Spending Spree

There have been a few interesting developments in Liverpool's rail infrastructure these last few weeks but I've not mentioned them on here because, frankly, I've had other things to do with my time.  However, the BF has ABANDONED me to go and watch some sort of football match so I may as well kill my evening writing a load of nonsense about railway stations.

The biggest news has of course been the allocation of £1.6 billion by the treasury to try and stem the plummeting approval ratings improve transport in the Liverpool City Region.   Part of this will be spent on Bus Rapid Transits to connect the Airport and the two football stadia with the city centre.  Bus Rapid Transits are great.  They're a sort of cheaper tram, with long bendy buses, dedicated transport lanes, and raised platforms to allow level boarding.  Here's a BRT stop in Curitiba, Brazil, which is undeniably funky.

Liverpool's system won't be like that.  It'll have the longer bendy buses, of course: Close Personal Friend Of The Blog Steve Rotheram posed with a mock-up outside Anfield: 

The rest of it?  Not so much.  The route from the airport to the city is two lane avenues which could, theoretically, have one lane fully segregated for buses in each direction with stops built on the central reservation.  That's what you'd need for a BRT.  It probably won't be that though, seeing as Steve has been loath to even reverse the anti-bus lane policy of Joe Anderson.  Plus, that two lane avenue stops in the Dingle, forcing an airport express to negotiate packed city streets through Toxteth or down Riverside Drive, a single carriageway road lined with residences and parkland.  

Getting to Anfield is even tougher; the Walton Breck Road is narrow, has many side streets, and has homes with front doors opening right on the pavement.  Plus they close much of it on a match day anyway.  As for Everton's new stadium - the Hill Dickinson Stadium, which is a whole embarrassing thing of its own - both Regent Road and Great Howard Street have received huge upgrades in recent years.  Regent Road was narrowed to incorporate a cycle lane along its length and Great Howard Street was made into a dual carriageway throughout.  Neither of these improvements, you'll note, included space for a Bus Rapid Transit.

Nice buses though.

Speaking of Everton, the fact that 50,000 people will be turning up to the docks at least once a week for the next few decades has prompted Merseytravel to take decisive action to get them there.  They've built a long chain of fences for people to queue in at Sandhills, the closest station, and they've applied to build the following great improvement to handle the crowds.

It's a staircase with a bridge and a bit of a ramp so there's a second way up to the platform.  That's it.  Sandhills is still a single island platform on a side road that was never built to handle that volume of crowds.  It was built for people to change lines, mainly, because the area around it is light industrial units in the main.  It needs a massive upgrade - perhaps with side platforms and new entrances - which is more than a single staircase.  Perhaps this is an issue that should've been addressed when planning permission was given to Everton?  Perhaps they should've been asked to contribute to the costs, seeing as they're the ones causing the need for it to be rebuilt?  Perhaps there should've been a bit more planning?

Actually the very best thing to do would be to build a whole new station.  There have been vague plans for a new stop on the Northern Line at Vauxhall, plans I've mentioned many times over the course of this blog.  Here's a piece on it from 2014.  The issues then are still issues today; there isn't the population or employment to justify building it, but part of the reason there isn't the population or employment is because there aren't great transport links to the area like, for example, a Merseyrail station.  

Things have changed in that intervening decade though.  There's that bloody great football stadium for a start.  The Titanic Hotel has opened, and the Stanley Dock is progressing as a residential development in stages.  New apartments have sprung up by the canal and the city centre is creeping north along Regent Road.  The time to build it would be now, while land values are still sufficiently low and before some canny developer snaps up the land and holds the region to ransom.  So expect to see that open in, oooh, 2076?

"But wait!" I hear you cry.  "Didn't they get £1.6 billion?  Can't they spend that on a new station?"  Of course they can, and of course they will.  Just not this station.  Steve-o is very keen on sharing the wealth around the six boroughs that make up the Liverpool City Region, and that means everyone gets a nice new station.  Sefton got Maghull North in 2018; Knowsley got Headbolt Lane in 2023; and Liverpool itself will get Baltic in - well who knows, but theoretically before the end of the decade.  Building Vauxhall station would mean Liverpool would get two new stations in a row which obviously cannot stand.  It doesn't matter that Liverpool is the centre of the city region, the hub around which it flows; it doesn't matter that there's a strong case for it being built.  The other boroughs have to get their turn first.  

