I think we're rolling.
If you're on this video,
you hopefully should recognise this man, Andrew.
Cause we just did Wedgwood and Barleston, right?
We did.
You're from Stone, Stone.
You live in Staffordshire, local knowledge.
And we are at Longport, Andrew, which is
The least used station in Staffordshire.
(upbeat guitar music)
(rattle of train tracks )
In case you don't know who Andrew is, Mr. Mappy.
Again, I'll put his Twitch up on screen
is it just me or has the lens fogged up?
Uh, we're going to do another chat in a minute.
We'll discuss all your mapping, your website,
project mapping.
Is a big map man. Knows his maps, designs maps, draws maps,
has written articles on maps.
You do maps basically.
It's all maps. I love maps.
You love maps. You love maps.
But as you're from the area, I thought again, Andrew,
in to do the least used station, which is Longport,
let's have a wander.
So the weather gods are not being kind.
Rain on the lens.
It honestly stopped raining. It was like,
yay, it stopped raining.
And now the rains back out.
So I would just head for the shelter and we'll just have a
quick discussion about where we are, et cetera.
Normally, I sort of wait 10 minutes of video
before we get passed in to figures
because we're in the shelter right now
to avoid the rain. (Overhead announcing train)
You've never got the train from Longport,
but you do know how many passengers it gets.
According to the officer down the road.
How many in the last period.
In the last period, it was 51,756.
Which if you divide by 365
for an approximate daily figure,
equates around 141 passengers per day.
You said you were surprised it was
Staffordshire's least-used station.
Did you think there was another station
that might be more least-used?
I would've thought so. Somewhere like Alsager
uh, we don't have that many small stations
in the county, but possibly Penkridge.
Okay. I feel like I should maybe throw up on the screen,
what what the figures are,
[Geoff] you've never gotten the train from here before.
Have you not been here before?
I've never been here before.
What are your immediate impressions of Longport?
It is down that hill.
And I think they should make more of an effort
to, um, encourage passenger traffic.
Cause really it's got so fabulous,
an an enormous population area around
and people can park their cars easily.
Uh, no problem.
Now I want to know, is this
I thought this was an east Midland service station,
but we've seen some London Northwestern trains come through.
We've also heard rumour, rain on the lens,
that there's a couple of Northern services.
So are you happy to come and study the timetable for me?
Absolutely Come on
I'm as fascinated as fascinated as you are.
And we'll see what the service pattern is.
(indistinct) the timetable poster's here,
but it's only showing the East Midland services,
but we know because we looked it up that there are
two Northern services to Manchester in the morning,
but what have we got here, Andrew?
And also we have the occasional
London Northwestern Railway service.
But is this timetable poster only showing
the East Midlands trains?
It's only showing, showing
East Midland's railway services.
It's uh, incredible Does it does it annoy you
from from a design point of view?
(Geoff laughs) It does from a
passenger information point of view.
So why isn't there a timetable poster
showing all, all the services?
We'll have to ask somebody in officialdom
for the answer to that.
I feel like there should be
another timetable poster somewhere
that shows the complete services and not just,
not just the East Mid ones,
We could check out the other platform.
You need to check out the other platform.
Let's do it, let's do it.
(footsteps)
And here we see that there,
this is where the level crossing was.
The main road used to go through here
until they built a bypass.
So where the footbridge bridge is,
this is all at level crossing.
Just here, and here's the road going up to it.
So that's why the road now ends here,
but it used to carry on
across the railway. Exactly right
Wow. Okay.
(sound of traffic)
Is it? No.
It's Midlands.
So it's another East Midlands timetable.
We still haven't found the elusive Northern timetable.
We haven't found the Or the London
Northwestern timetable. Or the (laughs)
You gotta start that again
No, I'm leaving that all in.
Sometimes just leave the hilarious bits
of bad video in.
Cause it's funny.
(train roars)
See a Northern train that didn't stop.
That was a 323 right?
That's the one.
Ah, we got to find the Northern timetable.
Least-used Longport has turned into
the hunt for the Northern timetable.
And the London Northwestern one.
And the London Northwestern timetable.
We know there's a limited service,
we just need to find the actual detail.
(sound of traffic)
Right? What do we think about the architecture style?
So the platform building on that side,
what era would you date that as being?
That must be an original from
It was opened with the original
North Staffordshire railway in uh 1848.
Uh, and it's called some sort of a Tudor revival style
I believe, in architectural terms.
But this side here and the platform that we're on,
this is, this is clearly not as old as, as that side.
I would have thought
they were built at exactly the same time. Yeah.
The window style on this side is very similar
to what you see in Stone.
(percussive rock music)
If you watch the Barlaston/Wedgwood video,
you've seen the camera fall off.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Luckily the cameras hasn't fallen off.
Andrew, you have to stand here. YouTube has to see you.
They want to see you. I'm going to put you on the spot.
This is where we do stations facilities.
Have you seen a ticket office?
I don't think I really No, no, there's
No. nothing like that here.
Is there, is there a ticket machine?
I don't think there's No there's no ticket machine
But is there a dot matrix display?
There is on both platforms.
Now, tricky one because a half and half question,
are there timetable posters?
There's only table posters for East Midlands Railway.
And we There's nothing for Northern.
And we know there's nothing And we know there's nothing
for London Northwestern. for London Northwestern.
Which is infuriating.
Uh, is there a litter bin?
I think there was a litter bin.
I think there was.
Are there waiting shelters?
There are waiting shelters.
Uh, and what else?
Some some somebody has made a bit
of an effort with the station Yeah
From here it actually looks
quite pretty Yeah
and there are some flower beds
that have been built quite recently.
