Trans-Pennine Ale Trail Update

[theblackwatch]

I was going to mention the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms at Sowerby Bridge as well. Early last year a group of us had a few hours there as part of a birthday get-together - the day itself worked well, doing an 'off the Trans-Pennine' Rail Ale trail. We started at Dewsbury for the breakfast ale and a pint (before it got too busy) but then headed off to Sowerby Bridge instead of along the main route. After 2 or 3 drinks in the Jubilee, plus the 'pie and peas with a pint' lunch wethen visited a couple of other places in the town, although I can't remember their names. Perhaps we could arrange a similar 'Calder Valley' forum pub crawl later in the year when the nights are starting to draw in?

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Did you not try the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms at Sowerby?

Been before, not my favourite place, but ok. A bit of a cold, severe, bright and strange environment for drinking beer. I prefer a pub to be like a pub. But yes, it is ok as a passing point, but my companions didn't want to go.

 

[Max]

I imagine it would be possible to do a bit of 'crawl' along south TPE. The Sheffield Tap is a good starting point, and there are some good pubs along the Hope Valley line (Edale in particular has a lovely pub).

 

[island]

Quite easy to spot really ...

1) Large group
2) Often in fancy dress
3) Loud/ignorant/downright rude
4) Been on the pop since midday - therefore already the worse for wear ...
5) People walking IN with glasses in hand
6) Look out of pub door when trains are due

Perm any 3 from 6 ...

Easy to sort out category 3; it's illegal to serve anyone who's drunk..

 

[142094]

I imagine it would be possible to do a bit of 'crawl' along south TPE. The Sheffield Tap is a good starting point, and there are some good pubs along the Hope Valley line (Edale in particular has a lovely pub).

Only problem is the one train every two hours I suppose (although some wouldn't see that as a problem) for the intermediate stops. With a bit of planning you could reduce the wait but would mean double backing.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Only problem is the one train every two hours I suppose (although some wouldn't see that as a problem) for the intermediate stops. With a bit of planning you could reduce the wait but would mean double backing.

It's hourly on Saturdays and Sundays though, due to the lack of freight which takes up the path during the week.

 

[johnnychips]

It's a bit further to walk from the stations to the pubs than you think:

Dore - dunno
Grindleford - station cafe serves alcohol, but is not a pub; Maynard Arms at end of station approach - bit posh?
Hathersage - Little John is in village, one down the hill -Duke of York?
Bamford - Quite a trek to Rose and Crown on main road; also not really near to one in village (Anglers' Rest?). Marquis of Granby next to station has been closed for several years. Do some trains skip Bamford?
Hope - again the pubs in the village are not nearby (Old Hall, Cheshire Cheese +1)
Edale - Right outside the station (Rambler? Church Inn?); rather further to Old Nags Head
Chinley - dunno
New Mills C - several a minute or two away

 

[JMTRACK&MOAN]

I bought a house near Slaithwaite Station because I liked the house and liked the Station. Never get an issue all week but Saturday afternoons onwards till around 7:30pm it's a nightmare. The station is just an extension of the pubs now. I get all these idiots trespassing in my garden and dumping their cans and bottles amongst my flowerbeds -great. The value of my house is slowly falling thanks to the ale-trail and just to make matters worse I spend pretty much every Sunday hosing down my drive because these ignorant brainless drunks always urinate all over it.
When I have confronted them and told them to leave, it's always a mouth full back. What do I expect though? You just can't reason with a drunk. Last weekend 3 women decided that it was perfectly ok to just drop their knickers behind the planter (whilst passing to each other a toilet roll!!!). I know that there is a lack of toilet facilities at the station (which some of us residents are trying to rectify), but come on this rubbish only occurs on Saturday afternoons onwards.
These people are drunk, selfish and have absolutely no respect for the Station let alone "real ale". It's Stag do's and Hen nights and I've had enough of it.
Anyone who thinks that this is great for the community by bringing in trade needs to ask "at what other cost?".

It's just a matter of time till someone goes under a train. 2049 people came in and out of Slaithwaite a couple of weekends ago and they were just ale-trailers. No resident will travel on the trains in the afternoons because it's gone completely bonkers.

Really sick of it.

