There are many bits of railway line in the country which, for whatever reason, are not served frequently (if at all) by passenger trains. In some cases the line remains open primarily for freight trains - clearly, there wouldn't be much point sending a passenger train via a huge freight yard! Sometimes such lines are simply dead-end branch lines, but some freight-only lines are connected at both ends to other lines and thus occasionally see use for diverting trains. In particular, there are frequently "triangles" of track (where three places are each connected to the other two by rail) on which not all sides of the triangle see a regular service.
For example, take the triangle formed by Birmingham New Street, Aston and Stechford. Passenger trains run between Birmingham and Lichfield via Aston, and between Birmingham and Coventry via Stechford; but very few passenger trains ever use the line between Stechford and Aston, mainly because no-one would want to go that way: people in that area mostly want to get to or from Birmingham New Street, not avoid it altogether!
However, aside from it being used for freight trains (which usually do want to avoid New Street!), such triangles are often useful for diverting passenger trains: in particular, it means that trains from Coventry can go via Stechford and Aston and go into New Street "round the back", as happened last August when I went to Edinburgh.
For various reasons, a fair number of these freight-only lines see regular passenger services just once or twice a day. One reason is that of route knowledge: for a driver to be permitted to drive over a route unsupervised, he must "sign the route", meaning he knows where all the signals are, what the speed limits are, what gradients there are, where the stations, bridges, tunnels, are, and so on. Unlike with driving a car, where you brake on sight, a train driver has to know where and when to brake: if you can see the station, you're not going to stop in time!
But the other main reason for such once-a-day services is pretty insane: running one train a day (or even one train a week, in some cases) over a line means that the line counts as "open", rather than "closed", and thus circumvents the need to go through a formal closure procedure. This kind of "parliamentary train", as it's known, sounds completely insane, until you realise that running one train a day over a line (especially a line that has to be there anyway for freight trains to use) is pretty cheap - usually only costing the driver's and guard's wages and the cost of diesel, sometimes totalling less than £100 - but the closure procedure, often involving public inquiries, can run to millions of pounds.
In some ways it's good that it's hard to close a line, because it prevents operators from deciding on a whim that a given line should lose its service; on the other hand, when some of these lines have had just one train a day for over a decade the line may as well be called "closed".
Anyway, our aim for the day was to go on two rarely-used railway lines near Morecambe, on the west coast just north of Lancaster. (Why, you might ask? Because we hadn't been on them!) After checking out of our hotel at about 8:30, we wandered over to York station, where our train to Preston had already arrived; the guard showed up about 8:50, so we got on and ate our breakfast before it departed:
0911 York to Preston, arr 1132
Headcode: 1B24, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 158757
Distance: 88.5 miles; walk-up price: £17.50
This York-Blackpool North service is one of the few major trans-Pennine routes not run by TransPennine Express, probably because it doesn't serve Manchester (TPE's hub of operations). While the route serves more of the West Yorkshire conurbation - passing through Leeds, Bradford and Halifax - it misses Greater Manchester completely, turning right after Hebden Bridge and heading through Burnley, Accrington and Blackburn before meeting the WCML at Preston. Being Northern's only service each hour between York and Leeds, the train starts out as a local train calling all stations between York and Leeds; almost all the others (run by TPE and CrossCountry) run non-stop. West of Leeds, however, the train is one of Northern's few "express" services, missing out a number of the local stations.
Bradford Interchange is a terminus station, and through trains must reverse to continue their journey. This is the legacy of a railway network laid out by individual companies, with little cooperation or coordination, whose failure to join up the two terminus stations in Bradford - just 500m apart as the crow flies - partly contributed to making Leeds, rather than Bradford, the most important city in the West Yorkshire conurbation; although a "Bradford Crossrail" has been proposed as recently as the 1990s, it would require major upheaval both to Bradford's city centre as well as to all the existing train services in West Yorkshire.
