Operator: Transport for Wales
Headcode: 1S39
Route: MIA-CTR
Class: Standard Class
Seat: ??
Date: Tuesday 25th June 2024
My time travelling around the north-west was drawing to a close and with a day of spotting at Manchester Airport under my belt (read about that here), it was time to start the journey home. The obvious routing for me to get to Peterborough from the airport would be to take a train to Manchester Piccadilly and then change for the direct East Midlands Railway service to Peterborough, but where would be the fun in that? As such, the first leg of my journey home would actually be taking me further away, as I headed to a city on the western edge of England, Chester.
Transport for Wales (TfW) would be taking me from Manchester Airport across Cheshire to pretty much the Welsh border and after dropping me off the service would continue through to Llandudno Junction. Enroute to Chester we’d be stopping at nine intermediate stations, specifically East Didsbury; Manchester Piccadilly; Manchester Oxford Road; Newton-Le-Willows; Earlestown; Warrington Bank Quay; Runcorn East; Frodsham; and Helsby. For me the journey to Chester would take around 85 minutes, although for those continuing through all the way to Llandudno Junction, the journey would take more than two and a half hours.
Unfortunately, the unit forming the train I was due to catch was running around 20 minutes late on its inbound journey and with only 10 minutes scheduled turnaround time at Manchester Airport, a late start was inevitable. This ended up with us departing at 1440, 15 minutes late, although I had plenty of slack in my connection at Chester so this didn’t worry me too much. I did notice as I was boarding that the unit forming my service was 197120, a class 197 that has a ‘Made in Wales’ livery applied on top of the standard TfW livery. Disappointingly the manner is which this had been applied did result in limited visibility from some of the windows, something that frustrates me with special liveries or advertising.
As would be expected from modern units, TfW’s class 197s are fitted with USB and standard power sockets under the seats, with these laid out in a 2-2 configuration throughout with a mix of airline style seating and groups of four around tables. Overall, these are fairly nice units, however, suffer from the two major faults the majority of modern rolling stock is suffering from, a lack of level boarding and limited capacity with the class 196s only being two or three cars long. In terms of level boarding there’s really no excuse as proven by the class 745s and 755s in service with Greater Anglia, but unfortunately with these new units we’re committed to another 20+ years of no level boarding across many Welsh routes. Anyway rant over…
Our route from Manchester Airport to Chester was quite a winding one, with us initially heading north towards Manchester itself before then heading west along the Eccles line towards Newton-Le-Willows. Just before Newton-Le-Willows we passed under the West Coast Mainline (WCML), with us then joining it on the other side after a stop at the triangular station of Earlestown. This fairly unique platform layout allows trains heading in all directions to serve Earlestown with calling at all five platforms at least hourly. Having passed under and then joined the WCML, we then proceeded to cross it all on the flat, call at Warrington Bank Quay before heading down the line towards Chester and once again crossing under the WCML in the process. Essentially in the space of less than 10 miles we’d crossed under, then over, then under the WCML again.
Just after Runcorn East we passed over the River Weaver, one of the tributaries of the Mersey, with lots of seemingly expensive riverside houses complete with boat ramps. However despite the seeming exclusivity of these, the industry of Merseyside was just about visible in the distance leading to an interesting mix of worlds in this small part of Cheshire. The stop at Frodsham was nothing of note, however our penultimate stop at Helsby marks the junction between the mainline towards Chester and the little used branch towards Ellsmere Port. This branch has two intermediate stations at Ince & Elton and Stanlow & Thornton which have frequently featured in the list of the UK’s least used stations. Whilst I haven’t visited the stations themselves, I did travel on one of the two return services each day that call at them during my Cheshire Day Ranger Vlog, which you can check out here.
After a journey of just under 90 minutes, we arrived into Chester’s platform 2 at 1605, 16 minutes late. Overall, this was an ok journey with TfW, nothing special but no real issues other than the delay. The 197 was comfortable enough for the 90-minute journey to the Welsh border, however I wouldn’t want to travel on one for much longer and certainly not the full five and a half hours from Manchester Piccadilly to Carmarthen.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 4*
Food 0*
Service 5*
Punctuality 3*
Overall Rating 18/25 (read about my rating system here!)
Flights & Times 