Right then, last Monday I had decided would be my day out in Merseyside. I’ve chosen to write this one up because I don’t want to make anyone think ‘Oh, not another London Travelcard’ – and the other trip I kind of buggered up a bit. Of all I’ve done so far this summer, this is the closest to home, and really I’ve covered plenty of it already, including at a recent forum meet.
I’d bought myself Advances from Liverpool STNS for this trip – okay, a bit cheap I know only coming from Manchester, but at least they are available from my local station with East Midlands Trains – bloody TransPennine Express are allergic to ‘& Connections’ though, so I had to put up with EMT. Since I can only do it on a weekday it does help me get there for 09:30 when the ranger becomes valid. I think buying advances from Manchester is like a stealth tax on bashing because I always forget to take account of the anytime return from my local that I’ll have to pay! Grr. At least it’s now July and there’s a Railcard discount.
Anyway back on topic, I caught the 07:59 to Manchester Piccadilly with all of the other commuters, having collected my tickets from a horrible Parkeon machine that makes them look practically fake. I was on the 08:37, so had a little look around here for a few minutes before heading over to the crush on Platform 14. I spotted a TransPennine Express 170 with Cleethorpes on the front which hadn’t been seen for quite some months here and was on its first day back with us!
I might include a few supporting photos here and there far too many knowing me, but most are not very good! Sorry!
Anyway, a pair of 158s arrived, which was good. My seat was in coach A… but from front to back the formation seemed to be BADC… which makes sense. Coach formations can be displayed OK elsewhere, and I KNOW ‘Anne’ can be programmed to give train lengths… its getting a bit annoying that none of this information – not even the actual location of First Class is never available at Manchester Pic. Ah well. The train was VERY hot, and got hotter as we headed west (typical 158 AC :roll
even though it had seemed busier coming into Manchester than leaving it. Overall I do like the EMT 158s, I think most passengers probably think they are much newer trains than any Northern 158 you might care to show them and their interior really is good… except for the low seat pitch – that’s a bit uncomfortable. I soon made it to Liverpool Lime Street.
The choice of which ticket to buy really did confuse me a bit; and I spent a good 20 minutes looking on the Merseyrail/Merseytravel websites. The legendary lack of clear information from PTEs is undiminished it seems – and I still made the wrong choice. Thankfully the man in the ticket office here knew what he was talking about and he smiled when I asked what he could sell me for a ‘Merseyrail Day Ticket’. His first suggestion was the ‘northwirrallines’ ticket… which I think is what’s on the Merseyrail website as a Day Saver? I’d heard of the odd practice of issuing singles to this destination and these being used as a ranger, but I was promptly advised that for the additional investment of 10p, I could use ‘a selection of buses from Arriva and Stagecoach and be covered as far as Garswood, Newton-le-Willows and anywhere else within the Merseytravel area’. This was the confusing part – I hadn’t thougt that a £4.80 ‘Saveaway’ ticket was valid on non-Merseyrail train services. My concern then was that it would be valid ONLY within the Merseytravel area, but it still seems to be valid to Chester and Ormskirk. I guess that’s just a quirk of the system really… Those two places get extra ticket validity and much improved services because they are served by Merseyrail – even though they are outside the Merseytravel area. The ticket itself still looks a bit fishy though, because it says ‘Day Ticket’ rather than ‘One Day Ranger’ – and has “00M01D” in the validity, almost like it’s been added to the database as a One Day Season!
Anyway, on to the main event, Merseyrail! My first plan was to do the part of the Wirral Line that I’ve never done before – New Brighton and West Kirby branches. With Lime Street Low Level closed, I shunned the idea of a bus for the short distance to Moorfields and walked the even shorter distance to Liverpool Central. I descended to the Wirral Line platform and as luck would have it a train for New Brighton was next. The refurbished station at Central is nice, it really is. It’s bright and clean and looks… white. Rather than a dirty yellowy brown like it used to. I’m always somewhat taken aback by the physical assets that Merseyside’s underground stations are to the area… 6-car platforms all round, nice big tunnels – the one under the Mersey must be an invaluable link - and a very clever ‘loop line’ system that allows some shockingly good frequencies for a non-London commuter transit system. Imagine trying to get something like this built today? With perhaps the age of the rolling stock the only major caveat, it seems to suit the area right down to the ground… and below it
After that odd moment that I always have when getting on or off a 507/8 because there is no passenger door control, I made my way down to New Brighton.
I’ve always found these high-backed seats quite comfortable actually, where some complain they are too hard? What really IS a problem is the bloomin’ window alignment! Did they just fail to consider this at all when they re-seated them? I don’t think there is a single seat on the train that offers what might be considered a ‘full’ view. That said… I’d take this interior over that found inside a 378 any day!
New Brighton has an interesting concrete canopy there… but something of a problem with peeling paint on it. This part of The Wirral seems kinda nice, with a golf course and some large houses, but a bit… uncared for, almost. I tried to think of anything I knew of Wallasey or New Brighton, but no mention of their name came to mind for any reason of historical interest whatsoever. But that’s just me, I think. I returned on the same train after taking a brief look around:
The Wirral can’t be a bad place to live, less than half an hour in many places from the centre of Liverpool and right by the sea. You can see it in the background above. The journey to West Kirby was to reinforce this idea.
This is back at Birkenhead North for the change over the bridge, I noted that all still seems to be in place for an un-used third platform, and a nice well-tended canopy.
There were hardly any other passengers around, but there was a man up some ladders on the opposite platform trying to fix a sign, just off to the left here.
