ChrisTheRef
Established Member
Can't wait! I have to win on my home turf I think!
Stories to follow....
Stories to follow....
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Merseyrail PTE Challenge
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Ascot
Established Member
Really wish I can do this but unfortunatly can't. Do post these stories up though!
ChrisTheRef
Established Member
Attempt 3 and I've finally won one!
My day, unlike anyone else's, actually started at Lime Street (everyone else was stuck on inbound trains, I'm sure they'll give you more details)
So my first train was a very packed 1031 to Wigan. I ran across Wigan in 3 minutes and caught the connection to Southport. The train arrived 5 mins early into Southport and as a result I caught an early train back towards Liverpool.
A hop, skip and sprint through Liverpool Cntl found me on a Chester train where I met my friend Liam as pre-arranged. After going all the way to Chester and back, we changed at Hamilton Square, bumping into Mojo and Co who banged on the windows to get our attention - hooligans!
We headed up to West Kirkby (originally only Hoylake, but the early connection in Southport allowed an extra stop)
Back in Lime Street at 1523, we ran up to the main line platforms and caught the 1527 to Manchester and alighted at South Parkway.
Our connection to Hunts Cross was delayed by 10 minutes, and it's return journey by 6. By the time we were back in Liverpool Cntl, we'd missed the Ormskirk train we'd planned on getting and settled for a Kirkby service. A fast driver meant we could run over the bridge at Fazakerly instead of Rice Lane and I walked into Lime Street at 1653 as champion!
Hoorah!
The next challenge will be GMPTE! Watch this space!
My day, unlike anyone else's, actually started at Lime Street (everyone else was stuck on inbound trains, I'm sure they'll give you more details)
So my first train was a very packed 1031 to Wigan. I ran across Wigan in 3 minutes and caught the connection to Southport. The train arrived 5 mins early into Southport and as a result I caught an early train back towards Liverpool.
A hop, skip and sprint through Liverpool Cntl found me on a Chester train where I met my friend Liam as pre-arranged. After going all the way to Chester and back, we changed at Hamilton Square, bumping into Mojo and Co who banged on the windows to get our attention - hooligans!
We headed up to West Kirkby (originally only Hoylake, but the early connection in Southport allowed an extra stop)
Back in Lime Street at 1523, we ran up to the main line platforms and caught the 1527 to Manchester and alighted at South Parkway.
Our connection to Hunts Cross was delayed by 10 minutes, and it's return journey by 6. By the time we were back in Liverpool Cntl, we'd missed the Ormskirk train we'd planned on getting and settled for a Kirkby service. A fast driver meant we could run over the bridge at Fazakerly instead of Rice Lane and I walked into Lime Street at 1653 as champion!
Hoorah!
The next challenge will be GMPTE! Watch this space!
I arrived at Liverpool South Parkway at 09.30. With 1 Hr to go before the start time I thought I'd get off and have a look around, BIG mistake; the 09.35 was showing on the CIS as 'On time' until 09.41 when it vanished off the screens, I checked on the internet and it was actually cancelled! The CIS on the other platform was saying that the 09.15 to Birmingham was over 30 Min late, but it had already left, so I decided the CIS there was rubbish and went to explore further and go and catch the 09.59 which would still leave 21 Min.
After it was clear the 09.59 wasn't going to turn up, a few emergency phonecalls to ChrisTheRef and yorkie I went to the underground lines to get the train into Central and make a quick dash across to Lime Street. 5 people were on the train that was still quite late so I decided to get off at Brunswick and make my way to Hunts Cross to meet them.
We changed at Liverpool South Parkway for a train to Southport where we got a bus to Ormskirk which cost an extortionate £3.10 single EACH and took ages, not helped by the fact it went up a road for about half a km before turning round at a roundabout to come back the way it came!
Not much else to say of note, we did see ChrisTheRef at Hamilton Square but I was the only one looking I think until I told everyone else and we started banging on the window!
