Being a bit of a rail enthusiast, I have been trying to use the 1906 Ellesmere Port - Helsby to get from Little Sutton to Chester the long way round for my monthly Camra meeting for some months. But I have always been thwarted. The train has been cancelled more often than not. And when it has run, the connecting Merseyrail train, due into Ellesmere Port at 1900, has been running late. But last night success at last.
Ticketing was a problem. There are no tickets from Little Sutton to Helsby valid via Hooton & Chester. And the any-permitted anytime SDR (with railcard) from LTT to Frodsham at £7.45 shown on brfares.com wasn't available from the LTT TVM & doesn't appear on planners. So I suspect it no longer exists. Ironically the 1906 ELP to Liverpool stops everywhere except Frodsham which has some of the best pubs in Cheshire. So it meant getting three singles but, surprisingly, I was able to pick up a £1.35 advance on the 1937 from HSB to CTR on the TfW app just half an hour or so before it was due to leave.
The ELP to HSB train is usually formed from the stock of the 1708 Stockport - Chester short working. But this extra train is currently cancelled because of the Stockport blockade and a more limited service is running between Altrincham and Chester. Looking at realtimetrains.co.uk, it would appear that the stock (156441) of the 1539 Altrincham - Chester was used last night, travelling ECS from Chester to Helsby after spending almost an hour at Chester in P7a.
Given the line's high cancellation rate (23% in the last 3 months which is actually an improvement over previous periods), I fully expected to be the only passenger between ELP & HSB. So I was surprised to see about 5 pax alight from the incoming service at ELP and a similar number board for the return. I was even more surprised to see 3 people board at Ince & Elton, one of the UK's least used stations. But as no tickets were checked or sold before they alighted at HSB, they probably won't be included in any usage stats.