Shame there’s not much shelter on that platform eh! As I was standing on the bridge the train to West Kirby arrived (keep wanting to but a second ‘k’ in it) – on a side note, is it just me that’s noticing odd things about some place names around here… Kirkby > West Kirby, Orrell > Orrell Park, Meols Cop > Meols Mossley > Mossley Hill and some long-distance ones: Moreton-in-Marsh > Moreton, Brighton > New Brighton, Sutton > Little Sutton and the bombshell: London Waterloo > Waterloo. Hmmmm.
West Kirby I was particularly impressed with for its hanging baskets and flower pots:
Though same problem with the canopy and peeling paint by the looks of it.
This part of town looks very nice too
I remember coming here years ago to walk out across the beach to an island at low tide… could it be the Hilbre Island touted by the nice platform signs that feature at many stations around here?
On the way there – I think sometime around Bidston, just as I was admiring the works that are going on there something happened that I was not expecting – and, though I was a little more prepared for it, it did again on the run back into Liverpool: the guard came around checking tickets! Now, I knew Merseyrail guards didn’t carry ticket machines and had done long before I’d heard of South West Trains and London Overground and the term ‘non-commercial’… but I guess that from having spent more combined time on those two that I had come to the assumption that none of them check tickets. After all, what do you do if you find someone without a ticket? If the answer is simply ask them to leave on the grounds that it is OK because there will be staff at the next station (if it’s in the Merseytravel area, there should be, something else I’m highly jealous of coming from TfGM’s shockingly understaffed area) then I can well understand why there don’t seem to be all that many guards who bother with it. What do you do if someone has no ticket and refuses to leave the train? They might not even be all that nasty, just unwilling to delay their journey! I take it the guards cannot issue Penalty Fares? So do they just get away with it as long as it’s a guard that finds them, or can he/she report them to the RPIs? And what of the ticket office staff? Correct me if I’m wrong, please do, but this seems to be something of a perfunctory ticket check! If its not, why don’t the non-commercial guards elsewhere undertake them? Oh, it all has to be so confusing doesn’t it. Ranging from checks tickets but doesn’t do doors (Southeastern High Speed?), does doors but doesn’t check tickets (SWT?), some weird hybrid form of ‘doing doors’ like closing but not opening, or giving the signal to close to the driver, but checking tickets (Pendolinos and Voyagers??) all the way to doing both, all the time, with time spent in the cab ranging from not much (Southern) to lots (Northern). Hope that’s not too unfair on anyone No offence intended, all are large generalisations to help me understand policy. And oh look, now that I’ve come up with some categories… Merseyrail don’t seem to fit into any of them!
Back on track then, I headed back into Liverpool on the same train I’d come on – with the same guard checking a coach worth of tickets for a few stops. I got off at Moorfields to go and appreciate the underground station a bit more. I needn’t have bothered!
It doesn’t yet seem as though the Liverpool underground stations refurbishment programme has made it to Moorfields, so it shouldn’t be judged too harshly, but it is a bit of a mess.
It’s difficult to imagine TfL leaving a corridor like that… especially at such a central location.
Those old escalators are a mess, and that black floor covering is just depressing. Shows you just how times change too from when that yellow wall covering and the brown tunnel shaped covers in the ‘tube’ platforms might have been considered attractive. I suspect they were when they were new! I remember the first time I came to this station, I got off the southbound Northern line and wanted to find the Wirral Line platform… but got lost! That’s another thing about these corridors and the (refurbished!) ones at James Street – they’re hopelessly badly signed at times!
Five corridors meet there… and there are hardly any signs!
At least they are safety conscious with lots of modern ‘OFF’ indicators all over the place. Are they new? Some looked new-ish. I took a train down to Liverpool Central next to experience the difference following the extended period of closure – I’d had to jump straight onto the train earlier. Anyway, I can certainly say that the inconvenience of the closure has certainly paid off!
This was the train that took me, quite a tidy wrap I thought and for a local cause too, which is nice. Better than FGW+HP at any rate!
I’m afraid I can’t really do it justice with my bad photos. But just a new floor covering and new fixtures as well as a brighter, cleaner interior make all the difference!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything useable of the new upper concourse with the ticket barriers, nor the Wirral line platform, but it looks great! I like the green walls too - and it seems that they have free toilets too? Every other toilet I saw all day was locked with a message on it about using the intercom or asking staff for a key to gain access. I can imagine why this is done, but it would be a very odd conversation you’d have with someone on that intercom! I found this escalator down to the Wirral line platform too from platforms 1+2 which I never knew was here:
Seems a tad claustrophobic if I’m honest! Can’t think of another escalator like it anywhere…
My next journey was down to Hunt’s Cross. It was not particularly eventful but I did note the canopy at Aigburth that I’d heard was the cause of some controversy recently.
Hunt’s Cross looks good actually in its Merseytravel yellow.
I wonder if that is an old station building up there on the left? I think tickets are being sold from a smaller hut now. I was again surprised to find good facilities here: I seem to recall a shop, waiting room and toilets (I’m just remembering this from Searle and the Chesire Day Ranger meet!). That shot with a pacer in that platform would be good in the Memes thread with the text somebody made up about ‘Tell me more about how Pacers can’t run on 3rd Rail Lines’. What did annoy me though was that I couldn’t see any live information screens for the CLC line platforms. There was a single Merseyrail departures indicator, which I think is a bit outdated for most places and is totally insufficient here. Apologies if I’ve missed something.