I think Community Rail do come down here
and and they, and they do their bit.
They do, yeah. So in terms of like
least-used stations,
it's actually, I've been to many more desolate stations.
This is actually quite built up.
It is, it is, and it's quite busy.
It is quite busy.
(Stutters) We actually saw
people get off the last train
And and there's
people waiting, yeah yeah. And there's people waiting.
so It's not one of those least-used stations
where there's like, there's no one here.
Back to the East Midlands poster,
it is worth pointing out that Longport
of course is the place where you can get the
train to Darbyshire's least-used station,
which we've done of course.
Peartree, two trains a day there,
7:00 in the morning,
5:00 in the evening.
You can both catch off of of Longport
and again going the other way.
Uh, yeah.
You've got the 7:00 in the morning and the 5:50
in the evening if you wanna do Peartree.
So you could go from Darbyshire's
least-used to Staffordshire's least-used
on one train.
(trains wooshing past)
So if you want proof that other trains,
rather than the East Midland's do stop here,
here it is.
The London Northwestern. This is the 1321.
It's going Birmingham, right? It is.
It's come from
where, from Crewe? Come from Crewe.
Crewe to Birmingham.
And yet still there's no timetable at this station,
that we can find that confirms
that London Northwestern trains do actually stop here.
(trains wooshing past)
We have searched all over the station.
We can't find a timetable anywhere,
not a complete timetable, right?
We searched both platforms thoroughly
And nothing.
So the people to ask, surely, (Button dings)
Would be-that's not working, is it?
Your call is
being connected. Please wait Oh. Please wait
(phone rings) Andrew, this is,
this is a staple on Least Used Station
we we always do the help point
It's a thing we do.
Please wait.
You've never actually watched any of my videos before,
Andrew, have you? (Andrew laughs)
Um, question for you,
Longport in Staffordshire,
I'm trying to work out for tomorrow morning.
Is there a Northern service to Manchester?
Cause I can't find a timetable at the station.
At what are you looking at tomorrow?
At like 6:00, 7:00 8:00 am.
I've got a suspicion that, that you can
get a direct train from Longport
to Manchester, but I don't know what time it's at.
There's one at 6 33.
6:33, and is there a is there another
Or 8, or 8 o' clock.
Eight o'clock and they both go direct
to Manchester without having to change. Is that correct?
Yes,
that's correct. Okay.
I think the only Northern trains to stop at Longport,
Do you know?
I appreciate that. It's not it's not
only Northern, there are other East Railway trains
Yeah, but so- but they don't go direct.
Okay. Thank you so much, have a great day.
Byebye, you're welcome,
bye Ok, bye.
See it, say it, sort it, Andrew.
See it, say it, sort it.
You can get direct Northern trains to a day
from here, northbound direction only,
6:33, 8 o'clock to Manchester.
And one of them even goes to Blackpool North.
I think the first one, the 6:33
goes all the way to Blackpool.
So you can a one a train a day from Longport
to Blackpool.
So you
might so you might But you know what though?
you might even get a day at
on the on the beach at Blackpool.
And down the beach at Blackpool
from long Longport.
And you, but you didn't know that,
you were surprised, weren't you?
I I was
very surprised. Yeah, yeah.
But there's no timetable!
East Midlands trains, hi.
Please put up a full timetable
at Longport showing all of the services, please,
and not just the EMR ones, thank you.
Now this bugged me so much
that when I came home that I looked
up this London Northwestern train
that we just seen depart
only to find that national Rail Einquiries
lists it as a West Midlands train.
But unless I'm very much mistaken
and I'm sure you'll tell me if I'm wrong,
Isn't that the LNWR livery,
or are Westmids just using an NWR train
for their services?
I'm a little confused.
Either way, here's all the southbound departures
at Longport on a typical weekday.
Northbound is almost the same
with the addition of those two Northern services,
which do indeed go direct to Manchester.
And one of those goes all the way to Blackpool.
I'm quite sure you'll have plenty to say about this
in the comments.
(train wooshes past)
What's that? Have you have you spotted
something great?
I'm just conjecturing that these metal railings
here're either to stop snow falling onto the platform
or to stop the roof tiles falling onto the platform.
And you think that would have been
in an old waiting room, right?
Yeah.
That would have been a magnificent,
like, ticket office.
I think this is rather a lovely bit of textured um,
paintwork uh,
[Geoff] Weathered Weathered
very, very much weathered.
That was, that's as good as you get
with an old boat uh, lying on the mud
at uh Milsey Island. (Geoff laughs)
(sound of traffic)
So it appears to get an hourly or two
out of East Service at least of East Midlands Railway
the odd Londoner or Northwestern train
and just two Northern trains is the service pattern.
So it would appear.
Andrew, overall, What's your experience
and feeling about Longport Station now you've been here?
It's better than I thought,
I was expecting a really rundown place
but uh, I've, we've seen quite a few passengers
getting on and off, uh,
it's in a built up area, it should see more passengers.
I think there's a nice little station.
Does it make you want to get the train from here?
Well it, well it On a day trip from Stone?
You could come up, come to Longport, head back from Stone.
It's a day out.
I come by car.
Uh, you've been with me this morning.
We've done Wedgwood Barlston and that's a video
that's already been published.
There's another Least Used video from Staffordshire,
but next it's like a part three.
We're going to draw it back to Stone,
which is your local station.
And we'll do a sit down chit chat about all your work,
all your maps and everything and your website,
and we'll give you a plug.
And all his amazing stuff,
but uh, in terms of least-used stations
in Staffordshire, Longport,
you can wave goodbye.
Okay. Cheers, enjoyed it. Bye, see ya!
(percussive rock music)