I used to get the train from Stafford to York (late 1970s) and would have to change at Stockport then Stalybridge. The Stockport to Stalybridge shuttle via Reddish South and Denton was frequent.
The sign at Denton is a weird little thing. Originally the service used to be 1 direction only from Stockport to Stalybridge and they only used 1 platform at Denton. When the service started running both ways they began using both platforms and never updated the sign
Waking up at half four for a train that got cancelled is really annoying. I have done the Stockport to Stalybridge on a pacer but never visited the stations, great video
Waking up at half 4 to open a station at 05:20am for the first 3 trains to be cancelled is also really annoying, that's happened to me several times now 😂😂
I can only assume the Ellesmere Port - Helsby service (while obviously serving not many stations), like MANY services across this country, may have come under what I call the "no trains" paradox. Pretend you guard the coffers for a TOC: - There are fewer passengers! The logical* thing to do is to cut the number of services. - You cutting the number of trains that stop there makes the service less popular and, during the times of the services you cut, people literally couldn't get on a train there if they wanted to... leading to fewer passengers. - Repeat until there are no services left, until you are providing the minimum legal required service, or until people riot. *according to the logic of čǎpǐţǎIǐšm 😔
It is quite interesting that prior to the 1993 electrification of the Hooton to Chester line, the Helsby to Ellesmere Port section enjoyed a 30 minutes frequency during the week and ran Helsby - Hooton - Chester. Indeed even after electrification to Ellesmere Port, the line had a 2 hourly service running Ellesmere Port - Helsby - Warrington BQ - Earlestown - Liverpool Lime Street (on the opposite hour, this service ran Chester - Helsby - Warrington BQ - Earlestown - Liverpool Lime Street).
@@stephenmcculley7 In all honesty, I wish they’d never electrified Hooton to Ellesmere Port and Chester. The previous service pattern wasperfectly acceptable. How difficult was it to change at Hooton?
@@nigelkthomas9501 Cross platform if I remember correctly. The service in Northern (Serco) days was quite useful in the afternoon. There used to be 2 round trips between Helsby & Ellesmere Port with the final one (around 1615 ish) extending back to Lime Street via Earlestown. Very useful if you live along the Earlestown - Lime Street line and wanted to avoid the Liverpool City Centre at rush hour.
The effort that goes into these videos is insane. I could never be able to wake up at four in the morning for a video, but here's Nick doing exactly that! Brilliant video once again.
10:43 sooooo back (Another Jet Lag reference 😄). With the number of times you and other UA-camrs have visited Denton station, it surely won't be the least used station for much longer 😂!
Brilliant video Nick, it's so annoying when you wake up early for a train only for it to be cancelled. At least you got to do Denton to Reddish South and the evening train to Ellesmere Port was running.
On the Brigg Line, there is a situation where frequent services from Sheffield on other routes get cancelled so either a driver, guard or unit can be used to work the 1 round trip Monday to Friday Brigg Line service
Cancelled trains are fine but not when you have to wake up early for them 😭 had to wake up like 5 am for a train to Llandudno (forgot which) and it was cancelled due to hot weather
THATS where i remember the name from! It surprised me that "Denton" was a least used station, i had it in my head it was a proper thriving town. Now i know thats fictional lol
I do feel your pain Nick waking up at 4am and no train hasn’t arrived. All because it’s been cancelled and it’s so annoying. I think you are not the only one who has experienced it first hand.
The supermarket at Reddish South is good for breakfast whilst the unit goes to Stockport and back. Denton is sometimes used for watering steam locos on Carnforth - Scarborough excursions. I had Leander there back in 2019.
Waking up at 4am to get a train that is cancelled is annoying!! My train to work is at 0554, used to start at my local station but since Leven opened it starts there and at least 2 a week are cancelled due to “staff shortages”. That 156 (402) has been about! Central trains in Express livery, Anglia, EMR now Northern.
Good video! Shame about the lack of train for Helsby-Ellesmere Port. I hope you complained! When the third rail was extended from Hooton to Chester and Ellesmere Port it should’ve been extended to Helsby. The current situation is utter lunacy and so very typical of the railway in Britain. You just wouldn’t get it anywhere else.
Actually that kind of thing happens at national borders all the time, such as the direct line between Lisbon and Madrid having a joke level of service. Just in Britian, it's lines over local authority areas that miss out. E.g. between Ellesmere Port in Merseyside and Helsby in Cheshire. I assume Merseyside paid for the electrification as far as Ellsemere Port. And ironically, it's Transport for Wales who now run a train service between Helsby and Liverpool.