Then for the short hop back to Liverpool South Parkway. I am almost as disappointed by the quality of the Passenger Information System here as that at Hunt’s Cross! The screens on the High Level platforms DO NOT show who is operating which trains! This station is served by 5 TOCs and I think this information is important. Don’t think there are any platform staff here either so could cause problems with some tickets! And WHY aren’t there any announcements! I can understand the rationale for not having any on Merseyrail (for departures that is, as they do have network diagrams and were playing ‘Metro style’ service updates about the upcoming track closures) but long-distance departures to Scarborough, Birmingham New Street and Norwich (It makes me laugh how Merseyrail have put ‘East Anglia’ on the arrow pointing towards Manchester along the CLC route as a result of this – the other destinations are Manchester and Yorkshire I think. I’d have gone for ‘East Midlands’ instead!) surely warrant them! It seems the rumours that collecting tickets from here isn’t possible is also true – which is unbelievable for a station this size. You can collect your tickets from Birchgrove if you want, a single-platform halt, but not from a major interchange like this. In the long term, I really don’t see why Merseyrail can’t allow people to collect tickets from their TVMs – wouldn’t they get the fee even if they weren’t selling the tickets from their own website? As a short-term measure, can’t Northern or any of EMT, TPE and LM be persuaded to put a machine here? I guess they’re not allowed to for some reason.
After the long but not unpleasant walk through the nice new station, up endless flights of stairs and two gatelines I caught a London Midland 350 on Platform 2 (which I’d timed by using the NRE app – its indistinguishable from TPE and EMT on the station boards!) to Lime Srteet again, which was blissfully cool! I noticed a Blackpool North train in platform 3 which appeared to be in service. I had no idea anyone had started using those two platforms! Running fast to Lime Street itself as well and a 156 – not a service I was familiar with. The 350 seemed to cover the short journey even faster than I was expecting, with Julie’s announcement for arrival playing just as we were passing through Edge Hill. The signallers had other ideas though, as it was at least 5 minutes that people had to stand by the doors for before we arrived!
In preference to continuing the Merseyrail bash, I decided to explore as much of a new line as possible and go out to Garswood on a Wigan North Western stopper. Sadly it was a 142 and one with bench seats – although I think that’s still better than the ex-Merseytravel units that this place spawned! I thought longingly of an Arriva Trains Wales pacer or even a Northern 144 which are far more comfortable I think. None would have been a more comfortable temperature on a day like this though, I fear. Now then; coming from Greater Manchester I am exceptionally jealous of the comparison in staffing in Merseyside. Oh, I’ve said that already? Well the difference is so stark! Offering a ticket office with a full range of fares throughout the day, from first train to last is so important and would help solve so many problems on Manchester’s suburban railways. Of course there will still be people who walk past, but it’s harder to and you have no excuse once on the train. My local station is not staffed at all at weekends, it’s almost unimaginable having somebody there – or indeed at any of the smaller stations around here – to sell tickets on a Sunday afternoon
I’m not sure how well TVMs have caught on around here, but it seems much better than they have in Manchester! In exchange for what may well be a lot of cash for station operating costs from Merseytravel, Northern have surrendered the station signs, it seems. Northern’s standard signs are quite nice; blue with white writing and a bar at the bottom which contains the Northern logo on the right and a local logo on the left. In Manchester there’s a GMPTE logo there, because they’re too lazy to make a sticker to go over it with TfGM’s new logo on it (except at Manchester Oxford Road). In appropriate places, Travel South Yorkshire, Metro, Nexus and I think even Lancashire County Council have had their logo added. However, in Merseyside, the signs are Merseyrail-style with the yellow ‘M’ and a white background. The only concession to Northern is that their logo remains in place bottom right. The journey to Garswood took me past some incredibly well-served stations. I think Wavertree Technology Park had between 5 and 6 trains per hour to Liverpool! The nicely refurbished new St Helen’s Central station looks good too and was well patronised. When I got off at Garswood there was a man in a Merseytravel uniform who pointed out to the guard (who had only come through to check tickets after the previous station!) that someone getting on at the front didn’t appear to have a ticket. At first I was confused as to who they were, because the man in the waiting room behind the ticket office counter was selling tickets in a Northern uniform as expected. After I’d crossed to the opposite platform it became clear – they were data collecting for Merseytravel. I’m not sure if their role is to actually check tickets as well, because I was greeted with the question of where I was going (I said Lime Street for simplicity, but could have said anywhere! Wish I’d said Trafford Park or Eccles now!) and asked how I had arrived at the station (I had to scrabble for ‘on foot’ as I couldn’t very well say ‘by train’!). He then asked if my journey was just for leisure or for something else like studying – I imagine they say business travel or something to most people as some might be a tad affronted if the purpose of travel were asked for without generic options given! I had a brief conversation with him (there was nobody else on the platform) about station staffing and how good it was to see someone at every Merseytravel station, and indeed them additionally. He liked that, and said that the next station over, Bryn, was in Greater Manchester and totally unstaffed, which is a ‘really not good, no station should be unstaffed’. I think it’s a disgrace how stark the comparison is.
Anyway a 156 turned up to take me back to Lime Street, which was sporting some of Northern’s new ‘Keep Your Feet Off The Seats’ stickers, which I’m really glad about because the 323s are awful for it and some are getting the stickers now too. I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t get a single good photo of Garswood but there’s this one which shows the impressive canopy of Lime Street (there is a plaque to commemorate Railtrack’s replacement of the roof) and the work that’s taking place to refurbish the platform edges.