Three new stations have been announced.  Carr Mill is in St Helens, out on the East Lancs Road, and will serve the north side of the town.  It'll allow a park and ride to be built and, as you can see from the picture above, there's a load of nice empty fields next to it that could be covered with a lot of cul-de-sacs.  Trains will run from here to Liverpool and Wigan on the City Line.  

Halton's new station will be at Daresbury, on the edge of Runcorn between Chester and Warrington.  There's a large business and technology park here and plans for lots of new homes so the new station will open up the area.  It's not an especially great line, to be honest.  Halton might have benefited more from an often-suggested station at Beechwood, where the line crosses the West Coast Main Line to Liverpool and would therefore mean Runcorn would get a great spot for interchanging.  

The line's in a tunnel here, though, so that would be extraordinarily expensive, not to mention the difficulty of building on a packed railway line with fast trains running through to London.  Perhaps when HS2 to Liverpool is built and there's more capacity and HAHAHAHA I COULDN'T FINISH THAT SENTENCE WITH A STRAIGHT FACE.  So there you go: Daresbury it is.

The intriguing new station is on the Wirral, at Woodchurch, and not just because it's the one closest to my house.  This part of the peninsula is a station desert, which is a problem because the Woodchurch and Beechwood estates are two of the most deprived in the county.  A fast rail link to the city centre would be a valuable asset, and the fact that it's next to a junction on the M53 and would enable a nice park and ride is a bonus.

The problem is, that's not an electrified Merseyrail line; that's the Borderlands Line to Wrexham, currently operated by diesel trains and terminating at Bidston.  Woodchurch has always been on the drawing board but for when the line is electrified, something which hasn't happened and probably never will (if we can't electrify the Midland Main Line I don't think the tracks through Caergwrle are top of anyone's list at Network Rail).  

Announcing that Woodchurch is definitely going to be built therefore raises a question: what trains will serve it?  The value of the station would be bringing it into Merseyrail; if it's still getting the sort-of-one an hour service it gets right now, it's not worth bothering with, especially if those services then end at Bidston.  You could electrify the line as far as Woodchurch (not forgetting there's another station, Upton, in between), but third rail electrification is frowned upon these days as too dangerous, so you'd need overhead electrification, which would need new hybrid trains.

Of course, Merseyrail already has some hybrid trains: the battery ones that go to Headbolt Lane.  And after their disastrous early days that service seems to have settled down and runs pretty well.  You'd need to buy some more new trains though, and are Merseytravel really going to give Stadler some more money after all the hassle they've caused?  

If you're extending Merseyrail, too, with the minimum two trains an hour, preferably four, in each direction expected, then that leaves very little room for Wrexham trains.  Meaning they get cut back as well, much as happened with Northern trains at Headbolt Lane.  In the process, you make the Wrexham Line even less attractive as a route.  

The other question about Woodchurch is where it'll be.  Looking at the map you'd expect it right next to the motorway and the dual carriageway Woodchurch Road, where all the traffic is.  The problem is, that's not handy for the estate that gives it its name.  The M53 scythes across the land between the railway and the estate in a cutting so it's pretty hard to get to. 

There is this footpath under the motorway connecting the high school to the Holmlands Estate across the way which could be used to provide access.  Putting the station there though would mean losing that connectivity to the buses and motorway traffic.  It's a bind: are you building the station for pedestrians or drivers, for people already on buses or to tempt them away from it?

The final development is the most surprising of all, because I don't think anybody even knew it was on the cards: a million pounds to revamp the entrance to Moorfields.  The station's ticket office has always been odd because it's up an escalator: you have to go up to reach the underground.  The reason for this is an ambitious 1970s scheme to build a network of pedestrian footbridges across the city centre, a quite mad scheme which unsurprisingly died a horrible death and has mostly been demolished.  It means there's an ugly void under the entrance which, unsurprisingly, attracts people who need shelter or who want to perform unsavoury acts out of view. 

The ideal plan would be to knock it all down and start again, but that's never going to happen.  That tube on the left hand side of the photo contains the escalators underground; there are cross passageways barely beneath the street that would have to be avoided.  It might happen if there was enough demand for space that an expensive oversite development could pay for it, but right opposite Moorfields is a Yates' Wine Lodge that's been closed and abandoned for twenty years with no sign of it going anywhere so there clearly isn't the demand.

