Timetables Worth Modelling
No. 9 Helsby

Jack Walne

Helsby is seven and a half miles from Chester on the line to Liverpool and to Warrington and Manchester; it is a junction for a branch which left the Birkenhead–Chester line at Hooton. In LNWR days both the main line and the branch were part of the Birkenhead Railway (LNWR and GWR Joint). The course of the main line was from southwest to north-east. Beyond Frodsham, the next station, 9¾ miles from Chester, Frodsham. viaduct carried the railway over the River Weaver. The Liverpool line diverged sharply from the Warrington and Manchester line at Frodsham Junction, 11 miles from Chester. From there the Liverpool line was LNWR but the line to Manchester continued as part of the joint Birkenhead Railway as far as Walton New Junction, south of Warrington. The Great Western had running powers, via Warrington Bank Quay and Earlestown East Junction, to Manchester Exchange.

About half a mile from Helsby. on the branch to Hooton and Birkenhead, were the sidings of a junction with the Cheshire Lines Committee , West Cheshire Junction. used by CLC goods trains from Birkenhead (from where the CLC appears to have had running powers). At Mouldsworth the single track CLC line joined the line from Chester Northgate to Manchester Central via Northwick, and Altrincham.

At Helsby, ‘down’ was from Chester and ‘up’ towards Chester; the branch conformed to those descriptions ‘down’ from Hooton to Helsby and ‘up’ from Helsby to Hooton. ‘Down’ and ‘up’ are used in this sense throughout this article. The sketch map shows the various lines in the area.

The buildings at Helsby were built of local stone, except for the signal box, a standard LNWR box type 3, on the central platform. This was a common practice on the Birkenhead Railway, at least from when the boxes were renewed, probably about 1900. (An 1890s track plan shows the box alongside the down line, opposite the junction.) The goods yard, with a loading bank but no goods shed, was on the up side of the main line; an industrial line connected the yard with Helsby quarry and with the CLC at Helsby and Alvanley station. A down siding. opposite the goods yard, was connected to the up branch line. The buildings and down siding still remain but the station is now unstaffed; the yard tracks have been lifted (and the yard has been built over). Even so the photographs. though recent, give some idea of the station in Birkenhead Railway days.

Train movements

The line between Chester and Frodsham, Junction was busy even in winter. In summer it was positively crowded with extra North Wales trains but in general they fitted quite well into the winter working timetable.