Trying to plan a fun Cheshire Day Ranger trip for the weekend!

[BeccaOnATrain]

Hiya

I'm planning a trip this Saturday (26th) with the Cheshire Day Ranger. One of my goals is to board a train from every TOC. Pretty simple stuff to start off with! But I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or input?

TOC

Northern

Avanti West Coast

West Midlands Trains

CrossCountry

East Midlands

Mersey Rail

Transpenine Express

Transport For Wales

46233 Duchess of Sutherland is travelling up to Manchester too, so I was looking at either watching at Stoke-on-Trent mid day, or alternatively at Manchester Victoria at 4pm before departing back to London.

My very early provisional route so far looks like this for the morning.. giving me some time to spend at Crewe.

TOC	Train		Dep	Arr		Service
Northern	195XXX	Marple	0808	0834	Manchester Piccadilly	SHF>MAN
Avanti West Coast	390XXX	Manchester Piccadilly	0855	0929	Crewe	MAN>EUS
West Midlands Trains	350XXX	Crewe	1101	1126	Stoke-on-Trent	CRE>BHM
CrossCountry	221XXX	Stoke-on-Trent	1344	1413	Stockport	SOA>MAN

But I'm open to changing. I may have to start earlier?

I've got a few questions..

I was looking at getting an EM serviceover to Liverpool from Stockport. However after my nightmare scenario trying to board EM last weekend I wonder if that is just asking for trouble with over crowding again..?
Mersey Rail.. ideally I don't want to spend too long in Liverpool - I think I could go to Liverpool Lime St. and then a MerseyRail train to Chester maybe? But that leads me onto my 3rd problem..
I'd like to keep each individual train journeys to less than an hour.. guess that isn't possible if I'm having to go over to Liverpool to catch a MerseyRAil service though, unless I've overlooked something?

For an even better challenge I'd have like to have stuck to only going on one TOC only once.. but that's not possible due to me needing to catch at least two MerseyRail trains in Liverpool (correct me if I'm wrong) and also all my local stations (Rose Hill, Marple, New Mills Central, New Mills New Town, Hazel Grove) are served by Northern unless I start/end at Stockport which I'd prefer to avoid.

Thanks for reading!

 

[telstarbox]

With this sort of thing I would plan around the lowest-frequency service which in your case is an hourly EMR -
either Liverpool - Warrington - Manchester - Stockport
or Crewe - Kidsgrove - Stoke (the EMR service runs a few mins behind the LNWR one above)

Then the others can slot in around that.

If you are into track / station bashing there is also the infrequent Ellesmere Port - Ince & Elton - Helsby service but this might be hard to slot into the rest.

Good luck!

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

or Crewe - Kidsgrove - Stoke (the EMR service runs a few mins behind the LNWR one above)

Ohh, thank you - that looks like a better option.. I could plan the trip around doing Crewe to Stoke-on-Trent on both the EM/LM services swapping over at Kidsgrove or Alsager. That gets those two TOCs and infrequent services out of the way.

TOC		Dep	Arr
Northern	Marple	0702	0732	Manchester Piccadilly
Transpenine Express	Manchester Victoria	0822	0904	Liverpool Lime Street
Mersey Rail	Liverpool Lime Street	0931	1018	Chester
Transport For Wales	Chester	1054	1119	Crewe
East Midlands	Crewe	1201	1210	Alsager
West Midlands	Alsager	1217	1233	Stoke-on-Trent

Giving me room for error and all afternoon to catch a CrossCountry/Avanti West Coast train and still make it to Victoria for 3.30ish to see 46233 Duchess of Sutherland.
And then I can say I caught each different TOC 8 in a row.

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

Alsager looks like an interesting station too! Only served by East Midlands and West Midlands.

 

[NorthWestRover]

I did a Cheshire Day Ranger in November 2018 and managed 7 of the TOCs without realising it until I just checked. I missed out on Merseyrail which I could have done easily enough by just doing the Wirral Line Loop. Interesting that is only three and a half years ago and 3 things (the 67, 142 and 153) which are no longer possible.

I also changed at Alsager.