What's happening instead is a bit of remedial action to make it more user friendly.  A new staircase will come down to the street in a straight line, a relief for anyone who knows the current arrangement which involves a blind corner on a landing favoured as a place to hang out by unsavoury types.  The space underneath the escalator hall will be filled in.  I should imagine this is where the bike racks will be moved to, which makes sense: it'll be secure and lockable but out of the way.  It removes the security concerns and makes it a more pleasing place to visit.  Plus there's new lighting and shiny signage.  I do like a shiny sign.

There you go.  A load of negativity rescued by a nice little bit of positivity at the end.  I may be a cynical bastard but sometimes I'm happy.

Mapless

 

I took the train yesterday and I was idly looking at the ads on the walls when something occurred to me.  There are no Merseyrail maps on the 777s.  There are plenty of spaces where there could be one - where there used to be one - but they haven't bothered at all anywhere on here.  And it's not because they're drowning in advertising revenue either, because those "owned by you" posters are still all over the place.

You could argue that having the electronic line diagram means there's no need for them any more, but that's not true.  The diagrams above the door tell you where to change trains for the Northern or Wirral or City lines; they don't tell you what's on those lines.  If you're on a train from New Brighton planning on getting to, say, Cressington, there's no way of planning your route.  Until you reach Central or Moorfields you won't know which direction to get a train in. 

This seems to me to be a basic piece of wayfinding information that should be everywhere.  On top of that, the Merseyrail map is a piece of local iconography that should be shared.  I'm not sure why they're missing; it seems like a really daft thing to overlook.

If they're unwilling to give up the valuable ad slots - though, as I say, they don't seem to be snapped up - then these hatches in the carriage ends seem like a perfect slot for a sticker with the Merseyrail map on it.   A small piece of info to make the traveling experience easier and more comfortable.  You can't have too many maps.

VirtuALFs

I went to the hygienist the other day, which I always hate.  Not because I have bad teeth.  I actually have very good teeth; they may be wonky, but there isn't a single filling and I only have to see the proper dentist every couple of years for an x-ray he charges me an exorbitant amount for.  My hygienist, however, likes to tell me what I should be doing to my teeth, which annoys me.  I don't like being told what to do at the best of times and when she pulls out her plastic jaw and starts poking at it to explain how I should  be brushing my gums I feel like saying "how about you take my ninety five quid, polish my teeth, and dump the scolding?"

Anyway.  The point is I'd finished getting my lecture, and I was sat at the station waiting for my train.  I realised that the new refreshed Merseyrail app now tells you exactly where the train is, so I had a look, and I got a surprise.  It turns out some of the stations have what I'm going to call VirtuALFs next to their names.

Readers who've been here since the earliest days of the blog will remember that one thing I did when visiting all the Merseyrail stations was catalogue what I called the ALFs: the Attractive Local Feature boards.  (That's a name I made up by the way.  I still have no idea what their official name is).  They look like this:

The name of the station, a coloured band, and a local visitor attraction with a nice picture to get your attention.  They're found throughout the Merseytravel - sorry - Metro region, on the City Lines as well, and I love them.  They're a little bit of colour, a tempting reason to jump off the train, and they're plain nice.

The Merseyrail app now also lists Attractive Local Features next to some of the stations.  But what are these features, and what is their relevance to the station?  Are they relevant to the station?  Let's do some deep probing into the world of VirtuALFs via a long and overanalytical list!

AIGBURTH (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Otterspool

Our first stop is Aigburth in South Liverpool, and we're advised to alight here for Otterspool, Liverpool's waterside playground.  It's a handy walk from the station, it's a big attraction.  Yep.  This is what we want.

AINSDALE (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Ainsdale Beach

The beach is an easy stroll from the station.  It's also an absolute nightmare to park round there on a warm day so I can highly recommend taking the train.  (By the way, I'm doing this in alphabetical order by station, so it's just a very spooky coincidence that the first two are places with, shall we say, a reputation).

AINTREE (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Aintree Race Course

The only possible choice, of course, what with it being literally across the road from the station.  I will however object to the way they've split racecourse into two words.  Race.  Course.

BACHE (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Chester Zoo

This is our first slightly dodgy one.  Bache is the closest station to Chester Zoo, one of the premier attractions in the North West.  Getting there is not straightforward.  It's nearly two miles' walk from the station along a suburban street.  You can get a bus from the Liverpool Road, but that's a fair walk, and not immediately obvious.  There used to be a shuttle from the station but that was discontinued years ago.  It's not a bad shout, and it's certainly a better option than, say, Morrison's, but it's coming with caveats.

