In this fourth edition of Branch Lines, I travel on the well-known Borderlands Line from Bidston to Wrexham Central. However, for some reason, Wrexham Central is only receiving an hourly service until 28th November 2025, as indicated on the board at Wrexham Central station itself. I have visited the stations along this line several times and look forward to sharing my experiences in a blog soon.

The first station along the line is Upton, which is also the least used station in Merseyside, receiving only 15,360 passengers, a decrease from the previous year’s 22,230. I have a fondness for Upton as it’s where I began my blogging and vlogging journey about 10 years ago when I lived in Hoylake. I visited Upton Station for the first of many times then. However, let’s continue with the journey.

We travel from Upton along the M53 towards Chester and Runcorn. The train heads to Heswall, the last stop before crossing the border from the Wirral into Cheshire and continuing to North Wales. From Heswall, our next stop is Neston, originally known as Neston North. Another station on the old Wirral Way was Neston South, which closed in 1954.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous branch line posts, I want to review the line, showcasing it from the train and capturing photos at each station along the way. The Borderlands line has approximately 15 stations, from Bidston to Wrexham Central, with some being quite small and accommodating only two or three-car trains.

The scenery is also quite lovely as we make our way towards Shotton, crossing over the River Dee. We stop at Hawarden Bridge, a request stop, which I might feature on the blog if you’re interested in seeing that. Shotton is an interesting station with both high and low-level platforms for Chester/Wrexham, as well as Llandudno and Holyhead.

Having left Shotton, we are now firmly in North Wales, heading towards Wrexham. I previously mentioned that we are only continuing to Wrexham General, with a replacement bus to Wrexham Central. This seems unusual, as I haven’t found any information explaining the reason for this. My only guess is that it might be due to the tight turnaround, especially considering it’s Autumn.

Leaving Shotton, our next stop is Hawarden station, the main station in the town of Hawarden. It’s pronounced ‘Har-den’ rather than as it’s spelled. After Hawarden, we reach Buckley, another small station with its own station building, which is unfortunately no longer in use.

We arrive at our first Welsh-named station, Penyffordd, which I found quite difficult to pronounce. Our next few stops will bring us slowly towards Wrexham General. However, we are actually running on time, considering we left Bidston a few minutes late, which isn’t too bad. In the summer of 2024, the timetable changed to a 45-minute frequency.

This is the first time this has happened in the long history of this line, under both Arriva Trains Wales and TfW. It has always been an hourly service, or even a two-hourly service in some circumstances. This also means that Hawarden Bridge station now receives a frequent service, whereas before it never did.

As we make our way to Wrexham Central by minibus, we reach our final stop. This line evokes many memories from my early days on YouTube, exploring the line, visiting every station, and simply enjoying the journey along the Borderlands line. I remember the introduction of the Class 230s in 2023 vividly; it was an exciting day!

I travelled on 230010 towards Wrexham and even made a video on the new trains. Eventually, the Class 197s arrived on the line to replace the old Class 150s, which were in dire need of retirement. Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of those units, but I really like the Class 197. Sadly, I wasn’t able to ride on one this time around.

Over the next few years the Borderlands line is going to go under some dramatic changes introducing a metro style service with trains running upto every 15 minutes, extending the line through to Liverpool Central to give more connectivity from Wrexham to Liverpool without changing trains at Bidston. This is something I would personally like to see as it would give Merseyrail some competition.

That feeling when you have a major plan to electrify certain sections of the North Wales network, including the main line from Chester down towards Holyhead and possibly Llandudno as well. Additionally, there are plans to electrify the Borderlands line, which will also be renamed the Wrexham to Liverpool line to align with the rest of the Wirral lines into Liverpool.

I hope you’re enjoying this series so far. I’m having a great time being creative with my photos from the train and capturing images on the platforms at each station. I’m looking forward to sharing my next post from Wigan Wallgate to Headbolt Lane. Please consider subscribing so you don’t miss out.