I’ve returned to Parbold today to get more shots of the work now that things have progressed. I had the same trouble getting out here as yesterday. The ‘direct’ bus is a figment of Northern’s imagination. I still had to change at Burscough Bridge to the same timetable as yesterday. This time I sat on the station to wait and ended up directing several rail passengers to the bus stop. There’s no posters on the station telling them were it is, only one saying the the line’s closed and buses are running instead. I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t know there’s a blockade on this week and still turn up expecting a train.
Anways, here’s a few pictures from today.
The life of an engine driver on a possession. More time’s spent with your feet up than actually driving! It’s a dull job.Overnight the old Up (Wigan bound) line has been stripped out and the formation levelled with fresh ballast which is being unloaded from the train behind. These remote controlled Wackers (yes, they’re really called that) are used to compact and level the ballast before sleepers are laid on top. Meanwhile, other RRVs are unloading more ballast. The whole thing has to be tightly choreographed as the RRVs can’t lay new sleepers until the ballast train is out of the way. On this job the original rails and sleepers are being relaid as they’re not that old and still have plenty of life left in them. The RRV on the left brings them in from a stockpile whilst the machine on the right places them into position. This RRv picks up six sleepers at a time and places them into position.Once in roughly the right position (see the yellow line spayed on the ballast behind) a measurement is taken from the opposite track to ensure they’re in exactly the right alignment.
Having left the site for an hour or so to download these pictures I returned to find that the teams had made rapid progress.
There was rapid progress on the Up (Wigan bound) line where rails had already been reinstated along part of the line, ready for being clipped into place. This clever little machine lifts the sleepers up and clips them onto the rails – several at a time, a job that once used to be done manually. An RRV moved stacks of sleepers that had been stored on the track in the station platform. This is one of the reasons the level crossing has been closed throughout the work. Space is limited and the crossing has also been an access point to allow equipment to be taken away or brought onto the worksite. A COSS (Controller Of Site Safety) clips sleepers to the RRV’s boom, ready to be lifted and moved to site. Wonder what all those paper things are? They’re tickets to say that all the chains have been inspected and are safe to use for the job.
Rather than wait hours for the bus, I walked back to Burscough Bridge along the Leeds and Liverpool canal. It look around 90 mins but it allowed me to get a shot of these engineers trains parked up West of Parbold out of the way, but next to a level crossing so that the engine drivers could be relieved after the end of their shifts.
Mind you, that wasn’t all I saw en-route. There was also this flotilla of young swans on the canal.
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I’ve decided to have an away day from the coast to head inland in order to photograph the railway engineering works at Parbold.
To get there, I’m using the rail replacement coach service which runs from Southport to Wigan.
Spot on time, the 10:13 coach to Wigan arrives at Meols Cop to take me onwards. Only there’s one problem. The coach driver tells me he doesn’t actually stop at Parbold!
Apparently, due to poor planning, it’s not safe for large coaches to get to Parbold due to work on the level crossing that’s part of the rail blockade.
Instead, I’ll have to change at Burscough Bridge, where minibuses are being arranged to serve Parbold!
Ho hum!
Crossing the moss and the Leeds and Liverpool canal at Heatons Bridge on the way to Burscough
10:45.
Having made it as far as Burscough by coach I’m now kicking my heels for 30 mins waiting for an 11:01 minibus to Parbold. There’s nothing like integrated transport, and this is nothing like integrated transport.
My coach from Southport.
Having wandered over to the station were teams are cutting back vegetation further along the line towards Southport I’m now waiting for the bus whikst being entertained by a car crash in the adjacent Tesco car park, where an old lady has managed to reverse into another car – the owner of which is not best pleased! Fortunately little physical damage appears to be done.
11:10.
On the move again in a minibus that’s seen better days. They must have dug this one out of the back of the garage! The driver has a young lad riding shotgun. He’s there to open the door by hand as the mechanism’s knackered and decoupled. He’s also navigating on his phone, relaying directions to the driver.
This bus is an ‘all-shacks’, stopping at obscure stations like Hoscar en-route.
13:00.
I’ve been at the worksite (which is just East of Parbold station for the past couple of hours. Progress has been rapid. The Southport bound line has already been replaced and is almost ready to receive engineering trains which will allow the Wigan bound line to be torn up and renewed. Here’s a look at the work.
Looking towards Parbold station with the new Southport bound line already in place. Looking in the opposite direction where workers are connecting the new and old sections of track together. Workers gradually removing equipment and old rails from the worksiteThumbs up from a Quattro RRV driver removing scrap rail.
I’ll hang around for another hour, then my plan is to head to Wigan.
15:50.
