Oz & James - Rail Ale Trail

[Jambrose1512]

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of advice really, as you can tell from the thread title, I saw, like quite a few people by all accounts, the Oz & James Drink To Britain program on TV where they visited some real ale pubs on the Transpennine Manchester to Leeds/York run, the three stations they visited were at Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Stalybridge. As quite a few people out there I instantly though, 'I'll have some of that! rail and real ale, mmmmmmmmm' so I have been doing a little searching around (only a very little if im honest) to find the best, and cheapest ways of doing the same journey.

I have come across the following leaflet from Northern which does cover some of the trip but no mention of Dewsbury and tends to centre around Huddersfield.

http://www.northernrail.org/page/6/pdfs ... offers.pdf

Basically I am looking for the cheapest and best ways to go about this and any information and recommendation from people who have done the trip or use the stations which feature real ale pubs.

Is there a day rover type ticket that is the best way of doing this, are all the stations on the same line or will I be looking at buying several tickets and rushing around like mad to make connections?

I will be travelling up from langley Mill so a direct train to Leeds seems the best way of doing this but where do I go from there?

There will be 2 adults with the use a a disabled adult railcard.

Any ideas or feedback would be a great help,

Cheers
Jamie

[Jambrose1512]

Found the following, which looks a good bet for getting to Huddersfield and Stalybridge, and ideal for me coming from Langley Mill as I could get off at Sheffield.

http://www.northernrail.org/page/6/41020

[spartacus]

You could always get a return to Stalybridge from Leeds, doing the trail in the opposite direction to what they did. There's a few other pubs either on of near the stations in between if you fancy a long trail.

[MoonKid47]

IIRC, there was also a thing they were doing down the Preston to Bradford line, which included places like Bamber Bridge, Blackburn, Burnley and Halifax, amongst others.

But then if your going from Langley Mill, why not just get a return to Sheffield and take a stop at every ststaion along the way and hit a pub or 2 in the area?

[Riche]

Unless it's changed, most tickets (except some very tightly restricted advance ones) allow a break of journey both ways now, so all you need is a ticket from where you join to the furthest place you want to go and you can just hop on and off all the way. I'm not sure if there are any remaining after the rename and standardisation of ticket names recently which allow a break only on the return portion.

[Jambrose1512]

After some working out, I have finally figured a way of doing the trip, Return from Langley Mill to Sheffield and a South Pennine Day Rover from there.......

Langley Mill d 08.31
Sheffield a 09.15
21 minutes in Sheffield
d 09.36
Huddersfield a 10.49
2 hour 8 minutes in Huddersfield
Head Of Steam – Food from 11, 20% off with valid train ticket
d 12.57
Dewsbury a 13.06
1 hour in Dewsbury
West Riding Refreshment Rooms
d 14.06
Huddersfield a 14.15
11 minutes in Huddersfield
d 14.26
Stalybridge a 14.43
1 hour 43 minutes in Stalybridge
Stalybridge Buffet Bar
d 16.26
Huddersfield a 16.44
1 hour 29 minutes in Huddersfield
Kings Head
d 18.13
Sheffield a 19.30
35 minutes in Sheffield
d 20.05
Langley Mill a 20.40

Hoping to do the trip sometime in the next week so will report back.