6. Birkenhead North

Opened: 2nd January 1888, though its name was Birkenhead Docks back then.  It was renamed to Birkenhead North in 1926.

Line electrified: 1938.

Number of platforms: Three.  One platform serves Liverpool trains, the second New Brighton and West Kirby trains.  The third is technically a through platform but is mainly used for stabling and turnbacks these days.  

Points of interest: A planter commemorates Philip Rodney Perkins, 08.09.1955 - 05.12.2025 - Goodnight God Bless.

On the outside wall is a mural dedicated to Charlie Landsborough, a folk singer who grew up nearby.  I have a close personal connection with Charlie because I'd never heard of him until I started work in the music department (or "Sounds" as we called it, because we were very cool) at Birkenhead's WH Smith.  I quickly learned that not only does Charlie have a dedicated fanbase on the Wirral, but also that they'll turn up on the day his new album is released demanding a copy at nine in the morning.  We used to regularly have arguments with head office that yes, we definitely should have thirty copies of a CD by this man they've never heard of because they will sell in about eight minutes, and their reticence is yet another reason why WH Smith went down the dumper.  

Birkenhead North also has a massive and very popular car park attached to it.  After about eleven am you'll find yourself cruising the aisle for a spot for a good while.  There used to be electric chargers here too but a while back they disappeared.  

As the point where the Wirral Line splits in two, and in close proximity to the Birkenhead North depot, this is also a spot where the train crews will swap over, meaning there's a mess room for them.  Look closely and you can see the fenced off yard where they can have a fag.

Attractive Local Feature sign: None.  In fact I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever find one of these because every station so far seems to have managed without one.

Original blog post: 9th September 2007

What's changed since then?  The lift-accessible bridge opened in 2014, and there's a now-faded sign to commemorate the occasion at the foot of the steps.  A vending machine has appeared in the waiting area, plus a toilet.  There's a sign on the footbridge that points to trains to West Kirkby and it's been there for years now and nobody seems to be in a rush to correct it.  

The local area has also been extensively redeveloped since then.  New houses have been built all around the station, replacing the Ilchester Square social housing with small well-kept semis and a stretch of parkland.  This also meant that the notorious New Dock Hotel was demolished.  I always like to mention it, because it was nicknamed "The Blood Tub"; there were lots of reasons given for this nickname but my favourite is that there were so many fights on a Saturday night that the landlord used to use a broom to brush the blood out the front door.

Proof of visit:

I would never permit a full-length photograph today because you'd see my beer gut and nothing else.

Tickets Please

Nostalgia is a terrible disease that runs right through the railways.  "Oooh, it was better in the old days!" is a curse.  There is always someone to point at steam trains, or third class tickets, or British Rail, or train doors you have to hang out the window to open, and say "that's so much better than what we have now".  You can sit on an air-conditioned, electric train, almost silent as it glides along, with power sockets and tables, and there will still be a railway fan who will say "I used to like it when you could open the window to hear the screech of the rails and choke on the diesel fumes.  Bring that back!"

This post is going to come with a tinge of nostalgia, and I apologise in advance.  But I'm using that nostalgia as a way of asking a question about Merseyrail's future.  My question is: what happened to all the ticket collectors?

When I first moved to the north - bloody hell - thirty odd years ago, I lived in Ormskirk.  Every time a train pulled onto the platform there, a man would appear at the exit and politely collect your ticket.  

When I first started visiting the BF via Birkenhead Park - bloody hell - twenty-nine years ago, a man would appear at the top of the ramp and collect your ticket as you passed.  

It was a simple and effective way of enforcing ticket sales.  I remember distinctly seeing scallies turn round and get on the next train out of Birkenhead Park because they couldn't produce a little orange card.  

Last Bank Holiday Monday, I went to New Brighton, and at the exit there were some ticket enforcement officers who stopped everyone as we went through.  And they were managing to collect a fair few dodgers in the process.  So it is still possible to do it.  There seems to be no appetite, however.

You can, basically, ride Merseyrail for free.  You're gambling on there not being inspectors on the train but I very rarely get my ticket checked.  I'd guess about once every ten journeys.  If you're not going to Liverpool, Birkenhead (Conway Park and Hamilton Square) or Southport - where there are barriers - you can get away with not paying.  How is this still a thing?  Why aren't there barriers everywhere?

I get that they're expensive, of course, and some stations would need a major reconfigure to be able to accommodate them.  There's also the issue of having a member of staff there to assist.  Other railway companies across the world have managed it.  San Francisco's Bart has recently finished installing them, and they've discovered that not only has revenue been protected, but also vandalism and anti-social behaviour at the stations and on the trains has gone down.  The network has become a sealed unit only for people with a ticket.  

