page_title: Parkside railway station (Merseyside)
section_title: First station
hierarchical_section_title: Parkside railway station (Merseyside) / First station
caption_attribution_description: English: The original station at Parkside on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, about half way between Liverpool and Manchester, where trains stopped to take on coke and water. It was here that the leading Liverpool M.P. and promoter of the railway William Huskisson was fatally injured on the railway's opening day in September 1830. With other passengers Huskisson had alighted from the train and was talking to the Prime Minister through the window of his special carriage when the Rocket began bearing down on the party on the other track. Huskisson tried to clamber into the Prime Minister's carriage, but the door that he was trying to pull himself up by swung open and was struck by the oncoming locomotive. Huskisson fell, and his leg was crushed by the engine. He died later that day.Parkside station was replaced in 1839 by a new station 350m to the east (which itself closed in 1878). But its site is recorded by a memorial to Huskisson by the side of the line with a marble plaque, close to the site of the accident.
context_page_description: Parkside railway station was an original station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. It then became the interchange station between lines when the Wigan Branch Railway opened in 1832, moving to the physical junction of the two lines in 1838. The station continued as an interchange until being by-passed in 1847 when a west curve was opened to facilitate north-south links that did not go through the station. Traffic declined further after the Winwick cut-off opened in 1864 leading to closure in 1878.
context_section_description: The original Parkside station opened on 17 September 1830 as part of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), and was one of the oldest passenger railway stations in the world. 
  These early intermediate stations were often little more than halts, usually positioned where the railway was crossed by a road or turnpike. This probably accounts for variations in the names of these stopping places, this station was located where Parkside Lane (later called Warrington Road, a road between Wigan and Warrington) crossed the line.  Quick (2019) reports that the station was variously known as Parkside, Park Side and Parkside & Wigan Junction in its first decade of existence before settling on Parkside.
   
  During the opening ceremony the MP William Huskisson was killed in an accident at the station. A memorial to Huskisson was paid for by the railway and erected at the trackside in 1831. The memorial  has subsequently been granted listed building status and remains at the site of the original station near Newton-le-Willows.
  Parkside was one of only two intermediate stops on the L&MR where locomotives could be fuelled and watered (the other was at Eccles), it was well placed to do so being about halfway along the line, 14 miles 58 chains (23.7 km) from Edge Hill and 14 miles 29 chains (23.1 km) from Manchester Liverpool Road. In the  early days the water was pre-heated by a lineside boiler. The boiler's chimney can be seen on the right in Bury's print.
  The Wigan Branch Railway (WBR) opened on 3 September 1832 forming a junction with the L&MR to the East of Parkside station with an east curve (that is towards Manchester). A west curve and a flat crossing of the L&MR had been planned, and authorised, but weren't built because of financial considerations. One of these unconstructed sections had been intended to meet a similarly unconstructed east curve of the Warrington and Newton Railway which had also not been constructed for the same reason.
  The lack of these two curves made through south-north journeys very difficult, for example a train or carriages coming from Warrington in the south heading to Wigan in the north would have to pass through Newton Junction station, reverse onto the mainline, pass through the station again, pass through Parkside station, then reverse again to take the WBR, avoiding any interference with the regular and busy traffic already using the L&MR. This would have undoubtedly have caused operational problems and therefore Parkside became the terminus station for trains on the WBR. There is doubt about how any transfer of passengers took place between the lines, it is unlikely that WBR trains ran from their single-track railway into the station on the L&MR double track, they would have had to reverse to do so, the WBR train likely stopped before the junction and passengers simply walked to the L&MR station.
  Sweeney (2008) records there were complaints in October 1832 that passengers had to wait without shelter when changing trains, and the railways jointly funded the building of a waiting shed.
  In 1834 the WBR became part of the North Union Railway (NUR). By 1837 there were 5 tracks at Parkside, Up and Down L&MR lines, Up and Down NUR lines (the NUR had by now installed its second running line) and a siding which ran into the point of the junction, this siding was probably used for an engine shed. The illustration by Tate shows the new station with the four lines running away from the junction to where the first station was located before the overbridge in the distance, also to be seen are the two NUR lines going to the right towards Wigan.
  After the passenger station was moved to the junction this first station remained open as a goods station, being labelled a "Luggage Station" on the 1849 OS map. It is not recorded when the goods station closed but by the 1894 edition of the Ordnance Survey the site was labelled as a pumping station with a couple of sidings leading into it.
caption: Taking in water at Parkside, from Bury's Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 1831
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