Liverpool Lime Street travel tips ahead of huge Magic Weekend

Thursday 2 Jul 2026

Liverpool Lime Street travel tips ahead of huge Magic Weekend

Region & Route:: North West & Central

Passengers travelling into Liverpool to enjoy rugby league’s amazing Magic Weekend have been issued with helpful travel tips.

Liverpool Lime Street is expected to be extra busy over the weekend (Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July) with six big games all taking place at Everton’s brand new Hill Dickinson Stadium.

With bumper crowds expected, Network Rail is advising rail travellers to follow three 'golden rules' for the smoothest journey possible:

Plan your journey and check before you travel at www.nationalrail.co.uk
Know the times of trains home, so you don’t miss the final services
Please respect station staff and other passengers when making your journey

Station staff will be on hand at Lime Street to help passengers, and a queueing system will be in place to keep people moving.

Rachel Rahbarzare, Liverpool Lime Street's station manager, said: “We’re really looking forward to welcoming Super League fans to Liverpool Lime Street and helping them travel safely to and from the Hill Dickinson Stadium.

“It is going to be busy in the station, with fans coming from all over the country to see these games. So please plan ahead and let us know if you need help.”

Neil Grabham, Managing Director at Merseyrail, said: "We’re looking forward to welcoming thousands of fans onto our network for Magic Weekend and are working closely with partners to make sure everyone can travel safely and smoothly.

“We’ll be running extra services and putting in place measures to help manage busy stations, but we expect trains to be very busy at peak times. We’re asking customers to plan ahead, allow extra time for their journey, and check before they travel so they can enjoy the event from the moment they set off.”

Find travel information and timetable changes on the Merseyrail website or www.nationalrail.co.uk.

Notes to Editors

Merseyrail service changes:

On Saturday 4 July, a 15-minute service will operate before and after the event on the Southport, Ormskirk, Hunts Cross and Headbolt Lane lines.
There will also be some changes to normal train times. On the Southport line, services will be altered between 10.45am and 4.30pm, while on the Headbolt Lane line, changes will be in place between 10.51am and 7.36pm. At Cressington station, trains will run every 30 minutes from the start to the end of service.
On Sunday 5 July, a special event timetable will be in place, with additional services running to support travel to and from the stadium.

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
North West and Central Media Relations
Press Office
Network Rail
NWCmediarelations@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

Media centre