Borderlands line

Borderlands Line
A Class 150 DMU on the Borderlands Line near Bidston.
Overview
Owner	Network Rail
Locale	Wrexham Flintshire Cheshire Merseyside
Termini	Wrexham Central Bidston (Birkenhead)
Stations	15 with Wrexham General and Shotton as interchanges with main line services
Service
Type	Heavy rail
System	National Rail
Operator(s)	Arriva Trains Wales
Rolling stock	Class 150 Sprinter
Technical
Track gauge	56.5 (standard gauge)

Borderlands Line
Wirral line to Birkenhead Bidston Bidston Sidings Wirral line to West Kirby Upton M53 motorway Storeton Heswall A540 Merseytravel limit Neston Birkenhead Railway Burton Point England Wales border Sealand Rifle Range Halt Birkenhead Junction Golf Club Platform   Shotton Paper Deeside Industrial Park Chester & Connah's Quay Rly Chester Golf Club Halt Hawarden Bridge Hawarden Bridge over River Dee Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway Shotton North Wales Coast Line A494 Hawarden A55 Buckley Castle Cement Hope Exchange Chester–Denbigh line Penyffordd Sidings Penyffordd Hope River Alyn Caergwrle Cefn-y-Bedd A541 Cegidog Viaduct over River Cegidog Gwersyllt A483 Shrewsbury–Chester line to Chester Wrexham and Minera Railway Wheatsheaf Junction Gwersyllt Junction WM&CQ Brymbo branch Rhosddu Halt Wrexham General Shrewsbury–Chester line to Shrewsbury Wrexham Central Wrexham and Ellesmere Rly

The Borderlands Line (Welsh: Llinell y Gororau) is the railway line between Wrexham, Wales, and Bidston, Wirral, England.

Passenger train services are operated by Arriva Trains Wales between Wrexham Central and Bidston. Trains run every hour Monday to Saturday daytime, every two hours after 18:45 and on Sundays. Connections with other National Rail services are at Bidston (for Merseyrail services to West Kirby, Birkenhead and Liverpool), Shotton (for Chester and the North Wales Coast Line) and Wrexham General (for the Shrewsbury-Chester Line).

The line is sometimes also referred to as the Mid Wirral Line.

Holders of the Concessionary Travel Pass resident in Wrexham and Flintshire can travel free along part of the line, from Wrexham Central Station to Hawarden Bridge Station. Holders of the Merseytravel Concessionary Travel Pass can travel free along another part of the line, from Heswall Station to Bidston Station.

Passenger services

The train service is normally operated with Class 150s. It was formerly operated by Class 153s, but in October 2006 the operator started using Class 150s or paired Class 153 units, but the latter disappeared in favour of the Class 150s in December 2006.

Upon privatisation, passenger services were transferred from Regional Railways to North West Trains, later known as First North Western. In 2003, a review led to the creation of the All-Wales Franchise, meaning services were transferred to Wales & Borders Trains. Arriva Trains Wales succeeded Wales & Borders on 8 December 2003, and has operated all passenger services on the line since. Future electrification plans could see the line transfer to Merseyrail .

Infrastructure History

The southern part of the line was built by the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway (WMCQR) and the northern part by the North Wales and Liverpool Railway, a joint committee of the WMCQR and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. Both railways were acquired by the Great Central Railway on 1 January 1905.

Two Wirral stations on the line closed in the 1950s; Storeton in 1951 and Burton Point in 1955. No trace of the station at Storeton remains, yet Burton Point station is still almost entirely intact, the station buildings currently forming part of a garden centre.

Development

The Wirral's other railway routes are provided with frequent Merseyrail electric trains. The Borderlands Line has a relatively infrequent diesel operated service.

Proposals exist to electrify some or all of the line and incorporate it into the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail network, allowing through services to Birkenhead and Liverpool with new stations at Deeside Industrial Park, Woodchurch and Beechwood, but nothing definitive has been confirmed. In August 2006 it was announced there would be a feasibility study into the 3rd-rail electrification of the line.

There have been proposals included in the electrification plan for the construction of two new stations on the Wirral section of the line; Beechwood between Bidston and Upton to serve the Beechwood estate, and Woodchurch to serve Prenton, the Woodchurch estate and the North Cheshire Business Park as well as providing connections to and from most of West Wirral's bus services to Birkenhead, and to "park and ride" travellers from other parts of the Wirral via the M53 motorway.

External links

• Official Website
• Wrexham-Birkenhead Rail Users' Association
• The Wrexham-Bidston Line
• PDF detailing possible addition to Wirral Line services (Page 33) - broken link