And if you're not going to put barriers in, well, how about bringing back the bloke at the exit? It was actually a good idea.  It actually worked.  It might also stop me and other law-abiding citizens feeling like a mug when we pay for our ticket and never get checked. 

(Yes the bloke at Birkenhead Park was a bit fit and it was always a pleasure to see him but that's not what this is about ok?  Besides he'll be pushing sixty by now).

Notes On Camp

With the new stations of the Wolverhampton-Walsall line behind me (the WolWal Line?  Wolvall?) I shifted from one side of New Street to the other.  It was in a state of low-level chaos; a problem with the lines going south had caused a huge backlog of delays and cancellations.  Dejected passengers lined the platforms waiting for trains that wouldn't come.  My own, tiny, local train was delayed by twenty minutes, and as it passed the losers standing by I sank down in my seat so it wouldn't look like I was revelling in my good fortune.

We rose up out of the tunnel, giving us a great view of the HS2 station slowly coming together at Curzon Street.  That exact same day Heidi Alexander had stood up and announced that everything would be late and expensive and also, not as good as it was meant to be, and I looked at that vast swathe of concrete and workmen and trucks and diggers and wondered exactly when I'd be able to stand outside it and take a sign selfie.  If, indeed, I could still stand at that point.  Perhaps my carer will take the picture for me.

The train pulled onto the Camp Hill Line, Birmingham's newest suburban route.  I wondered how the people in the houses lining the track felt about this sudden uptick in noise; a rarely used freight line transformed into a commuter line.  I bet there's a lot less nude sunbathing in the back gardens now.

The most distinctive part of Moseley Village station isn't anything to do with what's been built; that's all distinctly perfunctory.  Metal walls, orange lampposts, all the same playbook.  The thing that draws your eye is the entrance to the tunnel beyond the platforms.

Is it just me or is there something vaguely... vulva-like about that?  It's the keystone at the top, poking over the splayed curves of the tunnel.  It's a little bit dirty.  Obviously I'm no expert in this matter but you don't have to be Sigmund Freud to see the symbolism of a train sliding into that.  

I politely averted my eyes and went up the stairs to the newly laid out plaza on top.  It's a large, bare stretch of block paving that's been clearly designed as an event space.  I could see the shadows of artisan soap makers, organic candle stalls and expensive streetfood yet to come scattered across the pavement.  It's certainly a cut above Willenhall's cycle lane and zebra crossing.

It quickly became obvious why Moseley Village got the full town square treatment.  It turned out this place was posh.  Right outside the station was an M&S Food Hall, and it very much continued on that theme.  Restaurants and beauty salons cascaded down the hill towards the main road.  Estate agents with expensive listings.  An old church high on a mound above us.  At the junction, a dual carriageway had a vague air of boulevard with tall trees and benches to relax on.  The original station here, closed during the war, had been called simply Moseley; you could hear the letters from the residents' associations demanding that Village suffix to show they were a cut above.

This sounds like reverse snobbery, and it is a bit, but it didn't stop me finding Moseley charming.  It was certainly an improvement on the grim industrial backstreets of Darleston.  I turned up a hill, where a pub poster advertised a forthcoming appearance from drag queen Harley La Rue.  Where Class Meets Sass it promised, which I puzzled over for a while until I realised my Southern accent was standing in the way of the rhyme (Where Clarse Meets Sass).  I wonder where the dividing line is for that long A.  Perhaps the Watford Gap.

The road gently rose up the hill and I realised once again that I should really check out the gradient lines on the OS Map before I plan these journeys.  It went up and up, past lines of neat villas and new shiny cars parked close to the kerb.  The Moseley Dovecot, a remnant of a great house that was once in the area, stood behind a fence on a patch of green.

I passed a Jewish primary school and a cul de sac of identical terraced homes that was choked with cars.  A builder's yard and then, on a whitewashed wall, a picture of an eggman raising his hat to passers by; beneath him, the road sign had been adorned with the Prince symbol.  I couldn't decide which was more incongruous.

Blocks of flats now intruded on the street, new and old, while the big mansions had multiple buzzers and concreted fronts.  A funeral home had a large stained glass window presiding over passers by, and I found myself humming Slumber Inc without even thinking about it.  I am nothing if not predictable.

At a curve in the road my second station appeared, Kings Heath (no, there isn't an apostrophe; yes, it is annoying).  There are only three new stations on the Camp Hill line; it terminates at Kings Norton, an already existing station that lacks an apostrophe.  It's amazing that this new, exciting transport link in England's second largest city is three stations and two trains an hour in each direction but there it is; we settle for what we can get.  