156464 (Northern) Padgate to Manchester OR
150205 Manchester OR to Picc
67020 (TfW) Picc to Chester
221114 (Virgin/Avanti) Chester to Crewe
350125 (WM/LNWR) Crewe to Alsager
153384 (EM) Alsager to Stoke
390020 Stoke to Stockport
150103 Stockport to Picc
185103 (TPE) Picc to Vic
185116 Vic to Lea Green
319366 Lea Green to Lime St
350247 Lime St to Crewe
323235 Crewe to Wilmslow
390104 Wilmslow to Stockport
220031 (CC) Stockport to Picc
142009 Picc to Guide Bridge
323234 Guide Bridge to Picc
150128 Picc to Oxford Road
156464 Oxford Road to Padgate

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

I did a Cheshire Day Ranger in November 2018 and managed 7 of the TOCs without realising it until I just checked. I missed out on Merseyrail which I could have done easily enough by just doing the Wirral Line Loop. Interesting that is only three and a half years ago and 3 things (the 67, 142 and 153) which are no longer possible.

I also changed at Alsager.

156464 (Northern) Padgate to Manchester OR
150205 Manchester OR to Picc
67020 (TfW) Picc to Chester
221114 (Virgin/Avanti) Chester to Crewe
350125 (WM/LNWR) Crewe to Alsager
153384 (EM) Alsager to Stoke
390020 Stoke to Stockport
150103 Stockport to Picc
185103 (TPE) Picc to Vic
185116 Vic to Lea Green
319366 Lea Green to Lime St
350247 Lime St to Crewe
323235 Crewe to Wilmslow
390104 Wilmslow to Stockport
220031 (CC) Stockport to Picc
142009 Picc to Guide Bridge
323234 Guide Bridge to Picc
150128 Picc to Oxford Road
156464 Oxford Road to Padgate

Oh wow, I didn't realise TFW were running 67s around that time!

I've finally settled on my trip.. now to wait and see how it all pans out on the actual day! I'm kinda being a bit boring swapping Avanti/XC trains at Macclesfield and not really hanging around there much.. but I've seen too many Pendolinos and XCs now that I'm not too fussed. I'm mostly looking forward to spending time around Liverpool Lime Street, Chester & Crewe. I could even just push my Chester/Crewe visits back an hour and it shouldn't affect the actual route back later in the afternoon too much I don't think.

	TOC		Dep	Arr
	Northern	Marple	0702	0732	Manchester Piccadilly
	Transpenine Express	Manchester Victoria	0822	0904	Liverpool Lime Street
	Mersey Rail	Liverpool Lime Street	0931	1018	Chester
	Transport For Wales	Chester	1054	1119	Crewe
OR	Transport For Wales	Chester	1154	1219	Crewe
	West Midlands	Crewe	1401	1409	Alsager
	East Midlands	Alsager	1317	1432	Stoke-on-Trent
	Avanti West Coast	Stoke-on-Trent	1444	1500	Macclesfield
	Cross Country	Macclesfield	1506	1527	Manchester Piccadilly

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

All gone to plan so far! Well, except I missed the Marple train so got the one from Rose Hill instead.

Cut my 2 hours in Crewe short by an hour, started getting a bit busy.. so I head down to Alsager with just over an hour wait there so having some lunch at the pub!

Going to take me forever to go through all the video footage I've taken so far! Already gone through two camera batteries. ☺️

It's also just dawned on me.. this 7 TOCs in a row I've done.. should I maybe have included west midland railways and London Northwestern as two separate TOCs? I wouldn't ordinarily... Hmm.

 

[High Dyke]

Aside from Duchess of Sutherland into Manchester today 7029 Clun Castle is on its way to Chester as well, due there in about 40 minutes.

 

[telstarbox]

Hope it was a good one.

 

[Andy Pacer]

It's also just dawned on me.. this 7 TOCs in a row I've done.. should I maybe have included west midland railways and London Northwestern as two separate TOCs? I wouldn't ordinarily... Hmm.

Personally i'd treat them as the same, but only my own view.

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

I've uploaded part 1 of the trip.. taking me from Rose Hill Marple, across Manchester over to Liverpool and down to Chester!

Still don't really know what I'm doing properly with this whole editing and filming malarky but I'm quite pleased I managed to put something together from the clips I took.

 

[NorthWestRover]

That's very good

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

That's very good

Thanks!

I finally got round to uploading Part 2. New intro and added a bit of flair to the video! Hopefully a more enjoyable watch than the first one.

 

[NorthWestRover]

Great stuff.

When (if) we get 68s over Chat Moss and CLC routes, that ticket becomes very attractive.