The other day (Friday 9 August) I was on a train from Richmond to Reading and one stop before at Earley we were held up because of a track inspection which resulted in the train getting cancelled and going all the way back to Waterloo. This also resulted in loads of cancellations at Reading itself, where I was supposed to catch a connecting train to Chippenham. Unfortunate but it happens to all of us!
At the other end of the spectrum there is a village in Bavaria with a population of 72 which has an hourly stopping service throughout the day. I cannot imagine that there is anywhere in the whole of the U.K. which can beat that.
I used to ride the Stalybridge-Stockport line when I was at university. It was part of a routing that was between my home in Huddersfield and Bristol where I was supposed to be studying. The other route was via Sheffield and the Penistone line. I didn't last long at Uni so it could only have been a couple of times in some smelly old DMU through Denton and Reddish South but it was a proper service back in 1980, not this stupid parliamentary train that has been running very occasionally for donkey's years now.
There is also a small amount of freight that uses the line and it has regularly been used for diversions (Stockport to Manchester Victoria to Preston) when there is major work on the WCML. There's a video out there (which I can't find now - I think it's a Don Coffey one) of a freight service that operates from Merseyside to Yorkshire and goes this way because it's too heavy to climb the bank out of Manchester Vic.
I didn't know Reddish was even in Cheshire, but if that's the best kept station, it doesn't say much for the others, does it? And shouldn't the 'trains' to Stockport and Stalybridge be singular? Still, at least you know why HELLs-by is so named now... Well done for getting to Ince & Elton!
Oh Nick!! This is happening to us AGAIN with Scotfail,I mean,Scotrail as their unions are doing the "action short of a strike" nonsense,leaving my part of Scotland with NO trains on a Sunday!
Interesting comment re least used stations. Bristol's least used station (St Andrews Rd) is in the middle of a big industrial estate so to me, shouldn't be the least used station. Most of the others I've done recently (Freshford, Coombe Junction Halt & Dilton Marsh) do seem right. Nice video!
I done something similar with teeside airport , got a train from chester at 4 something am got all the way up there and they cancelled 3 trains ans then shut the station a week later 😂 , the wait goes on. Love the videos nick keep up the good work
No no no, Reddish is not in Cheshire, it is historically Lancashire as it’s north of the Mersey. Stockport town centre actually crosses the historic county boundary!
I was surprised at that actually, because I grew up in Dukinfield, a couple of miles north east of there and we WERE in Cheshire at the time. At that point the River Tame was the border until it joins the Goyt and forms the Mersey near Stockport. This old map confirms it, although maybe the boundaries moved over time. Denton station is just above the "t" where the line crosses the road. images.antiquemapsandprints.com/scansr1/P-6-053382a.jpg
I know how it feels, I put aside a bank holiday to ride the Melton Mowbray to Corby limited service and it got cancelled within the time it took me to drive there, I was gutted! Also, I think I’m one of the 34 who went to Denton in that time period for the statistics!
Great video! Waking up at silly o clock in the morning only for your train to get cancelled can get annoying! On an unrelated note, what mic do you use for your videos? I am looking for one.
think you need to do least used station in scotland, the one not had trains for 10 months which is the actual most southern station in scotland (and that's not Carlisle)
Great video as usual Nick! Also great ending, you can die happy! If I remember correctly Geoff interviewed one of the top guys in Merseytravel who said one of the extensions of the Merseyrail Network will be from Ellesmere Port. The extension may go to Helsby, or maybe Runcorn East, or even Warrington Bank Quay using the battery powered 777/1 trains!
why dont more people go to teeside airport station when its the least used station? is it because it looks like a junkyard or? i mean i do understand it get 1 train a week but i haventt seen many vids of people saying its the least used station and them actually going there
Probably an unpopular opinion but branches like this (a few services a week) should just be retired and the line changed into a heritage line. As an industry that would bring in a lot more to the local economy and would be the perfect location as it already has a connection with the network.
Everyone loves a good fail video, and that was a good fail. Always keep the camera running!
Legend watches another legend!!
I used to get the train from Stafford to York (late 1970s) and would have to change at Stockport then Stalybridge. The Stockport to Stalybridge shuttle via Reddish South and Denton was frequent.
