Hooton railway station
Encyclopedia
Hooton railway station is situated in the south of the Wirral Peninsula
, Cheshire
, England
. It lies on the Wirral Line
15 km (9½ miles) south west of Liverpool Lime Street on the Merseyrail
network, and is near the junction of the branch line to Ellesmere Port
from the Chester
line.
The station is mid-way between Junction 5 of the M53 motorway
and Willaston village. It provides a major park and ride
facility for Birkenhead
, Liverpool
and Chester
, being convenient of access from north east Wales by the A550. The station car park was remarked in early 2007 and now contains compliant blue badge parking spaces. Further work to provide a variable height counter and new cycle parking was carried out in 2007. Network Rail has installed a new footbridge to replace the original structure, the new one being DDA compliant with lifts to all platforms; due to have been completed in May 2011 it actually came into use at the end of January 2011, making Hooton the closest 'disabled friendly' station for all the stops on the Ellesmere Port branch and for stations towards Chester - although Capenhurst
station offers level access to each platform separately from Capenhurst Lane. A new 'M to Go' shop opened at Hooton in the first week of March 2010. Improvements to the station also include a fully accessible toilet and a new waiting shelter on the Liverpool bound platform.
, a joint railway
owned by the Great Western Railway
and the London and North Western Railway
. The station was opened by the Chester and Birkenhead Railway
, a constituent of the Birkenhead Railway, which opened on 23 September 1840.
In October 1839 a serious riot took place near Hooton. Gangs of 'navvies' working from the Birkenhead and Chester ends of the line met up here for its completion when one of the contractors' wages clerks made off with the pay for his men. Upwards of 2,000 labourers rioted, military were sent from Liverpool and Chester including a piece of ordnance, and 28 rioters were jailed.
A branch from Hooton to via Ince & Elton
opened on 1 July 1863, and another branch to (later extended to ) followed on 1 October 1866. In its heyday, the station had 7 platforms. The West Kirby branch closed to passengers in 1957 and completely in 1962. The service to Helsby now operates from Ellesmere Port to Warrington Bank Quay, no longer serving Hooton. The station signs between Helsby & Ellesmere Port still display Hooton as the terminus of the trains.
Until the 1960s there was a cattle mart opposite the station with railway access parallel to the bay platform, then numbered Platform 1. Milk trains bound for the Black Country and London along the Great Western Main Line were assembled each evening on the then extensive sidings, and there was an extensive traffic of live cattle. Mr Parton of the Station Garage provided a taxi service with two luxurious black Packard limousines. Nowadays commercial premises occupy the site of the garage and the mart.
The Hooton Hotel, which is located adjacent to the station and the former cattle mart was briefly famous in the early 1960s as the place where workers from the newly established Vauxhall car factory were reputed to enjoy champagne rather than the more usual beer!
Until their withdrawal on the electrification of the WCML in 1967 there were regular through trains daily between London Paddington and Birkenhead Woodside, including a sleeper train, all of which were scheduled to call at Hooton: these trains carried boards along their carriage sides proclaiming "PADDINGTON BIRMINGHAM SHREWSBURY CHESTER & BIRKENHEAD". Between Birkenhead and Chester they would always be hauled by fast, powerful tank engines; between Chester and Wolverhampton a "Castle" would typically haul the train, and between Wolverhampton and Paddington a "King" (in the final years it would have been a Western Region diesel hydraulic). Each morning there was a train to Bournemouth (West) and a three-portion train, of green carriages provided by the Southern Region on alternate days, which travelled via Oxford and Reading to Redhill, where the Brighton portion was detached, thence to Ashford where it was split into a portion for Margate, and another for Dover, Deal and Sandwich. The summer timetable would typically include services to and from destinations on the Cambrian reached via Ruabon.
Hooton handled a substantial trade in railway goods and parcels; even unaccompanied dogs (caged) could be sent in the care of the Guard. In the 1950s school trunks were conveyed "PLA (Passengers' Luggage in Advance); if collected by the station lorry, transported and delivered the charge was five shillings, if simply transported and delivered it cost three and ninepence. Among the passengers were frequently crates of homing pigeons: young ones might be sent only as far as Gobowen or Wellington for release by station staff, whilst more experienced birds were sent for release at destinations all over the former Great Western system, and indeed to Europe.
Hooton's architecture was Birkenhead Joint, the style of the station buildings being similar to those at Hadlow Road which date from 1866, rather than the rough-hewn Gothic style used at Little Sutton and Ellesmere Port stations from 1863. The original 1839 Birkenhead Railway was single track and few if any relics remain along the current route. The signalling and both signal boxes North (now gone) and South (now replaced with a modern structure) were distinctly L&NWR, but, in spite of some local L&NWR trains and locomotives, it was very much Great Western territory - sited as it is near the end of the main line which earned that railway its major profits, even though it did not serve the rather more glamorous destinations with which the GWR liked to be, and generally is, associated.
