24th November 2020 · “Ends of the Lines – part 1”

Presenter: John Cowlishaw

John zoomed in, from Wrexham, to our gathering on 24th November with his “Ends of the Lines” presentation. This is a developing work and, acknowledging many of the images from the camera of Merseyside Branch stalwart, Edgar Richards, John presents ’then’ (and ‘now’ in a lot of cases) images of stations which are or were termini for passenger services. Starting at Wrexham Central station we made our way to Liverpool Lime Street, the long way round via Holyhead, Amlwch, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Chester Northgate, West Kirby, New Brighton, Birkenhead Woodside (image taken over the station wall off the top deck of a double decker bus!), Seacombe and Egremont, St Helens Central, both stations at Buxton (identically designed for the LNWR and MR respectively and located next door to each other), Kirkby and Ormskirk (in both cases where Merseyrail electric services meet Northern Rail diesel services to other locations end on with buffers to separate them), Blackpool Central with the Tower towering over it, Windermere and Coniston. We saw plenty of steam hauled services – 6233 Duchess of Sutherland on the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen undertaking her own rail tour to North Wales, Stanier Cl.5s, Royal Scots, GWR Manors and Pannier Tank 4683, diesel locomotives, DMUs, EMUs both AC and DC (overhead and 3rd rail). John also considered some of the current termini which may not be for much longer with proposals to extend services beyond them.