For a bit more Desiro bashing I went back to South Parkway on a 350 and then returned on a 185. Both were lovely and cool in the baking heat and it really showed off the similarities between the two. Now if only the 185s had four coaches and a corridor connector
As I realised I was going to run out of time, I then headed back to Liverpool Central for a train to Southport. I’d been as far as Freshfield before, but it was all new track after that. The unit was packed and got very hot indeed, but at least I got to sit down. The revenue protection team appeared to have a number of staff standing onboard, but not actually checking tickets. They got off half way along so they must have been on their way to a blockade somewhere and just stood there to scare people. Southport was larger than I had imagined it might be but then I should have guessed its larger bygone significance as a holiday destination would mean result in extra platforms. It looks as though two or three would be sufficient.
A six car train was formed for my return journey, which is good because I’d never been on one on Merseyrail before though I missed them coupling it up. There seemed to be a fair few empty movements around too.
I guess this shot shows the variability in condition of Merseyrail’s stock quite well. Unless one is a 508 and the other a 507. Some units look smart and clean on the outside, and only a few years old even on the inside with new seats that look a bit like those on 379s and somewhere else (could it be LO 172s?).
I didn’t know it was called the West Lancashire Line! Though I’m not that sure some of Merseyrail’s boards are really that helpful… this one is very confusing, though for local journeys I suppose they do help a bit. I don’t like the circle and square system for the Merseytravel stations and I really don’t think putting Town Green – Ormskirk in a ‘zone’ out on their own helps show their ‘semi-PTE’ status very well.
This is a clever concept as well! A shop in a station that you can also buy tickets from! I could only see a TVM though as an alternative and I’m not sure how most people feel about it? It could create problems if you have complicated enquiries and there are people behind you who just want to buy a drink. Most of the customers in there did not seem to actually want any tickets. Can Advances be bought from these stations? That might cause something of a queue!
Anyway the train back seemed really long - clearly I’m too used to Northern who are allergic to more than 4 cars. The journey back started out very quietly indeed.
I even noticed the wedges that had been put into the windows to stop them opening further – which was blooming annoying given how hot the train was!
I liked one thing about these trains in particular though; they have a massive step! You can stand right out on the edge of the step and almost be clear of the doors it’s so big! Actually, that must be a bad thing! I actually stepped down onto the platform at Waterloo (hehe) and looked down the train from the front set of doors. I couldn’t see the guard, but he closed the doors all the same and I guess he can’t have seen me! Is anyone on here a Merseyrail guard? Is it easy to see down trains of this length? A couple of other things jumped out at me as well… the ‘cab’ (well, it’s not actually to the cab is it? It’s the FCC-will-prosecute-you-if-you-stand-here area, which seems like a massive waste since there isn’t even a window for the guard to lean out of when leaving the station!) door doesn’t seem to be interlocked on these units because lots of guards pressed the bell with them still open and slid it aside before the train had stopped. Hey, if it reduces the dwell time it sounds like a good thing to me. Less ammo for the people who want Merseyrail to go DOO. They still have the two bars on the door and on the side of the cab too, which it looks like Greater Anglia have removed from their trains which had them. I wonder why… What were they originally for?
I jumped down at Sandhills to get the Ormskirk branch done – I’d done Kirkby to Liverpool as a single journey a few weeks before and it really wasn’t that interesting. At least it was short, then. Unfortunately I checked the screens once on arrival, which said the next train was for Ormskirk, and then got on it. It was another Southport train! How annoying to make a basic mistake that I only realised when the ‘This service is for Southport’ announcement came on. Resigned to waiting for another train back at Bank Hall (which I saw I had just missed) I got off the rammed, melting train. Fortunately, the map informed me that the walk to Kirkdale was very short indeed, so it might just be possible to get the following Ormskirk train from there, if I could find it. Luckily, I did and the walk wasn’t too scary, as long as I kept the broken glass out of my sandals.
Good to see lifts here too!
There were plenty of returning commuters on the Ormskirk branch which prett soon made the train comfortably filled rather than crushed – and it was another 6 car train! I was very amused by the “Alight here for Aintree” sign, right next to the one that said “Aintree” haha! A bit obvious? When we got to Ormskirk, a Pacer was in on the Preston service. Looking at the two trains, it’s hard to imagine that the fleet of the hated is newer than the fleet that will be much missed, I think. If you were to look at the interiors then its clear to see that the older Merseyrail trains have carried their years far, far better. It just adds to the disgrace that First North Western and Northern after them deserve for keeping their pacers going in the condition they are in.
I reflected on the way back about the 508/7 fleet. They are the only trains ‘up North’ that I can think of that don’t have toilets or passenger door controls. The latter kind of bugs me actually and it’s clear from the excessive wear on the bottom of the doors that they take some punishment as a result. I wonder if the door failure rate is any higher than on most units of a similar age which do have passenger controls. Their PIS is good too, voiced by a famous voice and it seems to strike the right balance of information for a Metro style service. The obvious problem with window alignment aside, their interior is even pretty good:
Although they are showing their age, I might be a bit sad when they do go… though PLEASE can we have air conditioning on their replacements? I’ve often said that the luckiest bunch of commuters ‘up North’ (i.e. outside the South East but excluding Scotland) are those on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines (the 333s). I think, given the excellent frequencies, high capacity and clever design, once the underground stations are refurbished and the new stock delivered, that accolade will move to Merseyrail.
The journey back home from Lime Street:
What a nice façade!
Another pair of EMT 158s… boiling. Almost unbearable. Or so I thought. I went to the front of the train opening all the doors and bumped into the driver “Have you ever been on a 158 with working air con?” He grimaced “It’s like an oven in the cab, but its alright down there!” gesturing to the rear of the train. And he was right! 1 of 4 coaches nice and cool
Now if any of you made it that far…
Thanks for reading!
