With thousands of racegoers expected to travel through Liverpool Lime Street on their way to Aintree for this week's Grand National Festival, a number of tips have been issued to smooth their journey.
The world-famous horse racing festival starts tomorrow, Thursday, 11 April with the Grand National itself being held on Saturday.
National Rail has recommended that racegoers should:
- Check their travel plans in advance at www.nationalrail.co.uk.
- Be aware that later services will be very busy and queuing systems will be in place at critical times.
- Make sure to leave plenty of time to catch their train home.
- Take note of Network Rail's motto of ‘be safe, be patient, be kind.
We recommend buying your ticket before you reach the station.
Suzanne Grant, chief commercial officer and deputy managing director at Merseyrail
During the three days of last year's festival, racegoers made over 105,000 journeys to and from Aintree, a number that is expected to be exceeded this year.
At Liverpool Lime Street station, there will be extra staff on duty throughout the festival, who have been planning for weeks to prepare for the expected thousands of extra passengers.
To enable people to board their trains safely, queuing systems may be in place to avoid passengers jumping their place for the trains.
Merseyrail will operate a special timetable between Liverpool City Centre and Aintree station, with trains running every seven and a half minutes before the start and after the finish of the races on each day of the festival.
We're really looking forward to welcoming Grand National-goers back to Liverpool Lime Street and helping them travel safely to and from Aintree.
I've got three top tips for passengers travelling to Aintree: plan ahead and know what train you want to catch before the day of the races. Allow more time than you might do usually to get on the train – there will probably be queues.
And finally, please respect each other and our staff while travelling. We want everyone to safely enjoy their rail journey to and from the races free from any bad behaviour.
Kyla Thomas, Liverpool Lime Street station manager
We are delighted to once again provide a special timetable for The Randox Grand National 2024 Festival. This is a huge event for the Liverpool City Region, and Merseyrail is proud to play such a vital role in ensuring people have a great day at the races.
Not only are we providing a seven-and-a-half-minute service, but as usual we will have entertainment and fun at the main stations festival goers will travel through.
It's always a busy time for us across the Merseyrail network, so I would advise anyone travelling over the three days to check before you travel by using the journey planner on our website or the Merseyrail app.
In order to give customers the best experience, we recommend buying your ticket before you reach the station. Full details can be found at www.merseyrail.org/aintree-races/.
Suzanne Grant, chief commercial officer and deputy managing director at Merseyrail
