Track bash May 2022

Day 4 (Wednesday 25th May)

Glasgow to Wrexham

Last updated 2022-05-26

While trying to plan today, I discovered that the early morning train from Glasgow to Liverpool uses not one but two rare sections of line that I hadn't used. No way was I going to miss that opportunity!

Apart from that, the main purpose of today is to do the line from Liverpool to Southport and then on to Wigan, the Chester to Altrincham line, and any others on my list that I can fit in. In turns out that, if nothing goes wrong, I can actually fit them all into the day; in one case, I end up using the one train a day that runs on the line. And, as a bonus, do the short run from Wrexham General station to Wrexham Central (and then back, because the hotel is right by General), which is why I'm staying in Wrexham tonight. This involves a total of 18 different trains.

In addition there's one very tight connection: three minutes at Chester, though it's along a single platform rather than needing to use a footbridge or subway. If I miss it, I'll have to leave out one branch in the Wirral (and one train, truncating another).

Okay, the run from Glasgow to Carlisle went fine. At Glasgow I was supposed to change to a train to Manchester, but just after the first train departed they announced that that one was cancelled. If I'd known, I'd have stayed on to Preston or Wigan and looked for a connection there. Instead it's a 30 minute wait for a train to Wigan.

I popped into the ticket office to reserve a seat on the train to Wigan. I asked the person for a window seat with a table and I saw her select it. When I got on the train, the seat with that number was an aisle seat with a tiny swing-down ledge on the back of the seat in front of it (I took the window seat; later on someone took to the seat next to me). To add insult to injury, there's no window at all in this row, just thick plastic that pushes into your shoulder. I'd forgotten how bad Pendelinos are. At Penrith the coach filled with primary school children on a trip to London. They'd each been allocated a seat but had boarded in the pessimal order (numerical order but using the door at the seat 1 end). Plus some of their seats (not mine) were occupied with people unwilling to move. Things eventually got sorted out, though. Later I heard one of the adults say "We can go on the Elizabeth Line".

Changed at a rather windy Wigan North Western to catch the train to Manchester. We arrived at Oxford Road station a few minutes before the hourly train round the Ordsall Chord (a TPE service scheduled to go to Redcar Central but today CAPEd - cut short - at York). From there a tram took me to Piccadilly, not giving me time for a proper break but just enough time to grab a sandwich before the train to Chester. The tight connection at Chester wasn't a problem; I suspect the single-line sections on the route mean the train has plenty of margin to make up any lateness.

Moorfields station has two underground lines, both of which are deep. The Wirral line is understandable, as it's just gone under the river. But the other one, though not as deep, is still a long escalator ride followed by a flight of stairs. The gateline is at the surface with a set of public toilets just outside it. Each cubicle is unlocked electrically from the ticket inspector's booth on demand, presumably to prevent anti-social behaviour.

Southport was clearly once a major station but now it's just the terminus for a 4 tph service from Liverpool and a 2 tph service from Manchester or beyond via Wigan. The whole area of station and a dozen or so storage sidings outside is completely segregated into third-rail and non-electrified parts, each with three platforms, except that one of the electrified platforms can be reached from the non-electrified side as well. I was worried that the 5-minute change could be tight, but we were a minute early and it turned out to be cross-platform.

25 minutes for the 200 metre or so walk between the two stations at Wigan. I wandered round for a few minutes but found no sign of the pier. When I got to Wigan North Western station (for the second time today) at 18:00, I found the 17:11 just pulling in and used it to get to Warrington a bit early. (Investigating, this was a train from Glasgow. It was two minutes late into Carlisle but 16 late leaving; no other train seems to have been affected. It was 18 late at Lancaster, 20 late at the approach to Preston, then 24 late at Preston. It held there for 16 minutes - there were various reports that someone was threatening to jump off a bridge on to the track - and so left 37 late. What should have been 11 minutes to Wigan was instead 23 (now 51 late), another 3 were lost by Warrington, and it eventually got to 63 late at Nuneaton and 61 on arrival at Euston. This was nowhere near the worst affected: 1S69 from London to Glasgow was 4 minutes early into Wigan and 52 late departing, lost 3 more to Wigan, then took 20 minutes for the last 3 miles into Preston where it was terminated, 73 late. Finally, 9M56 from Edinburgh was 4 late into Lancaster, where it sat for 64 minutes instead of 2. It lost another 10 minutes to Preston, 8 of them on the last quarter of a mile, was 84 late just after Stafford, where it took the Trent Valley route instead of going via Birmingham, meaning it was only 34 late at Rugby and 31 at Euston.)

At this point, things fell apart. The next bit to do was the line from Helsby to Hooton via Ellesmere Port. The western half of this has a frequent Merseyrail service, but the eastern part has one train a day. The connecting train from Warrington was running 12 minutes late, which meant I would miss the connection at Helsby. I wondered if they would hold it but, checking on a train planner, they'd cancelled it instead! So I ended up waiting at Warrington for an hour for a train to Liverpool. But, as a bonus, this goes round the Liverpool Curve at Earlestown, something I've never done before, after running several miles "wrong road" along the WCML.

The train from Liverpool Lime Street to Bidston (on the West Kirby branch) was the same one that I used to get to West Kirby earlier. I think it's likely that each set spends all day on the same one of the four branches, so the odds are one in five based on the timetable. At Bidston there's a 25 minute wait. The waiting room is decorated with photos of the station from long enough ago that it used semaphore signals and had a couple of sidings, though nothing's in them, yet it still has third rail trains. The display on the platform is saying that "this service is not in service, do not board this train". Apart from the confusing wording, it's referring to the incoming train from Wrexham which will also be the outgoing train to Wrexham. It's only timetabled to wait for a minute, and needs to get out of the way of the next West Kirby train, so they definitely do want people to board this train as quickly as possible.

My original plan was to catch the train back from Wrexham Central to Wrexham General, since the hotel is by the station. But I then decided to walk to the hotel instead; the exercise would do me good and I'd be there about the same time. Then, just over half way there ...
I've left my suitcase on the train!!!!!
I ran as hard as I could (not very) to General station, just to see the tail lights heading off in the distance. Argh!

Phoning customer assistance, they say they can't contact the train crew and I should phone Lost Property in the morning. I walk (out of breath) to the hotel and check in. Checking online, the same train will come back to General (but not Central) at 23:51, after which it heads off empty (apart from crew, of course) to Chester to stable. So at 23:30 I headed back to the station and stood waiting for the train to arrive. When it got there the doors didn't unlock. Someone stuck their head out of the cab door and said "you can't get on, it's not going anywhere". I walked up to the cab and said I had left something on the train; they said "is it this?", which it was. They seemed glad to get it off their hands and, of course, I was greatly relieved to have it back.

Okay, apart from that: 14 trains instead of the planned 18: it took one less to get to Manchester than on the original plan, missing out Helsby to Hooton meant two trains from Warrington to Bidston instead of four, and I left out the last train of the day. Only one of the planned bits missed; that's not too bad.

Today's trains table

1M83

397005

GLC

Glasgow Central

07:45

07:44¾

CAR

Carlisle