Hooton railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Hooton


manager = Merseyrail
code = HOO
locale = Hooton
borough = Ellesmere Port and Neston
pte = Merseytravel
zone = B2/G1
usage0405 = 0.349
usage0506 = 0.358
usage0607 = 0.342
platforms = 2,3 & 4
years = 23 September 1840
events = opened

Hooton railway station is situated in the south of the Wirral Peninsula, Cheshire, England. It lies on the Wirral Line 15 km (9½ miles) south west of Liverpool Lime Street on the Merseyrail network, and is near the junction of the branches to Chester and Ellesmere Port.

The station provides a park and ride facility for Birkenhead and Liverpool, being situated close to Junction 5 of the M53 motorway. The station car park was remarked in early 2007 and now contains compliant blue badge parking spaces. Further work, to provide a variable height counter, and new cycle parking was also carried out in 2007.

History

Hooton station is located on the former Birkenhead Railway, a joint railway owned by the Great Western Railway and the London and North Western Railway. The station was originally on the Chester and Birkenhead Railway, a constituent of the Birkenhead Railway, which was opened on 23 September 1840. A branch from Hooton to Helsby via Ince & Elton opened on 1 July 1863, and another branch to Parkgate (later extended to West Kirby) followed on 1 October 1866. In its heyday, the station had 7 platforms. The West Kirby branch closed completely in 1962. The service to Helsby now operates from Ellesmere Port to Warrington Bank Quay, no longer serving Hooton. The station signs between Helsby & Ellesmere Port still display Hooton as the terminus of the trains.

Through services to Liverpool began in 1985, when the line between Rock Ferry and Hooton was electrified; previously passengers for Liverpool had to change at Rock Ferry. Hooton then became the point where passengers from Chester and Ellesmere Port had to change for Liverpool, until further electrification work saw the electric trains reach Chester in 1993 and Ellesmere Port in 1994.

ervices

Trains operate every 30 minutes (15 minutes in weekday evenings) to each of Chester and Ellesmere Port and every 15 minutes via Hamilton Square station in Birkenhead and the Mersey Railway Tunnel to Liverpool. During peak periods on weekday mornings, trains also run up to every 7 minutes to Liverpool.

External links

* [http://www.merseyrail.org/stations/?iStationId=35 Station information] from Merseyrail

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