Welcome, Intraloper, to the blog (otherwise the amber-shifted VR timecode for a portal to Hades II) of Vincent Marsden Hendrick, daydream navvy and insinceritist. Here, compressing unfeasible rage, I'll precipitate a meandrous downpour of wet thinking for the unparapluied.
The First of July Two Thousand and Fifteen. Tuesday.
Hello again. We've just changed trams on to the
The East Didsbury Line
We're just going to zoom through Trafford Bar for now and jump off at the first stop on the East Didsbury branch.
FIRSWOOD
Just a wooden horse, after all... but no - there was more to it than that. I tell you, my hackles rose at the sight of it!
There's a lot of these. They can't all be gold standard. Wood. The connection here is wood.
CHORLTON
'Time Lords are forbidden to interfere, Leader,' the Deputy objected. 'This one calls itself "The Doctor",' the Leader boomed, selecting a programme from the holovisor's memory and switching it on again. 'It has assumed a number of regenerative forms and it does nothing but interfere...'
He was credited as Cyber Lieutenant on screen but here Ian Marter calls him Deputy - probably because it's easier to spell! He was played by Mark Hardy and here I am in Chorlton-cum-Hardy...
ST WERBURGH'S ROAD
Cameca turned to him and kissed him on both cheeks. 'Oh, sweet favoured man, you have declared your love for me,' she said, 'and I acknowledge and accept your gentle proposal.'
Before River Song, Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe the First Doctor was engaged (albeit accidentally) to an Aztec by the name of Cameca. She was portrayed by Margot van der Burgh which is close enough to the name of this place.
WITHINGTON
The Doctor was drumming on the table eyeing the ranks of Sontaran troopers, and cursing in very low Gallifreyan.
First joker. I couldn't figure out a link so I chose this book. Shakedown was orginally a straight-to-retail video featuring the Sontarans that materialised in the Who-less Nineties. Terrace Dicks novelised and expanded his own script as part of Virgin's New Adventures range.
BURTON ROAD
At last Burton cleared his throat. 'Let me get this right - you're telling me that you aren't the Happy Hearts Holiday Club from Bolton, but instead are spacemen who fear an attack from other spacemen.'
Burton, of course, was the head of the Shangri-La Holiday Camp in this story. I think Delta and the Bannermen is fab. Doo-wop doo-woo. Love is the answer.
WEST DIDSBURY
The Doctor sat up. 'Ah, Lethbridge-Stewart. Do you think you could find my clothes? It's a trifle parky in here?'
Another joker. What a strange time the nineties were. With no Doctor Who on telly, Jon Pertwee returned to the role on Radio 5 back when they used to do drama. On medium wave! The sound quality was atrocious so we lapped up the stereo cassette when it was released. Here, Barry Letts novelises his own radio script.
DIDSBURY VILLAGE
Seconds later a sibilant voice filled the air. 'Axos calling Earth, Axos calling Earth...'
There is a butchers in Didsbury called Axon's! No, seriously! Here it is:
I remember being freaked out seeing this book in Menzies on the Precinct way back when. I had seen the Axons in the Doctor Who Monster Book but had never heard of Axos. It seemed strange and new. And that Achilleos cover - the beams coming from the Axon's eyes. Brilliant.
EAST DIDSBURY
'Stupid oafess!' squealed Sil.
A few jokers on this line. Mission to Magnus would have been part of the original Season 23 before it was cancelled and later replaced by The Trial of a Time Lord. Philip Martin novelised his script and then later adapted the story as a Big Finish audio. It's fitting that a series about time travel has so many different versions of the same events, all produced at different times, each slightly different. It delights in thwarting any notions of canon at whenever it can.
Back up the line to St Werburgh's Road now, and then a change on to the Airport Line.
The Thirtieth of June Two Thousand and Fifteen. Tuesday.
"Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple
adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum
wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe."
Lex Luthor
(1986 rates: $1,000,000/hour)
At four in the morning on the Fourteenth of June Two Thousand and Fifteen (Sunday) I sat on the floor of the ancillary bedroom staring at a pile of Doctor Who books, bleary-eyed, knowing I was due in work in less than five hours, thinking "what is the point? Go to bed".
This Sunday, St Peter's Square tram stop in Manchester was closed with a view to demolishing it. They're building a new one, tying in with the new 2nd City Crossing (2CC) but for now the line is closed and the stop is gone. Kaput. I had a notion - I can't remember exactly when - to visit every tram stop on the Metrolink network in one day and if I was going to do it it would have to be on my last free day off before St Peter's Square closed: Monday the 15th. I propped open my eyelids with matchsticks and continued my prep.