The sign at Denton is a weird little thing. Originally the service used to be 1 direction only from Stockport to Stalybridge and they only used 1 platform at Denton. When the service started running both ways they began using both platforms and never updated the sign
Ahhh, I see!
Waking up at half four for a train that got cancelled is really annoying. I have done the Stockport to Stalybridge on a pacer but never visited the stations, great video
Waking up at half 4 to open a station at 05:20am for the first 3 trains to be cancelled is also really annoying, that's happened to me several times now 😂😂
I can only assume the Ellesmere Port - Helsby service (while obviously serving not many stations), like MANY services across this country, may have come under what I call the "no trains" paradox. Pretend you guard the coffers for a TOC:
- There are fewer passengers! The logical* thing to do is to cut the number of services.
- You cutting the number of trains that stop there makes the service less popular and, during the times of the services you cut, people literally couldn't get on a train there if they wanted to... leading to fewer passengers.
- Repeat until there are no services left, until you are providing the minimum legal required service, or until people riot.
*according to the logic of čǎpǐţǎIǐšm 😔
It is quite interesting that prior to the 1993 electrification of the Hooton to Chester line, the Helsby to Ellesmere Port section enjoyed a 30 minutes frequency during the week and ran Helsby - Hooton - Chester. Indeed even after electrification to Ellesmere Port, the line had a 2 hourly service running Ellesmere Port - Helsby - Warrington BQ - Earlestown - Liverpool Lime Street (on the opposite hour, this service ran Chester - Helsby - Warrington BQ - Earlestown - Liverpool Lime Street).
@@stephenmcculley7 In all honesty, I wish they’d never electrified Hooton to Ellesmere Port and Chester. The previous service pattern wasperfectly acceptable. How difficult was it to change at Hooton?
@@nigelkthomas9501 Cross platform if I remember correctly. The service in Northern (Serco) days was quite useful in the afternoon. There used to be 2 round trips between Helsby & Ellesmere Port with the final one (around 1615 ish) extending back to Lime Street via Earlestown. Very useful if you live along the Earlestown - Lime Street line and wanted to avoid the Liverpool City Centre at rush hour.
@@stephenmcculley7 Somethings get better, but others get worse, much worse like Ellesmere Port-Helsby!
@@nigelkthomas9501 Agreed.
Point to Point: Ince & Elton to Elton & Orston. Will be a tough one due to the lack of trains at both.
The effort that goes into these videos is insane. I could never be able to wake up at four in the morning for a video, but here's Nick doing exactly that! Brilliant video once again.
10:43 sooooo back (Another Jet Lag reference 😄). With the number of times you and other UA-camrs have visited Denton station, it surely won't be the least used station for much longer 😂!
Geoff must be overdue for another visit. Greetings from Australia.
for a least used station, Denton looks well cared for. Certainly better than a lot of regular service spots
Brilliant video Nick, it's so annoying when you wake up early for a train only for it to be cancelled. At least you got to do Denton to Reddish South and the evening train to Ellesmere Port was running.
On the Brigg Line, there is a situation where frequent services from Sheffield on other routes get cancelled so either a driver, guard or unit can be used to work the 1 round trip Monday to Friday Brigg Line service
Hi nick,
If you could promote the service, we'd be incredibly grateful.
I always thought that service was from Hooton to Helsby! Turns out during my entire life that has never been the case!
Cancelled trains are fine but not when you have to wake up early for them 😭 had to wake up like 5 am for a train to Llandudno (forgot which) and it was cancelled due to hot weather
Denton...... and we all thought that was a fictional name for Detective crime drama "A touch of Frost"
Nice little station though.
Now you know it's a real place! 🙂
And I used to think it was the name of a dog in the area of Richmond Park, South London. But maybe that's just me showing my age.
THATS where i remember the name from! It surprised me that "Denton" was a least used station, i had it in my head it was a proper thriving town. Now i know thats fictional lol
I do feel your pain Nick waking up at 4am and no train hasn’t arrived. All because it’s been cancelled and it’s so annoying. I think you are not the only one who has experienced it first hand.
The supermarket at Reddish South is good for breakfast whilst the unit goes to Stockport and back. Denton is sometimes used for watering steam locos on Carnforth - Scarborough excursions. I had Leander there back in 2019.
Exceptional video as always. Such a narrative arc in this one
Waking up at 4am to get a train that is cancelled is annoying!!
