Tuesday 2nd December 2025 We're nearly at the end of this year's fortnightly series, but have no fear the 25th place to be featured in a couple of weeks is a rather special one and next year I'm extending the series to cover more two station places thanks to all the suggestions readers have kindly... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st November 2025 Runcorn's two stations have very different pedigrees and present quite a contrast. The town's long standing main station, called Runcorn, opened way back in April 1869 whereas its youthful compatriot, Runcorn East, is a much more contemporary addition to the network, opening as recently as October 1983. The town of Rucorn... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Knowing the frustrations I’ve experienced claiming Delay Repay over the years with Avanti West Coast and GWR, when I met up with Alex Hornby during the summer he kindly offered a visit to see Northern’s Customer Contact Centre in Sheffield which deals with Delay Repay. As you can imagine, I jumped... Continue Reading →
Saturday 9th August 2025 The most conveniently sited of Gainsborough’s two railway stations is Gainsborough Central. As its name implies, it’s located right bang in the centre of town, next to a large shopping complex and massive Tesco and a short walk from the bus station. The only snag is the station sees just two... Continue Reading →
Sunday 22nd June 2025 Cast your mind back to March 2020. That's when Arriva was stripped of the Northern Trains franchise and control passed to the Government's Operator of Last Resort (subsequently becoming DfT Operator). Poor beleaguered Northern never recovered from the May 2018 timetable meltdown nor the strait jacket of a no growth franchise... Continue Reading →
Saturday 17th May 2025 New Mills Central looking west towards Manchester Welcome to another town with a station pair located virtually on the same line of longitude (see also Canterbury and Yeovil, previously featured in this fortnightly series). We're in the Derbyshire town of New Mills visiting its stations known as New Mills Central and... Continue Reading →
Saturday 5th April 2025 Situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport in Greater Manchester... ... the Ordnance Survey map gives the suburb of Reddish five named areas. North Reddish, Mid Reddish, Reddish Green, Reddish Vale and South Reddish. The first and last of these give their names to the area’s two railway stations - Reddish... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd March 2025 I first became familiar with Wakefield’s two railway stations, Westgate and Kirkgate, 50 years ago when embarking on my full time bus industry career in 1975 with the National Bus Company’s West Riding subsidiary based in the city. I recall arriving, carrying a heavy suitcase (no wheeled suitcases in those days),... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th February 2025 Wigan’s two stations are both located on Wallgate just 100 metres apart. Tessa Sanderson could easily throw a javelin from one entrance to the other (assuming no pedestrians were about for obvious Health & Safety issues). Wigan North Western came first, opening in 1838 as plain Wigan with a renaming to... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th October 2023 Headbolt Lane, Britain’s latest newest railway station, opened for business on Thursday taking many people by surprise including, it would seem, Merseyrail and Northern Rail which both operate trains there. The £80 million station (you read that right, £80 million) is located a mile east of the previous terminus at Kirkby... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th April 2023 I needed to get from Lancaster to Glasgow last month and instead of heading up the West Coast Main Line (which was closed north of Carlisle anyway due to track works at Carstairs), having plenty of time, I decided to enjoy a leisurely ride around the wonderful Cumbrian coast on the... Continue Reading →
Sunday 25th September 2022 Weekend rail travel is booming. Fortunately for the rail industry the post pandemic reduction in five day week commuting has been offset by huge growth in leisure travel especially at weekends. In my experience trains at the weekends are now the busiest of the week. I recall Sir Peter Hendy opining... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 5th July 2022 I’m still trying to get the hang of Avanti West Coast’s Standard Premium class. It’s the ‘declassified’ first class coach H on a nine coach Pendolino that gives you first class comforts but without the complimentary refreshments. On 11 coach trains two coaches (G and H) are normally set aside for... Continue Reading →
Thursday 28th April 2022 I had an enjoyable evening last Saturday at The Hawth Theatre in Crawley (Tony Blackburn's Radio 2 Sounds of the Sixties Tour since you asked - highly recommended for those of us of a certain age). Whilst there I couldn't help but notice in the foyer and throughout the theatre were... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th February 2022 As a Brighton Main Line regular I’ve long been used to playing the ‘Thameslink only’ ticket game to save myself money on travels to and from London, not least during the current hiatus when my local station Hassocks is only blessed with trains to London Bridge and at that a Southern... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 20th July 2021 I made six train journeys on Saturday and experienced more mixed messaging leaving me wondering whether our Government controlled railways along with the train companies really are interested in attracting passengers back on board particularly following yesterday’s withdrawal of Covid restrictions. During the early months of the pandemic messaging was all... Continue Reading →
Monday 14th September 2020 Readers will recall we left part 1 of this intriguing tale with the tantalising prospect of West Coast Railways stepping in from today running a replacement train service for a week shuttling between Rose Hill Marple and Guide Bridge funded by devolved local committee budgets of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council with... Continue Reading →
Friday 4th September 2020 'Miss Marple' ..... as in residents of the Manchester suburb by that name will soon 'miss' their hourly Northern run train service. The Rose Hill Marple service is being withdrawn from Monday 14th September for three months to give Northern Rail breathing space so more drivers can be trained up after... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th August 2020 A brand new station at Horden opened quietly without any ceremonial ribbon cutting, balloons or cup cakes during the Covid-19 'essential travel only’ lockdown era on Monday 29th June. I wrote about it on 5th May as part of a review of ’50 new stations’ but to recap ….... Continue Reading →
Monday 16th December 2019 One of two brand new stations opened for business on the rail network yesterday, Warrington West; so I took a ride there today to take a look. But just for fun I decided to go the long way round from London and sample GWR's new speeded up timetable which also began... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 22nd May 2019 I left you yesterday morning in Sheffield about to head west on the delightful Hope Valley line (No 12 in My 100 Best Train Journeys) with Trans Pennine Express. It's a beautiful scenic ride through the Peak District made all the better by a gorgeous sunny day. I changed trains in... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st May 2019 First improvement in the May 2019 rail timetable I experienced yesterday on my tour around was from my own local station, Hassocks where our disjointed two an hour trains to the Thameslink Core stations and on to Bedford or Cambridge (one an hour to each but to a 40/20 pattern) have... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 30th April 2019 My Funday in Furness yesterday exploring three small islands off England's north west coast came sandwiched between two other great travelling days. I travelled up the East Coast Main Line from Kings Cross to Newcastle on Saturday with LNER (always a favourite journey) to meet the lovely members of the Northern... Continue Reading →
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