I asked for one in Southport and was given a Walrus card with it loaded on. I've never seen a Walrus card before but according to the shop assistant/ticket seller, all Saveaways are to be given in the form of a Walrus card...
Wrong, ticket offices and guards can still issue them on orange stock.
Southport station is run by Merseytravel and in essence doubles up as Merseytravel's Travel Centre in Southport. Therefore I am not surprised that it was issued on a Walrus card as that is the way they aim to go with it. (Just very slowly)
From my experience, station ticket offices run by anyone other than Merseyrail will only offer it to you on orange stock as they don't have the ability to top up Walrus Cards.
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As far as I know, if you buy a Saveaway at a newsagents, Post Office etc you will get a Walrus smart card (actually, not all that smart compared to the Oyster); if you buy it at a station you will only get the standard rail-issue orange ticket; if you buy it at a Merseytravel office you will get a scrappy little bit of paper. All with the same validity.
But why o why is it taking so long to get an Oyster-type system up and running?
It isn't the 'card' that is the smart part, it is the system that is in place.
I actually prefer the Saveaway style system to Oyster but then I am more used to it. The problems with the Walrus cards are 1. that you can only buy them for today or tomorrow, 2. there is no way to top up your card except going to a Paypoint shop, which may not actually be anywhere near the bus stop you start your journey on. In my case, since the garage near my house stopped being a Paypoint station, the nearest place to top up the Walrus card is pretty much at the railway station. So despite a bus stop at the end of my road, by the time I have got to a place I can buy a saveaway, I may as well just buy the return train ticket.
They need to let you top up your walrus card online or via the Merseytravel app, then I could go online at home / waiting at the bus stop, buy the Saveaway and then I can get the bus to the railway station and use it for it's purpose. It would also be really useful if you could build up a credit of saveaways and then the first time you use it on a day, it uses up one of your credits.
My suspicion as to why it is taking so long is that with 'Rail Norths' desire to have smart integrated ticketing across the north any of Merseytravel's plans have been put on hold whilst they try to integrate all of the ticketing for Merseytravel, Gmpte etc etc so you can use them all from just one card.