I’d bought myself Advances from Liverpool STNS for this trip – okay, a bit cheap I know only coming from Manchester, but at least they are available from my local station with East Midlands Trains – bloody TransPennine Express are allergic to ‘& Connections’ though, so I had to put up with EMT. Since I can only do it on a weekday it does help me get there for 09:30 when the ranger becomes valid. I think buying advances from Manchester is like a stealth tax on bashing because I always forget to take account of the anytime return from my local that I’ll have to pay! Grr. At least it’s now July and there’s a Railcard discount.
Anyway back on topic, I caught the 07:59 to Manchester Piccadilly with all of the other commuters, having collected my tickets from a horrible Parkeon machine that makes them look practically fake. I was on the 08:37, so had a little look around here for a few minutes before heading over to the crush on Platform 14. I spotted a TransPennine Express 170 with Cleethorpes on the front which hadn’t been seen for quite some months here and was on its first day back with us!
I might include a few supporting photos here and there far too many knowing me, but most are not very good! Sorry!
Anyway, a pair of 158s arrived, which was good. My seat was in coach A… but from front to back the formation seemed to be BADC… which makes sense. Coach formations can be displayed OK elsewhere, and I KNOW ‘Anne’ can be programmed to give train lengths… its getting a bit annoying that none of this information – not even the actual location of First Class is never available at Manchester Pic. Ah well. The train was VERY hot, and got hotter as we headed west (typical 158 AC :roll
even though it had seemed busier coming into Manchester than leaving it. Overall I do like the EMT 158s, I think most passengers probably think they are much newer trains than any Northern 158 you might care to show them and their interior really is good… except for the low seat pitch – that’s a bit uncomfortable. I soon made it to Liverpool Lime Street.The choice of which ticket to buy really did confuse me a bit; and I spent a good 20 minutes looking on the Merseyrail/Merseytravel websites. The legendary lack of clear information from PTEs is undiminished it seems – and I still made the wrong choice. Thankfully the man in the ticket office here knew what he was talking about and he smiled when I asked what he could sell me for a ‘Merseyrail Day Ticket’. His first suggestion was the ‘northwirrallines’ ticket… which I think is what’s on the Merseyrail website as a Day Saver? I’d heard of the odd practice of issuing singles to this destination and these being used as a ranger, but I was promptly advised that for the additional investment of 10p, I could use ‘a selection of buses from Arriva and Stagecoach and be covered as far as Garswood, Newton-le-Willows and anywhere else within the Merseytravel area’. This was the confusing part – I hadn’t thougt that a £4.80 ‘Saveaway’ ticket was valid on non-Merseyrail train services. My concern then was that it would be valid ONLY within the Merseytravel area, but it still seems to be valid to Chester and Ormskirk. I guess that’s just a quirk of the system really… Those two places get extra ticket validity and much improved services because they are served by Merseyrail – even though they are outside the Merseytravel area. The ticket itself still looks a bit fishy though, because it says ‘Day Ticket’ rather than ‘One Day Ranger’ – and has “00M01D” in the validity, almost like it’s been added to the database as a One Day Season!
Anyway, on to the main event, Merseyrail! My first plan was to do the part of the Wirral Line that I’ve never done before – New Brighton and West Kirby branches. With Lime Street Low Level closed, I shunned the idea of a bus for the short distance to Moorfields and walked the even shorter distance to Liverpool Central. I descended to the Wirral Line platform and as luck would have it a train for New Brighton was next. The refurbished station at Central is nice, it really is. It’s bright and clean and looks… white. Rather than a dirty yellowy brown like it used to. I’m always somewhat taken aback by the physical assets that Merseyside’s underground stations are to the area… 6-car platforms all round, nice big tunnels – the one under the Mersey must be an invaluable link - and a very clever ‘loop line’ system that allows some shockingly good frequencies for a non-London commuter transit system. Imagine trying to get something like this built today? With perhaps the age of the rolling stock the only major caveat, it seems to suit the area right down to the ground… and below it
After that odd moment that I always have when getting on or off a 507/8 because there is no passenger door control, I made my way down to New Brighton.
I’ve always found these high-backed seats quite comfortable actually, where some complain they are too hard? What really IS a problem is the bloomin’ window alignment! Did they just fail to consider this at all when they re-seated them? I don’t think there is a single seat on the train that offers what might be considered a ‘full’ view. That said… I’d take this interior over that found inside a 378 any day!
New Brighton has an interesting concrete canopy there… but something of a problem with peeling paint on it. This part of The Wirral seems kinda nice, with a golf course and some large houses, but a bit… uncared for, almost. I tried to think of anything I knew of Wallasey or New Brighton, but no mention of their name came to mind for any reason of historical interest whatsoever. But that’s just me, I think. I returned on the same train after taking a brief look around:
The Wirral can’t be a bad place to live, less than half an hour in many places from the centre of Liverpool and right by the sea. You can see it in the background above. The journey to West Kirby was to reinforce this idea.
This is back at Birkenhead North for the change over the bridge, I noted that all still seems to be in place for an un-used third platform, and a nice well-tended canopy.
There were hardly any other passengers around, but there was a man up some ladders on the opposite platform trying to fix a sign, just off to the left here.