In spite of the route between Hebden Bridge and Preston being, for me at least, "new track" - in that I hadn't been on it before - I found myself dozing off, five days of train travel having taken their toll. But I didn't really sleep much; I just missed out on the lovely views of the valleys of the Calder, Darwen and Ribble that thread their way through the West Yorkshire and east Lancashire countryside.
On arriving at Preston, we had planned to get the 11:53 service to Lancaster, which was a Virgin Trains service from Birmingham to Edinburgh; however, Ian realised on the way into Preston that there should be another train - the London-Glasgow service - through beforehand. There was indeed at 11:41 service to Lancaster; the reason it hadn't shown up was because it would have fallen foul of the minimum connection allowance - it only gave us 9 minutes to change trains, when the allowance at Preston is 10. Nonetheless, we happily made it over to platform 4:
1141 Preston to Lancaster, arr 1154
Headcode: 1S48, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390107
Distance: 21 miles; walk-up price: £5.15
This short journey brought an unexpected treat: my first 11-car Pendolino. Virgin Trains - well, more accurately, Angel Trains (one of the rolling stock holding companies) - have procured 106 extra carriages for the Pendolinos, which will lengthen 31 of the existing fleet of 52 Pendolinos from 9-car to 11-car, as well as provide four brand new 11-car Pendolinos. The four new 11-car Pendolinos - numbered 390154-390157 - entered service in April, and over the course of this year, the new carriages are being inserted into the existing Pendolinos when they come up to Manchester for maintenance.
The extra coaches posed a problem for Virgin Trains: how to label them. The existing 9-car Pendolinos have carriages lettered ABCDEGHJK, with ABCDE being standard class and GHJK being first class; they left F free for future lengthening to 10-car, but 11-car was not considered as a possibility back when the Pendolinos first entered service. Faced with the problem of finding two letters to go between E and G, Virgin Trains decided on F and U, with U standing for "unreserved". (No, seriously.) This was preferred to the more obvious solution of just relabelling all the coaches in sequence, as that would have involved completely changing the existing reservation system.
And thus it was that we ended up in coach U of 390107 (formerly 390007; the lengthened Pendolinos are having 100 added to their unit number to distinguish them). The new Pendolino carriages look almost exactly like the old ones, just a bit newer and fresher. They are no more comfortable, and still have the same (i.e. pretty rubbish) level of visibility. Oh well.
On arriving at Lancaster, we grabbed a drink before getting on the train which was half the reason we were in this neck of the woods, for our first bit of rare track:
1228 Lancaster to Heysham Port, arr 1257
Headcode: 2H84, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 150139
Distance: 8.5 miles; walk-up price: £2.40
The Heysham Port branch is unusual in many ways. For one, it is served only once a day, but not as a means of "closure by stealth" or anything sinister; rather, the train service exists to serve the ferry to the Isle of Man, which arrives from Douglas at 12:15 and departs again at 14:15. As such, the train was pretty busy with everyone heading home to the Isle of Man after a long double bank holiday weekend; there were plenty of seats, but nearly everyone needed another seat for their luggage owing to the lack of large luggage racks.
The branch is also unusual for its signalling, or rather lack thereof. Trains head north out of Lancaster, travelling nearly two miles north on the WCML, before turning left at Morecambe South Junction and heading to Bare Lane station. The only signalbox is at Bare Lane: Morecambe's two platforms simply function as two separate dead-end tracks from Bare Lane. Only one, however, has access to Heysham, by means of a ground frame: once the train gets to Morecambe, it reverses out of the station, where the driver stops to manually swing the points to the Heysham branch; only then can he head to Heysham.
The current network around Morecambe is the by-product of rationalisation in the 1960s. There was once a triangle junction at Morecambe, so that trains from Lancaster Green Ayre station could go direct to both Morecambe and Heysham Port. This route was the original Little North Western route, which pioneered overhead electrification as early as 1908: trains between Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham ran at the now non-standard voltage of 6.6kV at 25Hz until 1952, when it was converted to 6.6kV at 50Hz and used as a test-bed for the WCML electrification.