BEBINGTON (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Lady Lever Art Gallery

Bebington is handy for the northern part of Port Sunlight village, and Port Sunlight itself handy for the southern half.  It makes sense to split the tourists up by directing some to use this station and saves them putting "Port Sunlight" twice.

BIRKENHEAD CENTRAL (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Pyramids Shopping Centre

The Pyramids are, indeed, the other side of Borough Road from Central, just a couple of crossings away, so if you're looking for the Wimpy this is the ideal station to use.  I might have gone for Birkenhead Priory myself.  While it's a longer walk from the station - and not the most pedestrian friendly route - it's a unique attraction, instead of a shopping centre, and a historic feature that doesn't get enough love.  (It does have some odd opening hours though, so perhaps this is to avoid disappointment).

BIRKENHEAD NORTH (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Tam O'Shanter Urban Farm

This is indeed a lovely little attraction, but it does bury the lede that the farm is nestled within the Bidston Hill Country Park, whose features include the observatory and a windmill as well as acres of woodland and field.  You might perhaps think that it's because they've saved that for Bidston station itself, but actually, Bidston doesn't have a VirtuALF at all.  There's not even a mention of the interchange with the Borderlands Line for trains to Heswall and Wrexham.

BLUNDELLSANDS & CROSBY (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Crosby Beach

Crosby Beach is actually really long, so both Hall Road and Waterloo could put in bids for the beach; B&C is in the middle though so it gets the win.  Interestingly, there's no mention at all of Anthony Gormley's Another Place, a major tourist attraction; you could have put it at Waterloo if not here, but that's another station without any VirtuALF.

BOOTLE NEW STRAND (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Bootle Strand Shopping Centre

Bootle Strand is a shopping precinct across the road from New Strand station.  It has some shops in it.  You can visit if you like.  I wouldn't recommend it.

BRUNSWICK (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: TeamSport Go Karting

This is the first one I think flat out shouldn't be here.  Up until now we've either had major tourist attractions or shopping centres - places which are going to attract a lot of people and have a certain public interest value.  TeamSport Go Karting is a private company offering indoor racing; great fun, I'm sure, but hardly comparable with the Lady Lever.  It's as if Birkenhead Central had listed the Home and Bargain next to the station.  There's nothing much else you could list round here - perhaps the southern docks and marina? - so it didn't need one at all.

CHESTER (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Chester Racecourse

I get that it's difficult to summarise an entire town in one line.  The main reason a tourist goes to Chester is to see Chester itself, and sticking that under the station name would be confusing.  I do think that, for example, Chester Walls and Cathedral, or perhaps Roman City, would've been a better destination to highlight than the racecourse.  Especially since, unlike Aintree, this one's only one word.  If you're going to be wrong at least be consistently wrong.

FAZAKERLEY (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Aintree Hospital

The hospital is directly opposite the station and is a major resource in the north of the city, to the extent that most of the residents still call it "Fazakerley Hospital" even though it hasn't been called that for years.

FRESHFIELD (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Formby Beach

Like its brother at Ainsdale, Formby Beach is a major attraction that is best reached by rail rather than driving.  It's again arguable whether Freshfield or Formby itself is more convenient, but this is the quieter of the two stations so you can understand Merseyrail directing you there instead.

HAMILTON SQUARE (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Wilfred Owen Museum

This was a very small exhibition devoted to the World War One poet who came from Birkenhead, and was located in Argyle Street, the other side of the square from the station.  Please note the use of the past tense there, because not only is it not there any more, it actually moved in 2020, to West Kirby Arts Centre (although it may have closed since then, because the Facebook page hasn't been updated for over four years).  Hamilton Square is a far better station to see the historic Grade 1 listed square, as well as the Woodside Ferry Terminal, the U-Boat Museum, and the Wirral Transport Museum.  Ok, they're all closed for refurbishment at the moment but at least there are plans for them to come back.  The Wilfred Owen Museum is long gone.

HOOTON (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Wirral Way

The bottom end of the country park is pointed out at Hooton, and (spoilers) the top end appears at West Kirby, which is nice.  

HOYLAKE (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Royal Liverpool Golf Club

Absolutely the biggest attraction round here, but that's only really relevant when they hold the Open every decade or so.  Otherwise you're not getting in unless you've got a lot of money.

