April (finally !) 2026. Manchester to Tyldesley.
You learn a lot about the UK transport networks as a pub ticker. Some towns stand out as tough to tick, particularly the string of mining towns without a railway station between Manchester and Wigan. Thanks a bunch, Mr Beeching.
But this very week celebrates a decade of the Leigh-Manchester Bus Rapid Transport system, in part using the old rail track bed (see also : Cambridge Guided Bus), which just shows that if you live long enough things will get better like Brian Cox sang in 1994.
Names to conjure with along the V2 line;
someone should do a Rail Trail guide with a pint at every stop.
We’re in Manchester for the launch of a rather different pub guide,
and there’s actually two Tyldesley entries in the book. But are they the two I’ll visit ?
I’m so excited about the Guided Bus trip I actually forget to find out where it starts from. St Peters Square is a vast terminus containing the tram stops, library, and an expensive art installation called “9 years, £524.8 million“.
The V2 leaves from stop SD opposite the Art Gallery where I’ll meet Mrs RM later.
I tap-in (£2 single) and take the front seat up top, a big mistake as a wheezing bloke opposite stinks of dope, though I’m so innocent I’ve no idea if it’s actually weed or skunk, or if they’re the same thing. It’s not Paco Rabanne or Plum Porter, anyway.
What a great way to spend £2, seeing pubs you’ve never been in (like the Sawyers) on the trip over the Irwell,
and along Salford Crescent.
Kentish Paul went to Uni here, you know.
Half an hour of increasingly dull suburbia later we leave the bus land and hit the actual rail track,
and I get off at Sale Lane, expectant.
retiredmartin 