Shame there’s not much shelter on that platform eh! As I was standing on the bridge the train to West Kirby arrived (keep wanting to but a second ‘k’ in it) – on a side note, is it just me that’s noticing odd things about some place names around here… Kirkby > West Kirby, Orrell > Orrell Park, Meols Cop > Meols Mossley > Mossley Hill and some long-distance ones: Moreton-in-Marsh > Moreton, Brighton > New Brighton, Sutton > Little Sutton and the bombshell: London Waterloo > Waterloo. Hmmmm.
West Kirby I was particularly impressed with for its hanging baskets and flower pots:
Though same problem with the canopy and peeling paint by the looks of it.
This part of town looks very nice too
I remember coming here years ago to walk out across the beach to an island at low tide… could it be the Hilbre Island touted by the nice platform signs that feature at many stations around here?
On the way there – I think sometime around Bidston, just as I was admiring the works that are going on there something happened that I was not expecting – and, though I was a little more prepared for it, it did again on the run back into Liverpool: the guard came around checking tickets! Now, I knew Merseyrail guards didn’t carry ticket machines and had done long before I’d heard of South West Trains and London Overground and the term ‘non-commercial’… but I guess that from having spent more combined time on those two that I had come to the assumption that none of them check tickets. After all, what do you do if you find someone without a ticket? If the answer is simply ask them to leave on the grounds that it is OK because there will be staff at the next station (if it’s in the Merseytravel area, there should be, something else I’m highly jealous of coming from TfGM’s shockingly understaffed area) then I can well understand why there don’t seem to be all that many guards who bother with it. What do you do if someone has no ticket and refuses to leave the train? They might not even be all that nasty, just unwilling to delay their journey! I take it the guards cannot issue Penalty Fares? So do they just get away with it as long as it’s a guard that finds them, or can he/she report them to the RPIs? And what of the ticket office staff? Correct me if I’m wrong, please do, but this seems to be something of a perfunctory ticket check! If its not, why don’t the non-commercial guards elsewhere undertake them? Oh, it all has to be so confusing doesn’t it. Ranging from checks tickets but doesn’t do doors (Southeastern High Speed?), does doors but doesn’t check tickets (SWT?), some weird hybrid form of ‘doing doors’ like closing but not opening, or giving the signal to close to the driver, but checking tickets (Pendolinos and Voyagers??) all the way to doing both, all the time, with time spent in the cab ranging from not much (Southern) to lots (Northern). Hope that’s not too unfair on anyone
No offence intended, all are large generalisations to help me understand policy. And oh look, now that I’ve come up with some categories… Merseyrail don’t seem to fit into any of them! Back on track then, I headed back into Liverpool on the same train I’d come on – with the same guard checking a coach worth of tickets for a few stops. I got off at Moorfields to go and appreciate the underground station a bit more. I needn’t have bothered!
It doesn’t yet seem as though the Liverpool underground stations refurbishment programme has made it to Moorfields, so it shouldn’t be judged too harshly, but it is a bit of a mess.
It’s difficult to imagine TfL leaving a corridor like that… especially at such a central location.
Those old escalators are a mess, and that black floor covering is just depressing. Shows you just how times change too from when that yellow wall covering and the brown tunnel shaped covers in the ‘tube’ platforms might have been considered attractive. I suspect they were when they were new! I remember the first time I came to this station, I got off the southbound Northern line and wanted to find the Wirral Line platform… but got lost! That’s another thing about these corridors and the (refurbished!) ones at James Street – they’re hopelessly badly signed at times!
Five corridors meet there… and there are hardly any signs!
At least they are safety conscious with lots of modern ‘OFF’ indicators all over the place. Are they new? Some looked new-ish. I took a train down to Liverpool Central next to experience the difference following the extended period of closure – I’d had to jump straight onto the train earlier. Anyway, I can certainly say that the inconvenience of the closure has certainly paid off!
This was the train that took me, quite a tidy wrap I thought and for a local cause too, which is nice. Better than FGW+HP at any rate!
I’m afraid I can’t really do it justice with my bad photos. But just a new floor covering and new fixtures as well as a brighter, cleaner interior make all the difference!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything useable of the new upper concourse with the ticket barriers, nor the Wirral line platform, but it looks great! I like the green walls too - and it seems that they have free toilets too? Every other toilet I saw all day was locked with a message on it about using the intercom or asking staff for a key to gain access. I can imagine why this is done, but it would be a very odd conversation you’d have with someone on that intercom! I found this escalator down to the Wirral line platform too from platforms 1+2 which I never knew was here:
Seems a tad claustrophobic if I’m honest! Can’t think of another escalator like it anywhere…
My next journey was down to Hunt’s Cross. It was not particularly eventful but I did note the canopy at Aigburth that I’d heard was the cause of some controversy recently.
Hunt’s Cross looks good actually in its Merseytravel yellow.
I wonder if that is an old station building up there on the left? I think tickets are being sold from a smaller hut now. I was again surprised to find good facilities here: I seem to recall a shop, waiting room and toilets (I’m just remembering this from Searle and the Chesire Day Ranger meet!). That shot with a pacer in that platform would be good in the Memes thread with the text somebody made up about ‘Tell me more about how Pacers can’t run on 3rd Rail Lines’. What did annoy me though was that I couldn’t see any live information screens for the CLC line platforms. There was a single Merseyrail departures indicator, which I think is a bit outdated for most places and is totally insufficient here. Apologies if I’ve missed something.