HUNTS CROSS (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Speke Hall

No-one in their right mind would use Hunts Cross to get to Speke Hall.  It's about three miles away.  It's a nasty walk along busy roads.  You'd have to skirt the edge of the airport.  It's possibly the closest nice place to Hunts Cross station, but you shouldn't be putting it on the app and implying it's convenient.

JAMES STREET (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Albert Dock and Pier Head

Our first city centre VirtuALF and absolutely the right one to list.  James Street is right on the waterfront and the closest station for the most famous sights in the city.  Bang on.

KIRKDALE (Northern Line) 

VirtuALF: Football Stadiums

Kirkdale is indeed the closest station to Goodison Park, although I personally wouldn't advise an innocent tourist to wander there through the back streets.  It's still a fair old walk to Anfield, mind.  Sandhills is actually where the Soccerbuses depart from on match days, and is also extremely close to Everton's new stadium in the docks, so this would probably be better at that station.

LEASOWE (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Leasowe Lighthouse

MORETON (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: North Wirral Coastal Park

I'm doing both of these at once because they've got the wrong VirtuALFs.  Both stations are handy for the North Wirral Coastal Park, which stretches between them, but, counterintuitively, Leasowe Lighthouse is actually closest to Moreton station.  It's a straight down the road while Leasowe station is another half a mile distant.  I'm imagining the programmer seeing Leasowe Lighthouse listed alongside Moreton station and thinking well that's clearly wrong, even though it's another of those delightful little foibles that make this country so annoying.

LIME STREET (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: none

I'll be covering some of the stations I think should have their own VirtuALFs at the end of this post (bet you can't wait) but I thought Lime Street was important enough to merit its own entry.  It is, after all, Lime Street Station.  Yes, there's interchange with the City Line - thank you for mentioning that - but there's also St George's Hall right over the road.  And the Empire Theatre.  And the Walker Art Gallery.  And the World Museum and the Library.  That's a whole load of world-class attractions a few steps from the station exit.  At least one of them should absolutely get a mention.

LITTLE SUTTON (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Georgian Quarter

I have no idea what this is.  Little Sutton is a large village outside Ellesmere Port.  It's got some pubs, some takeaways, a strip of shops and a garden centre.  It has been a settlement for a thousand years but it's pretty short on historic buildings and has virtually nothing pre-dating the 19th century.  A search for "Little Sutton Georgian Quarter" produced no results.  There is a Georgian Quarter in Liverpool; it's the area around the Anglican Cathedral and University, and includes a lot of fine white houses and elegant squares.  It is nowhere near Little Sutton.  If anyone can explain this one, I'm all ears.

LIVERPOOL CENTRAL (Northern and Wirral Lines)

VirtuALF: Bold St and Cathedrals

Central is convenient for a lot of the city centre - the name gives it away - but it makes sense that they try and guide you away from the shops and towards the cultural destinations instead.  It does mean that Liverpool One doesn't make a single appearance on the app.

LIVERPOOL SOUTH PARKWAY (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Liverpool John Lennon Airport

One of the reasons South Parkway was built in the first place was so it could act as a transport interchange to get you to the airport.  It's why it got such a grandiose building that combines rail and bus services; there was also meant to be a tram interchange that would take you right to the terminal.  As it is, you can get a local bus to your flight.

MOORFIELDS (Northern and Wirral Lines)

VirtuALF: The Cavern Quarter

There may be some who grumble about Liverpool piggybacking off the Beatles for tourist dollars; I'm not one of them.  Make your money where you can I say.  Get the Americans in to look at the Cavern then wow them with the rest of the city while they're here.  Definitely put down The Cavern Quarter as handy from Moorfields and collect those coins.

NEW BRIGHTON (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: New Brighton Beach

There's more to New Brighton that just the beach.  Unlike, say, Freshfield, there's a proper town here, with shops and cafes, plus the Floral Pavillion Theatre and the hipsterish Victoria Quarter.  Reducing it to the strip of sand seems reductive but it's what a lot of people come here for so fair enough.

 

OLD ROAN (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Footgolf Aintree

Another private leisure attraction that I don't totally agree with being on the app.  Not least because it's based at the Aintree Golf Course and is therefore closer to both Aintree and Fazakerley stations.  If you were going to list a commercial attraction here, the Odeon at Switch Island is closer, and there's the long strip of retail parks along the Ormskirk Road.  Rather that than "Footgolf".

