Hooton railway station

From the 1850s until their withdrawal in 1967 there were regular through trains daily between London Paddington and Birkenhead Woodside, including a sleeper train, all of which were scheduled to call at Hooton: these trains carried boards along their carriage sides proclaiming "PADDINGTON BIRMINGHAM SHREWSBURY CHESTER & BIRKENHEAD". Between Birkenhead and Chester they would always be hauled by fast, powerful tank engines; between Chester and Wolverhampton a "Castle" would typically haul the train, and between Wolverhampton and Paddington a "King" (in the final years it would have been a Western Region diesel hydraulic). Each morning there was a train to Bournemouth (West) and a three-portion train, of green carriages provided by the Southern Region on alternate days, which travelled via Oxford and Reading to Redhill, where the Brighton portion was detached, thence to Ashford where it was split into a portion for Margate, and another for Dover, Deal and Sandwich. The summer timetable would typically include services to and from destinations on the Cambrian Railways reached via Ruabon and Dolgelly (as Dolgellau was spelt by the railways at the time).

The station in 1965 with an Up empties train

There was a cattle mart opposite the station,[5] in use until the 1960s, with railway access parallel to the bay platform, then numbered Platform 1. Milk trains bound for the Black Country, Birmingham and London along the Great Western Main Line were assembled each evening on the then extensive sidings, and there was an extensive traffic of live cattle. Mr Parton of the Station Garage provided a taxi service with two luxurious black Packard limousines. Nowadays commercial premises occupy the site of the garage and the mart.

Hooton handled a substantial trade in railway goods and parcels; even unaccompanied dogs (crated) could be sent in the care of the Guard who would attend to their needs en route. In the 1950s luggage was conveyed PLA (Passengers' Luggage in Advance): if collected by the station lorry, transported and delivered the charge for a trunk was five shillings, if simply transported and delivered the charge was three shillings and ninepence. Among the passengers were frequently crates of homing pigeons: young ones might be sent only as far as Gobowen or Wellington for release by station staff, whilst more experienced birds were sent for release at destinations all over the former Great Western system, and indeed to Europe.

Until the late 1960s there were waiting rooms and lavatories for ladies and gentlemen (with penny slots in the cubicle doors) on both island platforms and on Platform 2, the signs on Platform 6 being suspended from hooks for easy removal on those occasions when the Royal Train overnighted at Hooton. Wymans had a newspaper and bookstall until the late 1960s, but there was never a refreshment room. When the LMR's West Coast Main Line electric services to Liverpool commenced in 1967 the Great Western main line was reduced in status to a series of local lines, Birkenhead Woodside was closed and Hooton station went into decline. The Joyce of Whitchurch clock was removed, the canopies and buildings were removed from the island platforms in the 1970s, and the only services comprised DMUs running between Rock Ferry (by then the terminus) and either Chester or Helsby. For a very short period during the 1970s even the sparse Sunday services between Chester and Rock Ferry stopped only at Bromborough and omitted Hooton.

A British Rail Class 101 DMU at Hooton, bound for Chester or Helsby, in 1989. The newly electrified line from Liverpool served the other side of the island platform.

Through services to Liverpool began on 30 September 1985 when the line between Rock Ferry and Hooton was electrified becoming a part of Merseyrail's Wirral Line.[1] Previously passengers for Liverpool changed at Rock Ferry. Hooton then became a temporary interchange station for passengers from Chester and Ellesmere Port to Liverpool. Further electrification work saw the Merseyrail Wirral Line extend to Chester in 1993 and Ellesmere Port in 1994.[3][4][9] The station transformed into a through station.

The present overbridge and lift shafts were brought into use at the end of January 2011; they are situated to the south of the station buildings and further down the platforms than the previous footbridge at the north end of the station. That footbridge, demolished in February 2011, dated from the widening of the line from two to four tracks from Ledsham Junction to Rock Ferry in 1891, the additional tracks being another casualty of the 1970s. The previous footbridge discharged its users short of the canopies on the then platforms 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6; the canopies were demolished in the 1970s as a result of BR's "discounted cash flow" policy which held that it was more economical to eliminate an asset than to retain it and the continuing maintenance obligation.

• Maund, T.B. (2001). Merseyrail Electrics: The Inside Story. NBC Books. ASIN B0047EA3HU. OCLC 655126526.
• Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2012). Chester to Birkenhead. West Sussex: Middleton Press. ISBN 9781908174215. OCLC 811323335.
• Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2014). Birkenhead to West Kirby. West Sussex: Middleton Press. ISBN 9781908174611. OCLC 885451764.