Kirkdale station - did it ever have four platforms?

[Revaulx]

What I also remember from those 1970s journeys was the absolute dismal and depressing approach by train into Liverpool all the way from Kirkdale onwards - even on the sunniest of days - through acres of grey, abandoned railway land, a handful of rusting sidings still in place, derelict-looking industrial premises & docks alongside the track and none of the reclamation by nature & regeneration which has subsequently happened.

I did Garston - Kirkby just after the Garston line had reopened, and was struck by the hive of activity that was the Tate & Lyle refinery amidst the surrounding dereliction.

A couple of years later and that had gone also.

 

[Lloyds siding]

The line at the far left is the remnant of the CLC branch from the |North Liverpool line (Hunts Cross-Aintree) via Walton on the Hill to Huskisson Goods.
There was some footage of the High Level Coal Branch on a VHS tape called Steam Around Liverpool. Not sure if it has been re-released on DVD. Kirkdale station itself used to have a scrap metal yard, owned by one J. Puddifer, I think with a siding by the goods lines. I seem to recollect seeing a magnetic crane being used to separate ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal there.

AFAIK the scrap yard is still there. It must be 2-3 years since I last went through Kirkdale...but the magnetic crane was still in full swing then (making an unholy noise as it dropped the scrap).

 

[Lloyds siding]

The aerial picture in the link in Post #2 is Bank Hall station on the Southport line, not Kirkdale on the Ormskirk/Wigan lines.
Bank Hall definitely did have four platforms in the past, here's a photo of Bank Hall from the 1960s - taken presumably from that bridge in the upper left of the aerial picture.

Bank Hall station. Copyright Ben Brooksbank at geograph.org.uk. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0

Unfortunately, historic photos of Kirkdale station seem to be few and far between.

It is indeed Bank Hall taken from that footbridge (still there). What has fooled Bletchleyite into thinking it's Kirkdale are the emus visible in the aerial photo. It seems in the L&Y and LMS eras that Bank Hall was used extensively for stabling. I've seen a photo from the L&Y era with the sidings stuffed with emus. As you can see in the above photo from the 1960s, several of the sidings are still electrified; I do remember that the peak hour services from Liverpool Exchange would be supplemented by units held here.
Back to Kirkdale:As Springs Branch has said there was a revamp in 1977 as part of the Kirkby electrification. The stations got revamped, they were busy removing the old gas lighting from Kirkdale when British Gas pointed out that the contract between the L&Y and the Liverpool Gas Co. from 1899 was still extant and this agreement said that the railway would use gas lighting at Kirkdale for the next 100 years, and they expected the successors of the L&Y would honour the agreement with the successors to Liverpool Gas Co. Reluctantly British Rail installed brand new gas lighting at Kirkdale! They got out of the contract I think in the late 1980s.