Merseyside was the home of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, opened in 1830 as probably the first steam-worked passenger railway. Birkenhead, “over the water” from Liverpool on the west bank of the Mersey estuary, was also an important port and it did not take long for it to seek connection with the growing railway network. The Chester & Birkenhead Railway was authorised in 1837, with the intention of cooperation with the Chester & Crewe Railway, and opened in September 1840, by which time the C&C had been taken over by the Grand Junction Railway, which saw the C&B as a threat to its traffic to Liverpool. It therefore insisted on separate stations at Chester when it opened eight days after the C&B, with all goods and passengers having to be transferred between the two, despite the existence of a through line.
The Birkenhead terminus was at Grange Lane, apparently chosen to be equidistant from the three ferry terminals from which passengers could travel to and from Liverpool Pier Head. The C&B had acquired the charter to operate the ferries in 1838, but in 1841 sold the rights to Birkenhead Corporation, which continued to run the ferries until 1st December 1969 when the newly-created Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive took over. The initial service was five trains either way, increased to two-hourly when the line was doubled in December 1840. Grange Lane station soon proved unsatisfactory so just over four years after opening the line was extended to Monks Ferry, mostly in tunnel. In 1850 there were eleven services each way, including one to and one from London Euston, one to Crewe and two from Crewe.
In 1847 the C&B became part of the Birkenhead, Lancashire & Cheshire Railway, which by 1850 had opened as far as Warrington (then in Lancashire) and in 1859 was renamed the Birkenhead Railway. The following year it was taken over jointly by the Great Western and London & North Western Railways. The GWR introduced through services to and from Paddington in 1861 and one to and from Dover in 1863, when there were thirteen departures each weekday.
In due course, Monks Ferry too became inadequate as traffic increased and a line was planned to another new station adjacent to Woodside Ferry. That line opened on 31st March 1878, when Monks Ferry closed to passengers, though it remained as a goods station until 1961, with private sidings lasting into the late 1960s. Woodside, like Monks Ferry, was not conveniently placed for the town of Birkenhead, so on 1st January 1889 Birkenhead Town opened very close to the original station on Grange Lane.
Woodside was an imposing station, with a high double arched roof over its five platforms, but the proximity of the tunnel mouth severely restricted the length of trains which it could accommodate; in latter days a maximum of only seven coaches and a locomotive could