HAD ENOUGH

 

[mirodo]

I bought a house near Slaithwaite Station because I liked the house and liked the Station. Never get an issue all week but Saturday afternoons onwards till around 7:30pm it's a nightmare. The station is just an extension of the pubs now. I get all these idiots trespassing in my garden and dumping their cans and bottles amongst my flowerbeds -great. The value of my house is slowly falling thanks to the ale-trail and just to make matters worse I spend pretty much every Sunday hosing down my drive because these ignorant brainless drunks always urinate all over it.
When I have confronted them and told them to leave, it's always a mouth full back. What do I expect though? You just can't reason with a drunk. Last weekend 3 women decided that it was perfectly ok to just drop their knickers behind the planter (whilst passing to each other a toilet roll!!!). I know that there is a lack of toilet facilities at the station (which some of us residents are trying to rectify), but come on this rubbish only occurs on Saturday afternoons onwards.
These people are drunk, selfish and have absolutely no respect for the Station let alone "real ale". It's Stag do's and Hen nights and I've had enough of it.
Anyone who thinks that this is great for the community by bringing in trade needs to ask "at what other cost?".

It's just a matter of time till someone goes under a train. 2049 people came in and out of Slaithwaite a couple of weekends ago and they were just ale-trailers. No resident will travel on the trains in the afternoons because it's gone completely bonkers.

Really sick of it.

HAD ENOUGH

If people were urinating on my driveway, I'd be hosing THEM down.

 

[ainsworth74]

Really sick of it.

HAD ENOUGH

You're not the only one, I'm under the impression that most rail staff are less than impressed with the people on the ale trail.

But, of course, the question becomes what do you do about it? Ban drink on the trains (which probably won't help much)? Prevent people boarding who are intoxicated (hard to enforce and just leaves the problem at the station)? Stronger BTP presence (manpower intensive and expensive)?

 

[IanD]

You're not the only one, I'm under the impression that most rail staff are less than impressed with the people on the ale trail.

But, of course, the question becomes what do you do about it? Ban drink on the trains (which probably won't help much)? Prevent people boarding who are intoxicated (hard to enforce and just leaves the problem at the station)? Stronger BTP presence (manpower intensive and expensive)?

I'd suggest the latter, clamp down hard on the moronic anti-social element and then send the bill for the extra policing to i) the pubs who are quite happy to accept the extra income without the responsibility (except perhaps the Britannia) ii) the TOCs who are happy to accept the extra revenue without the responsibility and iii) the morons themselves in the way of fines.

 

[telstarbox]

It's hardly the fault of Northern (who operate the trains) if people decide to use their trains to get to pubs near their stations.

 

[wellhouse]

I bought a house near Slaithwaite Station because I liked the house and liked the Station. Never get an issue all week but Saturday afternoons onwards till around 7:30pm it's a nightmare. The station is just an extension of the pubs now. I get all these idiots trespassing in my garden and dumping their cans and bottles amongst my flowerbeds -great. The value of my house is slowly falling thanks to the ale-trail and just to make matters worse I spend pretty much every Sunday hosing down my drive because these ignorant brainless drunks always urinate all over it.
When I have confronted them and told them to leave, it's always a mouth full back. What do I expect though? You just can't reason with a drunk. Last weekend 3 women decided that it was perfectly ok to just drop their knickers behind the planter (whilst passing to each other a toilet roll!!!). I know that there is a lack of toilet facilities at the station (which some of us residents are trying to rectify), but come on this rubbish only occurs on Saturday afternoons onwards.
These people are drunk, selfish and have absolutely no respect for the Station let alone "real ale". It's Stag do's and Hen nights and I've had enough of it.
Anyone who thinks that this is great for the community by bringing in trade needs to ask "at what other cost?".

It's just a matter of time till someone goes under a train. 2049 people came in and out of Slaithwaite a couple of weekends ago and they were just ale-trailers. No resident will travel on the trains in the afternoons because it's gone completely bonkers.

Really sick of it.

HAD ENOUGH

Slaithwaite is my local station, and I now avoid The Commercial on a Saturday afternoon; I fortunately live sufficiently far from the station to escape the unsavoury behaviour. At the request of The Police, drinks on Saturday afternoons are served to visitors only in plastic beakers.

I do know that the local Neighbourhood Policing Team have been actively patrolling Slaithwaite and Marsden at weekends, sometimes in conjuction with BTP, and have made arrests, so if you suffer persistent problems, it is worth getting in touch with them;

https://wypnpt.org/npt/area.asp?id=56

Of course on a recent weekend, the only arrest they made was a local caught urinating over a wall!