My train to work is at 0554, used to start at my local station but since Leven opened it starts there and at least 2 a week are cancelled due to “staff shortages”.
That 156 (402) has been about! Central trains in Express livery, Anglia, EMR now Northern.
Good video! Shame about the lack of train for Helsby-Ellesmere Port. I hope you complained!
When the third rail was extended from Hooton to Chester and Ellesmere Port it should’ve been extended to Helsby. The current situation is utter lunacy and so very typical of the railway in Britain. You just wouldn’t get it anywhere else.
I wonder if someone could get an Open Access Operator to operate a shuttle between the two?
@@mattevans4377 Ha ha! Yeah; 31st April stuff that!
Actually that kind of thing happens at national borders all the time, such as the direct line between Lisbon and Madrid having a joke level of service. Just in Britian, it's lines over local authority areas that miss out. E.g. between Ellesmere Port in Merseyside and Helsby in Cheshire. I assume Merseyside paid for the electrification as far as Ellsemere Port. And ironically, it's Transport for Wales who now run a train service between Helsby and Liverpool.
The other day (Friday 9 August) I was on a train from Richmond to Reading and one stop before at Earley we were held up because of a track inspection which resulted in the train getting cancelled and going all the way back to Waterloo. This also resulted in loads of cancellations at Reading itself, where I was supposed to catch a connecting train to Chippenham. Unfortunate but it happens to all of us!
At the other end of the spectrum there is a village in Bavaria with a population of 72 which has an hourly stopping service throughout the day. I cannot imagine that there is anywhere in the whole of the U.K. which can beat that.
I used to ride the Stalybridge-Stockport line when I was at university. It was part of a routing that was between my home in Huddersfield and Bristol where I was supposed to be studying. The other route was via Sheffield and the Penistone line. I didn't last long at Uni so it could only have been a couple of times in some smelly old DMU through Denton and Reddish South but it was a proper service back in 1980, not this stupid parliamentary train that has been running very occasionally for donkey's years now.
Thank you for sharing Nick
Hello from runcorn , went Frodsham high school and had friends in Elton and use to get that train all the time , 15 years ago
Sounds like a future pointless journey! Denton to Reddish South via Manchester!
Ince & Elton to Ince as a pointless, and currently impossible, journey
@@raybrown2197 That would be point to point rather than pointless, but yes, it needs to wait until Ince reopens after electrification.
I'm still waiting for West Allerton to Northallerton! :)
That'd take me a week to complete!
New format then... 😀
There are rumours that the line will be commandeered at some point in the future by the Metrolink as part of an orbital route
I hope not, because Great British Railways have been wanting to run York-Cardiff trains over that bit!
There is also a small amount of freight that uses the line and it has regularly been used for diversions (Stockport to Manchester Victoria to Preston) when there is major work on the WCML. There's a video out there (which I can't find now - I think it's a Don Coffey one) of a freight service that operates from Merseyside to Yorkshire and goes this way because it's too heavy to climb the bank out of Manchester Vic.
This is so weird, I lived in Reddish for about 15 years and I passed Reddish South daily.
Brilliant video Nick, and top marks for perseverance. So annoying that Northern pulled a Northern that morning (as Jen would say)
I didn't know Reddish was even in Cheshire, but if that's the best kept station, it doesn't say much for the others, does it? And shouldn't the 'trains' to Stockport and Stalybridge be singular? Still, at least you know why HELLs-by is so named now... Well done for getting to Ince & Elton!
I’m old enough to remember having to change at Rock Ferry for trains to Liverpool, never mind Hooton.
well done to you both
Oh Nick!! This is happening to us AGAIN with Scotfail,I mean,Scotrail as their unions are doing the "action short of a strike" nonsense,leaving my part of Scotland with NO trains on a Sunday!
For a point to point to point to point to point to point you could do the London Airports
Absolutely brilliant idea
Well if elsemere port is a branch line, then the junction where you go off to elsemere port would be the elsemere junction :)
Interesting comment re least used stations.
Bristol's least used station (St Andrews Rd) is in the middle of a big industrial estate so to me, shouldn't be the least used station. Most of the others I've done recently (Freshford, Coombe Junction Halt & Dilton Marsh) do seem right. Nice video!
Been there. I live in Portsmouth and woke up around the same time to take the Stockport-Stalybridge train that ended up getting cancelled
I done something similar with teeside airport , got a train from chester at 4 something am got all the way up there and they cancelled 3 trains ans then shut the station a week later 😂 , the wait goes on.
