Birkenhead Stations Committee

The Birkenhead Stations Joint Committee was a committee that controlled various railway stations in the Birkenhead area. It was founded as the Birkenhead Agreement in 1897 and lasted until 1979, when the committee was dissolved.

Birkenhead General (BJR)
Birkenhead General Station was the Birkenhead terminus of the Birkenhead Junction Railway, which ran to Parkgate, Oxton, Wallasey and Chester, thence onward to points across the country. With six platforms it was the largest of the stations in the agreement; it was closed in stages from 1954, with only three platforms remaining by the time the station closed in 1972. Birkenhead General also housed the main interchange station of the Birkenhead Underground Railway, and the underground station was also a member of the committee.

Birkenhead General (BUR)
Birkenhead General (Low Level) was accessed via a series of stairs from the main concourse of the BJR terminus. It had two platforms and saw trains to both Birkenhead South (another member of the committee) and Wallasey; this line closed in 1905 but both stations remained members of the committee in absentia.

Birkenhead South (BUR)
Birkenhead South Station was the southern terminus of the BUR.

Birkenhead Laird Street (CWR)
Birkenhead Laird Street Station was the terminus of the Central Wirral Railway, the line that ran to Chester Northgate and Wrexham. This railway had originally been part of the NWLR, itself a subsidiary of the WMCQR, but in 1900 the line became independent and the CWR extended its line from Bidston to Laird Street, opening up a new six platform station (two platforms were short, locomotive storage bay platforms but are included here for completeness). Laird Street closed, like General, in phases, the first closure occurring in 1946, when the platforms were truncated, removing the bays, and ended in 1970, when the whole station was closed completely.