I’m finally on my way to Wigan. The delay was due to getting talking to rail workers involved in the blockade when they knew my history. I’ve actually worked on a couple of the same jobs with some of the older ones! Then there was the shambolic rail replacement bus service, which has been altered yet again. Trying to find the actual stop was a challenge, despite contacting Northern assist via Twitter. They didn’t have the correct infornation either. Fortunately, there was a real live human from Arriva by a bus stop who put me right.
Now, after seeing areas of Wigan that I never knew existed I’m on the move again. I hhad less than 10 minutes in the town, just long enough to catch Northern’s 16:14 to Headbolt Lane on Merseyside. It’s great to be back on a train – even if it’s a Class 150!
Hello (and goodbye) Wigan…
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Today I escaped from Southport – albeit briefly, through an excursion to Preston care of my eldest brother, John. He was driving over to do some shopping and checking out parking for a future excursion with his kids, so I joined him for the ride. We don’t see much of each other nowadays as our lives have diverged, but John was a huge support for me and for Lynn towards the end of her life.
Before John picked me up I’d time to check out what was going on with the railway line to Wigan. The line’s closed until Saturday due to engineering work at Parbold, but Network Rail have take the opportunity to chop back a lot of trees and bushes along the line in Southport between the site of the old St Lukes station and Meols Cop. The work certainly needs doing. This is why. Here’s how it looked in 2003.
Here’s the same area today, with an RRV trimming back the extensive tree growth that’s hidden the nearby houses completely.
The trip out to Preston was rather fun. I’ve never really explored the city that much, despite visiting on a regular basis over recent years. This time I got to see different sides of the town, including the ‘old’ (or rather rebuilt) market, which had a great Indian food stall as well as some excellent butchers and fruit and veg stalls.
Great curries, both veg and non-veg, and the Samosas are exellent.Quality fruit and veg in Preston market.
As we were only a stone’s throw away it would have been rude not to visit a fantastic CAMRA national inventory pub – the grade 2 listed Black Horse for a ‘swifty’. The interior is stunning. Here’s some of the detail around the bar.
Now I’m back in Southport, drying off after getting a soaking. I’d made the mistake of walking into town, thinking the rain that had been forecast was never going to arrive. Bad move! It waited for me to begin walking back! Still, I’m not complaining, at least we’re getting rain – unlike a lot of the country.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking another trip out of Southport. This time to Parbold to (hopefully) have a look at the railway engineering work. Depending on other events I may make it a round trip via Wigan and Liverpool. We’ll see…
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Another week ends and another chapter begins. My time in Marshside is over. Anne and Steve have returned from their break in Croatia so I’m moving again as I go from cat sitting to people sitting (long story). Right now I’m back at my sisters, helping out with a few chores before my next adventure.
the weather here in Southport has remained wall to wall sunshine, which is lovely if you enjoy the outdoors and getting a tan. It’s also been fabulous for the golf and the Open has been in town all week. Oddly, despite the numbers of people it draws in, the place has never felt overrun, Far from it. Whilst I’ve avoided Hillside and the areas around the Royal Birkdale course, if you went North of the town centre to places like Churchtown you’d have no idea anything special was happening.
Now the golf is over, although it’ll take a few days for the logistics to wind down and everything to be cleared away. Who won? I’ve no idea!
My day’s been taken up by caring for some recently planted trees on a local park which are feeling the stress from a lack of water. The park contains some exercise machines that I’ve been using several times a week, so I’ve taken to carrying bottles of water with me to give the trees some liquid relief. I’m not sure all are going to survive, but I’m doing my best.
The trees I’m trying to keep alive.
Apart from that I’ve been continuing my perambulations around town, watching what’s going on. Southport seems to be undergoing somewhat of a cultural revival, with all sort of events being staged. Today it was the turn of the old bandstand on Lord St. It’s been restored and the past couple of Sundays have seen various music events laid on.
A great group of schoolkids playing a mix of rock and folk. Sadly, I didn’t catch their name.
In fact – thinking about it – Southport’s has a lot of live music going on, and all of it for free. On Saturday there were craft stalls and a music stage outside the old market hall.
Then there’s the Northern end of Lord St, which is popular with buskers, and you can often catch acts outside this bar in the backstreets.
This spell of dry and sunny weather’s predicted to last until next weekend, so let’s enjoy it whilst we can. I’ve a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, but I’m hoping to get a trip away from the seaside later in the week, let’s see…
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My feline alarm clock failed this morning as the cat chorus demanding food slept on after 06:00, leaving me to have a blissful extra hour in bed. Maybe they’re feeling the heat too? That extra time was much needed as my AI coach was warning me that I’ve been doing too much on too little sleep, so I’ve had chance to make up for it.
