Early history Interests in the
Birkenhead docks were aware that they needed a railway connection towards
Manchester and the Lancashire manufacturing districts, to enable them to compete with the
Port of Liverpool, served by the busy
Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR). The Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway was incorporated by the '''''' (
9 & 10 Vict. c. xci) on 26 June 1846 with capital of £1,500,000, to build a line from Chester to Walton Junction, near Warrington, where it would connect with the
Grand Junction Railway (GJR), leading to Manchester. The London and North Western Railway (LNWR) was formed by merging the GJR, the L&MR, and others on 16 July 1846. This left the BL&CJR out on its own, and its attempts to negotiate for access at Warrington and beyond were frustrated for some time.
Acquisition of the Chester and Birkenhead Railway In late 1846 negotiations for a merger of the
Chester and Birkenhead Railway and the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway were finalising. A parliamentary bill authorising the merger was submitted, and it was passed as the '''''' (
10 & 11 Vict. c. ccxxii) on 22 July 1847, but provisions for leasing by other companies, chiefly the LNWR, were removed because of concerns about interests other than development of the docks. Nevertheless the BL&CJR now controlled the Birkenhead line. The
Shrewsbury and Chester Railway had emerged from the
North Wales Mineral Railway, and brought considerable volumes of minerals, chiefly coal, from
Flintshire to Birkenhead; there was a triangle of lines at Chester station, enabling these trains to avoid the station. The LNWR felt threatened by this traffic, which it considered should come to it. Moreover the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway was aligning itself with the Great Western Railway (GWR) as a possible through route to London via
Shrewsbury. The LNWR started upon hostile acts towards the Birkenhead line and the Shrewsbury and Chester line, and these escalated in aggression and illegality. The BL&CJR directors were supine in the face of these acts until a shareholders' meeting on 23 October 1850, when shareholder dissatisfaction motivated the board to take a firmer line with the LNWR. The
Shrewsbury and Chester (Birkenhead Station) Act 1851 gave the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway running powers to Birkenhead greatly increasing the traffic. On 30 April 1851 the
Sutton Tunnel railway accident took place near Frodsham on the line to Warrington. Nine people died. The collision was caused by a loosely managed time-interval system which was in operation; the directors were heavily criticised for their lax management of the line. In January 1854 there was renewed hostility against the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, and the matter went to arbitration; the arbitrator found in favour of the S&CR and awarded them running powers which gave them access to Manchester and Liverpool, as well as other important benefits.
Joint railway of GWR and LNWR In 1851 negotiations for a lease of the BL&CJR to the GWR were started, The hostility between the companies waned a little and in 1858 the BL&CJR suggested joint ownership by the LNWR and GWR of their company. By an act of Parliament on 1 August 1859 the BL&CJR company changed its name to the Birkenhead Railway, and the transfer of ownership took effect as a working arrangement on 1 January 1860; it was ratified by Parliament in the '''''' (
24 & 25 Vict. c. cxxxiv) and formalised with retrospective effect from 20 November 1860.
1868–1898 The LNWR opened the direct line over the Mersey at
Runcorn on 1 February 1868, allowing London to Liverpool trains to avoid Warrington. In 1873 this was followed by their opening of the
Halton Curve between Frodsham Junction and Helsby Junction. This considerably shortened the transit time between Chester and Liverpool and abstracted nearly all of the passenger traffic that had gone via Birkenhead and the
Mersey ferries. On 20 January 1886 the
Mersey Railway opened between and Green Lane Junction in Birkenhead, where it entered on the
Chester–Birkenhead line. The Mersey Railway was steam operated through steeply graded tunnels under the
River Mersey. The section of the Joint Line at Green Lane Junction was already very congested, and it was agreed to make an interchange station at , about south of the junction, with the Mersey Railway providing its own separate tracks to get there. The Mersey Railway extension to Rock Ferry opened on 15 June 1891. For a short time there was a through service from to , via the Mersey Railway, starting in 1898.
Nationalisation At the beginning of 1948
British Railways was established as a state-owned organisation. Little initiative was taken to rationalise the formerly competing facilities, such as the wasteful multiple goods depots. Much continued as before, but the transfer of bulk goods to containers, and the increasing use of road transport abstracted from the railway, which declined, as did passenger business. == Network ==