But the Little North Western route duplicated the route off the WCML from Lancaster to Morecambe, and it is the latter which survives today, the Little North Western route (along with Lancaster Green Ayre station) having closed in 1966, when trains were diverted via Carnforth. The lack of a direct connection means that Heysham is one of a very small number of stations on the network which can only reach the rest of the network via a reversal. (In fact, I believe it is one of just three which can only access one other station without reversal - points if you can name the other two!)
Heysham Port station itself is fairly run-down; while there are passenger ferries to the Isle of Man, most of the rest of the traffic at the port is container lorries to and from Ireland, with freight services to both Belfast and Dublin. Just one platform remains (number 3, obviously) and the facilities are basic, to say the least; however, the ferry terminal is literally at the end of the platform, so in that respect it's even more convenient than Stranraer ever was.
The journey from Lancaster to Heysham Port - all of 8½ miles - took 29 minutes, and thus averaged less than 18mph; but the train had arrived in Lancaster from Leeds at 12:11 and then sat, as timetabled, in the platform for 17 minutes, meaning that we'd been on the train for 45 minutes by the time it got to Heysham. After stretching our legs on the platform, and since we didn't want to accidentally end up on the Isle of Man, there wasn't much to do but get back on the train:
1315 Heysham Port to Morecambe, arr 1325
Headcode: 2Y57, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 150139
Distance: 4.25 miles; walk-up price: £1.60
The train, which was heading back to Leeds via Lancaster, was busy, but only half as busy as it had been. Only once the train departed Heysham did we realise the purpose of there being not just a driver and a guard but also a ticket conductor on the train: lots of people from the Isle of Man had arrived in Heysham and needed tickets, in some case quite expensive tickets. We reckoned that the commission - we believe the rate is 9% - that Northern receive from ticket sales on board more than makes up the cost of running the train, especially when you get two people turning up and wanting singles to London (£81.20 each!).
We were, unsurprisingly, the only people getting off at Morecambe. The original Morecambe station survived until 1994, when the station was moved 400m eastwards to release land by the seafront for redevelopment: admittedly, the station building looks much nicer today as a Tourist Information Centre as it would if it were still the station building. The current station is rather more basic, with a simple ticket office and a shelter on the platform. With nearly three hours to kill in Morecambe before our next bit of track-bashing - i.e., travelling on a train specifically to travel over a bit of track you haven't been on (also known as "gricing") - we headed first to Morrison's cafe for some lunch.
After lunch, we walked along the seafront, with the pier yielding perhaps the most unusual trainspotting location I've ever tried: three miles away lies Hest Bank, the only point on the WCML which actually meets the west coast, and with a telephoto lens on full zoom I managed to photograph a southbound Voyager (after about ten minutes waiting for a train to go past at all!). We also saw the larger-than-life statue of Eric Morecambe; his real name was in fact Eric Bartholomew but for his stage name he used the name of his home town.
Our last port of call in Morecambe was to the amusement arcade, where Ian went in search of his misspent youth by playing the 2p machines, where you drop 2p coins into a machine that pushes the coins forward, the aim being to drop a coin in so that it pushes other coins off the edge; if you're lucky you get the coins back, but if you're unlucky they go down another chute and are retained by the machine. I can't say I understand gambling at the best of times, but this seemed to be the least interesting form of gambling ever devised. Still, who am I to deprive Ian of his seaside tradition?
Eventually we headed back to Morecambe station for our second bit of rare track:
1619 Morecambe to Leeds, arr 1815
Headcode: 2Y61, operated by Northern Rail using Sprinter 150214
Distance: 70 miles; walk-up price: £12.60
All but two of the trains from Morecambe run to Lancaster; however, where the Morecambe branch meets the WCML there is a triangle junction, permitting trains to head north from Morecambe to Carnforth without reversing at Lancaster. One of these two trains is the inconveniently timed 0546 Lancaster to Windermere, which runs via Morecambe. The other, however, is much more convenient: the 1619 Morecambe to Leeds took us over the so-called "Bare Lane curve".
