Entering service on the Merseyrail network in November 1978 and March 1983 respectively, the class 507 and class 508 units have served the commuters of Merseyside and the surrounding areas for over 40 years. Despite a refresh in the early noughties, the class 507s and 508s were showing their age and a replacement clearly needed. This replacement came on 23rd January 2023 when 777049, the first Class 777 entered service.
With two rail journeys under my belt, my arrival into Liverpool meant it was time for the first of two lots of AvGeekery for the trip, with Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport (LPL/EGPP) being today’s plane spotting location. As with the vast majority of UK airports, Liverpool doesn’t have an ‘official’ spotting area and so my visit was to Viscount Road at the eastern end of the north side of the airport.
Having arrived in York onboard a Grand Central from Peterborough, leg 2 of my trip to the north-west of England would take me across the Pennines and into the north-west itself. This leg I would be taking the first of two journeys on this trip with TransPennie Express, or TPE, from the Yorkshire capital all the way to Liverpool. I’d be travelling in 1st Class for both my journeys with TPE to see the differences between their different offerings and to hopefully enjoy more relaxed journeys on my two day train marathon across England.
Back at the start of June I took a trip to the north-west of England to take a ride on some trains, do some plane spotting and generally have a couple of days exploring. One of the things I had added to my to-do list was to visit the newest station on the Merseyrail network which had in fact been open for almost nine months by the time of my visit. That station is Headbolt Lane and this blog will have gone live to coincide with the station’s first anniversary.
With my AvGeek posts such as ‘Heathrow – Spotting at Myrtle Avenue’ and ‘Luton – Spotting Around the Airport’ performing weirdly well on the blog, the end of June saw me heading out on a two-day trip planned around doing some spotting and writing some more of that type of post. But as well as some AvGeeking, I’d made the most out of this trip, fitting in plenty of rail journeys, starting with this one from Peterborough to York with Grand Central.
Just under 48 hours after arriving in Finland, and after two great days exploring Tampere and Helsinki as well as trying out the Finnish rail network, it was time to head back to the UK and reality. I still had one more adventure ahead of me though, another flight with Finnair in Business Class, this time onboard one of their more usual Airbus A321s.
Flights & Times 