Earlestown railway station is a railway station in Earlestown, Merseyside, England, in the Merseytravel region. The station is branded Merseyrail. It was an original station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opening in 1830. It became a junction station when the Warrington and Newton Railway opened in 1831. It is one of the few "triangular" stations in Britain.
History
Opening
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) opened its line through the site on 17 September 1830.
In the early days of railway operations intermediate stations were often little more than halts, usually positioned where the railway was crossed by a road or turnpike, in this case the station was at the first place eastbound after crossing Sankey Viaduct, where the line crossed a road, Wargrave Lane (now Wargrave Road).
The station, or more correctly stopping place, was one of sixteen listed by the on 1 January 1831, at the time it was known as Viaduct. Making it one of the oldest passenger railway stations in the world.
Early connections
The station became a junction in 1831 when the Warrington and Newton Railway (W&NR) reached the . The opened the first section of its line in June 1831 to the 'south end of Newton' to cater for traffic between Warrington and the races at Newton Race Course. Shortly afterwards, on 25 July 1831, a connection was made between the and the when the extended its line northwards and a west curve, that is towards Liverpool, was installed. The did not initially allow the to run their passenger trains on its line but did agree to attach coaches to its own trains at Newton Junction for onward delivery to Manchester or Liverpool. This arrangement changed in 1832 when the decided that their own coaches would be used and passengers would have to change trains at Newton Junction.
thumb|Warrington Junction Station from Views on the London & North Western Railway - Northern Division 1848
The space in and around the station became more congested when the Haydock colliery line connected to the towards Manchester in December 1831 and then crossed the via an at-grade almost right-angled crossing to join the towards Warrington in 1832. The objected to this at-grade crossing they were unable to do much about it due to an existing right-of-way for a tramway. This line then bifurcated with the main route continuing to join the line south of the station, the branch turned eastwards into a dead-end from which a further line crossed south of the station, crossing the west curve, again at-grade, to the Sankey Canal at Wharf. There was a spur into Muspratt's vitriol works which closed in 1873.
A further connection towards Manchester was made when the east curve opened on 4 July 1837, creating another at-grade crossing with the Haydock colliery line.
The two curves had a very tight radii causing problems leading to breakages of crank axles on early locomotives leading in turn to the introduction of Crewe type locomotives with outside cylinders. Trains travelling on the curves were restricted to a slow maximum speed, needing careful handling as the drivers needed to use a lot of power in the northwards direction, because of the gradient of 1 in 85 for the up to the junctions, and then ease off under control into the station.
The use of the east curve reduced considerably when the Manchester and Birmingham Railway opened from to on 10 August 1842. The east curve continued to be used by Manchester to Chester trains and those from the south heading further north than the Liverpool to Manchester line via the North Union Railway.
The direct line from Winwick, just north of Warrington, to Golbourne, north of the former (the Winwick cut-off) on the former Wigan Branch Railway line opened on 1 August 1864 cutting the station out of the route of most of the long-distance north–south traffic.
Passenger services from the south to Liverpool reduced dramatically in 1869 when the Runcorn Railway Bridge was opened by the , although the Newton route was still used by some freight trains.
Names and governance
The station has had a variety of names, when the opened the line in 1830 the stopping place was called Viaduct. The following year, when the connection between the and the was made it was renamed to Warrington Junction.
On 1 January 1835 the was acquired by the Grand Junction Railway (GJR) which opened the remainder of its line to Birmingham in July 1837, thus providing through services between Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.
When the first Bradshaw's Guide was published in 1839 the station was called Newton Junction, contemporary Ordnance Survey mapping also shows the station as Newton Junction. In 1903 an additional footbridge was provided from platform 1 to platform 2 and a covered walkway provided to platform 5, the walkway was still in existence in 1973 but had gone by 1975.
A station building was located in the angle of the to Manchester main line and the west curve (at the western end of platforms 2 and 3), it was probably built 1835–1840.