We had a nice meal in a restaraunt in Liverpool City Centre which had a pricing structure the railways would be proud of; yorkie and I got ripped off by being charged the price from the prix fixe menu but if we'd have paid for the items separately it would have been £1.50 cheaper!
We realised that I hadn't seen evil_hippo since Crewe Works in Sept 2005, but was good to see people again.
We continue our tour of PTE challenges... next time... MANCHESTER (hopefully!)
After it was clear the 09.59 wasn't going to turn up, a few emergency phonecalls to ChrisTheRef and yorkie I went to the underground lines to get the train into Central and make a quick dash across to Lime Street. 5 people were on the train that was still quite late so I decided to get off at Brunswick and make my way to Hunts Cross to meet them.
We changed at Liverpool South Parkway for a train to Southport where we got a bus to Ormskirk which cost an extortionate £3.10 single EACH and took ages, not helped by the fact it went up a road for about half a km before turning round at a roundabout to come back the way it came!
Not much else to say of note, we did see ChrisTheRef at Hamilton Square but I was the only one looking I think until I told everyone else and we started banging on the window!
We had a nice meal in a restaraunt in Liverpool City Centre which had a pricing structure the railways would be proud of; yorkie and I got ripped off by being charged the price from the prix fixe menu but if we'd have paid for the items separately it would have been £1.50 cheaper!
We realised that I hadn't seen evil_hippo since Crewe Works in Sept 2005, but was good to see people again.
We continue our tour of PTE challenges... next time... MANCHESTER (hopefully!)
John @ home
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2008
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- 5,148
It was a good day and more interesting than you might expect of nearly 6 hours on nearly identical 3-coach EMUs without toilets.
Getting there was immensely frustrating. Yorkie and I travelled together from, appropriately, Yorkshire. All well til Manchester. Then we're told the train will terminate at Warrington. We're told by friends closer to the action that nothing is moving west of Warrington and that the station platform is getting overcrowded. So we think it would be smart to get out at Birchwood so we would be more likely to get a seat when services start running again.
That was not wise. We failed to consider that the first train after resumption might go non-stop through Birchwood before stopping at Warrington. And of course, that's just what happened.
Meanwhile, we negotiated with Chris that the delayed competitors (ie. everyone except him) could start their Challenge on arrival within the Merseyrail area. That introduced an advantage to the visitors which roughly balanced the drawback of gaining our first point quarter of an hour late after a very slow journey on a Class 156 from Birchwood.
After that, it was all 507s/508s. The additional tensions caused by the delays may have been the cause of a decision to combine into a larger group. So mojo, yorkie, evil_hippo and I travelled together.
The Southport - Ormskirk bus worked despite the cost, discomfort and diversions, and enabled us to break for sandwiches for lunch at Ormskirk. The early delays meant that plans were re-worked as we went along, and we finished earlier than we needed at 1642 with 63 points. In retrospect, we should have included West Kirby and achieved 65 points and a 1658 finish. That would have matched Chris's winning score.
My return journey was delayed a bit by the TPE class 185 being signalled into a non-platform road at Leeds (12X according to LDB). We then had to wait while the driver changed ends before reversing to a platform which appeared to have been free throughout the 15-minute saga.
We need to decide the format for our next challenge in Manchester. Would we like a traditional Challenge of as many stations as possible visited in a fixed time. Or perhaps we would prefer a different format such a Random 20 or Random 15. This was described by MPLYRCOWSK0304, our visiting tube challenger and Sheffield Supertram Champion. We would be notified of a random start station about a week in advance. Then at the start time each team would receive a list of 14 or 19 other random stations. The winning team visits all the chosen stations fastest.
John
Getting there was immensely frustrating. Yorkie and I travelled together from, appropriately, Yorkshire. All well til Manchester. Then we're told the train will terminate at Warrington. We're told by friends closer to the action that nothing is moving west of Warrington and that the station platform is getting overcrowded. So we think it would be smart to get out at Birchwood so we would be more likely to get a seat when services start running again.
