Operating 68 stations across its Wirral, City and Northern lines, Merseyrail is a key part of everyday life for people across our region.
However, the network we use today looks very different to how it did when the name Merseyrail first emerged. British Rail began using Merseyrail as its brand name in the region in 1969, but these lines did not become one single network until 1977.
Drawing together different railways and connecting lines through ambitious engineering projects, new stations and electrified rails, Merseyrail brought the region's train services together to create the integrated network used by commuters and day-trippers today.
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Below, we take a look at how Merseyrail has evolved over the past 50 years and how the modern network came to be.
The creation of one network
Government cuts to the railway in the early 1960s, known as the Beeching cuts, saw two mainline Liverpool stations - Liverpool Exchange and Liverpool Central (High Level) - and Woodside Station in Birkenhead marked for closure.
The corresponding report suggested that the region’s commuter rail services from suburban areas into Liverpool Exchange and Central Station’s high level should be cancelled as well. However, Liverpool City Council proposed a different vision.
The council wished to retain the suburban routes and wanted to integrate them into an electrified network, where lines would be linked by new tunnels under Liverpool city centre and Birkenhead. Lime Street - the one remaining national mainline station - would be connected to the routes through underground rail in the centre of the city.
Lines on five separate railway systems would be drawn together to create the Merseyrail network.
These systems were the Mersey Railway (running from Liverpool Central to Rock Ferry and Birkenhead Park), the Cheshire Lines Committee Railway (Liverpool Central to Hunts Cross). the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Liverpool to Kirkby, Ormskirk and Southport), the Wirral Railway (Birkenhead to New Brighton and West Kirby) and the Birkenhead Joint Railway (Rock Ferry to Hooton and Chester and Ellesmere Port line).
The council’s vision was supported in the Merseyside Area Land Use and Transportation Study. It was later adopted and the idea behind the singular network was born.
Merseytravel, initially called the Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority, formed in 1969 and took responsibility for the local rail lines. That same year, British Rail began using Merseyrail as a brand name for rail services in and around Liverpool.
Merseyrail took its first steps with its new lines - named the Northern Line, City Line and Wirral Line. However, these would not be connected until 1977, when the lines were integrated by four construction projects.
The network before integration
Before the lines were integrated, the early Merseyrail map looked rather different to how it does today. A map from 1972 shared on Twitter shows the network of the time.
The Northern Line only ran north of Liverpool city centre. Trains ran from Lime Street or Liverpool Exchange and went to Southport, Ormskirk (and then onto Preston) and Wigan Wallgate.
Once out of the city centre, the Southport and Ormskirk lines remain the same and call at the same points today. However, the Wigan Wallgate Northern Line now terminates at Kirkby and serves more stations on the way.
South Liverpool was served by the City Line. As is still the case, trains from Lime Street called at Broad Green, Mossley Hill, West Allerton and Hunts Cross on routes to Manchester and Crewe.
However, these stations now are on routes operated by Northern Rail and aren’t served by Merseyrail trains.
One of the most distinct differences is that the Northern Line section to Hunts Cross does not appear on the 1972 map. Hunts Cross was on the Lime Street to Manchester line at this point, while current Northern line stations Cressington, Aigburth and St Michaels had all closed in 1972.
Before 1972, they were part of the Cheshire Lines Committee, but did not reopen until 1978 when Merseyrail’s Kirkby to Garston route began.
However, the Wirral line in 1972 looks largely similar to today. Trains from Liverpool Central travelled to West Kirby, New Brighton and Rock Ferry (with onward connections to Chester and Helsby).
Changes and expansion
The modern Northern and Wirral lines were created and linked through a number of engineering projects which took place during the 1970s. These works became known as the 'Loop and Link project’.
They finished in 1977, which created the integrated Merseyrail network that we see today. Moorfields opened in the same year to replace Exchange Station and to connect Northern and Wirral lines, like Liverpool Central.
The loop of the ‘Loop and Link project’ is a tunnel under central Liverpool which goes in a clockwise direction from James Street Station to Moorfields to Lime Street and then to Liverpool Central. It linked the Wirral Line with more of central Liverpool and allowed passengers to change onto the Northern Line at Central and Moorfields.
The link part of the project allowed suburban train lines for north and south Liverpool to be connected, creating a continuous line. The lines to be linked were the southbound line from the city centre to Hunts Cross and a northbound line from central Liverpool to Southport, which branched to Ormskirk and Kirkby.
This allowed the Northern Line to be extended from central Liverpool to Garston Station and reopened St Michaels, Aigburth, Cressington and the terminus.
The line was extended to Hunts Cross in 1983 and a year later, trains ran from Hunts Cross to Southport, instead of to Kirkby. Brunswick Station opened on the line in 1998 and Garston was replaced with Liverpool South Parkway in 2006.
The Wirral Line also saw changes. Rock Ferry had long been the terminus for services, but the line to Hooton was electrified in 1985 and was incorporated into the Merseyrail network. Nowadays, trains branch at Hooton for Chester or Ellesmere Port.