One of the sadder repercussions of all this has been the withdrawal of the tables from the platform outside the Stalybridge Station Buffet.

 

[michael769]

S
I do know that the local Neighbourhood Policing Team have been actively patrolling Slaithwaite and Marsden at weekends, sometimes in conjuction with BTP, and have made arrests, so if you suffer persistent problems, it is worth getting in touch with them;

I would back up the advice to contact your police's neighborhood team or (if they have one) your councils anti social behavior unit.

You may also want to contact your councils Environmental Wardens (or if they do not have them Environmental Services unit or equivalent) about the littering issue.

You may also want to find out when any nearby pubs' licences come up for renewal so that you can raise the issues with the licensing committee and possibly object to the renewal of the licence.

 

[table38]

One of the sadder repercussions of all this has been the withdrawal of the tables from the platform outsdide the Stalybridge Staion Buffet.

I always felt this would happen sooner or later, although I assumed it was because it encouraged people to smoke on the platform rather than in the car park.

There was nothing better than to be sat on the picnic benches on a warm summers Friday afternoon, slowly lifting a cold pint to your lips whilst watching the envious eyes of those on the passing trains

 

[ANorthernGuard]

I hardly go in the Buffet Bar now since the tables have been moved, the atmosphere has diminished and it isn't the same.

 

[IanD]

It's hardly the fault of Northern (who operate the trains) if people decide to use their trains to get to pubs near their stations.

True - but they are happy to accept the extra revenue and seem to do nothing to help the ontrain staff to deal with these people.

 

[JMTRACK&MOAN]

These comments are helpful so thanks for that. I will certainly be logging more incidents. I'm glad I don't have to suffer in silence. Held back over the last 3 months to just study the beast. I've collected data and have sent to the Head of Crime Management at Northern Rail as well as Kirklees Council. Also involved in some committee meetings to discuss the issues and get some sort of resolution. Last Saturday a guy from the BBC wanted to talk to me about the Ale-Trail. Doing some piece for Look North. I told him what I knew and he went over to Marsden to film. A few weekends ago I had our local MP round to just watch the 3:37pm come in. He stayed to watch the 4:37pm come in too. He saw for himself how bad it gets. Unfortunately he didn't see the vandalism of a car parked on Station Road that occurred after the 5:37pm arrived but hey he did see the urinations for himself and the fact that people carry their drinks along the street. This phenomenon is not the fault of Northern Rail, they are just trying to run some sort of service on Saturday afternoons despite these idiots and you can't blame the pubs who just serve the drinks and have no control over the behaviour of its visitors once they leave. The crux of the matter is - it's the people themselves. They think it is ok to get drunk and do what they want without accountability. I think it is something that has become a "festival". People are in festival mode but unlike Glastonbury or V, it's entirely left to it's own devices and has no stewards.
We did discuss the idea of having stewards at the Station but I can tell you now no one is going to pay for that. As for volunteers made up of good hearted locals who want to protect their village that won't work either as I think it needs a stronger policing, people trained in "confrontation management" or something.
When I approached one of these booze-cruisers to point out that my drive wasn't a public toilet I got told that if I didn't "p*ss off" I could expect my windows to be smashed in. I'm not volunteering to give up my Saturdays to facilitate this nonsense while they enjoy their weekend at the expense of mine.
I really can't see an immediate solution to this. Certainly when I called the police out to log a trespass around 7pm I waited up Saturday night till about 11pm thinking that someone was going to come out (after being told someone would) but alas no one did. Perhaps because they think I'm next to the station that it's the responsibility of BTP, but BTP believe it's not theirs because of course it was on my property NOT the station itself.
It's a Catch-22
My only hope now is the Northern Hub. Wondering if this will limit the numbers as I've heard there may be less trains. Then again it could mean booze-cruisers staying longer in these villages.....in any case this ain't happening quick enough for me.
As for the fact that there are teams monitoring Slaithwaite Station, if they have I haven't seen them. We did get BTP a month ago monitoring the Station and an unmarked car last weekend turned up for 5 minutes then left but apart from that the only thing I've seen is someone turn up to collect glasses off the platform who I suspect came from a pub because they had run out of glasses (it was a day when I saw very few plastic glasses being brought up so looks like they were using real glasses on that day).
I think the only thing I can do, is continue to collect statistics (wasting yet another Saturday of my life), film what's going on and just set up my own YouTube Channel called Slaithwaite ****sVille, but then again there is more to Slaithwaite than this, and after all there is the value of my house to consider. Again a catch -22.

