Whatever…. the whole point of a Brompton is it can easily be carried on just about any form of transport. We thought we’d test this out as part of this month’s BaM.
Despite my advertisement last week, amazingly only Pickers and myself took up the challenge. I can only presume that hordes of you would have liked to join in but were not able to because it was a Friday/Saturday. Yes, I’m sure that can have been the only reason. Must have been.
Both of us have “Brompacked” before. I first did a Brom-Gig-Packing trip in 2017 to see a Rezillos gig and then bivvy in the woods, then again a couple more times, and Pickers pioneered Bromptons on the Welsh Ride Thing.
Since Pickers lives near Stratford-upon-Avon and I live on the West Coast Main Line, we chose Birmingham and the Black Country to try our scheme out. One bonus was that a day “rover” ticket on all main forms of transport in the West Midlands was the princely sum of £8.20 – a complete bargain. It’d be like a mini-Interrail trip but without the, er, Swiss Alps. Pickers would be sporting his flash new 6-geared Brompton, and I’d be cranking my 1999-vintage 3-geared machine. This ridiculous enterprise would be a lesson in winging it as we went, like a pair of autumn leaves buffeted and swirled along by the breeze, using as many forms of transport as we could wherever and whenever they presented themselves.
Warning: Does Not Contain Photos Of Scenery.
Warning: May Contain Nerdy Photos Of Trains, Buses, Trams, Boats And Who Knows What Else.
I duly boarded the 11.25am train from Leighton Buzzard to Birmingham International, armed with basic bivvy kit.
To be fair, our first port of call was fixed. It was the unmanned overhead single-car “trains” that run from the railway station to the main airport, simply because it was easiest to meet there. These used to be “Maglev” vehicles, opened in 1984 as the first commercial “Maglev” system in the world, with magnets propelling and supporting the vehicles, but since 2003 they are now simply cable-hauled. We folded the bikes and took one trip, baffling the holidaymakers by getting off at the airport and immediately back on again to return to the station.
Our first means of transport: cable-hauled Air-Rail Link, TICK.
I called in at the ticket office and bought my West Midlands rover ticket. Right then. Now what? The most random thing would be to jump on the next train towards Birmingham, which is what we did. This turned out to be the 12.08 to… Aberystwyth! Maybe we could just carry on and have a ride round Bearbonesland instead? In the end we took it as far as Wolverhampton which is as far north as we wanted to go. Because it was so crowded we stashed the bikes under our table, which made disembarking a bit fraught as the handlebars got stuck behind the table legs, much to the amusement of our co-passengers, and we could have ended up in Aber after all.
We knew that the West Midlands Metro tram system went as far as Wolverhampton, where it split into two legs, although we weren’t sure where the stops were. That problem was solved as we walked out of the station straight onto the Metro tracks, oops. There was a stop just to the left, with the track appearing to point south which fitted with our rough intentions as we’d decided the best thing was to head to the Old Swan pub in Netherton where we could sit down and come up with even a vague plan. I thought we could take the Metro as far as Wednesbury until Pickers pointed out that Netherton was blinking miles from Wednesbury and up a hill. Oh. Well how about a taxi from Wednesbury, as that would bring in another form of transport. Good idea we thought.
During these deliberations, and whether we should actually get off at Wednesbury or Bilston, it dawned on us that there was no driver sitting in the cab ready to set off. Hey, maybe these are automated as well, that’d be exciting. Suddenly the tram set off backwards going north. Well that’s baffling. Well it was until we realised that it was (obviously) going forwards and only went north for a few yards before it did a 180 degree turn back through the town towards the bus interchange station.
Hmm, bus, that’s a thought, maybe there’s direct buses from Wolverhampton towards Netherton, or at least to Dudley which is quite close and also at the top of the hill from where we could bike down to the pub; so we made a snap decision to bail out after only one stop on the tram to have a look round the bus station.
The “where do you want to go” board was actually quite helpful and told us that the “X8” went to Birmingham via Dudley, and the “8” to Stourbridge via Dudley. Result! It also noted that they departed from stand R. Well that’s fine, but we couldn’t work out where stands A-Q were never mind R. Turns out that we were right next to it, and almost immediately a number “8” to Stourbridge arrived. On we get. Or rather we don’t. “You can’t bring those on I’m full”. Well you don’t look full and they fold and we can put them on our laps. He wasn’t having any of it, so this was our first failure, and my threat of reporting him to my chum who is actually in charge of the whole West Midlands bus network seemed to have no effect.