Then for the short hop back to Liverpool South Parkway. I am almost as disappointed by the quality of the Passenger Information System here as that at Hunt’s Cross! The screens on the High Level platforms DO NOT show who is operating which trains! This station is served by 5 TOCs and I think this information is important. Don’t think there are any platform staff here either so could cause problems with some tickets! And WHY aren’t there any announcements! I can understand the rationale for not having any on Merseyrail (for departures that is, as they do have network diagrams and were playing ‘Metro style’ service updates about the upcoming track closures) but long-distance departures to Scarborough, Birmingham New Street and Norwich (It makes me laugh how Merseyrail have put ‘East Anglia’ on the arrow pointing towards Manchester along the CLC route as a result of this – the other destinations are Manchester and Yorkshire I think. I’d have gone for ‘East Midlands’ instead!) surely warrant them! It seems the rumours that collecting tickets from here isn’t possible is also true – which is unbelievable for a station this size. You can collect your tickets from Birchgrove if you want, a single-platform halt, but not from a major interchange like this. In the long term, I really don’t see why Merseyrail can’t allow people to collect tickets from their TVMs – wouldn’t they get the fee even if they weren’t selling the tickets from their own website? As a short-term measure, can’t Northern or any of EMT, TPE and LM be persuaded to put a machine here? I guess they’re not allowed to for some reason.
After the long but not unpleasant walk through the nice new station, up endless flights of stairs and two gatelines I caught a London Midland 350 on Platform 2 (which I’d timed by using the NRE app – its indistinguishable from TPE and EMT on the station boards!) to Lime Srteet again, which was blissfully cool! I noticed a Blackpool North train in platform 3 which appeared to be in service. I had no idea anyone had started using those two platforms! Running fast to Lime Street itself as well and a 156 – not a service I was familiar with. The 350 seemed to cover the short journey even faster than I was expecting, with Julie’s announcement for arrival playing just as we were passing through Edge Hill. The signallers had other ideas though, as it was at least 5 minutes that people had to stand by the doors for before we arrived!
In preference to continuing the Merseyrail bash, I decided to explore as much of a new line as possible and go out to Garswood on a Wigan North Western stopper. Sadly it was a 142 and one with bench seats – although I think that’s still better than the ex-Merseytravel units that this place spawned! I thought longingly of an Arriva Trains Wales pacer or even a Northern 144 which are far more comfortable I think. None would have been a more comfortable temperature on a day like this though, I fear. Now then; coming from Greater Manchester I am exceptionally jealous of the comparison in staffing in Merseyside. Oh, I’ve said that already? Well the difference is so stark! Offering a ticket office with a full range of fares throughout the day, from first train to last is so important and would help solve so many problems on Manchester’s suburban railways. Of course there will still be people who walk past, but it’s harder to and you have no excuse once on the train. My local station is not staffed at all at weekends, it’s almost unimaginable having somebody there – or indeed at any of the smaller stations around here – to sell tickets on a Sunday afternoon
I’m not sure how well TVMs have caught on around here, but it seems much better than they have in Manchester! In exchange for what may well be a lot of cash for station operating costs from Merseytravel, Northern have surrendered the station signs, it seems. Northern’s standard signs are quite nice; blue with white writing and a bar at the bottom which contains the Northern logo on the right and a local logo on the left. In Manchester there’s a GMPTE logo there, because they’re too lazy to make a sticker to go over it with TfGM’s new logo on it (except at Manchester Oxford Road). In appropriate places, Travel South Yorkshire, Metro, Nexus and I think even Lancashire County Council have had their logo added. However, in Merseyside, the signs are Merseyrail-style with the yellow ‘M’ and a white background. The only concession to Northern is that their logo remains in place bottom right. The journey to Garswood took me past some incredibly well-served stations. I think Wavertree Technology Park had between 5 and 6 trains per hour to Liverpool! The nicely refurbished new St Helen’s Central station looks good too and was well patronised. When I got off at Garswood there was a man in a Merseytravel uniform who pointed out to the guard (who had only come through to check tickets after the previous station!) that someone getting on at the front didn’t appear to have a ticket. At first I was confused as to who they were, because the man in the waiting room behind the ticket office counter was selling tickets in a Northern uniform as expected. After I’d crossed to the opposite platform it became clear – they were data collecting for Merseytravel. I’m not sure if their role is to actually check tickets as well, because I was greeted with the question of where I was going (I said Lime Street for simplicity, but could have said anywhere! Wish I’d said Trafford Park or Eccles now!) and asked how I had arrived at the station (I had to scrabble for ‘on foot’ as I couldn’t very well say ‘by train’!). He then asked if my journey was just for leisure or for something else like studying – I imagine they say business travel or something to most people as some might be a tad affronted if the purpose of travel were asked for without generic options given! I had a brief conversation with him (there was nobody else on the platform) about station staffing and how good it was to see someone at every Merseytravel station, and indeed them additionally. He liked that, and said that the next station over, Bryn, was in Greater Manchester and totally unstaffed, which is a ‘really not good, no station should be unstaffed’. I think it’s a disgrace how stark the comparison is. Anyway a 156 turned up to take me back to Lime Street, which was sporting some of Northern’s new ‘Keep Your Feet Off The Seats’ stickers, which I’m really glad about because the 323s are awful for it and some are getting the stickers now too. I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t get a single good photo of Garswood but there’s this one which shows the impressive canopy of Lime Street (there is a plaque to commemorate Railtrack’s replacement of the roof) and the work that’s taking place to refurbish the platform edges.