"What prep?" I hear you ask. Well, just visiting each stop seemed a bit straightforward. So I determined that the only sensible course of action to take was to ensure I was reading a Doctor Who novelisation in the selfies I intended to take at each stop. But this was not something that could be done willy-nilly. There had to be rules...
The Rules
The basic unit of currency would be the novelisation - book adaptations of classic series television stories. There should be some sort of connection between the book and the stop where the photo was taken, however vague. If a connection couldn't be found, then a 'joker' could be used - a novelisation of something other than a televised story. It had to be a novelisation, though - not an original novel.
But I was going to start in Eccles so I thought I'd break that rule straight away.
The Eccles Line
ECCLES
'You see?' said the Doctor triumphantly. 'Scratch the surface and there's usually something going on underneath. Fantastic!' He seized a handful of Rose's chips and stuffed them in his mouth.
There was no way I was going to overlook the opportunity to include the Salfordian Doctor, who happened to be called Eccleston, in a book written by a Salfordian author who I went to school with. But that's the only one. Honest.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to point out I actually started at the nearest stop to my Mam and Dad's, Weaste, and then got off at Ladywell to go to the McDonald's for a breakfast wrap, hash browns and coffee and then walked to Eccles.
LADYWELL
Lady Eleanor's eyes gleamed. 'You will mix a potion and poison the dog?'
June (Dot Cotton) Brown played a Lady in this story. I told you some of the links were vague. There'll be vaguer still before we finish.
WEASTE
The Doctor grinned. 'Romana, you're wonderful.' 'I suppose I am. I've never really thought about it!'
The working title for State of Decay was The Wasting, and Weaste is derived from the wastes where the village was founded. Disappointed I couldn't find the 'The Wasting is... the Wasting' quote from the TV version. I think Terrance probably excised that cos it's daft.
LANGWORTHY
'Logopolis is the keystone.' The Monitor's face was ashen. 'If you destroy Logopolis, you unravel the whole causal nexus!'
There's a community centre in Langworthy called the Cornerstone. That's a bit like a keystone. And Langworthy and Logopolis sound a bit similar. Ish.
BROADWAY
Puffing contentedly at his cigar, Jago stood watching in the wings, as Chang moved toward the climax of his act.
A theatre plays a large part in this story. The stop is called Broadway. Simples.
MEDIACITYUK
Scanning around the Punishment Dome through the lenses of his 207 video cameras, Bax considered what best to offer the early morning viewers of Varos.
Another straightforward link - a story about television at the station where the BBC's Salford studios are located.
HARBOUR CITY
'Ben?' whispered Vince fearfully. 'He be coming back. Coming back for me!'
Well, the yacht in this doesn't make it to the harbour - it crashes on the titular rock - but it's close enough. I think this is one of only two stories with someone named Vince in them (although bizarrely, the audio description track for Love & Monsters calls Victor Kennedy 'Vincent' (2021 edit: no it doesn't! I've completely Mandela Effected this memory.)
ANCHORAGE
'I'll cast a spell on ye, my pretty death's-head, a spell that'll run from ear to ear!'
A straightforward one, this. Story about Cornish smugglers, searching for hidden treasure while their ship is anchored off-shore.
SALFORD QUAYS
Years of patient scheming had brought Yartek to the threshold of absolute power.
Salford Quays of Marinus. Genius.
EXCHANGE QUAY
It was all rather ridiculous, thought Romana. Like one of those romantic videonovels she'd viewed when she was very young.
This is one of the Key to Time stories and has an exchange plot reminiscent of the Prisoner of Zenda. Boom!
POMONA
'I don't like Romana,' she objected, panting for breath. The Doctor shrugged. 'It's either that or Fred,' he said. 'I prefer Fred,' she said after a brief pause. 'Good. Come on, Romana,' the Doctor cried, setting off once again.
I always think of Romana when I pass this stop. That's a good enough reason I believe.
CORNBROOK
Trickster and his doll turned and looked wonderingly at each other, as if unable to believe their eyes.
Erm, the Trickster in this story was played by Lee Cornes. Yes, some of these are that tenuous.
Time to change lines and head toward East Didsbury.
The Twenty-Eighth of April Two Thousand and Fifteen. Tuesday.
