Joining one of the first trips out of Kirkby’s new ?80m station

A little after 5.30am, a train silently pulled out of Kirkby in one of the most significant journeys on Merseyside for decades.

The Headbolt Lane to Liverpool Central service marked the first of its kind from the new £80m station ^[1] after an 18-month project bringing the designs to life. Now despite all the excitement of the new platforms and buildings, I must admit I wasn’t on the very first train out of Kirkby’s new transport hub.

I did however, join passengers – including Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram – on the slightly later 8.39 into town.

The station – which is fully accessible – is the first in the region to be served by the new £500m publicly owned battery powered trains. As part of an initial roll-out, services are limited to one every hour to Liverpool Central before extending to four every 60 minutes in a gradual progression.

First impressions? As the first new station built in Knowsley in a generation – Whiston opened in 1990 – it is expectedly clean, tidy and very, very bright. It boasts three platforms, two serving the line to Liverpool and another where connecting Northern trains can go on to as far as Blackburn.

The journey to delivering Headbolt Lane hasn’t been entirely smooth, with the build beset by issues caused by the collapse of the Buckingham Group into administration in August. As a result, Network Rail and its delivery partners will be working to complete some outstanding works including the car park.

The station is served by Headbolt Lane itself, but road and rail users may find some teething problems to begin with, as my maps app on my phone initially sent me into a neighbouring housing estate. Something to be wary of there.

The journey itself is what we have come to expect from the new publicly owned £500m fleet of battery operated trains. The short stretch between Headbolt Lane and Kirkby is run solely on the batteries, which can run up to 40 miles alone.

There were of course a few hiccups, we didn’t actually leave the new station until five minutes after the allocated departure time. For every cloud, however, there is a silver lining, with a lovely dog joining us for the 20-minute journey to Moorfields.

The new trains make it a much more pleasant journey, smooth and quiet with adequate seating for the short run into town. Thursday morning’s commute was busy with curious passengers carrying bikes and bags, wondering what all the fuss was about.

Once we left Kirkby, it was like a journey I’d made 100 times or more. Metro Mayor Mr Rotheram said he was “buzzing” to get the trains on at the new station, it would be fair to say with the quiet, smooth location the new fleet left from, it’s actually more of a hum.

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References

^{^} new £80m station (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
^{^} New State Pension amounts as 2024 rise ‘confirmed’ (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
^{^} Nurse sedated patients ‘for easier shift’ then bragged about it (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
^{^} Don’t miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the Echo Daily newsletter here (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
^{^} Win a lavish 5-night winter sun escape to Turkey with Cook’s Club Alanya hotel (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)