Getting to and from Mossley (MSL) 28th June

[WolvertonWorks]

I need to be at Woodend Mill Mossley OL5 9AY by just after 10am on Saturday 28th June, leaving to return to Milton Keynes sometime after 3:30pm the same day.

I'm planning on going up to Manchester the day before and staying overnight near Piccadilly station.

On the 28th I think I need to take a TPE from MAN (Piccadilly) to Mossley (MSL) and then it's come out of the station and turn left and walk along Manchester Road, the A635, to the mill. googling suggests this is just over half a mile and will take about 12 minutes but looking at streetview I think I am going to need quite a while to find exactly where in the mill complex I need to go.

Looking on NRE it appears the trains run a half hourly service from MAN at 6am until 9am (this arrives MSL 9:17) but then they become hourly so there's no 9:30 which would have been ideal, until 3pm when there's then a 3:30 and 4pm - anyone know why the service becomes less frequent during what I would have assumed is the busier part of the day?

Again for the return journey it looks like I will miss the 15:17 and will need to wait for the 16:17 from MSL, after which time the service becomes half hourly rather than hourly again.

I should then be able to get the 17:15 from MAN back to MKC but may book for a slightly later train in case I end up on the 16:48 from MSL.

I was going to look for tickets on the forum's site MKC-MAN on Friday and MAN-MKC on Saturday and buy the return MAN-MSL on Saturday as a walk up. I hold a Senior railcard.

Anyone any other advice? Thanks

 

[Haywain]

then it's come out of the station and turn left and walk along Manchester Road, the A635,

Looks like a walk along the canal towpath might be possible, and I'm sure it would be a lot more pleasant. You'd just need to confirm you can access the Mill complex from the canal.

 

[WolvertonWorks]

Thanks Haywain, will investigate that.

 

[WolvertonWorks]

Just thought I'd complete this post with a quick trip report and a question.

I'd bought Advance split tickets - out on the 13:19 LNR MKC to Crewe £6.45, 15:30 TPE CRE to MAN £2.25 - should give me 37 minutes to change at Crewe.
Return 18:15 Avanti MAN-MKC £19.53

Arrived at MKC on Friday just before 1pm amid ongoing disruption from the derailment near Bletchley the previous day. All southbound trains using platform 4, northbound using 5 and 6 but other than the 5/6 island being a bit crowded when there were trains expected on both platforms within minutes of each other it all seemed to be working well.

Train was showing delayed but it arrived - RTT says it departed 13:33 - and as I had a good window between trains at Crewe I wasn't worried. In the end we arrived 15:17 according to RTT, 23 minutes late having picked up further delays en route. Ticket check before we got to Rugby where there was a change of train crew.

New train manager (sounded a pleasant young man) kept us informed of progress as we travelled - maybe too well informed as it got tedious hearing him explain about the previous day's derailment still causing issues and then, once we got to 15 minutes late, explaining delay repay, both after every station.

Alighted at Crewe on P7 and see the TFW train is due on Platform 6 - there is an empty TFW set sitting on P6. Lots of people on platform. Then a member of platform staff says that everyone for Crewe needs to go to P1. Trudge up the stairs, over the bridge and back down and realise that the train on P1 is an Avanti - check with chap on platform, I need to go back to P6 for my TFW train so trudge back again. Empty TFW set has gone and board is showing next arrival is the TFW 15:30. Then an announcement next train on P6 is an Avanti to Liverpool Lime Street which arrives and departs and then my train arrives at 15:38 and an uneventful journey into MAN. I'm ten minutes later than expected but no complaints, the disruption from Thursday handled well by everyone other than the misleading "go to P1".

Bought my return ticket to Mossley for the next morning and off to my hotel.

Saturday morning was intending taking the 09:00 TPE MAN-Mossley (this was the York train and I see it was actually cancelled) but arrived at the station in time to take the 08:30 Huddersfield train which was only running to Greenfield because of signalling issues. Less than 20 passengers when we set off and I was the only person to alight at Mossley.

The station is built into the hillside and on the eastbound side the only exit from the platform is up the stairs and over the bridge. Then I went out through the station building. Looked like ticket office might have been open but didn't see any staff.

Returning from my event I arrived at the station about 15:55 to find that station appeared to now be shut for the day other than access to ticket machine inside building I think, and I needed to walk outside to the end of the station building and onto the Manchester bound platform using the car park entrance/exit. Board showed train expected at 16:17. One person on platform other than me and I got to wondering about being only person on eastbound platform at bottom of stairs and having an issue and wondering where the help point was - couldn't see anything obvious so my question is is there one?

Lots more people started arriving for the Manchester train, which kept showing a longer delay on the board, and I reckon there must have been well over 20 of us when we finally departed at 16:23 and the train was fairly full, although I did get a seat.

In the event I could have easily caught the 17:15 Avanti but had bought my ticket for the 18:15 as I didn't want to risk missing the 17:15 so killed some time followed by an uneventful journey back to MK.