Cheshire Day Ranger
New Brighton
28 October 2025
It’s a day out - and a fairly lazy one at that.
We’ve set out from Nantwich on a Cheshire
Day Ranger, on a loco-propelled TfW
Swansea - Manchester train, with no very
clear objectives, apart from enjoying the day. It
will be dark soon after 5pm, so it won’t be a
long outing.
We’ll enjoy the “proper train” comfort as far as Manchester.
There, we take a Llandudno-bound train (a class 195 DMU)
which we leave at Chester. Once we’re armed with coffee, we
catch the next Merseyrail service, which we’ll leave at Hamilton
Square. “West Kirby or New Brighton?” “Whichever’s first!”
At New Brighton we leave the railway, and walk along the sea
front. Intermittent bright sunshine, high tide, a stiff breeze. Like
Skegness, it’s bracing, but very pleasant too.
Lunch - an excellent bacon roll in Victoria Road, then back to
the train. Careful study of the timetables suggests retracing our
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
steps to Chester, there taking a direct train to
Crewe. At Hamilton Square, the next Chester
train is one that’s running 25 minutes late. It
will run non-stop, arriving at Chester just 6
minutes late!
In Chester, we’ve plenty of time to catch a
train we should have missed, a Holyhead -
Euston class 805 (my first trip on one of these). We’re soon
back in Crewe, and before long a Manchester - Cardiff 197
arrives, taking us back to our start in in good time.
Link: Lunch in New Brighton on geoffspages.blog