I found an old diary entry tucked away the other day. It was a Word file that I had carelessly saved and it had ended up in some nondescript folder that I happened to be rooting through. Myself and my two offspring are engaged in that pilgrimage that all Doctor Who fans must undertake at some point - watching every television story in order. It's all been a bit casual so I'd lost track of when we'd actually started. Typically, we'd watch an episode or two when the boys were over and we were having our tea. But here it was - documentary evidence of when it had all started: a viewing plan for the first ever series, episode-by-episode starting on the Nineteenth of May Two Thousand and Six. I don't know how rigidly I stuck to that plan but the end result was we completed the 'Classic' series earlier this year. In a move that I think the Doctor would approve of, we didn't actually watch them all in order, though. No, in order to accommodate weekend/tea plans we swapped the viewing of the 2-parter The Awakening with the 4-parter Warriors of the Deep. I know some of you out there are already gasping at the heresy of Peter Davison's Doctor apparently getting a new jumper only for it to disappear in the next story and then reappear again after that. Don't worry - I've written some fanfic that helps define this as my own headcanon. And an extra biscuit for anyone who mentioned Flower Child's earring appearing before The Greatest Show in the Galaxy aired legitimising this sort of nonsense.
See? This is why I don't normally talk about Doctor Who. Hopefully, the normal people are still sticking with this.
With the "Classic" Series digested we took a short pause. The 10th Anniversary of the revived series was just around the corner and we thought it would be a nice touch to watch the first episode on that date and continue from there. So here we are, about a month later and the that's the first "New" series over and done with and Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor has come and gone.
But the real stand out of that first series was Episode 11, Boom Town. (What?) Here's the description for that episode from the original pitch document:
The New Team
The Doctor, Rose and Jax (sic).
A small-scale adventure; character stuff.
That's it. Admittedly, it was always designed as a cheap episode before the budgetary demands of the two-part finale. At one point it might even have been written by Paul Abbott, but in the end Davies was given the opportunity to consolidate everything that had been achieved so far. Having kept continuity with the original series down to a minimum, here he revels in the lore of the new series. The TARDIS visit's Cardiff's rift in time, Mickey returns as does Margaret Slitheen. The team are seen bouncing off each other and unseen adventures are alluded to, including one of the novels that had just been released. Time is taken to establish this as the status quo, before everything is changed in the next story and then the ghosts of the past start to filter through in the next few series. It's a breath taken that puts all the pell mell escapades around it into context - something I wish we'd seen in the last few series (in fairness there are such moments, but they tend to be confined to DVD mini-episodes). It's an extraordinarily confident move in a series that nobody could have conceived of succeeding a few years earlier. I love it to bits.
So the Salford Time Lord has gone on his way and this new bloke has arrived. I wonder if he'll be any good?
The Twenty-Ninth of March Two Thousand and Fifteen. Sunday.
How's your afternoon going? I'm listening to my vinyl copy of Television's Greatest Hits Volume II. Spider-Man's just been on. Nothing makes my heart soar more than a cracking TV theme and this is, of course, championship material. The lyrics are by Paul Francis Webster who won Oscars for Secret Love (off of Calamity Jane - and how fab a movie is that? Enough to make it my Tenth Film Recommendation)and Love is a Many Splendored Thing. If you could sum Spidey up in a couplet, it would be "wealth and fame - he's ignored, action is his reward". That's genius. And his name's Webster!
(Right, the first side's just finished with Mr Rogers' Neighborhood. I've got to get up and turn it over. I'll tell you where you can shove your retro...)
Yes, even though I am a grown man I still like to read about people in tights beating each other up. Thinking about Spider (hyphen) Man it dawned on me how my tastes have changed over the years. I was a dyed-in-the-spandex DC follower in my younger days. I'd buy the occasional Marvel book, but all my favourites seemed to be Metropolis and Gotham rather than New York.
More specifically the Metropolis of the 30th Century. The one comic I made sure I never missed an issue of was The Legion of Super-Heroes. It's difficult looking back to identify what exactly draws you into something. Every superhero has their own roster of rogues and supporting characters, but I suppose there was something about the Legion's huge cast of characters, set aside from the rest of the DC Universe by a thousand years, that appealed to a list-loving teenage nerd. For the most part each Legionnaire had a single power unique to them - you weren't allowed to join their club if you duplicated someone else's abilities. These arbitrary rules made perfect sense to a certain mindset, one that I definitely possessed (and still do - why do you think I work on the railway?)