Until the late 1960s there were waiting rooms and lavatories for Ladies and Gentlemen (with penny slots in the doors) on both island platforms and on Platform 2, the signs on Platform 6 being suspended using hooks for easy removal on those occasions when the Royal Train overnighted at Hooton. Wymans had a newspaper and bookstall until the late 1960s, but there was never a refreshment room. When the LMR's West Coast Main Line electric services to Liverpool commenced in 1967 the old Great Western main line was reduced in status to a series of local lines, Birkenhead Woodside was closed and Hooton station went into decline. The Joyce of Whitchurch clock was removed, the canopies and buildings were removed from the island platforms in the 1970s, and the only services comprised DMUs running between Rock Ferry (by then the terminus) and either Chester or Helsby. At one period during the 1970s even the sparse Sunday services ceased to stop at Hooton.
Through services to Liverpool began in 1985, when the line between Rock Ferry
and Hooton was electrified
; previously passengers for Liverpool had to change at Rock Ferry. Hooton then became the point where passengers from Chester and Ellesmere Port had to change for Liverpool, until further electrification work saw the electric trains reach Chester in 1993 and Ellesmere Port in 1994.
Work in preparation for the new overbridge and lift shafts started in June 2010 and they were taken into use at the end of January 2011; they are situated to the south of the station buildings and further down the platforms than the previous overbridge at the north end of the station. That overbridge, demolished in February 2011, dated from the widening of the line to four tracks from Ledsham Junction to Rock Ferry in the 1890s, the widening being another casualty of the 1970s. The previous overbridge discharged its users short of the canopies on the then platforms 2, 3&4, 5&6 which were demolished in the 1970s as a result of the "discounted cash flow" theory, popular with BR in the 1970s, which held that it was cheaper to eliminate an asset than to have a continuing maintenance obligation.
Services=
Trains between Chester and Liverpool operate every 15 minutes in each direction during weekdays, every 30 minutes in the evening and on Sundays. The Ellesmere Port/Liverpool service runs every 15 minutes during Monday-Friday peak hours and every 30 minutes at other times. Services are operated by Merseyrail's fleet of Class 507/508 EMUs.
Platform 3 serves northbound trains. Platform 2 serves trains for Chester and Ellesmere Port and its opposite face is Platform 1, a south-facing bay platform with electrified track used primarily for stabling. These platforms are all accessed by the overbridge/lifts.
The booking office gives onto the fourth platform in current use, which is un-numbered; it was originally Platform 2 and is used primarily for loco-hauled railtour trains starting from and terminating at Hooton. The line serving it is not electrified and continues northbound for only a few hundred yards.
The original Platform 1, a bay serving the former Helsby branch adjacent to original Platform 2, has disappeared with re-modelling. Platform 7 was used by trains from the West Kirby branch bound for Birkenhead and lies abandoned and heavily overgrown, as is original Platform 6 which would form the other face of the present Platform 3 (formerly Platform 5) but for a central fence erected at the time of the re-modelling.
Wirral Peninsula
Wirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded by three bodies of water: to the west by the River Dee, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey and to the north by the Irish Sea. Both terms "Wirral" and "the Wirral" are used locally , although the...
, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It lies on the Wirral Line
Wirral Line
The Wirral Line is one of the two commuter railway lines operated by Merseyrail that are centred around Merseyside, England, the other being the Northern Line...
15 km (9½ miles) south west of Liverpool Lime Street on the Merseyrail
Merseyrail
Merseyrail is a train operating company and commuter rail network in the United Kingdom, centred on Liverpool, Merseyside. The network is predominantly electric with diesel trains running on the City Line. Two City Line branches are currently being electrified on the overhead wire AC system with...
network, and is near the junction of the branch line to Ellesmere Port
Ellesmere Port railway station
Ellesmere Port railway station is located in the town of Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England. It is the terminal station of two lines on separate rail networks.* One of the termini of the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail network....
from the Chester
Chester railway station
Chester railway station is a railway station in Newtown in the city of Chester, England. It is currently operated by Arriva Trains Wales, although Merseyrail, Northern Rail and Virgin Trains also run services from the station. It is situated to the north-east of the city centre...
line.