At some point, the trains will go into Moor Street, where there is more capacity than the ridiculously overcrowded New Street, but before that happens Bordesley station needs to close so that new chords can be built.  The proposal to close it is already out there, though there isn't a suggestion of a replacement on the Camp Hill route once the new lines are built (the Metro's newest extension will take over the slack).  When this will happen is, as always, entirely guesswork.  

Kings Heath also has a small pedestrian space outside, though it's more of an infill between the curve and the road and the straight front of the footbridge; I can't see anyone holding a craft fair there.  

I took a seat on the platform.  There was another man there who also carried a camera.  I imagine Men Who Like Railway Stations have been swarming all over the line for the last couple of months; there are probably dozens of YouTube videos about it all in deep detail.  This is probably all old news to you.  But you get it when I write it, so tough.

The final station is the jewel, the one that everyone likes: Pineapple Road.  What a lovely, evocative, fun name.  It's the kind of whimsical station name you wouldn't think would pass muster in the boring old 21st century; after all, for most of the 20th century it was called Hazelwell.  Pineapple Road is a great fun name, one that calls to you.

It is, of course, nothing special on the ground.  If a kidnapper dumped me on a platform on the Camp Hill line and ran off with my glasses so I couldn't read the sign I wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  Two platforms, metal awnings and stairs, lifts and footbridge.  

Still, I hoped Pineapple Road, of all the stations, would offer a little bit of artistic licence.  A moment of character.  I was excited to spot some metal fretwork and I stopped for a good look.

I'm afraid to say it depicted random wild flowers.  There wasn't a single pineapple to be seen, which simply isn't on.  It's called Pineapple Road.  It's on the Camp Hill line.  It's begging for a level of flamboyant extravagance hitherto unseen in the West Midlands.  There should be small pineapples on top of every pillar, lamp post and help sign.  There should be pineapple murals and pineapple brickwork.  You shouldn't be able to move for the pineapples.  

When I win the EuroMillions on Friday (£137 million, watch this space) I will personally pay for a two metre high golden pineapple statue to be erected outside the station.  I will give the station the campery, the whimsy, the sheer delightful personality it deserves.  I will make it the destination it should be.

Small Wins

 

It's very easy, at this moment in British history, to allow yourself to become despondent about the state of the nation.  About the inability of government, media and thought leaders to advocate for change.  About the failure to deliver any world changing projects or schemes.  About the general attitude of "will this do?"

It's easy, in all of this, to miss when something good actually happens.  When there is a change that will directly improve the lives of people in the country.  

Which is why I went to the Midlands.

In the last few weeks the West Midlands Railway has acquired two new lines, long orange streaks across the map on routes that weren't previously open to passengers (at least, not in this century).  Those railway lines gifted a total of five new stations to the map.  Five new chances for travel, regeneration and opportunity.  Obviously I had to visit them.

My first port of call was Willenhall, on the new line between Wolverhampton and Walsall.  It's a former freight line that now lets you travel between two major conurbations without having to go into Birmingham city centre first.  It doesn't sound much, but that's the kind of small link that makes a big difference.  Any chance to avoid New Street is surely a plus.

Willenhall will not be confused for one of Europe's great termini.  It has two platforms, two shelters, and some seats.  There is no ticket office, but there is a ticket machine.  It's been decked out in bland grey with some splashes of corporate orange here and there.

It was already being well used when I arrived, with a dozen people disembarking with me (and one girl rushing down to the platform a full minute after the train had left; she tried to style it out, pulling her phone up and leaning on a wall, like she really wanted to hang out on a railway station for an hour).  

I went up to the road bridge, which has been gifted with a cycle lane and plenty of pedestrian space.  It turned out the town centre of Willenhall was less than a minute's walk from the new station; it could not have been more convenient.  I would've been pretty annoyed if I'd lived there in 1965 when it originally closed, removing a handy link, but there are so many reasons I'm glad I wasn't around in 1965 (grrr, Beeching!).

I didn't go into the town, instead turning right past a memorial and the library.  There was some lovely Festival of Britain font going on over the old entrance - there's a new glass one to the side, with disabled access - and the "flag of Willenhall" on a gatepost.  It was designed in 2014 and references the town's history as the home of lockmaking - it was the site of Yale's factory for decades. I am, officially, over flags in any way shape or form right now; the discourse has ground me down.  Sure, you want a flag, stick it up.  Stick up all the flags you like.  It won't make your wife come back.

