ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to elaborate the indicative model of the Merseyside rail transport policy regime outlined previously by analysing the ways in which four major rail development policies in the county evolved after 1986. By addressing the ways in which the process of power bargaining between regime members was played out, it illustrates the actual operation of the local rail transport policy process in Merseyside. The chapter reveals how actual policy outcomes were generated and provides a more detailed model of the typology, composition, and purpose of the regime. It reinforces the categorisation of the Merseyside regime as 'instrumental'. The opening of Conway Park station in June 1998 represents one of the most coherent outputs of the local rail transport decision-making process in Merseyside, which clearly illustrates locates the county's local rail transport policy regime within the 'instrumental' categorisation on several counts.
