On Wednesday 2nd September, I set out on another adventure as part of my Every Single Station challenge, this time focusing on the Northern-operated route between Huyton and Wigan North Western. The stations I had planned to visit included Huyton, Prescot, Eccleston Park, Thatto Heath, St Helens Central, Garswood, Bryn and Wigan North Western, giving me another great opportunity to tick off more stations on my ever-growing list. Rather than travelling along the line in the traditional order, I planned my journey around the train timetable, skipping ahead and doubling back between certain stations where necessary to make the most efficient use of my time and avoid lengthy waits on platforms.

My first station of the day was Huyton, where the adventure began before I headed onwards towards Eccleston Park to start making my way through the stations on the route. This method of travelling may seem slightly unusual, but when attempting to visit multiple stations in one day, it can make a huge difference by reducing waiting times and allowing me to tick off the entire line much quicker. With a day of Northern trains, station visits and plenty of travelling ahead of me, I was looking forward to seeing what the route between Huyton and Wigan North Western had to offer.

From Eccleston Park, I took the train just one stop down the line towards Prescot, a town perhaps best known for being home to the Shakespeare North Playhouse. Prescot Station is conveniently the closest railway station to the theatre, making it an ideal place for visitors travelling in by train. However, rather than continuing along the line station by station, I decided to make another jump ahead and caught my next Northern service all the way through to Bryn. Bryn Station is currently benefiting from accessibility improvements, including the installation of lifts, which is fantastic to see and will provide step-free access for passengers in the future. This means another station in the Greater Manchester area is becoming more accessible, making travelling by rail easier for everyone.

From Bryn, I once again headed back down the line towards Thatto Heath, continuing my slightly unconventional journey as I worked my way between stations in the most time-efficient way possible. Thatto Heath Station actually holds some great memories for me, as it was a location I previously visited whilst filming a YouTube series focusing on the Top Ten Least Used Stations around Merseyside, a series which eventually concluded at Upton Station, the least-used station on the entire network at the time. Returning to Thatto Heath brought back memories of those earlier adventures, and although I would have loved to spend more time exploring the station and its surroundings, my connection didn’t allow me much time to do so. Thatto Heath is an interesting station with a fair amount of history behind it, making it somewhere I would certainly like to revisit in the future when I have more time to properly delve into its story.

From Thatto Heath, I caught my next train, which was yet another Northern Class 323. These units seem to be particularly common along this route and have become a familiar sight throughout the day, although they are joined by the more modern Class 331 units on certain services too. It certainly gives the line a nice mixture of rolling stock, especially when travelling back and forth between stations, as you never quite know which type of train will turn up next. The Class 323s have become a regular feature on many Northern routes around the North West, and it was interesting to see just how frequently they appeared during my journey.

As well as the stopping services, you also get the occasional faster train passing through the line, including services between Blackpool North and Liverpool Lime Street. Watching these trains speed through some of the smaller stations is always quite impressive, particularly as they head towards Huyton before continuing onwards at speed towards Liverpool Lime Street, the final destination on the route. Liverpool Lime Street itself is easily one of my favourite railway stations and comfortably sits within my personal top five stations that I have visited so far. With its impressive overall trainshed, historic architecture and constant mix of services arriving and departing throughout the day, it is a station I could easily spend hours exploring, and I may even dedicate a future post to the station itself.

From Garswood, I then made my way one stop further down the line to St Helens Central, where I had a little time to wait before catching the 18:44 service onwards to Wigan North Western, my final destination and the end of the line for the Liverpool Lime Street stopping services. As I mentioned earlier, St Helens Central benefits from a surprisingly wide variety of trains, with Northern services linking the town with destinations including Liverpool Lime Street and Blackpool North, while longer-distance services also call here, including trains towards Glasgow Central. This gives local residents a fantastic selection of rail connections and makes the station an important transport hub along the route between Liverpool and Wigan. The area around the station is also currently seeing further investment, with a new bus station being constructed, something I am particularly interested in seeing once it has reopened. I will certainly be aiming to return to St Helens in the future to visit the new interchange and see how it improves connections between buses and trains in the town.

And finally, I arrived into Wigan North Western, bringing this latest station-hopping adventure to an end and completing the route from Huyton through to Wigan. Although I have technically arrived at Wigan North Western, I won’t be officially ticking the station off my Every Single Station challenge just yet, as I haven’t properly exited the station and explored it as I would with the other stations I have visited. This means Wigan North Western will have to wait a little longer before it can officially be added to my completed list, but that gives me another reason to return. I’ll be visiting the stations between Wigan North Western and Blackpool North in a future blog post, so hopefully that will be another interesting journey to follow as I continue working my way across the network.

With another journey completed, I’m now one step closer to reaching my first major milestone of 100 railway stations visited. My current total now stands at 73 out of 2,598 stations, which means I have completed approximately 2.81% of my Every Single Station challenge. There is still a very long way to go, but every station visited brings me that little bit closer to the goal. Thank you for continuing to follow my railway adventures, and I hope you’ll join me again for the next one!