In Need Of Some Pruning

I snapped this picture of signal LL9593 at Huyton.  I think some pruning of the bushes is required!

Should I contact Network Rail?  Since my attention was drawn to this by seeing a man in orange take a picture just like this one and then go down on the track for a closer shot, I think they already know.

Update:  By Sunday morning the bushes had been cut back.

Lime Street Platform One Opened

This morning 2A92 1030 Liverpool Lime Street to Wilmslow, formed by 319382, was the first public working out of the new extended platform one at Lime Street.

These three pictures were taken on the following Tuesday:

Another New Train

Once again, not strictly in our area, but I paid a visit yesterday to Pacific Road in Birkenhead to see a mock-up of the new Class 777 units which are to begin taking over Merseyrail services next year.

Nothing very newsworthy, as photographs have already been published, but worth having a look as I was in the area.

The coloured lights by the doorways change to green when they open.

New Train

Not strictly relevant to this blog, as they probably won't be running on our routes, but I was interested to see a new Class 195 DMU pass through Huyton on test today:

These units are expected to be deployed on the Liverpool to Manchester Airport via Warrington Central service, perhaps later this year.

The units are known as "Civity" and are built by CAF in Irun, Spain for Northern.

Lime Street Re-opens

Lime Street re-opened this morning after eight weeks of work, so I took a quick look round.

Platform 1 has track, but is closed off by barriers - It is scheduled to open in October.  On the left, the old platform 1 stands trackless:

Further up, the far end of platforms 1 and 2 also awaits completion:

On the concourse, Virgin's First Class Lounge has gained a frontage, although a lot of work remains to be done:

And what of the train service, I hear you ask?  Writing at 4pm I note that at Huyton we have had eleven cancellations and twelve trains more than fifteen minutes late.  I suspect most of these are due to Northern's continuing crew problems, rather than being the fault of the new signalling.