| Box Width: | auto |
| North Mersey Branch | |
| Type: | Heavy rail |
| System: | National Rail |
| Status: | Engineering trains only |
| Locale: | Sefton, Merseyside |
| Start: | Fazakerley Junction |
| Stations: | 5 |
| Open: | 1866 |
| Owner: | Network Rail |
| Linelength: | 4mile |
| Tracks: | Single (1) |
| Load Gauge: | W6 |
| Electrification: | Not electrified |
| Speed: | 20mph maximum |
The North Mersey Branch (NMB) is a railway line that was constructed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to connect its mainline (the former Liverpool and Bury Railway) with the northern Mersey dock system.
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway built this 4mile long double-track branch line to capture some of the increasing freight passing through Hornby Dock, Alexandra Dock and the Canada Dock systems at the northern end of the Mersey docks.
The scheme was authorised in May 1861, a contract was let to George Thomson in 1864 and the line opened on 27 August 1866.[1]
The line initially had no stations, it ran from a new Fazakerley junction between and on the former Liverpool and Bury Railway terminating in the North Mersey goods yard where an end-on connection was made to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB) rail network which gave the L&YR access to the docks further south. opened in 1866, albeit without buildings until the 1880s, being renamed to North Mersey and Alexandra Docks in 1892.
Part of the branch was electrified in 1906 as the L&YR tried to win back traffic lost to competition from trams. It was electrified between (on the former Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway) and (on the former Liverpool, Ormskirk and Preston Railway) using the Seaforth connecting line and the Aintree curve.
Two stations were opened on 1 June 1906 on the newly electrified section at and .
The branch was connected via a crossover to the Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR) a little to the east of creating Rimrose Road junction. The connection was used by a short-lived service between Aintree and at the southern end of the LOR, it was not successful and only lasted for two years from 1906 to 1908.
By 1910 18 trains were operating each way, each day, along the branch with trains terminating at in the south and, where 10 services terminated, and to which the other 8 carried on.
station opened on 7 September 1914, when the section of track to it from North Mersey Branch Junction (the junction where the Seaforth Connecting line left the branch) was electrified, it became a halt in 1916 and closed on 7 July 1924.
In 1922 the branch had seven daily services (eight on Saturdays, none on Sundays) between Aintree Sefton Arms and Gladstone Dock, and fifteen daily services (fourteen on Saturdays, nine on Sundays) running from Liverpool Exchange to Aintree Sefton Arms.
and closed on 2 April 1951. The line was de-electrified in 1966.[2]
The branch was used to get passengers to race meetings at Aintree Racecourse especially for the Grand National in several ways. Excursion trains were run to a temporary, race-meeting only station, first noted in 1878, on the line called Aintree Cinder Lane.[3]
Cinder Lane was replaced by station and was officially renamed in 1910, it also only operated on race days, it saw its last service on 25 March 1961.
Annual Grand National Express services ran from and other locations, such as Bridlington, Hull and Goole, direct to racecourse station via the North Mersey Branch.[4] [5] These excursion trains all arrived travelling westwards, discharged their passengers, went to Aintree sorting sidings for servicing then all departed eastbound after the race meeting, the line being made one way and single track for the duration of the meeting.
In 1988 BR decided to cancel the Grand National Express permanently, due to attacks by vandals along the line. Bricks and other missiles would be hurled at the trains when coming down the line in Litherland on the old site of the North Mersey Junction at the end of the crossover above the Merseyrail Northern Line.; and too many trains and coaches were arriving at Aintree with significant damage.
Other special services were run along the branch to (on these occasions the L&YR stations at Aintree were differentiated by adding Sefton Arms or Racecourse) in addition to the regular service from [6]
The Liverpool Overhead Railway also ran trains from its line onto the branch using the connection at, in 1955 they ran nine specials from .
Intermodal and engineering trains ran from Garston, Edge Hill and as far away as Southampton, along the North Mersey Branch to Aintree Container Base, Aintree Metal Box and Fazakerley permanent-way yard.
In 1986 the line to Aintree Container Base was cut, leaving no further need for container trains along the line. In 1987 the short spur to Fazakerley sidings was closed, and the Metal Box service had finished by 1991, leaving no regular goods services on the North Mersey Branch.
The line from Bootle junction to Aintree station junction (that is the whole branch) was taken out of use on 19 April 2002.[7]
The section of the line between Sefton Junction and North Mersey Branch Junction is no longer maintained to basic Network Rail operational standards and as of December 2017 is completely overgrown in places.
Occasionally diesel-powered engineering/maintenance trains used the branch to access the Southport line, saving the need to reverse at Sandhills.
For trains to access the branch, a key must first be obtained in advance from the Merseyrail IECC signalling centre which unlocks the gate allowing access to/from the branch line at Aintree.
Plans to open this section as part of Merseyrail's Northern Line have been put forward in Sefton's transport plan, with the first details to emerge about its possible reopening being published by the media on 28 February 2008.
The Crosby Herald newspaper reported that the line could be reopened in conjunction with a proposed new stadium for Liverpool F.C., to provide additional transport links via the town of Litherland, likely to cost millions.[8]
This was again mentioned in Merseytravel's 30-year plan of 2014.[9]
In January 2019, Campaign for Better Transport released a report identifying the line which was listed as Priority 2 for reopening. Priority 2 is for those lines which require further development or a change in circumstances (such as housing developments).[10]