For a bit more Desiro bashing I went back to South Parkway on a 350 and then returned on a 185. Both were lovely and cool in the baking heat and it really showed off the similarities between the two. Now if only the 185s had four coaches and a corridor connector
As I realised I was going to run out of time, I then headed back to Liverpool Central for a train to Southport. I’d been as far as Freshfield before, but it was all new track after that. The unit was packed and got very hot indeed, but at least I got to sit down. The revenue protection team appeared to have a number of staff standing onboard, but not actually checking tickets. They got off half way along so they must have been on their way to a blockade somewhere and just stood there to scare people. Southport was larger than I had imagined it might be but then I should have guessed its larger bygone significance as a holiday destination would mean result in extra platforms. It looks as though two or three would be sufficient.
A six car train was formed for my return journey, which is good because I’d never been on one on Merseyrail before though I missed them coupling it up. There seemed to be a fair few empty movements around too.
I guess this shot shows the variability in condition of Merseyrail’s stock quite well. Unless one is a 508 and the other a 507. Some units look smart and clean on the outside, and only a few years old even on the inside with new seats that look a bit like those on 379s and somewhere else (could it be LO 172s?).
I didn’t know it was called the West Lancashire Line! Though I’m not that sure some of Merseyrail’s boards are really that helpful… this one is very confusing, though for local journeys I suppose they do help a bit. I don’t like the circle and square system for the Merseytravel stations and I really don’t think putting Town Green – Ormskirk in a ‘zone’ out on their own helps show their ‘semi-PTE’ status very well.
This is a clever concept as well! A shop in a station that you can also buy tickets from! I could only see a TVM though as an alternative and I’m not sure how most people feel about it? It could create problems if you have complicated enquiries and there are people behind you who just want to buy a drink. Most of the customers in there did not seem to actually want any tickets. Can Advances be bought from these stations? That might cause something of a queue!
Anyway the train back seemed really long - clearly I’m too used to Northern who are allergic to more than 4 cars. The journey back started out very quietly indeed.
I even noticed the wedges that had been put into the windows to stop them opening further – which was blooming annoying given how hot the train was!
I liked one thing about these trains in particular though; they have a massive step! You can stand right out on the edge of the step and almost be clear of the doors it’s so big! Actually, that must be a bad thing! I actually stepped down onto the platform at Waterloo (hehe) and looked down the train from the front set of doors. I couldn’t see the guard, but he closed the doors all the same and I guess he can’t have seen me! Is anyone on here a Merseyrail guard? Is it easy to see down trains of this length? A couple of other things jumped out at me as well… the ‘cab’ (well, it’s not actually to the cab is it? It’s the FCC-will-prosecute-you-if-you-stand-here area, which seems like a massive waste since there isn’t even a window for the guard to lean out of when leaving the station!) door doesn’t seem to be interlocked on these units because lots of guards pressed the bell with them still open and slid it aside before the train had stopped. Hey, if it reduces the dwell time it sounds like a good thing to me. Less ammo for the people who want Merseyrail to go DOO. They still have the two bars on the door and on the side of the cab too, which it looks like Greater Anglia have removed from their trains which had them. I wonder why… What were they originally for?
I jumped down at Sandhills to get the Ormskirk branch done – I’d done Kirkby to Liverpool as a single journey a few weeks before and it really wasn’t that interesting. At least it was short, then. Unfortunately I checked the screens once on arrival, which said the next train was for Ormskirk, and then got on it. It was another Southport train! How annoying to make a basic mistake that I only realised when the ‘This service is for Southport’ announcement came on. Resigned to waiting for another train back at Bank Hall (which I saw I had just missed) I got off the rammed, melting train. Fortunately, the map informed me that the walk to Kirkdale was very short indeed, so it might just be possible to get the following Ormskirk train from there, if I could find it. Luckily, I did and the walk wasn’t too scary, as long as I kept the broken glass out of my sandals.
Good to see lifts here too!
There were plenty of returning commuters on the Ormskirk branch which prett soon made the train comfortably filled rather than crushed – and it was another 6 car train! I was very amused by the “Alight here for Aintree” sign, right next to the one that said “Aintree” haha! A bit obvious? When we got to Ormskirk, a Pacer was in on the Preston service. Looking at the two trains, it’s hard to imagine that the fleet of the hated is newer than the fleet that will be much missed, I think. If you were to look at the interiors then its clear to see that the older Merseyrail trains have carried their years far, far better. It just adds to the disgrace that First North Western and Northern after them deserve for keeping their pacers going in the condition they are in.
I reflected on the way back about the 508/7 fleet. They are the only trains ‘up North’ that I can think of that don’t have toilets or passenger door controls. The latter kind of bugs me actually and it’s clear from the excessive wear on the bottom of the doors that they take some punishment as a result. I wonder if the door failure rate is any higher than on most units of a similar age which do have passenger controls. Their PIS is good too, voiced by a famous voice and it seems to strike the right balance of information for a Metro style service. The obvious problem with window alignment aside, their interior is even pretty good:
Although they are showing their age, I might be a bit sad when they do go… though PLEASE can we have air conditioning on their replacements? I’ve often said that the luckiest bunch of commuters ‘up North’ (i.e. outside the South East but excluding Scotland) are those on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines (the 333s). I think, given the excellent frequencies, high capacity and clever design, once the underground stations are refurbished and the new stock delivered, that accolade will move to Merseyrail.
The journey back home from Lime Street:
What a nice façade!
Another pair of EMT 158s… boiling. Almost unbearable. Or so I thought. I went to the front of the train opening all the doors and bumped into the driver “Have you ever been on a 158 with working air con?” He grimaced “It’s like an oven in the cab, but its alright down there!” gesturing to the rear of the train. And he was right! 1 of 4 coaches nice and cool
Now if any of you made it that far…
Thanks for reading!
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in relation to 
(The one leading out onto Chapel Street?)
