A day in Cheshire
10th June 2000
We stopped for lunch at Bunbury Locks and watched the 12:19 Crewe to Holyhead pass before continuing our ride.
After cycling past Beeston Castle then an off-road section near Burwardsley,
we crossed the line again by the former station of Tattenhall Road, now a
private house undergoing renovation. We then took a slight detour to see if
anything remained of the former LNWR link from Tattenhall Junction to Whitchurch.
Not much, sadly. We passed the abutment of a bridge, or possibly a viaduct
as the land was much lower on one side - here the trackbed had been subsumed
into a farm field. A little further on we crossed over it, but the undergrowth
had completely taken over and it was impossible to see the route of the line.
We entered Chester via the canal towpath, a great way to avoid the busy roads.
At the station we were greeted by a Virgin train so I sprinted down to end
of the platform to record 47 786 returning with the 13:35 Holyhead
to Euston which it will take as far as Crewe.
Ten minutes later, 37 412 Driver John Elliot arrives amongst
the weeds which seem to be a permanent fixture between the two main platforms.
This is the 14:03 Holyhead to Birmingham.
We'd planned to catch the 14:23 Birmingham to Holyhead back home but I'd forgotten this is now a unit on Saturdays! Still, I thought it would be interesting to see how it coped as this is normally a very busy train, often with passengers standing. I was surprised how quiet the platform was - usually it's thronged with shoppers taking their purchases back home. Ten minutes before departure time, a 156 ran into platform 3b and we were told it would form part of our train. We all boarded but it was still nowhere near half full - perhaps the rail companies assertion that most passengers prefer units are untrue, I've certainly never seen this service so quiet.
At 15:47, our departure
time, we felt a second unit make contact then the fun started. There was a
problem coupling and after eight minutes of fruitless attempts accompanied
by several jolts we ran past the points, back through the station via the
centre road and nudged up to the back of what proved to be a 158. We were
coupled up very quickly and left 15 minutes late. There was no explanation
or apology for the delay. We'd dropped another couple of minutes by the time
we reached Bangor.
We crossed the line and watched 37 428 with the 16:41 Holyhead to Birmingham
before cycling back, reaching home just as the rain started.