The station is mid-way between Junction 5 of the M53 motorway
M53 motorway
The M53 is a motorway in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and Cheshire on the Wirral Peninsula in England. It can also be referred to as the Mid Wirral Motorway...
and Willaston village. It provides a major park and ride
Park and ride
Park and ride facilities are car parks with connections to public transport that allow commuters and other people wishing to travel into city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system , or carpool for the rest of their trip...
facility for Birkenhead
Birkenhead
Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
, being convenient of access from north east Wales by the A550. The station car park was remarked in early 2007 and now contains compliant blue badge parking spaces. Further work to provide a variable height counter and new cycle parking was carried out in 2007. Network Rail has installed a new footbridge to replace the original structure, the new one being DDA compliant with lifts to all platforms; due to have been completed in May 2011 it actually came into use at the end of January 2011, making Hooton the closest 'disabled friendly' station for all the stops on the Ellesmere Port branch and for stations towards Chester - although Capenhurst
Capenhurst railway station
Capenhurst railway station serves the village of Capenhurst, in Cheshire, England. It lies on the Wirral Line 8 km north of Chester of the Merseyrail network, on the Chester branch. It has a modest car park and few passenger facilities...
station offers level access to each platform separately from Capenhurst Lane. A new 'M to Go' shop opened at Hooton in the first week of March 2010. Improvements to the station also include a fully accessible toilet and a new waiting shelter on the Liverpool bound platform.
History
Hooton station is located on the former Birkenhead RailwayBirkenhead Railway
The Birkenhead Railway was formed on 1 August 1859 as a result of the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Railway merging with the Chester and Birkenhead Railway. The new company was originally called the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway, but in 1859 shortened its name to The...
, a joint railway
Joint railway
A joint railway is a railway operating under the control of more than one railway company: those companies very often supplying the traction over the railway.-United Kingdom:There are many examples of joint railway working in the United Kingdom...
owned by the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
and the London and North Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
. The station was opened by the Chester and Birkenhead Railway
Chester and Birkenhead Railway
The Chester and Birkenhead Railway ran from Birkenhead to Chester. It opened on 23 September 1838. On the 22 July 1847 it merged with the Birkenhead, Lancaster and Cheshire Junction Railway to become the Birkenhead Railway.-Currently Working:...
, a constituent of the Birkenhead Railway, which opened on 23 September 1840.
In October 1839 a serious riot took place near Hooton. Gangs of 'navvies' working from the Birkenhead and Chester ends of the line met up here for its completion when one of the contractors' wages clerks made off with the pay for his men. Upwards of 2,000 labourers rioted, military were sent from Liverpool and Chester including a piece of ordnance, and 28 rioters were jailed.
A branch from Hooton to via Ince & Elton
Ince and Elton railway station
Ince and Elton railway station, on the Ellesmere Port to Warrington Line, serves both Ince and Elton in Cheshire, England.The station is unstaffed as it rarely sees a train at any meaningful time of day...
opened on 1 July 1863, and another branch to (later extended to ) followed on 1 October 1866. In its heyday, the station had 7 platforms. The West Kirby branch closed to passengers in 1957 and completely in 1962. The service to Helsby now operates from Ellesmere Port to Warrington Bank Quay, no longer serving Hooton. The station signs between Helsby & Ellesmere Port still display Hooton as the terminus of the trains.
Until the 1960s there was a cattle mart opposite the station with railway access parallel to the bay platform, then numbered Platform 1. Milk trains bound for the Black Country and London along the Great Western Main Line were assembled each evening on the then extensive sidings, and there was an extensive traffic of live cattle. Mr Parton of the Station Garage provided a taxi service with two luxurious black Packard limousines. Nowadays commercial premises occupy the site of the garage and the mart.
The Hooton Hotel, which is located adjacent to the station and the former cattle mart was briefly famous in the early 1960s as the place where workers from the newly established Vauxhall car factory were reputed to enjoy champagne rather than the more usual beer!
Until their withdrawal on the electrification of the WCML in 1967 there were regular through trains daily between London Paddington and Birkenhead Woodside, including a sleeper train, all of which were scheduled to call at Hooton: these trains carried boards along their carriage sides proclaiming "PADDINGTON BIRMINGHAM SHREWSBURY CHESTER & BIRKENHEAD". Between Birkenhead and Chester they would always be hauled by fast, powerful tank engines; between Chester and Wolverhampton a "Castle" would typically haul the train, and between Wolverhampton and Paddington a "King" (in the final years it would have been a Western Region diesel hydraulic). Each morning there was a train to Bournemouth (West) and a three-portion train, of green carriages provided by the Southern Region on alternate days, which travelled via Oxford and Reading to Redhill, where the Brighton portion was detached, thence to Ashford where it was split into a portion for Margate, and another for Dover, Deal and Sandwich. The summer timetable would typically include services to and from destinations on the Cambrian reached via Ruabon.
