CLC Pleasure Route. Halewood - Aintree - Southport Forgotten Railways around Merseyside
The North Liverpool Extension Line connected the CLC Liverpool and Manchester line at Halewood to Aintree and via a branch to the north Liverpool docks at Huskisson Dock before extending up to Southport. with stations at Gateacre, Childwall, Knotty ash, West derby, Clubmoor, Warbreck, Aintree Central, Sefton & Maghull, Lydiate, Altcar, Moorbridge, Woodvale, Ainsdale Beach, Birkdale Palace & finally Southport Lord Street.
Southport Lord Street was the northern terminus of the Southport & Cheshire Lines Extension Railway (SCLER) which was authorised as a route between the Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC) North Liverpool Extension Line at Aintree and Southport, the SCLER opened in 1879.
The station was a grand affair. Fronting on to Lord Street was a red-brick Italianate structure with a tall clock-tower projecting between the glazed verandahs which characterise the street.The four-stage tower has stone dressings, round-headed lancet windows, and chamfered corners on the top stage, surmounted by a squat, four-sided spire. Stone panels bear the initials ‘SCLER’, but ‘1884’ has been misguidedly erased by ‘1993’, presumably by the supermarket company which occupied the site of the trainshed - unfortunately demolished in 1989.
Behind the building was a trainshed which consisted of an iron and glass roof supported on iron columns. Under the trainshed were four platforms. The trainshed covered about half the length of these platforms which extended from the rear of the station building to a point just west of Rotten Row Road, which passed over the station on a bridge. Iron and glass canopies provided protection to passengers at the western end of the platforms. There were two further platforms located at the western end of the station on its southern side. They were shorter than the other four and were provided with iron and glass canopies.
Unusually for a terminus the station had a footbridge which linked the four platforms at the western end of the trainshed roof. A cab road was located on the south side of the station; it was protected from the elements by an iron and glass roof.
To the west of the passenger station, south of the line, was a goods yard which included four sidings, a large goods shed and offices, weighing machines and cattle pens. South of the goods yard was a two-road engine shed which was a sub-shed of Walton-on-the-Hill.
A signal box located on the north side of the line to the west of the station controlled traffic movements at the station. The box was a Railway Signalling Company timber structure with a 42-lever frame. On 1 August 1897 the MS&LR changed its name to the Great Central Railway (GCR). The new name was quickly applied to the locomotives that served Southport Lord Street.
In the early years of the twentieth century the CLC was promoting its services to Southport Lord Street to holidaymakers and day trippers. In the summer months many excursion trains were run and the station was a busy place. It was less so in the winter period as the SCLER passed through an area of very little population.
On 1 January 1923 the Grouping of British railway companies into four large organisations took place. The CLC remained independent but its owning companies became the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) with two-thirds of the shares and the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) with one-third. The LNER provided the locomotives for CLC services. The former LYR lines at Southport became part of the LMS.
The 1920s and 1930s were the golden years for British seaside towns such as Southport. Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers and day trippers visited. Southport Lord Street handled its fair share of the traffic. The North Liverpool Extension Line passed through the expanding outer suburbs of Liverpool and the opening of new stations at Clubmoor in 1927 and Warbreck in 1929 gave their inhabitants a fast and direct link to Southport. In 1949 British Railways extended platforms 1, 2 and 3 at Southport Lord Street so that they could take longer excursion trains. They also re-signalled the station approaches. A new signal box, an LMS Type 11c with a 50-lever frame, opened in April 1949.
British Railways was able to run trains from the North Liverpool Extension Line to Southport Chapel Street via a junction with the former LYR Liverpool and Preston line at Aintree and a curve at Burscough that connected to the Southport and Wigan line. This meant that excursions could run from locations on the former CLC network to Southport without having to use the former SCLER line.
Despite the recent investment at Lord Street British Railways decided to close it to passenger services with effect from 7 January 1952. The intermediate stations between Southport Lord Street and Aintree also closed. Goods services continued to serve Lord Street until 7 July 1952 after which the station closed completely.
Directed by Allan Roach.
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Ebike with the old skool tunes on? Living the dream buddy!
You were correct about the sidings for Jacob's biscuit factory on one side of the bridge, but on the other side were the sidings for Hartley's jam factory.
A lot of hard work went into making this excellent video, great channel, subbed!
This line closed in stages. Southport to aintree central in January 1952. Aintree to gateacre November 1960. The line after that was served by grand national specials to aintree central till 1966. Plus lots of excursions. The line was then singled in 1969 and the last freight service ran in 1975. The line was built with quadrupling in mind but it never happened. This is why some of the bridges and tunnels were built that way but it was deemed too expensive. Great video though.
I live in Aintree, and use the old railway/ cycle paths regularly, i used to take the dog over what seemed a huge siding nr Wango lane nr the canal turn at Aintree racecourse
Love watching your videos my grandad got me into trains and abandoned train stations
During my railway career I had ONE DAY working at Aintree Central - Grand National Day in 1957 - and I got down Melling Road to see some of the race!
