to the ground in the middle of the seventeenth century, then Steeleye Span might never have happened.  That I overcame this massive prejudice against the village tells you how nice it was.

It began to spit with rain, so I took shelter in the only logical place: a pub.  I picked the Woolpack, and immediately regretted it.  It was a local's pub, full of bruisers watching the football scores come in.  I hid in the corner with my pint of bitter, trying not to look out of place, trying not to attract more quizzical expressions than I had to.  So much, I reflected wryly, for choosing a pub because the name amused me.

I had another one in the Black Bull, which was a bit better, but still smelt of wet dog (though that might have been the two husky gentlemen at the table across from me).  At least its patrons didn't look like they were on the edge of smashing a chair over one another's head for fun.  Then I headed out to the train station.

It was, at least, sign posted this time.  A wide expanse of rough tarmac would probably have served as a great car park for commuters, if there were any commuters who worked for only three hours every Saturday.  A footbridge rusted quietly.  In the distance, I could see the gates of a level crossing a couple of streets away.

As with Gainsborough earlier in the day, I wasn't alone at Brigg.  They weren't trainspotters this time, but a couple of bored teenagers, who had annexed the station as "somewhere to go".  They looked at me with undisguised annoyance then, realising I wasn't going anywhere, they got up and walked away.  Damn these passengers, coming along and ruining their peace.

The train was late.  I don't like late trains at the best of times, but I had a tight connection at the next station.  I'd counted on there being ten minutes between the train arriving at Barnetby and my train home to Liverpool departing.  With each moment of lateness, my tension ratcheted up, my mouth got drier, and my heart stopped.

It wasn't just about getting the train home, after all.  I had to collect the station.  There was no point in coming all the way across the country and doing almost all the stations on the line.

The train arrived, eight minutes late, and I found a seat near the exit.  I was going to have to be quick.

I flung myself off the train and ran up the steps, up and over the bridge, and back down again.  Back when I started this whole project, I said that a station only counted as "collected" if I passed through the ticket barrier - or whatever the unstaffed version of that is.  A platform sign just won't do.  It's a rule that I've stuck to throughout, and one that some people should probably take on board.

I ran past the bemused locals in the pub garden opposite, found the sign at the bottom of the road, and took my photo.

That gave me a bit of breathing room.  I was able to walk back up the hill - past those now even more bemused locals again - to have a look at the station building.  Though it's in the middle of nowhere, it's an important junction, and gets a lot of freight traffic passing through on its way to the ports on the east coast.  The old station's now being used by Network Rail; it might not be quite the same as a nice waiting room and a friendly stationmaster, but at least it's getting some use for railway business.

It was strange thinking that I'd spent an entire day in Lincolnshire, but I'd only made two short train trips within the county; most of my time and effort had been taken up with just getting here.  And now I had to do it all over again to get home...