Looking at the timetable next to us showed that there was also a half-hourly “X8” as well, and luckily one of those rolled up shortly afterwards. His first manoeuvre was to leave the bus station onto the main road and do a complete circuit of the roundabout which was suitably disorientating and we could now have been heading to Inverness for all we knew. Obviously the main thing was we'd bagged the top deck front seats like the big kids we plainly are.
On the way out of Wolverhampton we noticed the “Fred Williams Bike Shop” with its “appointments only” sign. It looked a bit like a dodgy massage parlour to me (not that I, er, know about these things obviously) but Pickers pointed out that you probably wouldn’t want to have your door open here with thousands of pounds worth of bikes inside. We also went past “Avanti Kitchens”, which seemed a bit strange to me, having come from Milton Keynes on an Avanti train. Seemed a curious sort of business diversification, or maybe they sold train kitchens.
The dual carriageway road led south along the ridge and we spotted a sign stating that a High Court Injunction against “car cruising” was in force. Ah well, that’s Pickers’s Friday night plans ruined then.
After passing by numerous housing estates, forlorn shopping parades, scrapyards and tyre fitters, and the Wrens Nest Nature Reserve with its “famous Dudley bug”, we finally saw a sign for Dudley. In the town centre we jumped off at bus stop DY10 for a reason I can’t now remember, and walked round the corner to try and find a bus taking us nearer to the pub which apparently departed from stops DY1 or DY2. There was a number “25” due followed by a “19”; the “25” arrives and we get on, oh, no we don’t we get off again and wait for the “19”, but then Pickers asks the “25” driver in the correct dialect and we board that after all, departing at 14:10. Things were becoming a bit of a blur by this point to be honest, although things were livened up by spotting the cable car at Dudley Zoo and wondering if we should bail out for a go on that. Anyway, at least the driver knew where the pub was and offered to kick us out at the correct location. On the short journey we noticed a roadsign showing the way to “Bum Hole” which naturally amused us inordinately.
The “Bum Hole” situation became clearer when upon entering the pub we discovered that they served a local beer called “Bumble Hole” named after a local canal feature. Excellent, two pints of Bum Hole please landlord; and two of your finest cobs as well. It was nice to sit and chat for a while. We’d hoped to head to Sedgley to visit the famed Beacon Hotel for a sample of their Ruby Mild, but instead unfortunately we had to partake of another couple of beers here while we considered what to do next and Pickers pointed out that the Netherton canal tunnel was just round the corner and he remembered that it had tow paths along its length which might even be rideable. We had no idea where its other end popped out but that didn’t seem to matter at this point.
By now we were almost too, er, relaxed to leave, and Pickers mentioned that he was actually on work “gardening leave” due to handing in his notice, so his current employer was kindly paying him to sit in the pub and have a nice time which seemed very generous of them! Very relaxed:
Dragging ourselves away from the convivial atmosphere we rode down the hill to the tunnel, being passed by one of our now old friends the “8” bus in the process, and noticing an interesting piece of artwork commemorating Joseph Darby “The Netherton Jumper”. He specialised in “spring jumping” from a stationary position, competing and actually being paid for his jumps and tricks, including, ahem, “astounding” feats such as landing on a brick, or appearing to land on and jump off a person’s face (which immediately reminded me of the face-jumping contest in Sir Henry At Rawlinson End – “ ‘e’s got no chance, t’silly bugger’s wearing spiked running shoes”….). Takes all sorts I suppose!
A pleasant ride (yes we were actually biking for once!) along the canal brought us to the tunnel. “Are you lit up?” enquires Mr Picton. “Yes”, says Reg, “I’ve just had two pints of Bum[ble] Hole”. Nooo-o-o-o, lights for the tunnel.
