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 opened by the
Chester and Birkenhead Railway, a constituent of the Birkenhead Railway, on 23 September 1840 and became, until 1967, the northern end of the GWR's main line from London Paddington to
Birkenhead Woodside. A branch from Hooton to via
Ince & Elton opened on 1 July 1863, and another branch to (later extended to ) followed on 1 October 1866. In its heyday, the station had seven platforms. The West Kirby branch closed to passengers in 1956 and completely in 1962. The branch line trains frequently comprised a train of LMS coaches hauled by a GWR tank engine; there was also a gas-lit 'motor train' with a driver's compartment at the end of the carriage used when the train was running with the engine at the rear. The service to Helsby has been replaced by a couple of diesel "parliamentary" services between Ellesmere Port and
Warrington Bank Quay, thus no longer serving Hooton; however the platform sign at Ince & Elton still displays Hooton and Helsby as the termini. The line connecting the former Birkenhead Railway with the Cheshire Lines Committee Railway at Mouldsworth via Helsby & Alvanley (east of the former wire works, now Tesco) has been abandoned since 1991. Hooton's architecture is in the style of the Birkenhead Joint Railway, the brick-built station buildings being similar to those at Hadlow Road which date from 1866, rather than the rough-hewn Gothic style used at Little Sutton and Ellesmere Port stations from 1863. The original 1839 Birkenhead Railway was single track and few if any relics remain today along the route which was doubled in 1847 and widened to four tracks in 1891. The signalling and the signal boxes of Hooton North, a 90-lever box which closed on 9 December 1973, and Hooton South, a 128 and then 80-lever box which closed on 18 May 1985 and now replaced with a modern structure, were distinctly L&NWR. However, in spite of some local L&NWR (later LMS) trains and locomotives, it was very much Great Western territory - situated as it is near the end of the main line which earned that railway its major profits, even though it did not serve the rather more glamorous destinations with which the GWR liked to be, and generally is, associated.
Long-distance passenger services From the 1850s until their withdrawal in 1967 there were regular through trains daily between London Paddington and Birkenhead Woodside, including a sleeper train, all of which were scheduled to call at Hooton: these trains carried boards along their carriage sides proclaiming "PADDINGTON BIRMINGHAM SHREWSBURY CHESTER & BIRKENHEAD". Between Birkenhead and Chester they would always be hauled by fast, powerful tank engines; between Chester and Wolverhampton a "Castle" would typically haul the train, and between Wolverhampton and Paddington a "King" (in the final years it would have been a Western Region diesel hydraulic). Each morning there was a train to Bournemouth (West) and a three-portion train, of green carriages provided by the Southern Region on alternate days, which travelled via Oxford and Reading to Redhill, where the Brighton portion was detached, thence to Ashford where it was split into a portion for Margate, and another for Dover, Deal and Sandwich. The summer timetable would typically include services to and from destinations on the
Cambrian Railways reached via
Ruabon and Dolgelly (as Dolgellau was spelt by the railways at the time).
Goods and parcels There was a cattle mart opposite the station, The station transformed into a through station.
21st century The present overbridge and lift shafts were brought into use at the end of January 2011; they are situated to the south of the station buildings and further down the platforms than the previous footbridge at the north end of the station. That footbridge, demolished in February 2011, dated from the widening of the line from two to four tracks from Ledsham Junction to Rock Ferry in 1891, the additional tracks being another casualty of the 1970s. The previous footbridge discharged its users short of the canopies on the then platforms 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6; the canopies were demolished in the 1970s as a result of BR's "
discounted cash flow" policy which held that it was more economical to eliminate an asset than to retain it and the continuing maintenance obligation. ==Services==