| Notes: Gateacre Station was situated on the Cheshire Lines Committee's
North Liverpool Extension Line which connected its main Liverpool
to Manchester line to the north Liverpool docks at Huskisson by
skirting through agricultural land to the east of Liverpool. At
the time of the station opening Gateacre was a small rural village
but today it is a suburb of Liverpool. |
 |
Map showing Gateacre as a terminus after 1960 |
The station had two platforms on an embankment on the north side of Belle Vale Road. The main station building incorporation the stationmaster's house and booking office was at ground level on the west side of the line. From the upper storey a covered walkway led to the northbound platform which had a timber building and a substantial awning. The southbound platform also had an awning but no buildings. In later |
years the platform building was demolished and replaced by a short canopy with a small enclosed waiting room on the southbound platform. There was a signalbox on the south side of Belle Vale Road controlling access to the small goods yard which was also south of Belle Vale Road on the west side of the line.
 |
On 1st September 1884 a
further extension of the route opened to Southport Lord Street. The line was always busy with goods trains accessing the docks
but a number of passenger services served the station. Services
went north to Aintree Central and Southport as well as to Huskisson
although this latter service was cut back to Walton on the Hill
as early as 1885 |
and ceased altogether on 1st January 1918. To
the South trains served destinations to Liverpool and to Manchester.
The CLC North Liverpool Extension line was always very busy on
Grand National days as express trains from all over the country
used it to access Aintree Central.
The first major service to be withdrawn was the Southport Service
which finished on 7th January 1952 followed by the service for
Aintree Central and Manchester on 7th November 1960. This left
only the Gateacre to Liverpool Central service a popular one that
ended on 15.4.1972 supposedly as a temporary measure to facilitate
the construction of the Merseyrail Loop and link lines in the
City Centre. The intention was that Gateacre would reopen complete
with electrification as part of this network and in the future |
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Looking north on the last day of passenger services a DMU waits to depart from Gateacre with the Liverpool Central service. Photo by K G Rose |
passenger services would even reopen towards Aintree. It was not
to be, the line did reopen as far as Garston in 1978 and was extended
to Hunts Cross in 1983 but by that time an economic slowdown had
already ended any ideas of reopening Gateacre.
 |
Steadily goods traffic on the line declined and in its later
years it was nothing more than a single track branch running from
Hunts Cross to Huskisson. The last goods trains ran in August
1975. The line was lifted by a demolition train over a number
of Sundays in early 1979. Today the route is part of the National Cyclway Network Route
62 The Trans Pennine Trail. |
An 1887 Junction diagram shows the station as Gateacre &
Woolton. Gateacre lost its goods service on 4th December 1965. Tickets from Michael Stewart
To see the other
stations on the CLC North Liverpool Extension Line click on the
station name: Aintree
Central, Warbreck,
Walton on the
Hill, Huskisson,
Clubmoor, West
Derby, Knotty Ash
& Childwall
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