Grand National in front of the stands. The majority of the race therefore took place not on the actual Aintree Racecourse but instead in the adjoining countryside. That countryside was incorporated into the modern course but commentators still often refer to it as "the country". There are 16 fences on the National Course topped with spruce from the Lake District. The cores of 12 fences were rebuilt in 2012 and they are now made of a flexible plastic material which is more forgiving compared to the traditional wooden core fences. They are still topped with at least of spruce for the horses
Aintree railway station to and on to Exchange until they were withdrawn by the British Transport Commission on 2 April 1951. The main line via Walton was also used by longer distance local & express trains from Exchange to , Blackpool, Scotland and East Lancashire in addition to the intensive electric commuter service and some of these also stopped at Aintree, especially when the nearby race course hosted the famous Grand National meeting. The Ormskirk line was not included in the list of routes to be closed in the 1963 Beeching Report (unlike the other two routes from Liverpool Exchange), but the route