Future
A future option for this line, as the trackwork is still mainly in place, may be to use it as a heritage railway line which would be beneficial to local trade and tourism. Preserving this line could see the very first heritage standard gauge railway on Merseyside. If the line was to be converted into a heritage railway, there is scope and space for a new depot and exhibition warehouse to be built at either Mollington Street, Cavendish sidings or Bidston Dock. Alternatively, should part of the line ever be recommissioned by Network Rail for passenger use, there is space at the site of the former Mollington Street depot, and the site of Birkenhead Town station, for a mainline station connection, to be built, for possible direct future services to Chester and Crewe. Such a station, at the Mollington Street site, would essentially be Birkenhead Central high-level, as it would be possible to connect the upper and lower levels together, by the use of a concourse.
The former Railtrack has, in the past, indicated an interest in seeing the line reopened for goods services. However, Network Rail as of 2012 has not followed through with any action in this regard.
Read more about this topic: Birkenhead Dock Branch
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Although I’m trying very hard
To sound unlike a birthday card,
That’s all this is: so you may find it
Full of all that lies behind it
Admiration; friendship too;
And hope that in the future you
Reap ever richer revenue.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)