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Fazakerley railway station

railway station in Fazakerley, Liverpool, Merserside, England, UK

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ4837976 ↗
Source-derived summary

Fazakerley railway station serves the suburb of Fazakerley, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is a stop on the Headbolt Lane branch of the Northern Line on the Merseyrail network.

History

The Liverpool and Bury Railway (L&BR) was authorised in 1845 but, while it was under construction, the L&BR amalgamated with the Manchester and Leeds Railway (M&LR) in 1846; the M&LR in turn was renamed the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1847. The line opened on 20 November 1848; one of the original stations was Simonswood. This station was renamed twice: it had become Aintree by 1850 and it took its present name Fazakerley in March 1860 to avoid confusion with the nearby Aintree station on a different line, which had opened in 1849.

At the time of opening, it lay 29+1⁄2 miles (47.5 km) from Bury, but it is now 31 miles 31 chains (50.5 km) from Manchester Victoria, via Wigan Wallgate.

To the north-east of the station is Fazakerley Junction, 30 miles 72 chains (49.7 km) from Manchester Victoria, which is where the North Mersey Branch once headed westwards towards Gladstone Dock. The branch has closed, but the junction remains as the point where the double track out of Liverpool becomes single track for the last few miles into Kirkby. The line eastwards was singled in May 1970, though through running beyond Kirkby (to Wigan Wallgate and Bolton) continued until the inauguration of electric operation in May 1977.

Facilities

In common with most Merseyrail stations, it is staffed throughout the day; the street-level ticket office opens 15 minutes prior to start of service and closes at 00:25 each evening (including Sundays).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fazakerley railway station” is railway station in Fazakerley, Liverpool, Merserside, England, UK. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fazakerley, railway and station, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1845, 1846, 1847, 1848—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Fazakerley, railway and station is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “railway station in Fazakerley, Liverpool, Merserside, England, UK” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4837976. The first chronological checks are 1845, 1846, 1847 and 1848.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Fazakerley railway station”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Fazakerley railway station primary sources, Fazakerley railway station archive and Fazakerley research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fazakerley railway station”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Fazakerley railway station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.