Gateacre is pronounced as "Gataca" I lived next to this line (The Childwall Valley Estate) up to 1992, I remember freight trains running on the line up to 1980. Childwall is pronounced as childwall useing the small i as aposed to the Capital I ... "childwall many people who do not live around here, make the same mistakes.
Gateacre is Gat-acre and Childwall is Chil-wall
Don't leave it so long in future!! Great stuff, love em all.
The Bootle Dock branch you mention was in fact built by the Midland Railway (one of the three component railways of the CLC). It was built to serve Langton Dock. It ran past the house in which I grew up and I looked out on it from my bedroom window.
The extra arches were built because they envisioned having four lines eventually as they had ambitions to extend the line to Blackpool from what I read. Great video, though you missed the remains of a few bridges (mostly walls) between Aintree and Jubilee woods for example at Old Roan Station & the canal etc. Also the bridge over the brook at Hillhouse Junction (Barton Spur) is still there - you just missed it whilst you were exploring in the nettles! Oh and that wasn't another biscuit factory at Hartley's Bridge near Jacobs, it was the jam factory!
Grew up near Aintree. Took the Liverpool Central (HL) to Aintree Central trains a couple of times. By that time the Aintree - Southport line was closed. Also took the Southport to Lime Street "through coaches" to London a couple of times. Steam hauled as everything was back then,. Plus on Aintree race days, the Liverpool Overhead Railway trains would run to Aintree, and there were Exchange trains that took the North Mersey line from Seaforth to Aintree. Many years ago in a universe far, far away....
Great video ..thanks..
Thank you for the walking tour this day. A beautiful video, and easy to understand. Cheers mate! 🇬🇧👍🙂🇺🇸
It was retained for strategic reasons and the extra bridge arches was because they considered 4 tracking in the future. Gateacre station northbound platform had a canopy connection to the station building in case 4 tracking was done. My father (platelayer Gateacre ) & I walked the length to Halewood and Knotty Ash alternate Saturday morning.
Nice to have you back mate doing videos .... cheers and thanks for the efforts-- enjoyed it
Great video, good to see some relics left 👍
The locals pronounce Gateacre as GAT ICKER - Childwall is pronounced CHILL WALL - Maghul is pronounced Ma' GULL
It was probably my earliest memory. My mother lifted me up so i could see a steam engine entering Lords Street Station in the summer of 1951. I was 3.5 years old
Looking a the foliage and weather I'm guessing this was filmed last summer 🙂 Great film.
Southport Lord Street Station became the Ribble bus station after the line closed. Just out of interest for you, Gateacre is pronounced Gataker…Childwall is pronounced Childwall (silent D) and Maghull is pronounced Magull. The extra arches found on most of the bridges were simply built like that as it was cheaper to build an arch than it was to fill the area in. Most of the embankments you see were filled in by household waste, and the CLC was unique in the fact that it used locomotive ash and cinders as ballast for the track in the majority of cases. This was very poor to drain and the line around Aintree Central frequently flooded, as you point out by the smelly lake formed under the bridge. I lived for many years in the Warbreck, Aintree area and you brilliant video brought back so many memories. I no longer live in Liverpool and it’s strange to see what has become of the place
@onemanc
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Thx for the info Martin, as a manc my pronunciation is questionable
@toffeeblue2201
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Great upload , this line is apparently mothballed for future use by Merseyrail .
@scooby2142
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Hi mate- Regarding the extra arches , My guess is that it was cheaper to build the extra arch there and then on the original planning build instead of adding the extra arch later. It seems like good forward planning as the line was running towards a seaside town with docks plus past the Aintree racecourse and motor racing track and could be assumed to get busier as time went on. All they had to do afterwards to make the line four track running was to remove the remaining rock walls without disturbing the arch bridges and structures that they had already prepared. Presumably other routes by different railway companies into Southport were more frequented and the expansion never came about. Kind regards - Mike.
@matthewgordon-banks7553
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"Southport Chapel Street" but it was within a few feet of Lords St. It had a lot of platforms for seaside specials.
Mickey mouse station. Love it! Yes, true. Thank is all we get these days.
I've seen plenty of single track railways built with bridges to allow doubling up. This is the first time I've seen a double track railway built with bridges to allow quadrupling. Only possible explanation, why else would you build a second arch with rock faces either side and not for one bridge but several. Must have had money to burn. Unfortunately haven't found any text on the internet to explain this.
perhaps the second tunnels/bridges were needed to sustain the roads above. i'm no engineer but i suspect you can't just build a hole where you want your railway to go without thinking what will happen above.
lol at Gate Acre, it's pronounced GATIKER locally
Gateacre is pronounced Gat acre and Childwall Chill dwall
Shame they cant bring it back 😩