I guess it was the intracacy of the 'rules' of DC's storytelling - with its multiple worlds and colour-coded kryptonite - that hooked me more than Marvel's 'messy' characters. Struggles with prejudice, alcoholism or even making rent money didn't resonate with me in the way that continuity minutiae did. I think most of my Marvel knowledge came from the black and white weekly UK reprint titles of the seventies. I'm looking forward to the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie coming out in a few months as it chimes with a hardback Avengers annual I had way back when that revealed Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch's true parents. My dad copied a portrait of the Vision from it in coloured pencil. I remember being surprised at this previously unseen artistic side of him.
Now, DC's reliance on complicated and rewritten histories is a bit of a turn-off to me (a notable exception being Grant Morrison's Multiversity, which positively revels in the notion of there being 52 different Earths, each with their own variation on the classic DC heroes). Somewhere, in the last couple of decades, Marvel's focus has shifted away from the perpetual second act structure of an ongoing narrative to discreet volumes of work where creators tell a story with a definite beginning middle and end before putting the toys back in the box for someone else to play with. I've spoken here about Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four comics. I think this is probably now my favourite run on a mainstream comic and he's following this up superbly with his work on the main Avengers titles at the moment.
So let me wrap up this vague waffle with a few recommendations.
I've spoken about Dan Slott, Michael and Laura Allred's take on Silver Surfer here. Now ten issues in, this title has only gotten better and better.
This morning I was reading Mighty Avengers, written by Al Ewing, with art by Greg Land and Salvador Larroca among others. Just good, action-packed, funny superhero comics by a UK writer.
But fully worthy of my Eighth Comic Book Recommendation is Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber's Superior Foes of Spider-Man. It's easy to poke fun at the super-hero genre, but that's a cheap laugh. Altogether more satisfying is humour that works within the tights and codenames paradigm, bending those conventions without breaking them. My friend, this is the book for you.
Featuring the Sinister Six (although, in true Blake's 7 style, there are only five of them), it relates the 'reality' of being a B-list supervillain in the Marvel universe. You can't help but root for these nearly-men even as they rob, double-cross and generally sell out in the search for that one big score that'll put them on the villain map. I know it's fashionable for comics fans to bemoan the quality of superhero movies in comparison to the books that spawned them, but there is no way that Sinister Six film is going to be anywhere near as good as this.
The Sixth of January Two Thousand and Fifteen. Tuesday.
Hello. My name is Vin Smarsden Hendrick and this is the first in an occasional series of blogs where I tell you about a shortrain journey I've made and the stories I've bumped into on the way.
I recently completed my first rail journey of 2015. It began in the picturesque Cambridgeshire city of Ely. I was heading for the 1815 service to Peterborough and as usual I was a little behind schedule. The sun had already set on the imposing cathedral which was now tastefully floodlit by a passing police helicopter, making an eerie crenelated silhouette. 2015 might have been around the corner but I could have sworn I was in the Middle Ages of England! The fierce light also drew me to the new Subway concession installed within the lantern tower next to the Bishop of Huntingdon's chancel. I grabbed a quick lunch surrounded by clunch and made my way to the station. My sandwich was a simple three cheese affair, modest yet satisfying.
On the platform I encountered Haraparit Kaur Gill, a laser eye surgeon from Chatteris. Drawn to the 'Game of Thrones' ring tone on her phone (she had just completed a short call when we met) I asked her if she was a fan of the epic fantasy television series. She replied she wasn't, but had been making her way through the boxed sets on the recommendation of a work friend who had lent them to her. Haraparit had got as far as the third series when she made a curious discovery. All of the discs in that box contained only a single episode repeated ten times over. I asked Haraparit which one. Apparently it had Dennis Pennis in it or something. Nevertheless, Haraparit's friend had never mentioned this despite claiming to have watched them all and read half of the books. The fibber! I asked Haraparit if she was going to call her friend's bluff. She told me that she didn't want to risk upsetting her and was content to pretend that she too had watched the series confident that she wasn't going to be asked to comment on something that her friend had no knowledge of anyway. At that point my train arrived and I left Haraparit to unravel these intrigues worthy of Westeros.
