X Sign

An X in the sky meant when I took this photo one of ABC Wednesday's tricky letters was sorted.  The crossing here is of road, rail and cycle path and the only steam train ever seen is the one painted on the sign as the line is for freight

to the docks. I didn't take any photos of the railway lines because I thought I had some already, which was true, but they are inaccessible at the moment and in the depths of my very poorly old laptop although I do have my memory cards,  which I haven't labeled, xxxx!  

International Nuclear Services Terminal

The rail tracks can just be seen in this photo.  We have had some strange weather patterns this year and the day in May these photos were taken was no exception, sultry, with complete hazy cloud cover,

the lines between sky and water only distinguished by their texture.  The ship is the Oceanic Pintail which makes it sound quite benign but in actual fact it is a carrier of high level radioactive waste so you could say it is x rated.  On its journeys around the world they will turn off the AIS (Automatic Identification System) and if returning via the Suez Canal the canal cameras will be turned off to keep secret its course. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative means that the Plutonium it carries will end up somewhere near the Savannah River in the US. 

'Normal' nuclear waste will trundle up and down the coast to and from the port but on the occasions more exotic nuclear materials are transported then the level of police buzzing up and down the road is usually a pointer to transportation of something potentially more dangerous.   

but not on a quiet November day when the even the rails on this coastal railway seemed autumnal.  

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at X here  

    

Round the Bend

Parton from Redness Point

Bit by Bit I am knocking off the various sections of the Cumbria Coastal Way and this bend of the railway line follows part of it. I'm walking on the the old tram road above (it is now a cycle path) that used to connect to the Parton Brickworks before the railway arrived. One of the ironies is that in 1840 the first locomotive for the Maryport to Carlisle railway was built further up the coast at Lowca but it had to be transported down to Parton to be sent by seagoing barge up to Maryport as this line did not exist.  This section of the Coastal Way from Whitehaven to Workington could be described as a walk through Britain's industrial past of ironworks, mines and engineering.

If you are having problems with bends this is the person to solve your problems, Bull Dog Drainage, making a house call at the aforementioned Lowca, we spotted his van again later in the day when we arrived in Workington picking up parts at the Plumb Centre. Problem solved.   As it was one of the hottest days of the year we were just looking a shop selling ice cream.

The Beachcomber, Parton

 No Beachcoming on this trip and no refreshing drinks at the Beachcomber pub, it closed in 2009.  There were plans for four houses to be built on the site but nothing seems to be happening, they would have great Irish Sea views.

Next week I will be on home ground in Morecambe Bay and just around the bend from this little bay.  It is unusual for me to know what I'm doing for a next weeks ABC but the reason is the object has both a B and a C in its name.

An entry to ABC Wednesday - a journey though the alphabet

ABC Wednesday - Railway Station

A red danger sign on the gate and the semaphore signal is straight, stop, danger, risk.

The station seems empty, just one man and his dog

Oh here is the ticket office, I wonder if I have the requisite change

Well really, there is nobody resident here

A girl relaxing and texting on this sunny and radiant day.  Lets roam down the platform and have a look in the signal box.

Remarkably two are pulled out, a train must be due.

But what is this no rail track, just a little family group taking refreshment, the rails have been removed.

A railway station frozen in time, as this notice explains.  How many stories are told of ghost trains but not even these run here.
Go round the back of the station house by the roadside

and with Victorian confidence the date is emblazoned above the door, 1866, the 1st October to be precise, when this railway opened to serve the Wirral.  A peninsula jutting out south of Liverpool with the River Mersey on one side and the Welsh coast and the River Dee on the other.

The line declined after WW1 when the main users became the rural community and secondary school pupils, with a further reduction in traffic as the Neston Colliery closed  in 1927 it became uneconomic, but remained open for the local communities and day trippers to the seaside of Parkgate and West Kirby. The increase in road use and further decline in passengers saw the service withdrawn in September 1956 but it continued to be used for goods vehicles until May 1962 when it finally closed and Hadlow Road was - redundant.  In 1964 the demolition gangs moved in.

But this is not a story with a sad end for in 1968 the Hooton West Kirby Branch was chosen to be part of Britain's first Country Park.  There are now over 400 Country Parks in England alone, accessible green spaces near or within towns and cities. The railway station was preserved in 1950s condition. The old railway line is now replaced with a 12 mile cycleway and footpath

Popular with horse riders too.

R

Walkies anyone?

Run over to the ABC Wednesday meme for more words starting with the letter R

ABC Wednesday - X

Saltmarsh, Duddon Estuary

X marks the Spot

A favourite device of pirates to mark where buried treasure lies

such as the map from Treasure Island which also has arrows



for how else would you know the direction to set sail. Although this arrow gives direction to
the top and a trig point, which are as useful as directional x marks the spot and to hill walkers, especially in bad weather, as they eXplore the countryside. These were erected by the Ordnance Survey in Britain as they mapped the country. The metal plate on the top is for securing a theodolite or reflector to make eXact triangulations. With the rise of GPS systems they are not all in use anymore and I suspect this one is not, so is an eX trig, but it has been adopted, for it was newly painted this year in time for Remembrance Sunday.
It is surrounded by a wind shelter, very welcome in eXtreme weather on this eXposed spot. If you look north from this point

in the far distance, at the eXtreme end of my camera's zoom, there are not X rays, but radiation of a different type, the eX nuclear power station, which is now being demolished, but still in use as a nuclear processing plant. Constructed in the 1950s when safety in science used to be more gung ho it used to be called Windscale but after a few leakages the name was eXcised, it had a PR makeover and renamed Sellafield.
Could X also mark the vanishing point as the eXpress train races down the line
or stand for danger at railway crossing. Sherlock Hemlock certainly says so in this short clip from Sesame Street.


eXit here to see more interpretations of the letter X on the ABC Wednesday meme.