Love the videos nick keep up the good work
No no no, Reddish is not in Cheshire, it is historically Lancashire as it’s north of the Mersey. Stockport town centre actually crosses the historic county boundary!
Failed attempt at poking fun at how every station seems to be Cheshire's best kept station 😅
I was surprised at that actually, because I grew up in Dukinfield, a couple of miles north east of there and we WERE in Cheshire at the time. At that point the River Tame was the border until it joins the Goyt and forms the Mersey near Stockport.
This old map confirms it, although maybe the boundaries moved over time. Denton station is just above the "t" where the line crosses the road.
images.antiquemapsandprints.com/scansr1/P-6-053382a.jpg
@@NickBadley Even ones not in Cheshire apparently!
Nick defo likes Nat or the other way around looll love your videos nick
Since we're a couple, I'd bloody hope so!
Earliest I've ever woken up for train-related things is 5 am - and my half 5 train up to birmingham was cancelled 😫
I know your pain!
yoooooooo hello my friend vanmanyo i love your videos theyre so cool pls keep uploading
I got up at 3:45 for a train to be cancelled due to a signal failure
@@pdjaf thank you my friend! New video this Friday, don't you worry!
i woke up at 5am to see a HST railtour at sheffield in march!
Thought your sat nav was Nat for a minute (Sat Nat) also note Denton and Reddish South never need any lightbulbs changed!
Northern Cancelling a Train? never.....
I know how it feels, I put aside a bank holiday to ride the Melton Mowbray to Corby limited service and it got cancelled within the time it took me to drive there, I was gutted! Also, I think I’m one of the 34 who went to Denton in that time period for the statistics!
Great video! Waking up at silly o clock in the morning only for your train to get cancelled can get annoying!
On an unrelated note, what mic do you use for your videos? I am looking for one.
think you need to do least used station in scotland, the one not had trains for 10 months which is the actual most southern station in scotland (and that's not Carlisle)
You have to ask why mothballing was never considered during the 60s and 80s with all the mass destruction of branch lines.
Did you see the backwards Double Arrow at the top of the steps at Denton...?
I would love for you to do a spital to bromborough rake or vise versa ✍ such a nice trek
Love the lTe Drama. Another great Video
I Have An Idea For A Pointless Journey: Eltham To New Eltham
Point to point idea: mill hill (london) - mill hill (blackburn) via mills hill (greater manchester)
If you didn’t know there is a Roblox game called SCR which has trains and similar to Elsmere Port there are Elsmere Junction And Elsmere Pond. 👇🏼
Have you informed Northern about their out of date signs?
6:01 New video idea, do exactly that
I know too well how this feels
Nick
you should start streaming train sim world
Did you attempt to scan the QR Code on the campaign placard at Denton? If so, what happened? \m/
let me guess because a short notice change to the timetable? lmao
nice 👍
Great video as usual Nick! Also great ending, you can die happy! If I remember correctly Geoff interviewed one of the top guys in Merseytravel who said one of the extensions of the Merseyrail Network will be from Ellesmere Port. The extension may go to Helsby, or maybe Runcorn East, or even Warrington Bank Quay using the battery powered 777/1 trains!
why dont more people go to teeside airport station when its the least used station? is it because it looks like a junkyard or? i mean i do understand it get 1 train a week but i haventt seen many vids of people saying its the least used station and them actually going there
berrily denton road !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!
You're not the only one. I woke up at 5am two days in a row, for a train that was cancelled two days in a row
Omg it's elsmere from scr
Does the fact that a station is least used cause UA-camrs to flock to it, thereby challenging its state as least used?
You take disappointment well
I'm sure if someone can find a whatsoever odd way from Denton to Reddish South via Manchester it's you...
Would need to be a Saturday ...
Denton to Stalybridge
Stalybridge to Victoria
Victoria to Piccadilly
Piccadilly to Reddish North
Walk to Reddish South
He is on an ex EMR 156 6:12
Probably an unpopular opinion but branches like this (a few services a week) should just be retired and the line changed into a heritage line. As an industry that would bring in a lot more to the local economy and would be the perfect location as it already has a connection with the network.
Loll imagine
I have a big massive book of trains timetables
Weeeeeee
Do mid cheshire line
As your next line
Epic Fail
?