Birkenhead Joint Branch
In 1886, the Chester and Birkenhead Railway (C&BR) extended their line to West Kirby from Parkgate; this now meant there was a direct route from Hooton to West Kirby. The station was single platformed with a water tank at its southern end. The station closed to passengers in 1956 and completely closed in 1962. A principal traffic was scholars travelling from stations along the route to the secondary schools in West Kirby. In its final years the almost-unused line was employed for the training of diesel multiple unit crews operating from Birkenhead and Chester via Hooton. The route all the way to Hooton is now a footpath, known as The Wirral Way, which forms part of the Wirral Country Park.
The station for the Hooton line at West Kirby lay to the east of the current station, along the alignment of what is now Orrysdale Road between Bridge Road and Grange Road, and was effectively a separate facility to the main station on the electric lines. There was a junction between the two underneath the Bridge Road overbridge, but very few train movements connected between the two, the only significant one being a once-daily through service, often just one or two coaches, which ran until 1939 from New Brighton via Bidston and this route to Hooton and Chester, where it was attached to a London Euston train.
Read more about this topic: West Kirby Railway Station
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