Having fed said moggies I adjourned to the kitchen for coffee and a catch-up with the world via my laptop before knuckling down to work. It’s been a productive day. I’ve cleared more of my backlog of pictures that need editing and loading onto my Zenfolio website – and written an article for RAIL magazine. On top of that I’ve explored the marshes – and walked into Southport, despite the beating sun and heat. The town centre’s busy today as the 154th golf open at Royal Birkdale is starting to get into full swing. Sorry, no pun intended! Visitors are flocking in, but thankfully a certain orange American is absent – he’s too busy bombing Iran and this level of golf is way out of his league.
To add to the fun we have England playing Argentina in the football world cup, which is adding more trade for the pubs and bars in the town centre. I’ve eschewed all that and walked home for another quiet night in after clocking up another 25k steps. Instead of getting worked up about sport I’m continuing to work on clearing my backlog of pictures to edit – which includes today’s picture. Here’s another beach picture, but this isn’t Southport. This is the Cumbrian coast on the way to Ravenglass when I was doing 3 peaks by rail last month.
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After the fun of photographing orangemen’s day on Saturday I relocated to a different district of Southport. A place called Marshside, which is on the coast North of the town centre. There’s a clue in the name! I’m presently cat-sitting for my sister’s partner Steve, whilst he and Anne enjoy a week in Croatia. I’m now looking after Hubble, Toil and Blackjack, three cats with very different characters. My time here will allow me to crack on with some work as there’s really not a lot to do around here other than enjoy the walks, views across the marshes to the sea and watch the abundant birdlife as the area’s an RSPB reserve. It takes over an hour from here to walk the three miles into town along the coast road, but it’s a lovely walk – and flat so very different to home in West Yorkshire. Here you can see for miles with nothing to obstruct your view. In a clear day Blackpool Tower and the ‘big dipper’ at the fairground are easily visible across the Ribble estuary. A simple out and back walk gets me more than my daily quota of steps. Add in a bit of shopping and you’re talking 25-30k steps (12-15 miles). The weather here is still hot and sunny, but being by the sea we have a cool breeze which takes the edge off things. Here’s a few pictures from the past couple of days. to give you a flavour.
Whilst I’ve been here I’ve been catching up with picture editing, adding dozens of new images to my Zenfolio picture website. You can find out which galleries they’ve been added to by following this link.
The coastal road looking towards Southport with a pier a speck in the distance. In the 1960s we helped build this road. In those days it was done piecemeal. people were allowed to dump whatever hardcore they had they wanted to get rid of on the site and a council bulldozer levelled it and gradually extended the embankment along the route, getting the road built on the cheap!Looking across the Ribble estuary with Blackpool Tower prominent. But don’t be fooled. The town you can see is actually Lytham St Annes. The coast curves which means you can’t actually see Blackpool itself. The sleeping Southport pier, the 2nd longest in the UK. Work has started to reopen it to the public once again. See link. There’s still a lot of old chimney pots in Southport, which give an interesting clue as to a building’s history and age. These are on the North end of Lord St. Odin’s teeth! when the hell was Valhalla built by the Mogul Emperors?
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Why? Becasue today the Orange lodges parade in Southport instead of the traditional 12th of July as the 12th is a Sunday and they’re not allowed to march.
What’s this all about I hear you ask? well, Southport is one of the last towns that allow the Protestant Orange order to hold marches. The history is complicated, but here’s an explanation.
Now, ignoring politics and religion, I remember watching these parades since I was a kid. They were always a feature of summer in Southport. That said, I haven’t seen one since the early 1980s before I moved to London. I always meant to come back and photograph one, but stuff always got in the way. Today, I got that chance.
They’re a lot smaller than I remember. Back in the 1970s special trains would arrive from Glasgow, carrying pipe band and all manner of supporters. The rail network would be packed with supporters arriving from Manchester and especially Liverpool.
Now it all seems a bit more sedate and a lot smaller. My local pub (the Old Ship Inn) would host one of those Scottish pipe bands, who would turn up and pipe outside before requesting admittance from Monica, the landlady. after which they’d be hosted in a room upstairs whilst the pub would be swamped with their supporters. I’d volunteer as a glass collector, and a jolly (and pissed) time was had by all.
Today’s procession mostly arrived by coach, and there’s no pipe bands, sadly. But I’ll hang around in town until they leave later in order to get picture. Here’s the first few,
It’s 11:00…I always remember the leader of these bands performing amazing stunts with their staffs as they were thrown high in the air and caught – sometimes behind their backs.
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Today my time here has taken a slightly different turn as my Sister and her partner have booked a weeok away in Croatia, which means cat-sitting is required. Not at my sisters (there’s cover here) but at Steve’s as he has three moggies which he brought back with him from Saudi Arabia. So, I’m moving into Marshside for a week.
