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10:45.

The past few days have been quiet here in the Calder valley, although Saturday did see us spending time over in Mytholmroyd, visiting old friends to help them out with a little project for the future. Beyond that we’ve been very much home-based. The weather’s beginning to turn drier, swapping with high winds that have turned our bird feeders into something of a challenge for our feathered friends. It’s akin to trying to land a plane on an aircraft carrier in high seas! Now we’re into a new week where I’ve decided to make the most of the brightening skies to return to Manchester and check out how the approaches to Piccadilly look from a photographic perspective now that the station’s reopened after the engineering blockade.

Right now I’m on a Northern service from Sowerby Bridge to head across the Pennines. It’s a quiet train, so there’s plenty of available table bays in which to set up the mobile office to type this.

I’ll be blogging (intermittently) throughout the day, so feel free to pop back and have a look at what I get up to (and where)…

Here we go…

13:30.

Phew! Time for a break and chance to upload a few images. Piccadilly station’s back to its normal buzzy self with both concourse and trainshed full of activity. What isn’t easy to see is the fruit of the past 9 days labours as the track that’s been renewed is some way away from the station itself. Hoping to get a better look I walked the backstreets to Manchester’s least used railway station – Ardwick. Just two trains a day call here, with a 2024/25 footfall of a mere 262 souls. The state of the entrance probably helps explain that.

The walk through some of the city’s less salubrious areas is fascinating from a photographic and social perspective, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be wandering around there after dark! When you catch a train from Piccadilly you don’t appreciate how much life there is in the arches below you. Despite the outward signs of decrepitude and decay there’s a myriad of small businesses. Many involve catering. Others supply hairdressing products or repair e-bikes used by Deliveroo drivers. Some are really rather posh behind the anonymous shutters. Here’s a few pictures.

Welcome to Ardwick station!
The view from Ardwick. Fresh ballast (stone) and cleaner rails give away which tracks have been renewed during the blockade – as do the clean speed restriction signs!
Shopping by numbers. Each of these arches are a small business – or available to be one.
Looking back to Piccadilly along Temperance St. The bridge in the foreground carried tracks into the former Mayfield station, latterly used for mail trains until it closed completely in 1986.
A train calls at platform 14 at Piccadilly whilst a mural of Ian Curtis from the band ‘Joy Division’ on the side of the Star and Garter looks on.

18:20.

Due to the spring-like conditions I decided to hang around in the city centre in order to enjoy the weather, explore and get some  architectural shots (which I’ll upload later). This also gave me time to pop into my favourite store in Chinatown to pick up some more goodies. This time it was different types of rice…

Now I’m heading back across the Pennines, which hasn’t been easy due to very busy (and short-formed) trains. I made it as far as Rochdale where I thought numbers would tail off. Bad move, as there were crowds of young men (well provisioned with bottles and cans) heading East on their way to some sporting event. Ah,well. At least I’ve managed to find a seat…

21:15.

Home!

It turned out that the sporting event was in Halifax, at the Shea stadium. I’ve no idea what as I’m not tribal and don’t follow these things. Half a dozen police officers kept an eye on the crowds flooding off the station, whilst more hung around pubs in town where supporters congregate. I was amused to see dozens of teenage lads – all dressed the same – in trainers, black jogging pants, black hoodies and baseball caps. So much for individuality it seems!

Finally, after 15 miles and 33,000 steps I made it home. Now it’s time to curl up with Dawn, enjoy a film and relax. There’s now a lot of new pictures to edit tomorrow. Here’s a couple of samples…

The glazed brickwork of the Midland hotel really caught the sun this afternoon…
A slightly different perspective on Metrolink trams.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Cheers,

Paul