The Black Country still has a massive network of canals, reputedly more than Venice albeit perhaps not quite as, er, scenic. There were also hundreds of small loading/unloading basins next to factories and other works, many of which have now sadly closed along with the industries they served, such as coal mines, glass works, lime and steel etc. The Netherton Tunnel is 1.7 miles long and was the last major canal tunnel built in Britain in 1855, aimed at bypassing the narrow and congested Dudley Tunnel. It is 27 feet wide, allowing horse-drawn boats to pass each other and even has towpaths on both sides making things much easier for the boat operators, and correspondingly easier for us bikers too. Originally gas-lit, it is now amusingly dark and the towpath badly potholed, although a handrail now makes things less entertaining than they might otherwise be.
1.7 miles in a tunnel feels like quite a long way, you can just see the entrance portal as a tiny white spot…. and this is only half way!
I found the tunnel to be strangely relaxing. It was a bit like being in one of those sealed up flotation tank experiences which people, apparently, pay good money for. After some considerable time we emerged at the other end which turned out to be at the junction with the main Birmingham to Wolverhampton canal, and having gone under the large hill at Dudley certainly saved us a lot of effort. However, the rough plan we had hatched in the pub involved somehow reaching Stourbridge in the evening and we had now just travelled in completely the opposite direction. Hmm.
The main canal disappeared in both directions, north and south, as far as the eye could see, but our eye was drawn to the railway running parallel to the canal. I remembered there was a station at Tipton, and a sign pointed north to Tipton so that seemed a good idea as any, and off we went along the west side tow path. After a mile or so we reached a station which turned out to be Dudley Port, and a quick check of the timetable showed a Birmingham train was due in a few minutes. Slight problem – it was on the east side of the canal and no bridge was in sight for miles in either direction….. oops….
A nice idea would have been to hitch a lift across the canal on a narrowboat but no boats were in sight either. Just as we were about to give up hope we noticed a secret flight of steps down to road level, so we gingerly went down those, under the bridge, and back up onto the station just as the train was leaving.
“Stars can’t shine without darkness”… something to ponder as we staggered up the station steps….
Then followed a chilled 20 minutes of watching trains go by until the 17.29 to Walsall turned up, going south which was strange since Walsall is north from Dudley, another indication of the topsy-turvey world of West Midlands transport.
The destination screen showed that on the way to Birmingham it also stopped at Sandwell, and Smethwick Galton Bridge, and also Smethwick Rolfe Street. Both of us know someone called Rolfe so we thought it might be interesting to jump off there instead.
We exited the station, with Pickers taking the lift which I guess counted as another means of transport, into a fairly dystopian post-industrial Mad Max world of lock-ups, half demolished buildings, scrapyards, and unfinished roads. Time to get out of here, so it was a hair-raising ride down the road (where “cruising” seemed to be positively encouraged rather than banned) to where we noticed the overhead wiring of our old friend the Metro system, along with a station at what turned out to be Handsworth Booth Street. We’re saved!
The first tram that arrived advertised that it was heading for Edgbaston via the city centre, which hardly mattered as we were going to board it wherever it was ending up.
Remembering that we were supposed to be making our way to Stourbridge, for reasons already forgotten, I recalled that there is an obscure rush-hour Chiltern Railways train that leaves London Marylebone as an express, stopping at Banbury and Leamington, but once it reaches Birmingham it sort of peters out as a local train and follows the branch line to Stourbridge Junction calling at all sorts of little wayside stations – and as luck would have it, it was due in half an hour or so, and even more luckily our £8.20 Rover tickets allowed us plebs to join it: just what we needed!
The Chilterns train arrives at Birmingham Moor Street then tunnels under the city centre to pop out at Birmingham Snow Hill, so we bailed out of our Metro tram at Snow Hill but instead of waiting for the train there we biked through the city centre to Moor Street station.
Moor Street was a “terminus” station for local trains for many years but platforms on the “through” lines to Snow Hill opened in 1987, hence we could now catch our Stourbridge train here. As stations go, Moor Street is very attractive and looks much like it did in its 1930s Great Western Railway heyday, thanks to a sensitive restoration and sympathetic new buildings.
