I started with a trip on one of my favourite lines in England, the Hope Valley Line:
1138 Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly, arr 1238
Headcode: 1R38, operated by East Midlands Trains using Sprinter 158862*+158788
Distance: 42.75 miles
After the Woodhead Line closed in 1981, the Hope Valley Line became the main line between Manchester and Sheffield. It criss-crosses the southern Pennines, with three of the longest tunnels in the country: Totley Tunnel, at 3 miles, 950 yards, was the longest in the country (not counting the London Underground or Merseyrail) until the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1) was built in 2007.
Between the tunnels, in the Hope Valley itself, is some of the steepest mountain scenery to be seen anywhere in England; the line hugs the hillside up the valley up to Edale. On a sunny day it makes for some of the most beautiful scenery to be had on any train in England; in the snow, however, it took on a whole other-worldly feel, with little colour other than the brown of the bare trees and the white of the snow, making for a train ride I won't forget in a hurry.
But all good things must come to an end: we emerged from the last of the tunnels in the outskirts of Stockport, calling there before crawling our way into Manchester. I had intended to get a Metrolink tram from Piccadilly station to Victoria station, but there were engineering works, so I did it the old-fashioned way and walked through a fairly quiet central Manchester.
Once in Manchester Victoria, my aim was simple: head to Preston and back. The usual route was closed at Salford Crescent, so a connection from the Manchester-Liverpool line to the WCML between Warrington and Wigan was in use. This map should help:
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| (Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors) |
The dark blue line running east-west is the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830. What is now the WCML is marked in yellow, but in fact the green connection from Earlestown to Warrington opened next in 1831, and the orange connection from Parkside Jn to Wigan opened in 1832. The connection from Lowton to Newton-le-Willows only opened in 1847, while the WCML section between Winwick Jn and Golborne Jn opened in 1864.
Nowadays, however, while all three sides of the triangular station at Earlestown are used regularly, the only side of the Newton-le-Willows triangle that is regularly used is the Liverpool-Manchester stretch. I did the west curve (green) a couple of years ago; it's used by a couple of trains a day between Liverpool and Wigan.
However, the east curve (orange) from Parkside Jn to Golborne Jn - once the original line to Wigan - until recently saw no regular services at all. But in just a few years time it will become the main route for Manchester-Scotland trains, which will be diverted away from the busy Bolton corridor in connection with electrification works.
While there are now two trains each weekday over the east curve, they aren't conveniently timed; instead, I waited for a Sunday on which all trains were going that way, because of engineering works at Salford Crescent:
1339 Manchester Victoria to Preston, arr 1431
Headcode: 2N97, operated by Northern Rail using Pacer 142044
Distance: 36.75 miles
Unfortunately, "all" trains going that way meant just two an hour. When you consider that on weekdays the Manchester-Preston corridor gets up to ten trains an hour, it was no wonder that this titchy little two-car Pacer was... a bit busy.
It also had one of the worst seating layouts ever conceived, with all the seats in each coach facing the same direction, having very little legroom, and arranged with three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other. I took a window seat, but came to regret it after nearly an hour crushed into a rather small space.
Nonetheless, I succeeded in doing the soon-not-to-be-rare track. We headed west out of Manchester Victoria, as if for Liverpool, before slowing down for the east curve to take us towards Wigan: it being, as the map shows, quite a tight curve, though, meant we only crawled round it at all of 20mph.
We joined the WCML at Golborne Jn, and all of a sudden our little 75mph Pacer was sharing tracks with the 125mph Pendolinos, over eight times the length. We were, nonetheless, a stopping service, in the sense that we didn't just call at Wigan and Preston, but also at Leyland.
We arrived at Preston on time; with little to do for 15 minutes, I headed over to the other platform to head back the way I'd come:
1447 Preston to Manchester Victoria, arr 1531
Headcode: 1M95, operated by Transpennine Express using Desiro 185132*+185143
Distance: 36.75 miles
Fortunately, this time I was on the Transpennine Express service, a six-car train which had come all the way from Edinburgh, and which was only calling at Wigan. There was thus plenty of room for me to stretch my cramped legs out and have some lunch.
The electrification of various lines in the north-west has been talked about now for about four years, and the line I was using between Golborne Jn and Manchester is first in line for wires. Indeed, it has long been planned that the wires will be up by the end of 2013, with electric trains running by early 2014.
But now that we're getting close to that 2014 date, things have actually started happening on the ground. The north-west electrification is no longer just a part of a budget document and a coloured line on a map somewhere; it's actually happening.
Indeed, the gantries and masts going up quite quickly now: while there was just one small stretch of wire over Ordsall Lane Jn, just outside Manchester, a variety of different types of mast adorned most of the route between Manchester and Golborne, with a few miles in the middle with no masts yet. I look forward to coming back to this route in a year or two's time to get a brand-new electric train.
We had a small hiccup stopping at Wigan North Western: it seems the driver had thought he was only driving a three-car train, but when he pulled up the guard had to say to him "oi, this is a six car!" before he moved forward and released the doors in the correct location. Fortunately that didn't delay us too much.
We arrived back into Manchester Victoria on time, and I wandered back across to Piccadilly. I glanced up at the platform indicator and saw the next train to New Street went from platform 6, and as soon as my eyes caught sight of platform 6 I saw my train just pulling in, having arrived from Birmingham.
1607 Manchester Piccadilly to Birmingham New St, arr 1734
Headcode: 1V63, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 220016
Distance: 82.5 miles
Just as I was about to get on the train, I noticed the train said "Next stop: Stoke-on-Trent". I queried the guard, who said this was correct; on Sundays, half the trains do not stop at Stockport. So I can add Stockport to my list of stations I have passed through non-stop: thanks to my non-stopping Birmingham New Street on New Year's Day, the only stations on the WCML I haven't been through non-stop are Stoke-on-Trent, Runcorn, Preston and Carlisle.
Apart from that, the journey back to Birmingham was fairly quiet. I'd been texting Ian, and it transpired he was getting into New Street just twenty minutes behind me on his way home to Northampton; neither of us much felt like cooking, so I hung around in New Street until he arrived.
The snow, which had held off since Friday night, had started again, so we walked through the snow to Wagamama in the Bullring. After an impressively quick but enjoyable dinner, we walked back up the hill, with the snow now coming down a little heavier, and headed for the next train to Northampton, which was a stopper as far as Coventry:
1914 (actual 1924) Birmingham New St to Coventry, arr 1944 (actual 1957)
Headcode: 2Y41, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350232+350106*
Distance: 19 miles
Unfortunately some frozen points at Rugby delayed the inbound service - which had been due in at 18:59 - didn't arrive until 19:16, two minutes after we'd been due to leave. By the time the driver got to the other end and all the passengers got on, we left ten minutes late. We weren't further delayed as far as Coventry, but unfortunately Ian was delayed a bit more getting into Northampton due to the points problem at Rugby.
I made it round and up the steps just in time to make a bus home, saving me the walk home - normally the station is a twenty minute walk, but in the snow it was more like half an hour. After 217¾ miles and over 4½ hours on trains on Sunday alone, I settled down to warm up after a very enjoyable - but rather cold - weekend.
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