The Great Escape - to Liverpool
Beside the Mersey
© Geoff’s Rail Diaries 2015
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
26 February 2015
London Midland have been offering “a day’s
unlimited travel” for £15 (£12 with a
railcard) midweek - and the offer ends on
Sunday. We’d better have a day out...
Time was moderately limited on this occasion,
but we could probably manage an outing to
Liverpool and back - we’d have to travel on the
“stopper” to Wolverhampton, where we could
pick up a New Street - Liverpool train. The service is frequent
and quick, and the trains (class 350 EMUs) are smooth, quiet and
spacious, if somewhat spartan (3+2 seating, no armrests). No
catering trolley either, though it probably wouldn’t have done
much business - the train was lightly loaded.
On arrival at Lime Street, I took myself off to
the Pierhead, where the Museum of Liverpool
was established in 2011. There’s an ancient
steam locomotive on display (”Lion”, built in
1838 by Todd, Kitson and Laird of Leeds) - and a
car from the Liverpool Overhead Railway. The
café wasn’t bad either, and quieter than the
museum proper (hordes of schoolchildren who
weren’t really interested...)
...and by the time I left the museum, the sun was coming out -
ideal for a brief exploration of the riverside area, before
scuttling back to Lime Street for the return journey.