 

[table38]

I wonder if you could persuade the council to provide some portable urinals, like we have in Manchester at weekends?

 

[JMTRACK&MOAN]

Yeah, we are looking in to this. They are a good idea. It certainly would direct people off my property onto the Station area. Northern Rail have told us that they don't have a business Case for them so will not be putting their hand in their pockets. However, all is not lost. We are going to try with our Council and if that fails try local businesses. I can't see this being overly expensive and would resolve the public urinations and would benefit everyone. Nobody wants ale-trailers urinating up the War Memorial on Station Road, not even local businesses that benefit so i think this is definitely a way forward. Thanks for posting that.

 

[table38]

I think basically what happened in Manchester is that, having closed nearly all of the public toilets, people were using the (horrible) concrete wall in Piccadilly Gardens as a makeshift urinal, especially after dark.

OK that's wrong, but difficult and expensive to police, so the "lateral thinking" was to allieviate the problem by provide an alternative.

 

[yorksrob]

We had these in Leeds a short while back, and I think they were a very good idea. However, on a rare night out around a year ago I couldn't find one, so I assume they've been the victims of a cutback

 

[JMTRACK&MOAN]

It's the V-Festival this weekend I'm hoping this will have an effect on the number of irresponsible drunks coming into Marsden and Slaithwaite this weekend. Also football matches are on so I'm hoping that this reduces the insanity. Hoping that I don't have to hose down lager-urine off my property on Sunday again like last weekend. We shall see.
Will be using the train tomorrow so will get to see what it is like to use the trains in the afternoon from Manchester Victoria. Really not looking forward to that but it should give me an idea either way if numbers and unacceptable behaviour is down.

 

[table38]

If people were urinating on my property, I'd be thinking of installing some sort of electric fence

Seriously though, this is anti-social behaviour; I thought councils were keen to crack down on that sort of thing these days.

For example, our council has "a team of uniformed Council Officers that work hand in hand with Greater Manchester Police to tackle lower level disorder such as youth nuisance and environmental anti-social behaviour"

 

[michael769]

If people were urinating on my property, I'd be thinking of installing some sort of electric fence

IIRC the Mythbusters tested that it it does not work!

My feeling is that the best way to proceed would be to pressure the council's licensing committee to impose special conditions on the licensees to pay for a cleanup of the area and also to pay for the provision or adequate public toilets. As the end of the day the pubs are benefiting financially from this and it is not unreasonable to require them to spend some of the proceeds on mitigating the impact on their neighbors.

Another suggestion would be to put up a dummy CCTV housing - I suspect that all but the most paralytic would not be keen to be filmed doing their business .

 

[Anon Mouse]

IIRC the Mythbusters tested that it it does not work!

I would'nt like to test it though!

 

[IanD]

My feeling is that the best way to proceed would be to pressure the council's licensing committee to impose special conditions on the licensees to pay for a cleanup of the area and also to pay for the provision or adequate public toilets. As the end of the day the pubs are benefiting financially from this and it is not unreasonable to require them to spend some of the proceeds on mitigating the impact on their neighbors.

Apparently, in post #48 JMTRACK&MOAN has already stated he thinks it's not reasonable to expect the pubs to shoulder any of the responsibility. Just let them take the money.

 

[bAzTNM]

How do those portable loos work in a busy street? Looks like there is not a back to them. A woman or a female kid could be walking behind you and see everything.

 

[table38]

How do those portable loos work in a busy street? Looks like there is not a back to them. A woman or a female kid could be walking behind you and see everything.

I have seen them with small spring-loaded plastic "modesty" doors, but as you are stood in quite a narrow "V" shape, I guess it should be OK as long as you put it away before you turn around...

Actually I'd have thought anti-discriminatory legislation would insist on providing female and disabled equivalents too, but I've never seen any. Maybe that's a sticking point for Slaithwaite... in Manchester City Centre, at least there are one or two of those automatic loos for those who can't do it standing up or are otherwise - err.. - "unequipped" to use the urinals

 

[sprinterguy]

How do those portable loos work in a busy street? Looks like there is not a back to them. A woman or a female kid could be walking behind you and see everything.

How would they see anything? You’re facing inward, with your back to the outside world, and as table38 says, contained by the “V”. Unless you’ve mastered a whole new technique for peeing