Notes: Gladstone Dock station was situated on the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway’s (LYR) North Mersey Branch railway which ran from Fazakerley Junction on their Liverpool and Wigan line to North Mersey Goods station. The line also had connections to the Liverpool and Preston line at Aintree and the Liverpool and Southport line near to Litherland (at North Mersey Branch Junction). The North Mersey Branch had opened for goods only on 27 August 1866 before the Liverpool docks had even reached North Mersey but the LYR had realised that it was only a matter of time before they did and by the end of the 19th century the goods station was one of the busiest in the Liverpool area.

The LYR was one of the pioneers of electrification their Liverpool and Southport line first seeing electric passenger trains on 22 March 1904 using the third rail system. The success of the electrification of that line led to further developments and in 1906 the North Mersey Branch was electrified from North Mersey Branch Junction to Aintree. Electric services between Liverpool Exchange and Aintree LYR began on 1 June 1906 and two additional stations were opened at Linacre Lane and Ford to serve them.

By the second decade of the 20th century the docks had spread northwards and work was underway on the Gladstone Dock complex. Hundreds of workers were employed there and the first section, a graving dock, opened in 1913.

A passenger line, the Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR) which opened on 6 March 1893 served the area the nearest station being at Seaforth Sands (opened as part of an extension on 30 April 1894). The LOR ran south along the full extent of the dock system passing through the city centre. During the electrification of 1906 live rails had actually extended west along the branch from North Mersey Branch Junction to make a connection with the LOR at Rimrose Road Junction to the east of Seaforth Sands. This had been done to allow through running of services between the two systems (From 2 July 1905 many LOR trains continued to Seaforth & Litherland station where connections with Liverpool and Southport line trains could be made).

Many suburbs had grown up in the Bootle area to the north of the city and the LYR considered that there would be demand for a link to Gladstone Dock. To serve a new station at Gladstone Dock required only a short length of electrification from the junction with the LOR at Seaforth Sands to a point on the branch adjacent to Regent Road and its junction with Shore Street.

Gladstone Dock station opened on 7 September 1914. The station was located on a curving section of a brick arch viaduct on the west side of Regent Road. There was only one platform which was on the west side of the viaduct. It was a timber construction that protruded out from the viaduct supported by trusses. Access was via a set of steps that led up from Shore Street. Facilities were basic there being only a simple timber booking office.

The line through the station was double track but only the up line which served the platform was electrified. To the north of the station a crossover allowed electric trains approaching the station on the down line to access the up line which was bi-directional and thereby reach the station. Goods trains passed through the station on their way into and out of North Mersey Goods via the appropriate line. The line at Gladstone Dock was controlled by North Mersey High Level signal box. It was located on the south side of Shore Road on the west side of the line. The box opened with the station on 7 September 1914 replacing an earlier one dating from 1886. It was a small LYR box with a twelve lever frame.

Gladstone Dock was served by trains that ran to and from Aintree LYR. In 1922 the LYR was merged into the London & North Western Railway (LNWR). In July 1922 there were seven trains in each direction Monday-to-Friday and eight on Saturdays as shown in the table below. The journey to Aintree took only seven minutes. There were no trains on Sundays.

On 1 January 1923 the LNWR became part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS). Gladstone Dock station had not lived up to the expectations of the LYR and was used by only a fraction of the passengers that used the LOR Seaforth Sands station. For this reason the LMS closed Gladstone Dock on 7 July 1924. The station can clearly be seen on a 1927 1:200 scale map but on subsequent maps it was absent. The station was still in-situ in 1937 but it had been demolished by the following year. The North Mersey High Level signal box closed sometime between March 1937 and 26 September 1938. The line between Gladstone Dock station and Rimrose Road Junction was de-electrified after the passenger service had ended.

Goods services continued to pass through the site of Gladstone Dock station until 2 February 1971 when the line between North Mersey Goods and North Mersey Branch Junction was closed completely (The LOR had already closed on 30 December 1956). North Mersey Goods closed in 1973 trains having to access it from the south by the dock board railway after 2 February 1971.

Since 1973 the area has been substantially altered and in 2013 the site of Gladstone Dock station was inside the Liverpool dock estate. Nothing survived of the station nor the line on which it had stood.

Box diagram from Tony Graham

To see the other stations on the North Mersey Branch click on the station name: Linacre Road, Ford & Aintree Racecourse