The road twisted and turned, past a church tower and a half-dozen pubs - some open, some not.  Drinking culture has changed so much in the last couple of centuries as we've realised that (a) getting lashed on your lunch break probably isn't a good thing and (b) getting lashed in general isn't great for your health and certainly won't give you washboard abs.  It's sad seeing these former pleasure palaces laden with "for sale" signs but Britain is changing.  It's a new world, and that world involves protein shakes and gyms.  And also, let's be honest, quite a lot of cocaine.  It's a world I'll quietly absent myself from, and I'll be over here, resting a pint glass on my beer gut.

As I walked, it became clear that Willenhall was crying out for a fast, direct link into the city.  There were the occasional signs of regeneration - blocks of flats, new town houses - but mostly what I saw was post-industrial collapse.  Empty buildings.  Debris.  Sadness.  Small homes with peeling paint and grass growing out of their roofs.  

I passed The Meat Shop - a woman was emerging with a bulging white carrier bag, filled with who knew what - and a bus stop with a pair of giggling sixth formers flirting with one another.  TLC Bargains had a slogan of SMACK WHACK BANG and an astonishing Instagram account featuring "the Black Country Del Boy".  Please do check out the video where he extols the virtues of a spice grinder while wearing a pair of fake breasts.  I don't know why.

I turned right at the Sikh Gurdwara, as always enjoying the little bit of exoticism that had crashed landed into boring old England, and descended past a delicious-smelling McDonalds (it was lunchtime after all) towards the railway bridge.  The Robin Hood pub, judging by the cards on the back of the bench in the window, was hosting a birthday party.  Two elderly people came round from the car park, peered inside, then went in.  

The A454 quickly followed, passing over my head while the railway had gone underneath (there was a canal a bit further on, too; a rare one-two-three of transport).  In a layby, a truck driver sat in his cab and ate his lunch; a second van backed into the space next to him and the driver similarly pulled out a sandwich.  I was leaving the residential streets behind and moving into the industrial.

A company proudly celebrating its 29th anniversary with a special badge on the side of its unit - that's not how anniversaries work - and an ad for Darlaston Gym Boxing hung on a green fence.  At the traffic lights, a crane towered over my head, as I turned left to follow the long brick wall of the Imperial Works.  Once a nuts and bolt factory, it had become home to various engineering businesses over the years, but now seemed derelict.

It was obvious to me how Darlaston station would help this area.  It was thick with industry - trucks were constantly passing me or reversing - but there was still a lot of blank, vacant space that was crying out for a rebuild.  Offices, homes - you could slip them in here now, with a canal view and a local station.  It needed a bit of ambition and a lot of money but it could be done.

I avoided being run over by a self-drive hire van - they were still getting used to the controls, clearly, and were very apologetic as they lurched out of a side entrance - and passed a rack of traffic trapped in a four-way roadwork.  There were so many different businesses around, so many names I'd never heard of, doing work I'd never know about.  Receiving deliveries of who knew what, processing invoices from other small anonymous companies, making a nice little profit that bought the owner a decent car and paid for a Christmas party.  

Houses returned with a crash: a sudden block of old people flats and a row of 1970s houses.  One of them had torn up their lawn to replace it with a large, fake stone fountain, about two metres high.  Sadly the water wasn't turned on, otherwise I'd have nipped over to drop in a few coins and make a wish.

The new station isn't on Station Street; road changes have left this as a cut-through lined with a terrace on one side and garages on the other.  At the end, there was a vast self-storage unit.  The only business that seems to be expanding everywhere is storage, as we own more and more things but live in smaller and smaller homes.  

On top of the railway bridge I got a glimpse of the station below.  The embankments were still scarred from construction, bare and yet to be turfed, while a team of men with a tanker and a hose were doing some pumping on the newly laid drain - not a great sign, let's be honest.  They blocked the way for me to get a decent sign picture with their equipment so I'm afraid this is the best you'll get.  It does say Darlaston, I promise.

Actually getting into the station involved a walk up a long road that provided access to the neighbouring cemetery.  I got the feeling that TfWM didn't expect many people to walk to this stop, a suspicion confirmed when I rounded the corner and saw an acre of bare tarmac laid out for parking.  It was, I'd say, about 10% full, but it was early days.  I'm sure in a few months you'll find it hard to get a spot.

Like its brother at Willenhall, Darlaston station is no looker.  It gets the job done.  There are lifts to get you over the tracks, seats, a roof to hold off the rain.

Darlaston station won't change the world.  But it will improve a little part of it.  Get your wins where you can.