It’s a very differenoljt part of Southport to where my sister lives. This part of town was a late Victorian/early Edwardian extensiojn. Marshside ki are still seeniip as a o typejkimjm of people to ordinary Sandgrounders (the nickname for people from Southport).
Having a place to mkkjpkopopyself (well, if you don’t count the cats) will allow me to finish a load of work I need to do, including a couple of articles for RAIL magazine. As Marshside is pretty isolated, I’ll still have the opportunity to get plenty of steps inip too.
Here’s a few pictures that illustrate the area. I walked there from the centre of town, which was interesting as I discovered things I never knew, like thkje fact Southport once boasted an aerodrome!
The Southport aerodrome existed from 1910-1966, closing when I was a child, but I’d never heard of it. It was only when I was walking to Steve’s that I passed this history board that I discovered its existence. Here’s more about the history of the site. The Marshside fog bell. In 1869 seven men out shrimping got lost in fog and drowned. The community raised fund to build this fog bell so that the tragedy would never repeat itself. You can read more about it here. An old fishermen’s cottage in Churchtown. Tiny, aren’t they?
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Sunday’s not been as lazy as the old song by the New Faces remembers (although more of that in the next blog). Instead, I’ve had a busy day here in Southport, catching up on exercise routines now that I have access to the park equipment that I’ve found so useful whilst I’ve been here. Admittedly, my muscles have felt the strain after a week-long gap, but it’s all good.
Apart from the physical endeavours much of my day was taken up with editing pictures from the first of my HS2 visits earlier in the week, in order to get them out to the writer and editor who need them first thing Monday morning. Then there’s all the other stuff I took on my second visit, along with a horde of other general railway pictures I took the opportunity to take whilst in the capital. They’re going to be keeping me busy for a while. On top of that I have other work and stuff to sort out, which is going to keep me occupied for the rest of the week. Hang on, I’m meant to be semi-retired, although it certainly doesn’t feel that way right now!
No rest for the wicked, eh? I’m not complaining, I’d rather be active than bored. One thing I notice about Southport after being back in London for a while is how the town resembles ‘God’s waiting room’. There’s an awful lot of retired people who seem to have little purpose other than to aimlessly wander the town centre, drifting from one coffee or charity shop to the other, or taking refuge on the benches that bedeck Lord St, like they’re living sculptures. At my most cynical, it reminds me of the old Colin Crompton joke about Morecambe, where he said ‘they don’t bury the dead in Morecambe, they just stand ’em up in the bus shelters’. I shouldn’t mock, as I’m now part of that demographic – although my bus pass sees bugger-all use!
Anyway, tomorrow’s another week and I’ve a lot to do. I won’t be travelling much, but expect a flood of pictures to appear on my Zenfolio website as and when. In the meantime, here’s a taster from my visit to the HS2 construction site at Old Oak Common in London. Regular readers will know of my interest in architecture. It’s why this shot inside the new HS2 station appealed to me despite their not being a train in sight…
If only someone in orange PPE had been stood in the background…
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After all the travelling I’ve been doing recently, it’s time for a break. I’m currently catching my breath here in Southport. Well, sort of – I’ve a long list of things I need to do, but most of my current travels involve walking as I try and catch up on my fitness programme and the outdoor gym exercises that I’ve missed whilst I’ve been away. It’s strange to think, but slogging around HS2 sites in full PPE with a camera pack on my back isn’t as physically hard as the stuff I’ve been doing here on the coast.
Arriving back in the North after a few days in London is a bit of a shock in some ways. There really is a North-South divide, which is best illustrated in human demographics. London’s full of younger, fitter people. The North, not so much. Southport especially so due to the ageing population up here. There’s a social and economic time-bomb ticking and it’s something a lot of people don’t want to talk about. Especially the far-right who think sending ‘forrins’ back (to God knows where) will suddenly make the UK better off. Until the day they realise there’s no foreign nurses left to wipe their arses in their retirement home – if they’re lucky to find one that’s still open…
Now I’ve a busy week ahead as I juggle work with exercise and administration for the future. However, today was a case of having a much needed lie-in before pounding the pavements in order to get some distance under my belt. I’ve still managed to get some work done despite my wanderings. I’ve started editing this weeks pictures in order to get some out for a potential magazine cover. Admittedly, there’s a shedload of others to sort out, but that’s a job for tomorrow.
Now, having surpassed my 25,000 steps I’m relaxing at my sister’s whilst going through more pictures and a list of jobs for the next few days. In the meantime, here’s a few pictures from my travels – and today.
A taste of a blog to come. Here’s one of the HS2 construction sites I visited this week. The Turweston viaduct over the floodplain surrounding the Great Ouse river. Electrostars at Clapham Junction with the new London city skyline behind.Southport history and architecture.
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/
Paul Bigland 