April 2022 – RailwayWorld.net

Day return to Droitwich Spa

WORCESTER is like Shrewsbury in being one of our finest outposts of mechanical signalling, with a total of eight signal boxes controlling at least some semaphores along the 25 miles of route from Norton Junction, south of the city, Droitwich Spa to the north and Ledbury to the west.

Among the busiest and most interesting of this octet is Droitwich Spa, where a large Great Western Railway box dating from 1907 stands some 400 yards north of the station in the fork between the routes to Birmingham via Kidderminster on its left, or front side, and the line to Birmingham via Bromsgrove to the right, or rear of the box.

The semaphores of Crewe Junction

SHREWSBURY has long been the finest outpost of mechanical signalling in Britain, so after a pleasant day last summer at Sutton Bridge Junction, south of the town, it is time to take a look at another of the station’s four signal boxes.

Crewe Junction is a fine and listed London & North Western Railway box dating from 1903, standing at the north end of the station within sight of its better known sibling, the magnificent and newly-refurbished Severn Bridge Junction to the south of the station.

Merseyrail in a day

Rover and ranger tickets are a great way to cover a lot of track in a particular area, as I had discovered a few years ago when I travelled every one of the 268 miles of track in Cornwall in a 15-hour marathon from Saltash, using a £10.00 Ride Cornwall ticket.

Spending the night in Chester after a rain-affected visit to Peak Forest and Buxton, my thoughts turned to the Merseyrail network, which I had long hoped to complete, having only previously travelled the routes from Liverpool to Chester, Kirkby and New Brighton.

Discovering that a £5.60 Merseyrail Day Saver is cheaper than a day return to Liverpool from Chester, I set myself a target of travelling the entire 75-mile Merseyrail network in a day, beginning at Chester, where a service leaves at exactly the moment a Day Saver becomes valid (09.30) and hopefully reaching Liverpool Lime Street by about 18.00.

Parliamentary train to Ellesmere Port

Platform 4 at Helsby station in North Cheshire is not somewhere you battle the crowds in order to board your train. It briefly comes to life just once a day, when a Northern Rail Class 156 unit prepares to set off on its 10-minute, 5¼ mile, journey to Ellesmere Port.

Coming to life is probably a bit of an exaggeration, as there are few takers for a “Parliamentary” service that is run at times seemingly designed to be as useless as possible to anyone contemplating a journey.