We were looking forward to annoying all the suited executive commuters with our smelly bikepacker presence, but most of them got off the train at Moor Street and we almost had our whole carriage to ourselves. Another interesting thing about this express-turned-local train is that it is made up of a “proper” locomotive and coaches rather than the “multiple unit” formations that have taken over in recent years. There are now very few of these services left (others include Cornish/Scottish sleeper trains and a few direct Holyhead to Cardiff trains), so it was interesting to see the train arrive hauled by “Class 68” number 68.011, a Spanish-built machine (yep, ludicrously we can’t even build railway locomotives any longer despite inventing the things), considerably overpowered at 3,800hp for its six coaches.
Off we headed through the suburbs in the gathering dusk, arriving at Stourbridge Junction in the dark, just about the last passengers left on the train. We stood on the platform wondering what to do about food and bivvy spots, and indeed drinks. Drinks! Good idea, let’s head to the pub to think what to do next. The Batham’s Brewery tap, The Vine in Brierley Hill, isn’t far away is it. Well, er, yes it is, up a steep hill.
At this point another curious transport option presented itself in the form of the Stourbridge Shuttle. This is a single coach train that plies the ¾- mile branch line from Stourbridge Junction to Stourbridge Town, and at that length it is claimed to be the shortest passenger railway in Britain, and indeed the shortest in the whole of Europe with a regular service (in fact the Friedrichshafen branch in Germany just beats it). The carriage itself is of a unique type, known as the Parry People Mover, and only has 25 seats. It utilises flywheel energy storage technology, with the internal flywheel charging up on the downhill trip with the stored energy re-used to assist the small LPG engine with the subsequent uphill trip.
Unfortunately by adding the People Mover to our roll-call of transport modes, we’d taken ourselves even further down the hill from the pub, a hill which now looked even less appealing. Oh look, a taxi firm! Hello, can we book a taxi to The Vine please? “Yes sir, it’s waiting outside”. How could we refuse, another mode chalked up.
On the ride to the pub it seemed sensible to cycle back down the hill to Stourbridge afterwards, to indulge Mr Picton’s brainwave of a suitably appropriate “Birmingham Balti” evening meal. Whilst cosily ensconced with a Batham’s Bitter, and the drizzle descending outside, this plan gradually seemed to lose its shine. We then realised the road round the corner was the main one from Dudley to Stourbridge, and therefore should sport our old friend the “8” bus! A nice lady in the pub confirmed that this was indeed the case, so we made one of our very few consultations of an actual timetable, which showed that one was due in 15 minutes and they were only hourly at this time of night. Pints quickly downed, we un-folded and biked 200 yards to the bus stop and re-folded, in time to catch the 20.30 “8” to Stourbridge.
A very pleasant Nepalese curry was partaken of…...
….. after which we emerged into the night to try and find a bivvy spot in the middle of the town. Short of the bins behind the supermarket not much was presenting itself and things were looking a bit desperate until Pickers suggested heading out to the woods at Kinver. No buses at this time, and it was actually a hilly cycle ride away, so now what?
Taxi!
A quick ride back to the taxi stand, and “can we book a taxi to Kinver please?”. “Yes sir, it’s waiting outside”. This next driver was quite fascinated by our folding Bromptons, which just fitted in his boot, and he dropped us off in the middle of Kinver. Where’s the woods then Rich mate? Er, up this long steep hill here. What, you mean this hill that the taxi would swiftly and efficiently take us to the top of, as said taxi disappears into the distance? That’s the one says Rich, with his 6-geared Brompton sniggering at my hopeless 3-geared antique. Sigh!
In fact the woods turned out to be a pleasant mix of deciduous trees interspersed with little glades and paths, and it didn’t take too long to find a nice little spot. Lightning and rain had been advertised during the week and I’d requested to borrow one of Pickers’s bivvy bags to see what it was like. I know, I know, I swore I’d never use one but at least I ought to try it. As it turned out the night was dry without any condensation so I never got to learn what all the fuss is about. I doubt I’ll use one again though.
Up at 6.30am, a quick mug of cereal, and ride back down into Kinver, where unfortunately no second breakfasts were available, and neither was a bus to Stourbridge for well over an hour or so. Now what?
Taxi!
