(train engine roaring)
- So just behind my head there
is the structure of the station
that I'm about to go and visit.
I'm in Wales, North Wales.
I came to Shotton earlier on the high level.
There's then a path that you can walk down.
It's about a minute walk.
Then that allows you to look down onto Shotton low level.
That is the railroad line out to Holyhead
along the North coast of Wales.
But there is then a path which lets you walk between Shotton
and that station there, which I'm about to do.
And it's rather spectacular
as I tick off another request stop.
(seagulls squawking)
So, I'm crossing the River Dee, I can hear it
and if I've timed it right, which is what I planned
(train engine roaring)
Train's right there!
This is Hawarden Bridge, not Hawarden.
We'll talk about pronunciations in a second
'cause I got an expert local in to help me.
It goes across the River Dee.
It used to be a swing bridge.
I mean, it's still is a swing bridge
but it hasn't swung open since about the 1960s.
It's Grade 2 listed.
Down there, that's the famous Blue Bridge.
That way more industry and another bridge in that direction.
But Hawarden Bridge, Hawarden must pronounce that right,
request stop is up here,
even though Hawarden town itself is a couple of stops
back that way.
Station.
- Cheers.
- So that gentleman there is on his way to Chester.
This is an extremely popular place for cyclists
on the Chester Millennium Greenway.
There's an old railway that runs on the North side
of the Dee all the way down to Chester.
You can now walk that or cycle it.
But the station Hawarden Bridge is here and what's exciting
is that we get to walk across what's known as
a barrow crossing.
(metal gate squeaking)
Okay. So I'm onto the Northbound platform.
Welcome to Hawarden Bridge.
This is curved, down there it's totally straight.
I wanna find a timetable board,
if not I've got the leaflet in my pocket,
to talk about the fact that it's an unusual station
and I've come on a Sunday because
it gets a limited weekday service but then
it gets a very regular service on a Sunday
but it's always a request stop.
So we'll be having to make my intent clear later.
But there is a shelter. Let's go and sit in the shelter.
The shelter's what I would call rustic.
Transport for Wales, your shelter at Hawarden Bridge
could really do with a lick of paint.
I've got my notes. It's like, I've done fieldwork.
You may remember if you've watched the
all the stations episodes.
There's actually a bonus video on my channel
where we came up, we started
at Gobowen in Oswestry and came up through Bidston.
And my friend David, that I know is from Penyffordd
which is one of the stations on this line.
And today I didn't actually just start my day at Shotton,
I started down at Wrexham.
But I've spent some of this morning ticking off
some of the other stations so that I can say
that I've been to them.
But I wanted to get the pronunciation right,
so I definitely confirmed with David that it's Hawarden,
Hawarden Bridge.
Although, he says that even sometimes
some of the recorded announcements that you hear
on trains and at stations say Hawarden. They get it wrong.
But apparently it is Hawarden.
So this morning, actually I went to Hope
which as you would expect is just H-O-P-E, Hope.
But then I went to see, looking at it,
I would say Care Gruel?
Phonetically, David tells me that it's Caergwrle.
So I did go to Caergwrle this morning.
And then, again, if asked to read it
with my silly English brain, Cefn-y-bedd
but it's actually Cefn-y-bedd. Cefn-y-bedd.
'Cause double D is a TH.
So I went to those this morning.
One of those, I think both of them
also had a barrow crossing as well.
Barrow crossings are named so
because they're points on the railway where porters,
railway staff, literally used to like roll luggage
across the tracks on barrows, on flat wooden boards.
You know, cause easier to do that to take heavy luggage
on a level than up over a footbridge.
So at stations where there are no footbridges,
that you have to cross the tracks,
they still have barrow crossings.
So I gather along this line
there are a lot of barrow crossings.
I feel like I should improvise pushing some luggage
across the barrow crossing.
It didn't take me long to figure out that
because the platforms here are curved at the Northern end
the perfect way to get a shot looking right down
the straight tracks through the bridge
is to come to this end and then shoot straight down.
Followed by, in the distance going that way,
what looks like an old signal box.
Is this even open?
I'm not sure if this is open.
That is very much, I think that must've been access
probably to the steelworks
So this was a direct way in maybe to, whatever
whatever this building is here
nobody uses this entrance anymore.
There's another area here that would suggest
that it went to a path
and again to another entrance to the steelworks.
However, imagine black and white,
maybe I'll go black and white for this.
Imagine I've got a hat on, Victorian times,
and I'm a porter pushing a heavy luggage trolley
across the barrow crossing.
(people chattering)
You go through this gate
to get onto the Southbound platform.
It's started raining again.
Today, this morning it was not raining.
Then it was raining.
Then not raining, then raining, then not raining.
And now it's raining again.
Anyway, it's timetable time 'cause there aren't actually
any timetable boards at this station.
All there is on either side is a waiting shelter
and there's a dot matrix.
I am getting the 13:52 up there.
That's in about 20 minutes.
So that's the train out of here
but we should discuss the times really quickly.
'Cause this is the interesting thing about Hawarden Bridge.
There are more trains on a Sunday
than you get on a Monday to Saturday.
That only came in about six or seven years ago.
In terms of stats, by the way,
it's about the 120th least-used station in Britain,
gets about 3000 people a year which is about nine a day.
But the times are what we want,
so we'll look at the times down here.
So coming South from Bidston going down to Wrexham
in the morning, it gets two trains,
the 07:53 and the 08:54
in the evening the 16:57 and the 18:07
so there's only four trains going South.
And then going North on a Monday to Friday
it only gets the 07:01 and the 08:01 in the morning
and then the 17:02.
So just three going up North towards Bidston and Liverpool.
So that's four plus three.
Hey, that's seven.
So it only get seven trains a day, Monday to Saturday
but then on Sunday, bizarrely, that's when it all kicks in
so there's one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, ten,
there's ten trains a day going South on a Sunday
and looking over here
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
there's nine trains a day going North on a Sunday.
So that's nineteen trains.
So Sunday it gets more trains
than it does on any weekday or Saturday.
And I don't really know why.
So train due in five minutes, five minutes.
Request stop.
- [Automated Announcement] The next train to arrive
at platform two is the 13:51 service to Wrexham Central.
This service is currently on time.
(train engine roaring)
(train door beeping)
(train engine roaring)
- So that's Hawarden Bridge a request stop.
If you want a copy of my request stop map
there was a clip of it earlier
along with my least-used station map.
There's a link in the description
where you can download both of those and see
all of the request stops in Britain.
We'll slowly get round them all and tick them off.