| Huyton
Railway Station on the Liverpool
Manchester Railway served a
largish village some seven miles
fromLiverpool Lime Street
station. In the sixties, It was
an unremarkable village and even
boasted a renowned private young
ladies’ college on one side
of the tracks and on the other
side a girls approved school!
It's only real claim to fame was
that Harold Wilson,
Prime-Minister was the local MP! The
station boasted two platforms in
a rural idyll in 1832. However, a
princely sum was spent in the
1860s to develop when the
Liverpool Union Railway opened a
further two tracks and platforms
The main station building was
upgraded into a very
distinguished station building on
Platform One which was way beyond
its rural status in the 1860's.
This seemed
to be linked with Queen
Victoria's recent love of rail
travel and that the distance from
Huyton Station to stately
Knowsley Hall was a mere two
miles. Hence, Victoria's frequent
weekly stays with the Earl of
Derby at Knowsley with all the
pomp and pride as she rode by in
an open coach and horse
procession.
We now move
some ninety plus years into the
swinging sixties. And by this
time crossing the railway was by
two subways. One from inside the
main building to all platforms.
The second, a public subway, was
outside the station complex with
an entrance (circled) onto the
island platform with large double
LMR rusty white wrought iron
gates. One of this pair of gates
was always latched open and was
an ideal spot for trainspotting!
(Huyton
Station Attribution: John Martin)
My primary
school was a five-minute walk if
we ran after each school day. Our
focus was the afternoon 3.45
express service, Lime Street to
Newcastle often headed by a
Jubilee 4-6-0 Jubilee Class
roaring past the home/distant
signal right above us by the big
red gates. Magical!
So, you would
think! Until the spectre of
“Eggy Joe” appeared,
leaping down onto the barrow
crossing, terror in his heart as
he chased us back down the subway
path. The Jubilee would have
rushed past before we could find
another vantage point.
Other times
he would appear to be sweeping
the main platform, lull us and
then come charging at us from
platform four. The result was
always the same, we lost!
Mentally scarred older boys, even
fathers and uncles, told of their
own confrontations with the
fearsome porter, “Eggy
Joe!”
The man was a
trainspotters nightmare. We never
ever heard what his real name
was. He wasn’t a big or
hefty man, but he would certainly
by his looks be in his forties or
fifties. A part cigarette would
always be hanging from the corner
of his mouth and his breath was
rank! Despite all his perceived
horribleness,Eggy Joe was
a legend on his own platforms!
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