Aigburth railway station

 Another on the Hunts Cross line, one of the three that was there from the beginning as well! Due to this, Aigburth is quite similar to Cressington in its design. It can only be accessed from one side of the track, on which there is a quite old and elegant station building. Both platforms can only be accessed by quite steep stairs, making accessibility an issue.

One thing I noticed, and have noticed at other stations on this line, is a prediction of the future! On the sign which shows the stations on the line, a "Liverpool Baltic" station is visible. This station is planned to open in 2027, on the site of the disused St. James station. However, for some reason Merseyrail have already made the signs that include it? They put stickers over it, but of course on a lot of these signs the stickers have already been removed. Must be very confusing for people unfamiliar with the network.

Some of the signage at Aigburth was quite old-looking, in particular this Rail Alphabet no smoking sign in the waiting room.

There are waiting rooms on both platforms, which is quite unusual for most stations today, and the station, like Cressington and St Michaels, has a very suburban and almost rural feel to it, despite where it is.

I hope you feel informed about Aigburth.

Wavertree Technology Park railway station

You cannot imagine my disappointment and shock when I arrived at Wavertree Technology Park only to discover that the signs had very recently been changed!!!!! Very shocking and means I have missed out on a chance to document the signs as they were, not that they were very exciting but that's OK. I still have things to talk about!

First of all, this station is relatively new, so its design is very grey. It is accessed by a bridge that goes over the track, which is also where the ticket office is. It's vaguely similar to Kirkdale, but I haven't written about that yet so there's not much point making the comparison.

A class 331 going through Wavertree Technology Park

I wasn't able to get a good picture of the signs on the bridge, but there were some good ones in Rail Alphabet saying which platforms to use to get to Liverpool and Manchester. 

Here is one of the new running-in boards. Notice how it is in Rail Alphabet again, which the previous ones weren't. It also has the Merseytravel logo on the left side, rather than the Merseyrail logo that they previously had. In the below image is one of the old signs, with the old Northern logo hidden behind a white sticker. In addition to this, you can see one of the old Information signs, with the Merseyrail logo in the bottom right corner. 

The replaced Information sign.

Another interesting feature of the station is the two analogue clocks, one on each platform. Both show the wrong time, and both show different times from one another. I would imagine this is because they are now considered obsolete, due to the digital information screens on the platforms. 

Ince and Elton railway station

This will be a slightly different post! Me (Athena) and Super Autism Blog special correspondent Ray went on a train and bus journey to Ince and Elton, and so part of this post will be detailing that journey! First, some context. Ince and Elton is on the Hooton to Helsby line, and when the line was electrified to Ellesmere Port in 1994, Ince and Elton was not included. This left a short line from Ellesmere Port to Helsby, which was very uneconomical to run and so was cut to two services a day in each direction. This is why Ray and I took the bus there from Ellesmere Port, as the trains are only at around 6 in the morning and 6 in the evening - not very convenient!

We started our journey by meeting in Hamilton Square on the Chester and Ellesmere Port-bound platform. I was worried Ray had got lost in between the two platforms, but this turned out not to be the case. I asked them to provide some comments on the stations we passed through, and some of them were even funny!

"Ince and Elton. There is no Elton John there!" - while passing through Rock Ferry.

"I have nothing to say about Port Sunlight. It's all old people." - while passing through Port Sunlight.

"I'm getting spat on in Spital." - at Spital. 

"I'm rakin' the Bromborough." - at Bromborough Rake.

"I get angry when I think about 4K footage." - at Eastham Rake, and while there we also talked a lot about an upcoming Among Us TV show.

"Should get bigger." - at Little Sutton.

"When water is too cold I get scared to drink it." - at Ellesmere Port.

While the train was stopped at Overpool, we noticed that, similar to Aughton Park and some other stations, including Ellesmere Port itself, the running-in boards did not have the Merseyrail "M" logo. This perplexed us slightly, but could be something to do with it not being in the Merseytravel area?? Unsure. 

Ellesmere Port station. The line stretching into the distance goes towards Helsby.

Once we arrived, we walked to the Ellesmere Port bus interchange, where we waited for the number 2 bus towards Runcorn. We got off at Elton, and walked about 5 minutes to the station.

Ince and Elton station.

While at Ince and Elton, I noticed something vaguely interesting about the signs - again, likely only interesting to me! For some reason, the signs have somewhat recently been replaced to be more plain ones written in Rail Alphabet. These new signs seem to have been placed directly over the old Northern ones, and the edges of the old signs can still be seen, as in the picture below.

We also thought it would be funny to conduct a brief interview with Ray once at the station, which I will reproduce for you here:

Q: How are you finding Ince & Elton station?

A: It's very busy, there are many people around.

Q: That's true and confirmed by the Super Autism Blog fact checker. Could you describe the station for our loyal readers?

A: Hi Ray, the loyal reader. It's very crowded, so many people, so overwhelming.

Q: Could you also give a real description?

A: It's very quiet, it's very peaceful, there's lots of trees. There's a lot of litter, there's mushrooms which is cool, and the shelters are a bit shit. 130 people came here last year!

Q: What do you think of the crossing?

A: I like the crossing, I like that I could probably stand there for hours and not get hit by a train. (This is a bad idea and is not endorsed by the Super Autism Blog.)

The platform 2 waiting shelter, complete with litter. The dark blue rectangle shows where a poster used to be, perhaps a timetable?

Mushrooms.

The crossing between platforms. The path on the left side of the crossing leads to a different bridge over the tracks.

Nature is healing in the platform 2 waiting shelter.