That was not wise. We failed to consider that the first train after resumption might go non-stop through Birchwood before stopping at Warrington. And of course, that's just what happened.
Meanwhile, we negotiated with Chris that the delayed competitors (ie. everyone except him) could start their Challenge on arrival within the Merseyrail area. That introduced an advantage to the visitors which roughly balanced the drawback of gaining our first point quarter of an hour late after a very slow journey on a Class 156 from Birchwood.
After that, it was all 507s/508s. The additional tensions caused by the delays may have been the cause of a decision to combine into a larger group. So mojo, yorkie, evil_hippo and I travelled together.
The Southport - Ormskirk bus worked despite the cost, discomfort and diversions, and enabled us to break for sandwiches for lunch at Ormskirk. The early delays meant that plans were re-worked as we went along, and we finished earlier than we needed at 1642 with 63 points. In retrospect, we should have included West Kirby and achieved 65 points and a 1658 finish. That would have matched Chris's winning score.
My return journey was delayed a bit by the TPE class 185 being signalled into a non-platform road at Leeds (12X according to LDB). We then had to wait while the driver changed ends before reversing to a platform which appeared to have been free throughout the 15-minute saga.
We need to decide the format for our next challenge in Manchester. Would we like a traditional Challenge of as many stations as possible visited in a fixed time. Or perhaps we would prefer a different format such a Random 20 or Random 15. This was described by MPLYRCOWSK0304, our visiting tube challenger and Sheffield Supertram Champion. We would be notified of a random start station about a week in advance. Then at the start time each team would receive a list of 14 or 19 other random stations. The winning team visits all the chosen stations fastest.
John
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ChrisTheRef
Established Member
I'm suggesting sticking to the format used for West Yorks and Merseyside
Just to point out, this was actually user 'MPLYRCOWSK0304', who has just joined us on the forum. I'm sure he'll forgive you though because he's so new to here
!John @ home
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2008
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- 5,148
Thanks for not mentioning the rather dumb thing I did with my ticket, but I will admit it anyway...
We were talking about what date to scratch off, and how it was Evil Hippo's railcard expiry date and how he had a new one that also expired on the same date but in 2010, so I went and scratched off the year as 2010 by mistake
Amazingly no-one spotted it all day, although we were hardly checked as Merseyrail rely on barriers rather than on-train checks. (I asked at the ticket office if I could swap it but he endorseded it on the back but no-one checked that) The RPIs seemed uninterested if you looked normal & valid, but surprisingly they didn't issue a PF to someone who had not scratched off the date!
I was surprised we came so close to winning given our time was under 6 hours (due to starting late then finishing early), we'd all but written off our chances when we started!
Thanks to Chris for organising it.
Sadly a certain person was not on duty at Liverpool Central so we were unable to meet him. Also there was no sign of the infamous person who is banned from Lime Street.
We were talking about what date to scratch off, and how it was Evil Hippo's railcard expiry date and how he had a new one that also expired on the same date but in 2010, so I went and scratched off the year as 2010 by mistake
Amazingly no-one spotted it all day, although we were hardly checked as Merseyrail rely on barriers rather than on-train checks. (I asked at the ticket office if I could swap it but he endorseded it on the back but no-one checked that) The RPIs seemed uninterested if you looked normal & valid, but surprisingly they didn't issue a PF to someone who had not scratched off the date!
I was surprised we came so close to winning given our time was under 6 hours (due to starting late then finishing early), we'd all but written off our chances when we started!
Thanks to Chris for organising it.
Sadly a certain person was not on duty at Liverpool Central so we were unable to meet him. Also there was no sign of the infamous person who is banned from Lime Street.
37401
Established Member
Also there was no sign of the infamous person who is banned from Lime Street.
could be why they never showed, how on earth do you get banned from a station!
MCR247
Established Member
- Joined
- 7 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 10,290
If were talking about the same person By abusing staff therefore getting an ASBO.
ChrisTheRef
Established Member
That's the one. Something about throwing a bike...
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