Not quite according to plan...
Lunch in Southport
25 October 2023
Careful cultivation of friends and acquaintances enables us to
gather the local(ish) newspaper vouchers that are needed for
a Northern Rail £10 day rover ticket, but with rover in hand,
the north is our oyster. Almost... Some journeys are not
possible, for all kinds of reasons.
We begin our odyssey (perhaps not!) with tickets to Manchester
Piccadilly on a Transport for Wales service - it gets the day
moving more quickly than the Northern stopper from Crewe.
There’s a degree of chaos at Crewe - “trespassers on the line”
further south. There’s more fun and games at Piccadilly. We’d
thought about walking to Victoria and taking the next train to
Leeds - but it was cancelled (good thing we checked before
taking to the streets!). How about plan B?
We thought of heading for the south Lakes line - perhaps
visiting Grange-over-Sands or Ulverston - but not all
trains from Barrow to Lancaster continue down to
Preston, and Northern Rail day rovers aren’t too good on
Avanti services. Meanwhile there’s more chaos on the
through platforms 13/14 (there’s been a problem with the
signalling, it appears). After much standing and studying
destination boards, we hop onto a Blackpool North train.
“Are the trams running along the new extension yet?”.
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
No (says Google) - next year... Eventually, we decide on a
somewhat indirect trip from Preston to Southport.
It’s many years since trains ran from Preston to Southport. We
take an Ormskirk train to Burscough Junction, then walk to
Burscough Bridge (it’s not far), to continue our journey. At our
destination, there’s a (moderately) interesting assortment of
trains - third-rail EMUs old and new, our DMU (cl. 156) and
769424, one of the former class 319 EMUs, now fitted with
underfloor engines which make them bimodal - diesel from
Southport to Bolton, then AC electric under the wires. However,
lunch calls...
We’re heading back towards Manchester now - on that 319 unit
maybe? No, it’s only going as far as Oxford Road, and the times
would be very tight for our last-but-one train, so we’re
on an earlier train (another 156), changing at Bolton for
an ex-Barrow train which terminates at Piccadilly. There,
within minutes, our train arrives - the TfW 1630 for
Swansea, and it’s a loco-hauled/ propelled service, real
comfort back to Crewe. Sadly, it doesn’t stop at the local
stations on the Shrewsbury (or ‘Amwythig’...) line - we’re
on an aging cl. 150 for the last leg of our trip. Truly a
‘chalk-and-cheese’ experience!