Another interesting signage autism point for you all - on platform 2 there is a very outdated sign that says that trains to Chester and Hooton call at that platform. This has not been the case since 1993. The sign is shown below. 

Once we had spent about an hour at the station, we decided to return to the bus stop and make our way back! I hope you have been informed about Ince and Elton station.

Cressington railway station

From what I have seen, (so this may be wrong, I will find out later once I have visited and documented more stations!) Cressington, St Michaels and Aigburth are quite different in the way they are constructed. I would imagine this is because of their being part of a seperate railway before they were connected to Merseyrail via the link tunnel during the late 1970s. Brunswick, Liverpool South Parkway and Hunts Cross were added to Merseyrail later, so do not share these design differences. 

In the above image, two class 507s (now shockingly rare!) are going through Cressington station towards Southport, with the bridge being the only way in and out of the Southport-bound platform. This station is once again very inaccessible, as there are no lifts or ramps. The station building has a steep staircase leading up to the street-level ticket office.

The real important stuff at last - the signs!! I think, due to the fact that they have a relatively unusual tone of grey on the bar and obviously use the older form of having the Merseyrail text in the bottom right corner, these running-in boards are from the 1990s or at least have been made to look like it! They are also, unusually, all either set into the wall or on top of a lower wall, rather than using free-standing signs. 

I did also notice this drinking fountain thing, with 1871 on it - 7 years after the station was first opened!! 

Edge Hill railway station

In the bottom right corner of this sign, the old Northern logo has been covered with a white sticker

This is actually one of, if not the, oldest stations in the world! It was built for the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the current station was opened in 1836. It was refurbished by British Rail in 1979, and more recently tactile paving on the edge of platforms and customer information screens have been added. 

Despite its historical significance, it is a relatively quiet station and on Sundays there is no service at Edge Hill at all. All services that call at Edge Hill are run by Northern, mainly using classes 150, 156, 195 and 331. 

Some more railway signage autism for you here - this sign is very old and I enjoy it greatly, and the red part beneath did it at one point carry the warning not to trespass on the railway, with a fine of £200! The fine has since been increased to £1000. There is a lot of usage of Rail Alphabet on Edge Hill's signs, with the exception of the running-in boards. Those signs have the Merseyrail logo, as well as the old Northern logo which has been covered with a white sticker. 

I find that Edge Hill is an extremely convenient place for railway photography. The quietness of the station makes it useful for not being bothered, while its proximity to Lime Street means that all services into Lime Street pass through it, the curved nature of the station meaning that they have to pass through relatively slowly. Avanti West Coast, Transport for Wales, London Northwestern Railway, East Midlands Railway and Northern trains all pass through. 

The accessibility of the station is poor, with platforms 3 & 4 being completely inaccessible to wheelchair users, due to the subway beneath the tracks. Until recently, there was also no tactile paving at the platform edge, making the station potentially dangerous for the blind and partially sighted. 

A freight depot run by GB Railfreight is nearby to the station, and its freight wagons can be seen easily from platform 1. 

Merseyrail's City Line

Merseyrail's City Line is different from the rest of what is branded as Merseyrail. Unlike the Northern and Wirral lines, the City Line is not run by the Merseyrail Electrics company, nor does it use third-rail electrification. Instead, it is operated mainly by Northern Trains, using diesel and overhead electrification trains. 

A Northern class 323.

In addition, while the Wirral and Northern lines are almost entirely isolated from the rest of the National Rail network, the City Line is not. Intercity trains from TOCs such as Avanti West Coast and Transpennine Express use the lines as well, without stopping at most City Line stations. This means that at many stations, services are much less frequent than on the other two lines. Prescot, for example, gets one train an hour to Liverpool Lime Street and one to Blackpool North. While there had been plans in the 1960s and 70s to integrate some of the City Line into the rest of Merseyrail, this was never accomplished. 

Due to all these differences, you may be wondering - how come it's branded Merseyrail at all then?! This is because it is within the control of Merseytravel, who wish to keep all the railway services in the area under one established brand. Indeed, until the mid-2000s some of the diesel Pacer trains used on the City Line were in a Merseyrail livery - one can be seen at this link https://flic.kr/p/2kCV59A

Earlestown railway station

Sometimes you have to blog about the most boring thing in the world otherwise your brain will dissolve itself, so today I am going to inform everyone (no-one) about Earlestown station. Although I just called it boring, due to its nearly unique (in the UK) triangular shape it is actually vaguely interesting. 

In this above image, a GB Railfreight class 66 locomotive is going through platform 2 at Earlestown. Platforms 1 and 2 are on the straight line of the triangle between Liverpool and Manchester. Platform 3 is on a curved section of track, now a single-track but originally double. This curve connects the Liverpool end of the line to a line leading to Warrington. Platforms 4 and 5 are also on a curve, connecting Warrington to Manchester. 

A disused platform can be seen across from platform 3.

Something that's interesting to me (and likely only to me!) is that this sign at Earlestown has a different version of the Merseyrail logo, with a different font for the "M". There is one other sign like this, by the entrance at platforms 4 and 5, but other than that all other station signs at Earlestown are like other Merseyrail signs. 

Transpennine Express trains travel through Earlestown at high speeds.

A station sign at Earlestown showing the services that call at different platforms.

Although the sign above implies that platform 3 gets frequent services to Warrington Bank Quay and Liverpool, in reality it only gets one passenger service a day, to Liverpool from Ellesmere Port via Warrington, and therefore there are no trains from Earlestown platform 3 to Warrington.

I hope you have found this dull blog post informative.