Birkenhead Park railway station

Birkenhead Park
Location
Place	Birkenhead
Local authority	Wirral
Coordinates	53°23′51″N 3°02′20″W / 53.3974°N 3.0390°WCoordinates: 53°23′51″N 3°02′20″W / 53.3974°N 3.0390°W
Grid reference	SJ310894
Operations
Station code	BKP
Managed by	Merseyrail
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	0.496 million
2005/06	0.410 million
2006/07	0.397 million
2007/08	0.411 million
2008/09	1.153 million
2009/10	1.041 million
2010/11	1.088 million
2011/12	1.108 million
2012/13	1.106 million
2013/14	0.766 million
2014/15	0.785 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	Merseytravel
Zone	B1
History
1888	Opened
1938	Electrified
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Birkenhead Park from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Birkenhead Park railway station is situated in Birkenhead, Wirral, England. It lies on the Wirral Line 3 ¹⁄₂ miles (5.6 km) west of Liverpool Lime Street on the Merseyrail network.

History

The name of the station comes from nearby Birkenhead Park, one of the UK's first Victorian municipal parks. In 1850 its layout - created by Joseph Paxton - had a profound influence on visiting American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Eight years later he took inspiration from Birkenhead Park (and other green spaces like Derby Arboretum) to win a competition to design New York's new city park.

The station was opened on 2 January 1888, as a joint station between the Seacombe, Hoylake and Deeside Railway and the Mersey Railway.^[1] It replaced the Wirral Railway's original terminus at Wallasey Bridge Road (close to the present-day Birkenhead North station), becoming an interchange between their line to West Kirby and the Mersey Railway's new line to central Liverpool. On the same day, the Wirral Railway's new line to Wallasey Grove Road opened, which was extended to New Brighton later that year.

From its opening the station had two island platforms,^[2] to facilitate across-platform transfer between the Mersey Railway and the Wirral Railway. The northern pair of tracks were used exclusively by Mersey Railway trains. The centre and southern pairs of tracks were available to the Wirral Railway.^[2]

Mersey Railway electrification

Mersey Railway electric train leaving Birkenhead Park.

On 3 May 1903, the Mersey Railway to Liverpool was changed over from steam to electric trains, with a 650v DC fourth rail system^[3] and Mersey Railway electric units built by Westinghouse.

There was also a small Mersey Railway electric car shed at the eastern end of the station, on the northern side of the line, which held two 6-car trains.^[2] This was built on the level, with the tracks towards the tunnel to Liverpool dropping steeply alongside. The car shed was removed in the 1970s.

Fatal accident

On 6 December 1922 an accident occurred at the station, at around 4pm, between two trains of the Wirral Railway. The train heading to West Kirby, which was late, was leaving the station and collided with a train from West Kirby. There was one fatality and eight other passengers sustained serious injuries, with a further 36 people suffering from shock.^[4] This was the first fatal passenger accident to occur on the Wirral Railway.^[5]

LMS electrification

A preserved LMS Wirral and Mersey unit at the Electric Railway Museum, Coventry.

Between 1936 and 1938, the lines from Birkenhead Park to West Kirby and New Brighton were modified and electrified using a 650v DC third rail system,^[6] by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, and to facilitate through operation to Liverpool Central.^[7] The LMS electric trains were brought into passenger service on 14 March 1938.^[8] The need to change at Birkenhead Park was removed. It was normal for the new LMS trains to operate the Liverpool to West Kirby route, and the older Mersey Railway trains to operate the Liverpool to New Brighton route, except for Sundays and bank holidays.^[9]

From the 1938 electrification of the Wirral lines, and the integration of both services, the additional facilities beyond a simple two-track through station became unnecessary. Despite which, the layout retained all four platforms, two in each direction, until the 1970s. A new 60-lever signal box was opened in 1938, which was reduced to 25 levers in 1972 and which closed on 28 February 1988.^[10]

World War II bombing

The station building is not the original. The first station building was destroyed when two land mines fell on the night of 12–13 March 1941, during the Second World War. After the bombing, through services were restored in five days and the station was reopened to passengers after eleven days.^[11]

Post War

Birkenhead Park station in 1961, with the signal box on the platform to the right, and the northern platform to the left.

The outer platform faces were hardly used, apart from a handful of trains which were stored outside of peak hours in the sidings which remained at all four corners of the station,^[5] and outside the island platforms. In the 1970s, there were a number of rationalisations to the layout. At one stage, through trains used the outer tracks of the station, while a bay platform was fashioned between these to allow a proposed Liverpool to Birkenhead Park extra peak hour shuttle service, which in the event was never started. The layout was then simplified again to the current one, retaining the former southern island platform with just a through road either side,^[12] with the former northern platform demolished in 1992.^[5][13]

Facilities

The station is staffed, during all opening hours, and has platform CCTV.^[14] The island platform has a waiting shelter. There is a payphone, booking office and live departure and arrival screens, for passenger information. Being easy for pedestrian access, the station doesn't have a car park. Wheelchair and pram access to the platform is possible, and also relatively easy, via the ramp-staircase. Though, as yet, platform access has not been modernised to the standard of that at Hooton.

Facilities nearby include a convenience store, post office, and several fast food restaurants. Bus services run along the road, outside the station, and along Park Road (100m towards the park).

Services

Trains operate every 15 minutes (Monday to Saturday daytime) to New Brighton and West Kirby and every 5–10 minutes via Hamilton Square and the Mersey Railway Tunnel to Liverpool. At other times, trains run every 30 minutes to New Brighton and West Kirby, and every 15 minutes to Liverpool.^[15] These services are all provided by Merseyrail's fleet of Class 507 and Class 508 EMUs.

Gallery

• 

  Birkenhead Park station booking office as seen from the platform.

• 

  The platform waiting rooms.

• 

  Sculptures on the platform.

References

1. Maund 2009, p. 27.
2. Maund 2009, pp. 102–103.
3. Gahan 1983, p. 32.
4. Maund 2009, p. 217.
5. Merseyside Railway History Group 1994, p. 32.
6. Maund 2009, p. 154.
7. Maund 2009, p. 156.
8. Maund 2009, p. 166.
9. Gahan 1983, p. 50.
10. Mitchell & Smith 2014, fig. 12.
11. Maund 2009, pp. 177–178.
12. Maund 2009, p. 215.
13. Mitchell & Smith 2014, fig. 14.
14. "Station Facilities for Birkenhead Park". National Rail. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
15. "Wirral Line timetable" (PDF). Merseyrail. Retrieved 18 December 2013.

Sources

• Gahan, John W. (1983). The Line Beneath the Liners: A hundred years of Mersey Railway sights and sounds. Birkenhead: Countryvise Ltd. ISBN 978-0-907-76840-1.
• Maund, T.B. (2009). The Wirral Railway and its Predecessors. Gloucestershire: Lightmoor Press. ISBN 978-1-899-88938-9.
• Merseyside Railway History Group (1994). Railway Stations Of Wirral. Ian & Marilyn Boumphrey. ISBN 1-899241-02-7.
• Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2014). Birkenhead to West Kirby. West Sussex: Middleton Press. ISBN 9781908174611. OCLC 885451764.

External links

• Train times and station information for Birkenhead Park railway station from National Rail

• Station information for Birkenhead Park railway station from Merseyrail