As a boy growing up in the thirties, in common with many of my generation, I had a great interest in railways and in particular the locomotives. Living at the north end of Liverpool we never saw the very famous locomotives that hauled the expresses from Lime Street station, the largest ever seen in our district were the L. & Y. red 4-6-0s and the newly introduced ubiquitous “Black Fives”.
However, there was one day that was different, really special, Grand National Day, a Friday then, when all the local schools were closed because of traffic hazards. This gave us the opportunity to see the numerous specials hauled by locomotives from other regions, all arriving at the three Aintree stations.
There was the Cheshire Lines station (now completely gone), where the five platforms were fully used for one day a year. The special attraction to us was the arrival about one o’clock of the Pullman Special from Kings Cross hauled by a Flying Scotsman type of engine.
Even busier was the Aintree L.M.S. using its four platforms to accommodate lengthened electric trains arriving every five minutes or so, steam hauled trains from every direction and even the three coach Overhead Railway units from the docks. Lastly there was the race day only platform taking trains from the north and east.
Knowing where to position ourselves we were able to view the larger engines running off towards Southport or Burscough to turn round for the return journey. The local turntable was unable to take these famous “names”. Great days for us, not to be repeated for long after WW2 as coaches and private cars replaced much of the rail traffic. It is surprising to many people these days that the railway companies were always able to run special trains as and when the need arose, often at short notice.
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