Steel City

 

5th September - 9th September

A belated trip to “the North” owing to rail strikes earlier in the Summer when I originally planned it. No such issues this time and apart from the usual poor standard GWR service from Reading to Paddington - late, crowded, seat reservations turned off - the trip was uneventful. Inexplicably I think it’s the first time I’ve departed and arrived at St. Pancras too, at least as far as I remember.

 

 

 

I had no set plans for this trip other than just to get away from home (and from work) but had checked out some local attractions and downloaded the Stagecoach app for the trams (SuperTram!) for convenience in booking day rider tickets, slightly nerdy completism meaning riding the whole network was likely to be a thing.

 

 

 

I had intended to do this on Tuesday but a road traffic accident caused services to be curtailed at Gleadless Townend at lunchtime so the lines to Halfway and Herdings Park didn’t get done until Thursday. The weather was slightly better for hanging around waiting for trams on Thursday anyway.

 

 

 

The disrupted trams meant part of Tuesday afternoon was spent in the excellent Kelham Island Museum exploring Sheffield’s metalworking and engineering history. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the city. Sadly I didn’t time it right to see the 12000 h.p. steam engine in action though.

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday I explored a little further afield getting a South Pennies Day Ranger train (might have been influenced by GLovesTrains there) ticket and doing a loop via Leeds, which had been my original intended trip destination had I been able to find a suitable, i.e. not too costly, hotel, the across the Pennines to Manchester and back to Edale then returning to Sheffield.

 

 

 

I had previously visited Edale back in May 2019 and promised myself I’d come back with more time and have a walk and a pint in the village pub. It was too wet this time for walking far but I managed the latter without nay trouble at all :-)

 

 

 

 I must be due another break in Manchester too, a place I enjoyed visiting a lot last time. Also having time to spare and a ranger ticket I obviously took a train out to this place:

 

 

 

Because yes I am that immature :-D

 

On Thursday I took the TramTrain to have a look around Rotherham, which had some nice old buildings but did appear to be largely shut.

 

 

 

Back in Sheffield I went for a wander about the city centre and was sitting in the Winter Gardens with a coffee when the Queen died. I’m sure that the rainbow that appeared over the Crucible and Lyceum theatres was just a coincidence.

 

 

 

My watering hole of choice on this trip was the Red Deer in Pitt Street which is a pleasant, friendly pub off the main city centre streets, which is always a good find when away. Good beer selection as well.

 

 

 

And £3.80 a pint. I fuckin’ love t’north :-D

Blackpool

Saturday 7th September 2019

Blackpool is to Manchester as Brighton is to London.

Never having sampled the delights of Blackpool and being just a train ride away in Manchester it seemed rude not to grab an Off-Peak Return and have a day out at the seaside, especially as the weather forecast was for day-long sunshine.

Up, breakfasted, and at Manchester Piccadilly for 0930 to catch one of Northern's finest Class 319s, Which was not as busy as I'd expected for a Saturday though by no means empty. It was about an hour and a quarter's journey via Preston to Blackpool North station, which is about a 10 minute walk from the North Pier. Which is as good a place as any to start the experience that is Blackpool seafront.

One pier out of three done. 

I walked south along the prom. There's no getting away from that tower is there? Though I baulked at the £25 they wanted in order to stand at the only point in town where you can't see it.

Or from the great expanse of sandy beach, something that Brighton cannot boast, being like so many south east England beaches, all shingle).

They still have donkeys on the beach too, I'm surprised that the animal rights campaigners haven't had them done away with by now.

Pier two, Central Pier, dominated by its ferris wheel and funfair.

Central Pier contrasts from the more genteel North Pier, the emphasis being on family fun. And it would appear drinking given the big "Family Bar" sign painted on the roof of the building on the pier's seaward end. I'll give that a miss.

Onward south past and being passed by Blackpool's famous trams and the pleasure beach to pier three.

South pier is the newest and shortest of the three, originally called Victoria Pier.

It's now largely a funfair and another family bar.