ORMSKIRK (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Ormskirk Hospital

Poor Ormskirk should feel hard done-by.  It's a charming little market town, it's got a large popular university, there's historic buildings and a park.  It's a nice place to spend a day.  And it's got boiled down to the hospital, which isn't even handy for the station.  I might be biased, being a former resident, but it deserves better.

OVERPOOL (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Boulderhut

This is an indoor climbing centre on an industrial estate near the M53 and once again I don't agree with private businesses getting in on the act here.  On the plus side they appear to have changed their name to Climbing Hut and not informed Merseyrail so their appearance isn't much of an advert anyway.

PORT SUNLIGHT (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Port Sunlight Village

This is what Ormskirk and Chester should've got.  You know that historic place of the same name as the station?  It's here.  Knock yourself out.

ROCK FERRY (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Tranmere Rovers

It's a fair walk from Rock Ferry to Prenton Park - you could make a legitimate case that Birkenhead Central is a better place to get off the train - but there's nothing else in Rock Ferry you'd want to look at so we'll let them have it.  

SANDHILLS (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Awesome Walls

The VirtuALF at Sandhills rightly recognises its Awesome Walls, a series of ancient brick constructions erected around the same time as Hadrian's and dividing the city... of course I'm joking.  Awesome Walls is another rock climbing centre, this time inside a converted church.  As I said back at Kirkdale, the Soccerbuses depart from this station for the football, so you could've had that; alternatively the Stanley Dock and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal are within walking distance.  But no, you've got a climbing centre.

SOUTHPORT (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Southport Beach and Pier

Another great place to visit reduced to a single attraction, Southport's beach is at least a big reason for its popularity, though I'd say there are plenty of others.  The Pier, meanwhile, is currently closed for health and safety reasons and may never reopen.  Let's hope that Merseyrail have put it on the app because they believe it will come back one day.

SPITAL (Wirral Line)

VirtuALF: Dibbinsdale Nature Reserve

The Dibbinsdale is a surprisingly large stretch of wood and water in South Wirral.  I once found myself wandering around it by chance and it's a really nice place to visit; you wouldn't believe there were factories and homes metres away.  Bromborough Rake station is actually located virtually inside the reserve - turn left out of the station and you're there - but the main visitor's areas are closer to Spital.

ST MICHAELS (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Festival Gardens and Sefton Park

It couldn't be anything else, could it?  St Michaels is slap bang between two of the city's great green spaces and is handy for both.  You could've chucked Lark Lane in there as well but that would've been showing off.

WALTON (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Rice Lane City Farm

Much like the confusion at Leasowe, Rice Lane City Farm is actually closer to Walton than Rice Lane station, so they get the VirtuALF.  Part of me hoped it'd have Liverpool Prison but that's not great for tourism I guess.

WEST KIRBY (Northern Line)

VirtuALF: Hilbre Island and Wirral Way

Another seaside town reduced to its natural features, these are a good pair to have on your side.  Hilbre Island is beautiful and the Wirral Way is a great walk.  There's a lot more to this dinky little spot than that - why not visit and find out?

----------------

That's the list of the stations that have got VirtuALFs and you may have noticed a few curious omissions.  Some of Merseyside's great "villages" are nowhere to be seen - no Formby, no Wallasey, no Maghull, Birkdale or Bromborough.  I'm not saying you'd want to have a day out in Kirkby but it getting a grand total of zero reasons to visit feels like a slap in the face.  Conway Park, which serves the north of Birkenhead town centre, including its famous market, is not there and, bafflingly, neither is Birkenhead Park.  I know the main attraction's in the name but so is Port Sunlight and that still got a VirtuALF - there could at least be a mention of the Birkenhead Park Visitor's Centre.  I've already mentioned the lack of Waterloo and Bidston, and it seems strange to me that connections with the City lines are flagged but not with Northern services at Ormskirk and Headbolt Lane and so on.  This information is elsewhere in the map but a simple British Rail symbol might be nice.  

As with the ALFs themselves the implementation seems to be hit and miss.  I like it as a concept; it's always nice to give someone a reason to get off the train, and to invite journeys that wouldn't otherwise have made.  I do find some of the choices baffling however.

(And I managed to get all the way to the end without pointing out that some of the stations have black circles on the diagram and some have black circles with white centres and there seems to be no rhyme or reason why.  Phew!)

(Oh).