A quick call to our by now old friends and best mates at ABM Taxis resulted in a “Yes sir, we’ll be with you in 10 minutes”. I could get used to this. Our third taxi whisked us back to Stourbridge station, where we boarded the little shuttle train again for the five minute trip up to the junction. The buffet on the platform provided a welcome couple of coffees while we pondered what train to catch and where to take it to. The rough aim for this morning was to visit Birmingham city centre to see what additional transports we could find – horse and cart maybe?
A glance at the departure board showed… what’s this? “Platform 2, 08.19 to London Marylebone via Birmingham Snow Hill”. Surely not, but yes, talking of old friends, a few moments later locomotive number 68.011 with her six well-appointed carriages rolls out of the sidings where they had been snoozing overnight. Thinking about it, we should have just bivvied in the carriages ourselves!
Installing ourselves at exactly the same table that we had vacated twelve hours earlier, we powered off through the Black Country and half an hour later disembarked at Snow Hill station yet again.
Leaving Snow Hill station we unfolded and wandered around the city centre at random until we reached Victoria Square which seemed to be a hive of activity with a fun-run in full swing and lots of people generally promenading and enjoying themselves. We noticed a scooter hire stand and didn’t have to think for very long before we wanted to try them! Having downloaded the special app, unfortunately we were thwarted at the last moment by the requirement for a driving licence. I’d’ve thought the whole point of a hire scooter was to obviate the need to own a car driving licence….
We continued through the Convention Centre, making sure we dropped down in the lift to score another transport mode…..
…… we ended up at the canal to try and find the elusive “water bus” but due to rank incompetence we couldn’t find it. There seemed to be at least one tourist boat trip but that felt like somewhat of an overkill for our intentions, so we disconsolately took a roundabout route back to Victoria Square in search of a second breakfast. For some inexplicable reason we found ourselves in what I believe is called “A Greggs”, which seemed to be some sort of purveyor of various baked goods and caffeinated drinks. So much for my usual attempts at trying to patronise a nice local eating emporium. Having said that, their veggie sausage bap with additional brown sauce wasn’t a totally unpleasant experience, and it gave us time to reconsider the boating options. Maybe the tourist boat would allow us to do a short bit of the trip then jump out part way through? We were even getting desperate enough to try a bit of piracy and commandeer a private boat.
We got back to the tourist boat mooring just as it was arriving for its first 11am trip. It was soon clear that we’d have to indulge in the whole tourist bit and do the complete one hour trip! This would be cutting it fine for our trains home, but we had no choice if we wanted to add a boat to our travels.
As it turned out, the guys operating it turned out to be very helpful, stashing the folded Bromptons on the roof (“never had bikes before!”), and we jumped on board to obtain pole position in the bow seats. We ponied up our £4.50’s and in fact it was all very relaxing and informative. And… the boat has a bar! Well if we’re going to be tourists we may as well go the whole hog and have a couple of glasses of fizz, to the amusement of the rest of the tourists. The tour visited some obscure backwaters, and after turning left at every junction we ended up back where we started. A couple of herons entertained us at one point, and yer man told us that otters put in regular appearances - in the middle of Brum! Just as we were returning to the starting mooring we noticed the “water bus” signs on the other side of the canal! We could have had a quick jaunt between two stops for £1 on the canal bus instead after all. Not sure they'd have provided fizz though, so all's well that had ended well.
If you look closely you'll see that sometimes Birmingham just gets a bit too much to cope with for some people....
Returning at midday it’s a bit of a mad dash for my 12.21 to Milton Keynes train and Pickers’s later one to Stratford-upon-Avon but by some miracle we weave through all the city centre jugglers, street artists, drunks, joggers and tourists making it just in time.
I buy a tasty “vegan sausage brunch ciabatta” from the train buffet and a brew and settle back as we speed back down the West Coast Main line, while I mull over all the ridiculous happenings of the past couple of days. It really was great fun and a test of our winging-it skills to surrender to a random set of events that we had no particular control over, and just confirmed my existing antipathy to planned routes and pre-set lines on an electronic gizmo. About the only failures we had were the canal bus and the scooters and that was only because we had no driving licences, and along the way we met all sorts of interesting and indeed helpful people.
It only remains to thank Pickers very much for putting up with yet another hare-brained scheme!
Whatever next….
9/9, 9/12, 106/106
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