Outside were parked horse-drawn carriages designed solely to extract the contents of the wallets of fathers with small daughters.

It's also on a part of the sea front devoid of any public toilets as attested to by the graffiti on the council information signs and I was desperate for a piss so headed back towards the pleasure beach where there are conveniences hidden away at the back and unsignposted. Head for the car park behind the round building which contains Costa.

I walked back up the beach to Central Pier, then had a mooch around the town and bought sticks of Blackpool Rock because you have to really don't you?

I couldn't come to Blackpool without going on a tram either so took a ride all the way south to Starr Gate, next to the tram depot and at the quieter end of the seafront - if you discount a few fast military jets operating out of the nearby airport. The beach here is dotted with warning signs about the danger of being cut off by the incoming tide but I still saw a dog walker and two anglers leaving it a bit late and being surrounded by the slow advance of the water.

Blackpool was everything that I expected it to be and having returned to the north end of the prom I bought a fish supper and headed back to the station to get the train back to Manchester. A train that was rather noisy with parents who'd been knocking back the lager and the gin all afternoon and their small charges who by this time were over-tired and fractious. The joys of public transport.

Here's a Flickr Album from the day which contains rather a lot of photographs of that tower.

Tram, train, rain, tram.

Friday 6th September 2019

Manchester's Metrolink Tram system extends far beyond the city to the surrounding suburbs and nearby towns.

Such as Bury, 8 miles north-west of Manchester on the River Irwell and famous for black pudding and as the birthplace of Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Metropolitan Police and the Conservative Party. One of which facts probably makes him a hate figure, you can decide for yourself which.

The Metrolink trams are not low-floor vehicles, surprisingly since they run through the streets, and so require stops that are more like railway stations with quite high platforms. unlike the trams in Croydon where the platform is little more than a raised height kerb.

Handily for the visitor the system allows contactless payment with daily caps, almost like London's Oyster except that you need to touch in and touch out again at the end of your journey. Failure to touch out will result in a £4.60 incomplete journey charge. Failure to touch in will get you a stonking £30 "standard contactless fare". Since I can't see any journey that would cost that much why don't they just be honest and call it a penalty charge? Either way, don't forget to touch in and out. So I touched in using G-pay at St. Peter's Square and hopped on a "green line" service to Bury. The trams run for part of the way over what was the East Lancashire Railway line and there are some far reaching views of Lancashire along the way. The line terminates in the town centre at Bury Interchange. 

The original East Lancashire Railway however terminated at Bury Bolton Street station, about 5 minutes walk from Bury Interchange and the current East Lancashire Railway is still there.

The street level building dates from 1952, the previous one having burnt down after the war. The rest of the station and platforms are below in a deep cutting.

There was about an hour to wait before the next departure to Rawtenstall so I walked across Bolton Street and down the slope to the Bury Transport Museum which is connected with the heritage railway and housed in a former Castlecroft Goods Warehouse. Entry is free although as with any free museum they are donation-hungry. Chuck a few quid in if you can.

It's not a huge museum but they have managed to pack quite a lot in there. They have a wide selection of vehicles including buses, lorries, tractors, vans, cars, and even a steam roller.

There's plenty of hands-on stuff for children to play with too, though as it was Friday there weren't any, at least while I was there. I expect it's different at the weekend.

It certainly kept me interested until it was time to wander back to the railway station, purchase a return ticket to Rawtenstall (£12.50) from the traditional ticket office window and go down to the platform and await the 1455 departure.

It was a pleasant trip despite the weather coming over all "northern" and I made this video which covers the trip there and back.

Having returned to Bury it was Friday evening commuter time. It was also time for something to eat. Bury isn't short of fast food outlets which provided amply for that requirement.

I singularly failed to get any black pudding but I had nowhere to keep it until I went home anyway.

So I touched in at Bury Interchange and rode a somewhat busier tram back to Manchester city centre and walked back to my hotel.

Considering I'd forgotten that the steam railway was there until I actually got to Bury I consider that was a good afternoon all round.