My journey took around forty minutes from start to finish. One of my favourite things about rail travel is the opportunity to catch up with books, comics, podcasts or audios that somehow get missed during the hurly-burly of everyday life. On this occasion I reacquainted myself with recordings of the dead caught on electronic equipment that had come free with The Unexplained magazine many years ago. It's complete guff, but it still manages to give me goosepimples. Who knew Latvian was the preferred language of the dead? I arrived on time in Peterborough where I was met by my friend Ramon - an old Spanish penpal who moved to England after a lottery win. He was kindly lending me a couch for the night. I asked if he had any tales he'd like me to pass on in my blog, but other than a time he saw David O'Leary of Arsenal buying lightbulbs in Wilko's he didn't have much to add. Perhaps that was as well. I think I had had enough excitement for one day! More soonliest.
The Fourth of September Two Thousand and Fourteen. Thursday.
Hallo. I know that you've been feeling tired. I bring you love and deeper understanding.
Hi Gang. So many things to tell you. I really should write stuff down. But instead I'll let them percolate inside my noggin and maybe they'll find their own way out over the years.
I've just watched that Kate Bush documentary that was on BBC4 a bit ago. I'm not a big fan, but I had a copy of The Whole Story, listened to my sister's copy of Hounds of Love regularly and caught up a little bit last year with Director's Cut. Consequently, I didn't make much of an effort when the ticketsfor Before the Dawn, her current live concerts were released (not that I would have had much of a chance considering how quickly they sold out). I have always had issues with pursuing things that might give me pleasure, something that seems to have become more acute in later years.
Then I heard that she performed The Ninth Wave, the haunting, basically all-round fabulous b-side (Hah! b-side!) of Hounds of Love, in its entirety and my constantly clicking regret counter spun round a few more times.
I haven't written a blog for a while now, so I turned to my colleague, top photographer and Boost bar afficianado, Jeves, to suggest a possible topic to get the ball rolling. This he did, quide liderally by suggesting I give my thoughts on Scarborough Athletic's eight-goal (plus pens) FA Cup thriller vs North Shields last night. However, he quickly revised that choice when he realised I wouldn't treat the beautiful game with the respect it deserves and would instead harp on about the Tyne and Wear Metro station at North Shields (here it is, by the way).
It's due to be refurbished, apparently, and have ticket barriers installed (it's a fare-dodging hotspot, you'll be intersted to know). I think he was also concerned that I might just go on about the Shields Ferry that takes you across the Tyne to South Shields instead of giving in-depth analysis of a match that saw both sides reduced to nine men and five penalties awarded (four successful, one missed) even before the deciding shoot-out took place. So he suggested I should talk about game shows instead.
Which made me think of Bullseye's famous, often-mocked, climactic tease where losing contestants were shown what prize they would have won if they'd been just a bit better with the arrows. Which, naturally, led me to be thankful that the technology doesn't yet exist to enable us to look into all those parallel worlds where we could see all the results of all the better decisions we didn't make. Bowen cruelly pointing out the version of myself that got off its arse and got Kate Bush tickets. Or was kinder, or cleverer, or both. And yet, as diffuse as my own moral code is, the central tenets of fairness and justice that I observe are inspired by game shows. When William G Stewart used to allow an answer even if it was given just after the buzzer went I thought 'it's important to have rules, and even more important to know when to ignore them'. And when Leslie Crowther let one of the tenants of Contestant's Row have the prize despite guessing wrong because the thing dropped down to reveal the price as if they'd won even though they hadn't I knew that doing right is better than being right.
And hey! Look! I was talking about Kate Bush and game shows three years ago! That's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?
The Seventeenth of May Two Thousand and Fourteen. Saturday.
This post about trams comes to you courtesy of an old Miranda Sex Garden CD playing in the background.
Weaste tram stop opened on 12 June 1999. I had left Salford the previous November, so, consequently, I missed the tram. Three months later I went and had one of those children things (well, my pre-ex-wife did most of the cooking, but I contributed a few molecules at the start) and as you know tiny people come with push chairs. So, whenever I visited No1 son's grandparents the tram, with its level access, was the easiest way to get from Piccadilly station to their house.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with being an anorak who loved anything that runs on rails. Oh no.
I've always been a sucker for a rail map - different coloured lines and interchanges and all that nonsense. Harry Beck's Underground map is, of course, the chef d'oeuvre of this particular genre. Here's the current one for the Manchester Metrolink.
Not a classic by any means, but a map is a map. And maps need to be explored.
The idea for the Five Nations Week O' Trams (incorporating The Metro and Subway Jamboree) came with the news that Edinburgh's beleaguered new tram route (over budget, inappropriate design, etc, etc) would be finally opening this May. I started wondering when I would be able to visit.
