Wimping it at the Triangle

I was always a bit of a wimp and Merseyside was probably not the easiest place to be growing up as a less than rugged adolescent. I concluded early on that the best way to avoid trouble was to keep clear of the dodgier parts of town. Isn’t it extraordinary how well we got to know our own patch, our own meaningful urban geography, by the time we are about twelve? After all, it could be a matter of life or a smack in the face. We knew which bits we were likely to be OK in, and those where some risks would be taken just by being there. The name “Seacombe,” itself, sounded vaguely threatening to me, at around that time. We knew the names of legendary bad boys who came from there, whose reputations for violence and mayhem went before them. I feel a shudder of apprehension now, as I dredge their names up from the distant past. I dare not print them here for fear of reprisals.

That area between New Brighton and Liscard that was sometimes referred to as Upper Brighton was generally alright, though even there I had once been captured by a gang on my way home from Vaughan Road Junior School. They had detained me for half an hour in a hut which they had built out of rubble on wasteland at the corner of Sutton Road.

On that occasion, I had been forced to drink sour milk from a pint glass bottle, but it was only when I had burst into tears that I had been released to scuttle home. My captors had not been quite sure how to respond to raw emotion, or maybe it was just their tea-time.

That miscalculation apart, we knew our immediate environment well and could name all the streets for miles around. A cohesive group, we knew all our peers and as we progressed into our teens we felt comparatively comfortable and confident in our own neck of the woods. The trouble was that we had also become very interested in railways and their more interesting bits tended to be in somewhat rougher districts that were less well known to us. What made ventures that were outside our comfort zone a physical possibility was the ownership of a bike. Mine was an Elswick Hopper.

There was another problem. We were grammar school lads. Our dads commuted to white collar jobs in the city. Our mums stayed home and met our every need [almost]. When we ventured into railway territory - the terraced streets that characterised the immediate environment of engine sheds, sidings and marshalling yards, we stood out like a sore thumb. We might actually have got by a bit more easily with stronger regional accents.

I had a taste of how uncomfortable meetings with strangers could be when I was intercepted by a boy who was at least as old as me when I was on my return home from Birkenhead Woodside station, clutching my new Western Region Timetable. That had taken quite a lot of explaining - more like grovelling, in truth - before I had been allowed to proceed homewards. He obviously did not share my interest in the timings of the expresses to Paddington.

The nearest railway location to home of real interest was the ex-GCR Bidston shed, coded 6F. It not only had ex-LMS types that we were familiar with on our rail trips to Liverpool, Chester and Crewe, but an allocation of three ex-LNER J94s and the possibility of seeing ex-GCR classes like the Robinson 2-8-0s. Bidston’s allocation of BR Standard 2-10-0s worked the John Summers iron ore trains from Bidston Dock to the steelworks at Shotton.

To get to Bidston shed, we had to cycle across the boggy Bidston Moss along a cinder path, eventually crossing the electrified third rail New Brighton line by carrying our bikes over a footbridge, before reaching Bidston station. I did not realise it at the time, but where that path skirted a large pond that we knew as the Triangle, we were taking the track bed of the former direct link between Seacombe station and New Brighton. This third link, which used to complete the triangle when added to the Seacombe to Bidston and Bidston to New Brighton lines, had long been removed, but, of course, it had given the pond the name we knew it by – the Triangle.

The pond itself was all that remained of the former Wallasey Pool, a tidal creek from the River Mersey, into which ran the River Birket. Together, they served to almost cut Wallasey off as an island at the top of the Wirral peninsula. The creek had been transformed into the Birkenhead dock system, the last and most landward addition to which was Bidston Dock. After that had been constructed, all that was left of the former natural creek itself was the pond at the Triangle.

There was a second triangle of lines a little closer to Bidston, formed by the Bidston to Birkenhead North, Bidston to New Brighton and New Brighton to Birkenhead North lines, though, to my knowledge, that space was never occupied by a pond. It, also, was part of Bidston Moss - low, flat and marshy ground. The railway layout was completed with the addition of the more recent sidings which served Bidston Dock from the early 1950’s and allowed bulk carriers to be unloaded into the trains of ore hoppers bound for Summers’ steelworks at Shotton. This relatively new link was made between the two triangles and initially ran parallel to the old Seacombe branch.

The Triangle was already well known to us. It was a bit of a fishing location and certainly a wildlife haven. We were not without interest in both activities. The Triangle, however, came under the description of dodgy territory, as explained above. There could easily be gangs of lads there that we did not know. They could have been from Seacombe or Poulton, which we also thought of as a bit rough and therefore just as risky. This meant that I discounted it as a potentially relaxing location for a bit of fishing, which was inevitably going to be a time-consuming activity. However, it was just about possible for a “surgical strike” type nature hunt, looking for frog spawn, frogs, toads and newts, if we were feeling particularly brave. It was, after all, the nearest bit of wild landscape to our homes, apart from the shoreline, in what was a markedly built up area, overall.

My friend, Ian Hughes, has reminded me that we had at least one bad experience at the Triangle. “We were taken hostage by a large gang of lads with a very wide range of ages. They were so-say concerned about our jar of frogs and newts. When we attempted to make a getaway on our bikes, one of them threw a pointed stick through my back wheel which stopped me momentarily and broke a couple of spokes. We went straight to Elleray Park "Police Station" to report what had happened but did not receive much sympathy from the constable. On another occasion, myself and another friend had our bikes stolen down there but with the help of some adults, we gave chase and the bikes were dropped onto the rough ground by the young thieves, who then made a run for it”

Elleray Park police station was the smallest possible police presence, though the nearest one to our houses. It consisted of a rectangular concrete block-house at the junction of Hose Side Road and Rockland Road and it looked more like just a door in the wall. It was only rarely manned and we would have been fortunate to find a constable in residence and even more so to find one who was the slightest bit interested in anything we had to say.   

However, and in spite of these previous experiences, we were prepared to run the gauntlet presented by whatever youths [or smaller children in large numbers] were present at the Triangle, in order to get to Bidston shed. It would be an exaggeration to say that we accomplished this mission with regularity. We probably managed it two or three times altogether, holding our breath as we sped along the cinder path alongside the Triangle pond itself. We could have chosen a long way around by road but that would have meant wandering into the north end of Birkenhead, so, enough said.

We felt quite safe once we reached the sheds. We found out early on that the sort of lads who caused trouble at the Triangle, were not the sort of lads who went train spotting. That was true wherever we went thereafter. We had effectively joined a new tribe that was defined by shared interest rather than territorial claims, one I still feel part of today.

The shed closed in 1963 and its allocation was transferred to Birkenhead [6C then 8H]. Birkenhead shed is another story altogether, but that’s quite enough exciting reminiscences for now. I think its time to go for a little lie down. Oh, and if you come from Poulton yourself and you have some questions to ask me, before you tap me on the shoulder out of the blue, I’d like you to know that I’m getting on a bit now and I have to wear glasses. And anyway, it wasn’t me. Sorry mate, I wasn’t even there on that day.

BR Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 No. 92046 at Bidston MPD on 16 April 1961 in a photograph taken by John Dyer. I am very grateful to John for allowing me to include it in this article. The Bidston trio of 92045/6/7 were regulars on the Shotton iron ore trains and could also be seen at work on freight trains in the Birkenhead dock system.

[This article is adapted from one published in the current edition of the Railway Antiques Gazette. I am grateful to the editor, Tim Petchey, for its inclusion here as well.]