Hooton handled a substantial trade in railway goods and parcels; even unaccompanied dogs (caged) could be sent in the care of the Guard. In the 1950s school trunks were conveyed "PLA (Passengers' Luggage in Advance); if collected by the station lorry, transported and delivered the charge was five shillings, if simply transported and delivered it cost three and ninepence. Among the passengers were frequently crates of homing pigeons: young ones might be sent only as far as Gobowen or Wellington for release by station staff, whilst more experienced birds were sent for release at destinations all over the former Great Western system, and indeed to Europe.
Hooton's architecture was Birkenhead Joint, the style of the station buildings being similar to those at Hadlow Road which date from 1866, rather than the rough-hewn Gothic style used at Little Sutton and Ellesmere Port stations from 1863. The original 1839 Birkenhead Railway was single track and few if any relics remain along the current route. The signalling and both signal boxes North (now gone) and South (now replaced with a modern structure) were distinctly L&NWR, but, in spite of some local L&NWR trains and locomotives, it was very much Great Western territory - sited as it is near the end of the main line which earned that railway its major profits, even though it did not serve the rather more glamorous destinations with which the GWR liked to be, and generally is, associated.
Until the late 1960s there were waiting rooms and lavatories for Ladies and Gentlemen (with penny slots in the doors) on both island platforms and on Platform 2, the signs on Platform 6 being suspended using hooks for easy removal on those occasions when the Royal Train overnighted at Hooton. Wymans had a newspaper and bookstall until the late 1960s, but there was never a refreshment room. When the LMR's West Coast Main Line electric services to Liverpool commenced in 1967 the old Great Western main line was reduced in status to a series of local lines, Birkenhead Woodside was closed and Hooton station went into decline. The Joyce of Whitchurch clock was removed, the canopies and buildings were removed from the island platforms in the 1970s, and the only services comprised DMUs running between Rock Ferry (by then the terminus) and either Chester or Helsby. At one period during the 1970s even the sparse Sunday services ceased to stop at Hooton.
Through services to Liverpool began in 1985, when the line between Rock Ferry
Rock Ferry railway station
Rock Ferry railway station is situated in the Rock Ferry area of Birkenhead, Wirral, England. It lies south west of on the Chester and Ellesmere Port branches of the Wirral Line, part of the Merseyrail network...
and Hooton was electrified
Railway electrification in Great Britain
Railway electrification in Great Britain started towards of the 19th century. A great range of voltages have been used in the intervening period using both overhead lines and third rails, however the most common standard for mainline services is now 25 kV AC using overhead lines and the...
; previously passengers for Liverpool had to change at Rock Ferry. Hooton then became the point where passengers from Chester and Ellesmere Port had to change for Liverpool, until further electrification work saw the electric trains reach Chester in 1993 and Ellesmere Port in 1994.
Work in preparation for the new overbridge and lift shafts started in June 2010 and they were taken into use at the end of January 2011; they are situated to the south of the station buildings and further down the platforms than the previous overbridge at the north end of the station. That overbridge, demolished in February 2011, dated from the widening of the line to four tracks from Ledsham Junction to Rock Ferry in the 1890s, the widening being another casualty of the 1970s. The previous overbridge discharged its users short of the canopies on the then platforms 2, 3&4, 5&6 which were demolished in the 1970s as a result of the "discounted cash flow" theory, popular with BR in the 1970s, which held that it was cheaper to eliminate an asset than to have a continuing maintenance obligation.
Services=
Trains between Chester and Liverpool operate every 15 minutes in each direction during weekdays, every 30 minutes in the evening and on Sundays. The Ellesmere Port/Liverpool service runs every 15 minutes during Monday-Friday peak hours and every 30 minutes at other times. Services are operated by Merseyrail's fleet of Class 507/508 EMUs.
Platform 3 serves northbound trains. Platform 2 serves trains for Chester and Ellesmere Port and its opposite face is Platform 1, a south-facing bay platform with electrified track used primarily for stabling. These platforms are all accessed by the overbridge/lifts.
The booking office gives onto the fourth platform in current use, which is un-numbered; it was originally Platform 2 and is used primarily for loco-hauled railtour trains starting from and terminating at Hooton. The line serving it is not electrified and continues northbound for only a few hundred yards.
The original Platform 1, a bay serving the former Helsby branch adjacent to original Platform 2, has disappeared with re-modelling. Platform 7 was used by trains from the West Kirby branch bound for Birkenhead and lies abandoned and heavily overgrown, as is original Platform 6 which would form the other face of the present Platform 3 (formerly Platform 5) but for a central fence erected at the time of the re-modelling.
External links
- Station information from Merseyrail