This then led to the idea of visiting all of the UK tramways that had opened since the revival of Light Rail in this country at the end of the last century. So that would be Manchester, naturally. Sheffield, Nottingham, West Midlands, the new Blackpool trams and Croyon would all have to feature. Then I read a Facebook post about how a friend's dad had paid host to train-hopping TV Tory Michael Portillo at the Wirral Tramway. Could a few heritage tramways be included too? So as well as Birkenhead there would have to be the Crich Tramway Village, natch. Off to Wikipedia to see what other trammish delights lay about the country.
There were a lot more than I realised. That was when the idea to go further afield, to Belgium and to Ireland began to crystallise. Add a visit to the Great Orme Tramway in Llandudno and a theme and a title was born. Next Tuesday, the 20 May, marks the first (and possibly the only - let's get this one out of the way first, eh?) Five Nations Week O' Trams. Here is the itinerary:
Scotland
The inspiration for this tour was the announcement of Edinburgh trams starting in May. The most convenient time to take off work was around the May Spring Bank Holiday. Surely that would be in time for the trams?
Well, last month they announced the start date and while it was definitely in May it turned out to be the 31st - four days after FNWOT concludes. I was livid. In fact my first thought was to boycott the trams when they finally arrived, a response completely against the ethos of FNWOT, but which I felt would convey the level of disappointment I felt. Not that anyone would have noticed, but it's the principle of the thing, you understand.
A Brussels tram at Summerlee!
Would this become the Four Nations Week O' Trams? At least I wouldn't have to change the hashtag. But no, rescue came in the form of Summerlee - The Museum of Scottish Industrial Life in Coatbridge. They run a heritage tram daily and look well worth a visit. The first day of the tour will also take in the Riverside Transport Museum in Glasgow (which I will be visiting via the Glasgow Subway) to see the trams housed there too. And I've calmed down a bit now, so if there is time I will pop over to Edinburgh and look at the trams while they're running on test!
England (Part 1)
The next day takes in Blackpool (just regular modern trams - I couldn't time it for the heritage services), the Parry People Mover at Stourbridge -
- the Midland Metro, the Underground, the Docklands Light Railway, the Overground and the London Tramlink! Phew! Then we're off to...
Belgium
Eurostar to Brussels where we have a bit of a tram about town. If I've time I'll take in the Atomium and the Comics Museum.
Again, timing has worked against me. There is a fab tram museum here, but it's only open at weekends and there was other weekend-only stuff I wanted to see back in Blighty. Just means I'll have to come again. There's also a restaurant on a tram! But it's a bit expensive and you can only book tables for 2, 4 or 6. I'll just be sticking to frites and mayonnaise, I think.
On the way to the airport we'll also have a quick mooch on the trams in Charleroi before we fly off to...
Ireland
Only a very brief visit to Dublin, arriving one evening and departing the next afternoon - maybe an early lunch at the Temple Bar pub. But we should be able to get a quick trip on the Luas.
Then we set sail across the Irish Sea to...
Wales
There's time enough for a stop off in Llandudno and a trip on the Great Orme Tramway.
It's tempting to go one way on the tram and the other on the cable car (me and the boys did this a couple of years ago), but I think it's going to be just the tram on this occasion.
England (Part 2)
After Llandudno it's off to Birkenhead and the Wirral Tramway.
Another busy day though, as we quickly head across the Mersey to Southport and ride on the Pier Tram, before heading back to the ancestral home in Salford.
If I was a bit peeved about missing the opening of the Edinburgh trams, then that was more than made up for by a fortunate bit of scheduling. On the morning that I am in Manchester there is to be a special farewell tour for the T68 trams that formed the original Metrolink fleet.
That this should be taking place during FNWOT on the very day that I'm in Manchester is a very welcome coincidence. I'll be receiving a commemorative ticket that'll be the perfect souvenir for this tram-mendous (sorry!) week. If I've got time that day I'll be popping up to the Heaton Park Tramway before heading toward Sheffield for a quick go on the Supertram. The last night of the tour takes place in Nottingham where I'll be having a brief bash on the NET and then taking the train the next day Whatstandwell and a short walk to the Crich Tramway Village. The perfect finish to FNWOT, especially since there's more than one mode of transport on show there...
Then that's that for FNWOT but there will be more international tram action later in the year with visits to Paris and Barcelona. For now though, all thoughts are on Tuesday and the adventure ahead. No doubt there'll be the usual blurry selfies of me stood in front of various vehicles, so look out for that on Facebook or wherever.
Hah. Actually getting a bit excited about this now.