Convenient, that is, for track-bashers like us; for the rest of the passengers on the platform, there was a little confusion - the station by this time of day unmanned, and the train display boards conspicuous by their absence - as to where this train was going; we had to explain to a few of the passengers that it goes to Leeds but avoids Lancaster. Why it does so is not clear: it could be a parliamentary service to keep the line "open", or it could be for driver route knowledge, or it could just be to get the stock back to Leeds sooner so it can form a peak train there.
Track-bashing on your own, while something I've done quite often (see my various blogposts on my All-Line Rover in 2009 and my East Midlands Rover in 2011, among many others), always carries a certain amount of shame with it, especially when you're doing something weird like going to the end of a branch line and coming straight back again. But track-bashing with other people makes the whole thing more fun; my day was made when Ian said, and I quote, "I've been waiting years to do this curve!"
And yet it was all over so quickly; after departing Morecambe and calling at Bare Lane, we turned left towards Hest Bank instead of right towards Lancaster, and curved gently towards the West Coast Main Line (for once deserving its name). As we did, we saw a Royal Mail train, a 12-car rake of class 325s, heading northbound on the WCML; we were brought to a stand briefly before following it over the newly-renewed Hest Bank level crossing. For three miles we followed the WCML, before once again turning off at Carnforth to retrace our steps of the previous day over the Little North Western route back to Leeds via Skipton.
By this stage I was thoroughly tired, and dozed for much of the train journey back to Leeds. Once we arrived in Leeds, we bought some sandwiches for dinner and ate in the lovely North Concourse at Leeds station, originally part of Wellington station but merged into the current Leeds City station in 1938. The other station in Leeds, Leeds Central, closed in 1967, but "Leeds City" is still sometimes used to refer to the current station even today. Fed and watered, we headed to platform 11C for our penultimate train, and our third and final bit of rare track:
1911 Leeds to Birmingham New St, arr 2207
Headcode: 1V71, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221122
Distance: 138 miles; walk-up return included in Day 1
Owing to engineering works between Chesterfield and Derby, our CrossCountry train back to Birmingham was to be diverted: instead of taking the direct line from Chesterfield to Derby via Ambergate, the train would instead head via the Erewash Valley, through Alfreton and Langley Mill, to Trent Junctions. From there it would head west through Long Eaton to Derby, where it would reverse and continue on its usual route to Birmingham. The line between Trowell Junction and Trent Junctions is rarely used in passenger service, with just two trains each Saturday for route knowledge purposes - i.e., making sure the drivers know the route so that when they have to be diverted they can be.
However, it wasn't as simple as that. Normally there are two CrossCountry trains an hour between Birmingham and Newcastle: one runs between Plymouth and Edinburgh, calling at Wakefield and Leeds (and missing Doncaster), while the other runs between Reading and Newcastle, calling at Doncaster (but skipping Wakefield and Leeds). Since there was only room for one train an hour through the Erewash Valley, the trains were forced to serve all three of Doncaster, Wakefield and Leeds.
Trying to fit CrossCountry trains into the timetable is difficult enough without having to re-write it just to fit in some engineering works. So rather than come up with a completely new timetable, the timetable planners did rather a lot of fudging, combining times from three different southbound CrossCountry trains to come up with our timetable:
- 1V70 (the 1500 Glasgow-Bristol) would normally call York at 18:45, Leeds at 19:11, Wakefield at 19:23, Sheffield at 19:54, Chesterfield at 20:06 and Derby at 20:29;
- 1M72 (the 1835 Newcastle-Birmingham) would normally call York at 19:34, Doncaster at 19:58, Sheffield at 20:23, pass Chesterfield at 20:34, and call at Derby at 20:54;
- 1V71 (the 1708 Edinburgh-Bristol) would normally call York at 19:44, Leeds at 20:11, Wakefield at 20:23, Sheffield at 20:54, Chesterfield at 21:06 and Derby at 21:29 (i.e., an hour later than 1V70 throughout).
