Liverpool South Parkway railway station and bus interchange lies in the Garston district of Liverpool, bringing together main line services, the Merseyrail rapid transit network and bus connections to Liverpool John Lennon Airport in the neighbouring suburb of Speke. The station occupies the southern reaches of Merseyrail’s Northern Line and sits at the junction of two separate main lines: the Merseytravel City Line running between Liverpool and Manchester via Warrington, and the Liverpool branch of the West Coast Main Line heading south to London via Crewe.
A History of Two Lines
The site where the station now stands was historically crossed by two distinct railway routes. The Cheshire Lines Committee line ran east to west between Liverpool Central and Manchester via Warrington Central, while the St Helens Railway route crossed from northwest to southeast, connecting Liverpool Lime Street to Warrington Bank Quay. In 1868, the latter became part of the West Coast Main Line when the Runcorn Railway Bridge opened a new connection to Crewe. For much of their history, the two lines were served by separate local stations – Garston station and Allerton station – though both were technically within Garston. The first proposals for a combined interchange here date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Merseyrail’s semi-underground network was being planned, but those early schemes involved an outer orbital line that closed in 1972 before any interchange could be built. The route from Liverpool Central to Garston also closed that same year, only to reopen in 1978 as part of the Merseyrail Northern Line and extend further east to Hunts Cross after 1983.
Construction and Opening
Work on the new station began in 2004. Allerton station closed in July 2005, and the replacement was built directly on its former site. The concourse, bus station and car park were constructed on land that had previously been the ground of South Liverpool F.C., a fact recorded on an information board along the footpath leading to the main road. The station opened on 11 June 2006, the day after Garston station closed, bringing both lines under one roof for the first time. The primary driver behind completing the project was improving public transport access to the rapidly expanding Liverpool John Lennon Airport, while also giving passengers across south Liverpool a direct interchange between Northern Line, City Line and West Coast Main Line trains.