Yes, I have always thought it odd too.
And no-one else is reported as having any recollection.
But I'm having trouble believing I imagined it!
Your photo is, I believe where the Chat Moss line diverges from the Runcorn Gap line and where I waited (in the 1950s) in a "side corridor" coach many a time waiting for the road into Lime Street. As I recall it the water troughs were parallel to and to the North of the line on which my train traveled and on a straight section between the curve in the photo and the platforms at Edge Hill station.
Well perhaps we will get the the bottom of the mystery one day. (If) there were water troughs there surely must be photos of them somewhere.
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