What we did was follow the timings of 1V70 until just south of Wakefield, calling Leeds at 19:11, and Wakefield Westgate at 19:23. We then headed for Doncaster, and picked up the path of 1M72, calling Doncaster at 19:58, Sheffield at 20:23, and Chesterfield at 20:35. From there we were diverted via the Erewash Valley, due to arrive in Derby at 21:13, and then departing at 21:29 to pick up the standard timings of 1V71.
The last fudge needed to make this work was just south of Wakefield: just before South Kirkby junction, where we would have turned off towards Sheffield, we were stopped in Hemsworth loop to allow an East Coast service to overtake us. Loops are commonly used to let passenger trains overtake freight trains, but it is pretty rare to have one passenger train overtake another in this fashion! We were stationary in the loop for just under five minutes - the East Coast service streaking past us before we were even quite stopped! - before proceeding on to Doncaster. If we had run in front of the East Coast service all the way to Doncaster, it's likely that there wouldn't have been a platform free at Doncaster, and it was presumably easier to hold us in Hemsworth loop (as we were timetabled to do).
After calling at Sheffield, we noticed that we were running rather slowly, and an on-time departure from Sheffield turned into a ten-minute late arrival into Chesterfield; once we departed Chesterfield we passed a freight train which we had presumably had to follow from Dore South Junction. This is one of the problems with freight trains: they aren't as fast as passenger trains, so unless you have enough places in which you can hold one, it's going to delay something.
From Chesterfield we went straight on up the Erewash Valley, once the Midland Main Line to Sheffield but now only used by trains between Nottingham and Sheffield, with London-Sheffield trains all running via Derby. Except that because of the engineering works, London-Sheffield trains were running via the Erewash - possibly the only engineering diversion that results in shorterjourney times!
The five-mile section between Trowell Junction and Trent Junctions usually sees just two trains a day at unsociable hours on a Saturday, so being able to see the line in (fading) daylight was unusual. But by now the rain, having held off all day, was starting to come down quite heavily, and as we passed through Toton Yard the sight of lots of old locomotives rusting, their purpose expired, was a little sad to see.
Shortly afterwards, we passed through the maze of junctions at Trent (all confusingly named) and headed west on the line through Long Eaton, arriving in Derby nine minutes late, with our third bit of rare track for the day ticked off (or should I say coloured in?). Thanks to our 16-minute booked stand, we departed just a couple of minutes late, but gradually lost a few minutes on the run to Birmingham, eventually arriving seven minutes late at 22:14.
From New Street there were four more trains of the night to Coventry, but only two which continued to Northampton, where Ian now lives. So I waited to get the train with him, with us sitting in a very quiet New Street station for nearly an hour before getting the second (and last) train to Northampton:
2310 Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 2330
Headcode: 1B46, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390024
Distance: 19 miles; walk-up return included in Day 1
Almost all of the trains which call at Northampton on a typical day are run by London Midland; just two are not, run instead by Virgin Trains. Oddly, both are southbound trains, with a early morning peak service to London, and this last southbound service from Birmingham which runs via Northampton so that the mainline via Weedon can be maintained overnight. Ian, having previously used the morning peak train, decided that, for the sake of getting into Northampton ten minutes later, he may as well get a Virgin Trains service for once. I guess when you spend all week commuting on London Midland Desiros, a Pendolino might be regarded as a nice change.
After the familiar 20-minute journey to Coventry, I bade Ian farewell after a thoroughly enjoyable weekend on trains, and after a short taxi ride home (the rain meant I couldn't face walking) I collapsed into bed... But not before colouring in my map to record which new lines we'd been on!
Is Stourbridge Town one of the other two?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is! Have some points. (What do points mean?)
ReplyDelete